Easterly Direction

Hello again! And, Happy Easter. I feel a bit like a turtle who is briefly poking its head out of hiding, just long enough to take a breath and pull its head back in for the rest of winter. Or something like that.

I have exactly 20 days remaining until I walk across a stage and am done forever with grad school. (Did you catch that? DONE.FOREVER.WITH.GRAD.SCHOOL. !!!!!!!)

20 days. I wanted to make some sort of paper chain, or maybe a nifty cloth chain, to mark the days until I'm done. But even that felt like too much effort. For now, I'm settling for a countdown app on my phone. 20 days. Three more Mondays. And I'm DONE!! That fact in itself feels like enough to make me sing all the Hallelujah's I sang this morning, and it doesn't even come close to what I was actually celebrating in that moment. But...it's pretty huge.

It's also nearly the death of me. This is the end of four and a half years for me. Five, really, since I took what would have been my first semester "off" to get married. It was mid-2006 when I knew I wanted to start a 3 (ahem...THREE) year program. And now, FIVE years and a husband and half a dozen moves and a baby later, I am finally about to walk across that stage and get some piece of paper telling me my M.A. diploma will come in the mail as soon as I pay my library fines, and I will officially be launched into the world. FREE!!

A little bit, just the tiniest morsel, like the freedom that Christ gave us on this day a couple thousand years ago. Life conquering death. FOREVER. Yeah...a weak parallel for graduation, but honestly, it feels pretty appropriate in this moment, especially since I'm basically in the Good Friday of grad school. The very last, most final days when I actually feel like I might not make it. When death feels bigger than life. My body is telling me everyday that it just needs to rest, just be, and not expend any more intense relational energy taking care of other people's desperate hurt and struggle. (Not that it was ever my job to actually "take care" of them...just doing the equivalent of giving them a quick and refreshing drink of water to sustain them as they continue on their journey. But...I guess I've also bandaged my share of wounds and wiped away sweat and any manner of other care-taking things that might expand this metaphor way beyond its breaking point.)

Anyway...I'm in survival mode. Not where I'd like to be on this day, when we celebrate the ultimate LIFE - the opposite of survival, really. The Life that actually let death happen and then, BOOYAH! It owned death. It had to actually let death think it won so the victory would be that much more in its face - in our faces. That Jubilee Life of wholeness, redemption, and freedom - that's the Life we celebrate today. The Life I want to embrace everyday.

Which is why it stinks that I sat/stood in church wondering why I felt so...I don't know...blah. Apathetic. Trying to engage. What the heck?!? This is the Life that keeps me going and, among much bigger things, got me to start blogging again. And despite amazing music, a couple hundred other people celebrating this Life beside me, and even my parents with me to make me extra grateful for the much-Life in my life, I'm having a hard time even singing a darn Hallelujah song (much less "worshipping") without being distracted by a million inconsequential things.

In an effort not to be overly condemning of myself, I'm going to chalk this up to two things. One, the turtling, survival state that I know I am in during these last twenty days of exhaustion and intensity. I can give myself grace until this is over.

And two, it is really hard for me to think about God's Resurrection Life and how He conquered death without thinking of my Jubilee. It's pretty much impossible today for me not to think about how her death was, for me, the most powerful and personal example of how His Life has total power to redeem death and bring all kinds of Life out of it. But, death still is (for now). And it still sucks. It still hurts, and it still represents a loss that was not what He intended when He created this world. We were never intended to experience death. That came with the Fall. ...I'm getting way ahead of myself. All that I really want to say is, it's hard for me to feel celebratory about Life when it reminds me of that very recent death, no matter how incredible His redemption has been.

So, yes. Today was Easter, and it was beautiful. But it was also sad, and apathetic, and sleepy. But I do have hope that the winds in my life are blowing in an Easterly direction - that new Life is coming, that a new season is on the very brink of arriving. A season where I get to spend all day with my daughter and get to sleep in if she lets me and where I get to focus the first fruits of my caregiving energies on her and Nate. That will be a very sweet day - three weeks from right now. And more importantly, a season where I'm done with just surviving by hunkering inside my turtle shell, just peeping my eyes out to see if it's safe to quick, take a breath, and plunge back inside before anyone can catch me to ask for anything.

...It's coming so soon...but you might not hear from me again until I'm there.

Okay, and I can't finish this post without at least a few Easter pictures.

My gorgeous girl in her Easter dress (which I made! Yay!). 

Ignore my smile. It is fake. These days I mostly feel like Annabel does, even when I haven't just woken up. 

Beautiful smile, beautiful dress, beautiful day, beautiful dandelion. Beautiful girl. Beautiful Life.

The back of her dress. Originally it had normal straps, but apparently the dress I measured from was cut differently or something, because they were WAY too short. I didn't want the hassle of trying to get them measured just right, so I just extended them into halter straps. Good decision, I think.  

Jump! I love it.

Success! After many attempts, we finally managed to get a decent family photo.

Maybe she's about to make out with the camera? I'm not sure. But I like it for some reason.

The breezy joy and life that I hope to have again in a few short weeks. *Sigh* One can hope.