The "One"
This weekend my parents came to town to check out my new home. Saturday morning we went to the Beaverton Farmers Market and Saturday Market. We walked, ate, talked about life stuff and had a great time. In the late afternoon my mom and I split off and went clothes shopping while Carter and my stepdad went up to the Sportsman's Wearhouse for good ol' boy shopping.
As my mother and I shopped I felt so grateful for my mother. I took her to the jewelery store and showed her the ring style that Carter and I have been looking at. My mom and I were in the car and she asked me why I want to marry Carter. I told her because I was in love with him. We chatted about the chats we have been having about the wedding ideas, etc.
This morning we went to have breakfast at the Sweet Oregon Grill. As we walked through the beautiful landscaping, the sun shining so brightly, my parents ahead of us...I knew that I was walking down the path toward my future. I knew that there would be many walks, many sunny days, with lots of love and family.
As we drove home Carter said he was sitting in the bathroom trying to think of the best way to ask my parents permission to marry me. He seemed a bit nervous, and didn't know the best way to word it. He decided that he was not going to until he could figure it out. I told him that this is the last time we are going to see my parents before we hypothetically get engaged.
So sitting in my front room, as I sucked on a strawberry Tootsie Pop, Carter asked my parents for their blessing to marry their daughter, me. As I dropped the lollipop down my shirt, they said wholeheartedly without hestitation, "Yes you have our blessing. We would love for you to marry our daughter and become apart of our family." My mother and stepdad(according to Carter) got all teary, I got teary, and we all were happy. In that one moment I felt so peaceful and not pukey at all. Carter sitting beside me, I looked up at him, and saw this look of love in his eyes, and knew he is the one. I actually knew before, but something about sitting their with my family made it more real, made me more sure.
I have always hated the term the "One". I don't think it is scripturally based to say that God has one person picked out for you...cause of that whole free will thing...but I do know that this is the "one" person that I want to spend my life with. The "one" person I know I want to spend my life with, grow with, and love for the rest of my life....well maybe love with moments of dislike.
So tonight I sit here typing deliriously happy, thinking toward the future, of our life shared together, and I am content.
Perfectly normal?
Last week during a relaxed conversation about future stuff Carter informed me that we will be engaged by the end of the year...in time for us to send out our Christmas cards as our engagement/save-the-date cards. You know...killing two birds with one stone...so very "Kat agenda planning style."
Wednesday evening I was milling around the mall waiting for my lovely boyfriend to get off of work. I just ended the most wonderful conversation with my friend Erin. She was so encouraging and helpful during a difficult situation I was trying to process through. I decided to pop into Helzberg Diamonds to look at rings again and make sure what I wanted was what I really wanted and to have my finger sized.
As I looked at the diamond that I have dreamed about my entire adolescence I realized that it looked weird. I tried it on and it just did not fit me. It was weird. I started to look at similar stones with a larger band and it seems as if those look better. They were a much better fit. I began a conversation with the girls and just as she asked,"Is your boyfriend here with you?" The phone rang and it was Carter. For some odd reason I didn't want him to know that I was there so I was a bit reluctant in making my whereabouts known. As I sheepishly confessed my destination I began to get a sick feeling in my stomach. The room was spinning. I felt as if I were going to pass out. The girl behind the counter asked me if I was okay as I began to sink into the reality of the moment. I turned to look over my shoulder as I spotted Carter making his way around the corner. This situation was completely embarassing. One, because I have been looking at rings alone on and off for about 8-10 years now and it felt weird to have someone be with me as I was feeling very girly and vunerable. Two, because I felt like I was going to throw up. I began to tell him that this is not about him, that I love him, and the reality of the situation just sunk in. He sat as cool as a cucumber martini as I felt my entire life flash before me. The sales girls insisted that I try it on with him there and I kept saying, " I can't...Oh my God...we need to leave." The girls said this was perfectly normal.
Is it perfectly normal to question your decision of the person you fall in love with? Is it normal to feel as if the room is getting smaller as you think about being engaged? Is it normal to freak out about wearing a ring, a tangible expression of a future hope of a life together?
I have spent a number of years wondering what my future spouse would be like. It is very different than what I pictured yet I know it is right. I know that he is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. I always imagined this sense of calm would come over me when I met him and that everything would be easy and grand. It is neither easy nor grand...but it is scary. Beautiful. Hard. Joyous. Annoying. Peaceful. Safe. Frustrating...in an exhilirating way though.
I guess I will be fine when I think about these things. When I do not dwell on the fact that I am not doing things the way I thought they should go. When I begin to stop and live and not be so scared of love. Cause all of the bad is worth the good. All of the pain is worth the joy of love. All of the nausea is worth it cause I will be with him.
Let's home it stops before the actual day...knowone wants to puke when they are being proposed to. Even worse...knowone wants to puke on their wedding day.
Little Monsters
This morning Biz and I took Lily and Jake(the kids I nanny) to a parade and to the Beaverton Farmers Market. We sat and watched the fire engines with there blazing red lights and loud sirens go by and I felt so at peace. I don't know what it is about having the kids around but I always feel in my groove. Stella got her groove back by being hot and getting a hot guy, I get my kicks from spending time with two small mischieveous and bright children.
When Lily is on my hip looking out into the world, her beautiful sometimes green eyes, staring in wonder and soaking in all her surroundings have to offer. She is still fearful of new situations and she buries her hand into my shirt and lays her head against my chest. Something really neat happens during these moments. It it as if for a moment there is a placidity in the air and all that is around is faded out and the moment is still-framed on the love that is present for that moment. It is as if there is nothing more beautiful than the caring of a child. For a moment to put the needs of someone else above your own, to make another feel warm and safe, is all that is present.
I am giddy and feel alive when I look down to see Jake with a two-inch circle of pink goopey saliva around his mouth from the Now or Later he was able to jimmy open while I was having my lovey moment with Lily. It is then I realized he is mid-candy binge that will later lead to him running around like a hamster on crack while eating his fingers and wiggling his head as if he were at a punk rock concert. Thank you God for baby wipes. Thank you God for the water and swiss grilled cheese sandwich I force fed him praying he would come down from his high before returning him to his father. Needless to say I loved every minute of it.
I love being apart of these little crack monkeys lives as the develop into people. I love that I get to see them on a daily basis, learning, growing, changing. It is the most beautiful experience of my life. I do not regret nor will I ever regret the life that I have chose. Sure it would have been easier to have quit and gone to school or quit and stayed living in the city but I would have been missing out on the most fun time I have had in my life. Seriously...it really is.
This life experience will continue definitely until next June, but eventually I will move on. I will start my own life, while will hopefully included little monsters of my own.
Being Human
I read something on my friend Rachelle's blog the other day about being kind and loving to people that we encounter. Being the presence of Christ wherever we are at..."being Jesus with skin on" to use a Young Life token phrase.
When I was a senior in high school I went on a "random act of kindness" kick. I was doing little things like leaving coins in arcade machines, parking meters, paying for someones meal behind me in the line at McDonalds. Ever since I can remember I loved doing things that made people feel valued, important, and loved. It was something that was of highest value to me...and still is. This is before all of the Christian culture brainwashing I received in the church. Years later I used these things as forms of evangelism. I cringe at the memories.
I remember the girl that I was...so cause oriented. My deepest desire was to see the world be a better place. People to be kinder. Less hungry people. More love. More equality. Less prejudice. More justice. I was a liberal who loved Greenpeace, Planned Parenthood, and any coalition that promoted peace and justice. Yet the ideas of God which I came into contact with all of those years ago, the God of Christian culture and everything that is conservative and republican, is the very ideas of God in which I now resent.
You see, these ideas, this love that I was taught, was a love that was conditional. It was a love which communicated bondage and not freedom into the person I was becoming. It is only now that I am starting to take the broken pieces of my past person and find value. I find value now in these because I see He finds value in those things. In fact, I imagine He wove those desires into me. Before I engaged with Him. While He was engaging with me and I didn't even know it.
Often, I have heard it taught that we as humans are a sinful people. Yeah I get that...kinda. I think it is so drilled into us that we are bad that we forget that what is in us is also good. Not because of the paradoxical good and evil, but because He is good. If He good...I mean come on...the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I think that if we are going to be the people God has truly intended for us to be we need to start to believe that while we have bad in us...we also have something really awe-inspiring in us. He put it there. We are not worms not worthy of His love...we are His children...fully worthy to stand before our Father no matter where we are or what we have done, or what we will do. He loves us in our humaness and I think we need to start loving ourselves that same way.
Carter and Kat
These changes they are a changing
Change is a familiar word in my life right now. Change is something that is very annoying right now. I know that change can be good, evolving into the new is good but it is also really crappy right now.
I find that my hand have begun to look older. I find small wrinkles that are from the care of babies, from the knitting of Christmas presents, and from all of the work they have done over the last 27 years. My hands are aging.
The hair on my head that once used to be deep brownish-black is now becoming increasingly grey. It used to hide at the nape of my neck but it is no longer in hiding. It proudly displays itself on the top of my head for all of the world to see...unless I pull it out with great frustration.
My relationship with God is changing. At one point I found myself consumed with a deep passion that seemed unquenchable, now I am sitting confused and torn. Some of these wounds are self-inflicted...some of them not. Some of the things I have answers for many of them I do not. I wish I could say that I was one of those people that is good at standing strong in difficult times but my bitterness is taking the best of me. Somedays I do not recognize myself anymore.
I stood in front of the mirror naked a few weeks ago and began to question what is all of this God stuff is worth. Many times I have questioned this, and many times I have locked these questions and stirrings deep away into the pockets of my heart where they began to fester. The change that I saw was that I am not afraid to ask anymore. I ask unto the distant unknown, I ask unto the Mystery. I ponder all that is unseen and all that is seen and I question for the good of my life, for the good that this will produce. I hope that someday soon all of the questions will resolve themselves and those that cannot that I will find a contentment in the peace of not knowing.
