Stupid Phrase of the Day

I drove said friend back to her place so that I could stop by and pick up something that they had brought back for me from the neighbouring province while competing in auto-cross nationals.

Her husband was driving their car home and made sure to say, "so... I wonder who will get home first" as we were about to pull out of the parking lot. We followed him out of the lot and were doing very well until we surprisingly came to a set of railway tracks with the loud dinging and bars coming down.

Sitting there for a solid 15 minutes, we talked about graffiti, break-ins, stupid criminals, baseball bats, criminal charges for battery of a criminal... sure - definitely random things to talk about as we watched and waited for the long (and slow!) train to pass, but I think we were both exhausted.

When the gates finally lifted and we were on our way, it was when we went to turn left (across the lane of traffic) to head back to her house that I truly demonstrated how completely exhausted I was - mentally and all.

"Oh my! That is a very long lane of traffic. I wonder what the hold up is... did we pass an accident or something?"

Said friend simply turned and stared at me until I managed to glance over and meet her gaze.

"Ummm... do you think that it *might* have ANYTHING to do with the long train that we just watched go by?"

Oh. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Nevermind then. Resume previous conversation. Oye. Leave it to me to bring home the intelligent, misplaced phrases and questions. ;)

Today is a Moth Kinda Day

I'm not sure if it's "moth season" and I cannot pretend to know if certain weather conditions lead to an influx in the moth population, but I DO know that there are a whooooole lotta moths around right now. I did laundry over the weekend (our washer is finally fixed!!) and hung the clothes out over night, in between evening rain storms. Bringing them into the house on Monday, I have been putting on clothes while simultaneously booting moths out.

Note to self... shake 'em BEFORE bringing them in next time!

While they do not bite, make a lot of noise or creep me out... I cannot help feeling overwhelmed by the swarm of moths in my room, clothing, and life right now.

And, at the same time, I cannot help feeling like a moth myself. Reflecting the worldly shades of grey, searching everywhere for a speck of light to lead me home; bumping into everything on my way, wishing to nestle somewhere warm and dark to rest.

I have been told that when someone great dies, especially by surprise, we are entitled to get momentarily lost in a world that will never be the same. The world is allowed to be seen in shades of black, white and grey and the sun is allowed to hide behind the large clouds. The stars will appear to stand still while the music sings in a minor key.

Well, I guess this is just the way things will be for a little while and I should just be okay with bein' a moth.

Moments that make you think, "ah... schiza!"

Do you ever have those moments in which time seems to freeze, and this horrible feeling comes over you and the voice inside your head says, "wow... this is clearly something we need to work on!" ? Like when you slave over a wonderful supper and the family sits at the table, scrunch their noses, and ask if there are hot dogs they can microwave instead? Or when you are walking down a busy street/sidewalk and you play "dodge the same way as other person" for awhile, where you are both trying to move out of the other persons way, but both dodging the same direction? They are moments that can never be predicted and often leave you reflecting for some time afterwards.

I had one of those moments today.

I was having iced coffee with a friend and catching up on what we had missed in each others lives over the last two months when she got up to use the washroom. Checking my phone for the time, there was a notification saying that I had received a text message. Opening the phone, I discovered it was from a fellow hockey player and support/pillar friend from the seminary town I had left earlier this year checking to see how I was treating life and how it was treating me.

And then... time froze.

Except the voice inside my head was telling me that I really need to work on saying good-bye.

I hate it. I know that Oma always used to say that "hate" is a word I should never use because "hate" was something that the Nazi's did and it was wrong, but I think I have proper justification for putting "saying goodbye" and the Nazi's on the same vocabulary page. Honestly, realistically, what are the odds of ever seeing these people again?

Maybe I just need to spend some more time in thanksgiving for the place of this text-message-sender in my life and the critical timeline in which they entered and maybe I'll discover that I'm just being selfish for wanting them to stay here longer rather than moving half way across the world in the name of vocation and ministry. Perhaps I find out that her place in my life was to pull a lost soul out of a pile of rubble, dust it off, and take it one step closer to the mighty altar of life and that her job is done now.

But realistically, instead, I sit struggling with trying to understand how someone who truly had no reason to care, did; how someone who could have been doing a million other things, paused and checked in. I stare blankly at a card I picked up months ago, struggling to understand how our language can fill an entire dictionary and yet, not be able to adequately capture the impact of the one sentence, shared in a single moment in the Dean's office, brought me here... now.

Ugh. Clearly, as the pattern is quickly showing me, this is a lesson that I need to learn immediately: how to say 'God-speed' to someone I care about deeply. At the rate that these pillars of solid foundation are leaving in various directions, I very well may not acquire this skill in time to say 'safe journey, much love, write often' to any of them.

Stupid moments of, "you really ought to practice doing......"; these moments are really crampin' my style, not to mention my spirit.