Want.

to be without or deficient in.

to wish, crave.

to fall short by (a specified amount).

In going through all the boxes of things piled in my Fayetteville room, I found my farewell note from the flirt of Cusco, Juan Carlos.

Sure he was sweet with many girls on our June 2010 trip, but he drew me in anime, so ours was true love.

(For the record, anime is my absolute best look.)

When expressing her desire for me to come and deal with all my junk (she put it in nicer terms), mom noted, "you've gone without the stuff in those boxes for months, you must have a lot in there you don't need."

More than you need, more than you need, more than you need.

It's like a broken record playing in my head, day in and day out. Except for it's not broken-- it's the truth. It's not some fluke on a record, it repeats for a reason.

I've always heard that the passage of the bible where Jesus commands the rich man to sell all of his possessions and give is not a chastisement of wealth, but really more of a warning. I've also heard that it isn't a direct command to every Christian, only really those who feel that call or whose wealthy living directly inhibits his or her ability obey Christ.

More than you need.

This is the part where I try telling myself that I'm not really that wealthy.

I tell myself that I know plenty of people with lots more money than this college grad who are perfectly lovely, obedient Christians.

This is where I try and crawl out of that box marked "felt called"-- the one that obligates me to the command first directed towards the rich young ruler.

obligate.

To bind, compel, or constrain by a social, legal, or moral tie.

Who wants obligation? For a long time, not me. I would see commercials and ads and, yes, blog posts with statistics like:

• Half the world - nearly 3 billion people - live on less than two dollars a day.
• 640 million have no adequate shelter
• 1 in 7 has no access to health services
• The richest 2% of the world's population own half of the world's wealth.

I'd see these and harden my heart to it all-- how dare they tug at feelings of moral duty or try to attack me for my social standing? How dare those people obligate me?

But the Lord is doing a number on that hardened heart. Partly through that broken record. Partly through making my peace with the fact that it is true, not everyone feels the burden of the call, and not everyone is obligated to the command. But mostly, he's accomplishing the softening of my heart in making it not an obligation at all.

Slowly, over time, it's turned into an invitation and I am eager for the approaching occasion.

invite.

To ask for the presence or participation of.

To attract.

The pangs aren't annoying feelings of duty or guilt.

I don't have to give up major aspects of my life here. I don't have to respond to statistics of hunger and poverty. I don't have to believe Christ and give out of what I've received from the Giver.

I want to.

want.

to be without or deficient in.

to wish, crave.
to fall short by (a specified amount).

I always thought "wanting for nothing" meant having more than enough. Yet I have more than I need and still want.

Poor little rich girl, right?

The label is just another resemblance to the rich young ruler.

Yes, I want in a way that increasingly makes life here feel like it falls short. A way that kinda stinks because, honestly, I love life here. I love living with my sister and celebrating birthdays altogether and babysitting my nephew when needed and nannying and surprising my parents with visits. What more could a girl want?

More than half the world dreams of a life like this.

More than you need. More than you need. More than you need.

Finding Juan Carlos's card earlier today sent me clicking through my flickr album of the Peru trip. Immediately I recalled the results of a dozen gifts inventories I've taken over the years. My strengths?

1.) Hospitality-- "the ability to meet the basic social needs of and to extend care to persons beyond ones immediate circle of friends."

2.) Helps/Service-- "the ability and overwhelming desire to aid persons in need. The ability to perform the most basic acts of kindness as a means to embody the gospel."

3.) Mercy-- "the ability to identify with and feel the pains and hurts of another person and the capacity to help that person move beyond those pains and hurts."

(A discussion of strengths is not complete without due regard to

weaknesses, which for me include:

1.) Administration-- "ability to organize resources and persons for effective ministry."

2.) Prophecy--"receive, reveal or interpret God's truth, publicly, no matter the risk or consequence."

3.) Leadership-- "understand ones own principles and vision to communicate those and to challenge others to move into the future").

It's my smile in the pictures that brings the gifts to mind. Is it any wonder the smile is brighter when I'm beyond my immediate circle, encountering admitted need, and concentrated on embodying the gospel?

"Overwhelming desire" is included in the description, for crying out loud. Lumiere is right. Life is so unnerving for a servant who's not serving.

Unnerve.

To deprive of fortitude, strength, or firmness of purpose.

The truth is that I've never once had to talk myself into caring about the statistics and the pain.

I've just spent a long time trying to talk myself out of caring. I've done my best to harden my heart to it all because I am happy here.

The broken record shows back up and I feel like Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality, accosted by the taxi cab. "I'm GLIDING here!"

But the smile is out there-- the smile of a girl overwhelmed by the privilege of the invitation and the joy of humbling self to the occasion.

All of this is to say that this is the weirdest season.

I'm living happily, without want while living longingly, with great want.

Out of all the gifts to you, you shall present every contribution due to the LORD; from each its best part is to be dedicated.

Numbers 18:29

There are Days

Some days I don't want to be a "public intellectual." (That's what I will supposedly be by the end of my Freedom Riders class).

I don't want to spend $300 dollars on books for myself.

I don't want to read about injustice, hurt and pain.

Days I don't even want to read about the solution.

Some days I just want to be a part of it.

I want to be scrubbing mold from bathrooms.

Hugging parentless kids.

Praying through my days per the persistent reminder that ultimately, I have nowhere else to turn.

I am so blessed to be here and it is a privilege I do not resent, getting a college degree in a subject I really like. I do enjoy giving it the "old college try." But who are these teachers kidding? Wisdom and knowledge isn't just in me, waiting to be realized. I don't have answers to even the most worthwhile questions to ask. I don't even like pretending that I do.

There are days it is tiring to talk myself out of the basic premise my teachers put forth. Days when I crave being surrounded by leaders whose faith, not just intellect, I admire.

Many days here seem very far from there.

(the pictures are Brians @ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Brian-K-Gray-Photography/268089692141)

She

She is 10. I am 20.

She has parents who are deaf and unable to afford her. I have parents to listen to me and shower me with gifts.

She and I have identical birthmarks on our left hand.

She and I like to clap together-- but mostly because we bonded over the hand thing.

She is timid and shy. I get where she's coming from.

She and I were friends.

She is in her country, and I am in mine.

She is loved. As am I.

She is Heidi and I am Sadie.

We sat there clapping along to J.C.'s beautiful rendition of "Hosanna" and I cried. I pressed my nose to her hair and took a breath. We were making a joyful noise for the Lord, the two of us. From very different worlds, we praised.

I'll never know what it's like to be on her end. Or she, mine.

She didn't smell of Dove body wash like me. She smelled a lot like the bathrooms we kept making fun of all week.

She is a sweet aroma to Christ.

She may struggle with a lot in life, but I'll struggle all my life to match the richness of her humble, serving spirit. She has grown up with a forced detachment from things I've spent a lifetime attaching myself to.

She and I may never know why the gap between our lots exists. But we both have this:

¹⁵For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, ¹⁶I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.¹⁷I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. ¹⁸I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹and his incomparably great power for us who believe. (Ephesians 1:15-19)

And it's what we both have, she and I, that I'm interested in.

What we share? Well, it's all we need.

Him. He.

I prayed the words into her ear as a whisper while J.C.'s voice filled the room boldly.

Heal my heart and make it clean

Open up my eyes to the things unseen

Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart for what breaks yours

Everything I am for your kingdoms cause

And I sang them again the night we said goodbye. Just she and I, in a corner, amidst chaos she knows well by now.

Praising He who is able.

Home sick

We left Dulles at around 4 a.m.

That is, July 3.

Home from a gloriously exhausting trip. The team and I had to ride for an hour or so back to Fredericksburg, and many ended up snoozing.

I did plenty of that in contorted positions all over Kori mostly on the flights from Lima to San Salvador and from there to DC. So I was good on that front.

Instead I flipped through old pictures on my iPhone. Things like pictures Katie took of me whilst ill during exam week and Noelle helping "fix" Katie's bed as I tried to study despite myself. Others like going skating with Emily or a sweet "I love you, babe" note Luke wrote to Steph on their new refrigerator that I stole a shot of for my memory. There are a few pictures of Deirdre playing airplane with Peterso while Dina laughs on. A favorite of mine is mom cracking up with Dad at IHop because he just introduced her to the "smack talk" application. (It's exactly what it sounds like-- just picture a dog mocking your every word). I like the one of Claire making Amadeus wear the scary cat mask. I have some great shots of my coworkers and of various children.

There are 700 in total.

Because, you see, I like this life.

Staci sat beside me on the bus trip and, knowing that I still had another 36 hours or so before I got to be back home, she asked, "are you just trying to make yourself homesick?"

I'm fairly certain it was a nice way of asking me to turn the friggin' bright screen light off and go to sleep already. But my response was, "I'm trying to make myself not Peru sick." The people and places and memories in the pictures were my way of convincing myself that I wanted it all back. I love home.

Both of them.

And they were worth getting back to. I have 100 more pictures on my iPhone since returning to speak to that sentiment. After all, Noelle came for a visit and I had a great camp to get to and HELLO?! Truett is coming! A year of school is inevitably upon me, which means graduation will be approximately tomorrow and thus the pressure mounts to find an acceptable answer to the "what will you do after you graduate?" question (Is it me, or is there more and more emphasis on the "will," as in "what will you do," as the real world nears?). There are loans to pay off, people. Turns out dreams cost.

But.

They (you're familiar?) assure me it costs more not to. I bet they had excellent scholarships and aced their hyper-AP courses (or whatever the highest rank of classes are these days).

All of this is to say that I got home to Virginia and then went on home to Arkansas and I accept, fake bitterness aside, the responsibility involved in honoring the commitments I've made to academia. I do my best not to take for granted a family that supports me, even loves to have me home, while I do.

(as an aside: I used to always watch those trauma shows that wrapped the story up in a bow at the end with the accident victim talking about how they have a totally new appreciation for life and won't take another day for granted and began to wonder why I needed to wait for a car crash to be grateful but I guess it's true that you can't fully appreciate what you have in life until a trauma threatens to take it away. I'll do my best given my trauma-free life, I suppose. But I'm often missing the mark on expressing appreciation).

When I'm away from home (either of them), there is plenty to be sick for. Mom's TLC, Dad's stupid (albeit identical to mine) humor, the company of my siblings (all of them) or Noelle's completely different but similarly quirky family, my apartments hilarities, the glorious day-to-day college living, and my church home there.

Still, when I am home (either of them), there is little to be sick for.

Get it? There is a dilemma for me in there somewhere. It's this daily, average life where little upsets me except for that which upsets me. So limited and me. And so many days that pass when I'm hardly aware just how many days are passing that are so limited and me. I don't do much to change it and, given my commitment to paying off my school and living independently, there is a lot of me doing what I have to do coming up in the near future.

Beyond then, though, I'm going to be putting a lot of thought towards where my commitments are made and how much of that will be about myself again. The truth is that it is me making my life about myself and only me that can make it any different. Well, me and the One who gives the motivation to make it any different in the first place.

I went to Peru in His name. But my life at home is in His name, too. Limited and me is not what God's about. I can proclaim His name to Peruvians all I want. For fun, I can do it at home, too. But plenty of people do plenty of different things for fun.

Drinking is the drunkards thing. Sex is the harlots thing. Being gay is the homosexuals' thing. Partying is the college students' thing. Studying is the "serious" students thing. Proclaiming Jesus and the sin of the world is the Christians' thing (if we can even say that's fun for us, because, if you're like me when I'm being honest with myself, it's pretty uncomfortable to up and start a conversation about faith, which makes me feel pretty lame).

But a good deal of the aforementioned people believe we sit around and think about or talk about their sin for fun and then make Jesus and our extreme devotion to him the explained reason for our safety, wealth and comfort.

In many ways it is absolutely true that, in an eternal sense, Jesus provides for us those three things. Isn't that the reason to abandon these things in a temporary sense? In order to love people for fun rather than condemn. Wouldn't that be real devotion to Jesus?

For me it comes down to the fact that I can preach the name of Jesus in a foreign country all summer long. But if my home life, the day to day slip away, preaches "limited" and "me"-- even if it reads "safe, rich, and comfortable"-- I am hardly preaching Jesus himself.

And to find that out for myself, about myself makes me sick.

I am home sick.

I am sick for the opportunities that seemed to come much freer and abundantly in a country with a poverty level of 34%. In a country with a history of government corruption that meant no one or their way of life was safe. In a country where the people still live with the consequences of that mindset. Where beggars really can't just "go get a job." They just really aren't there.

I'm sick over the fact that there were too many poor street vendors to buy from, but that when I did I haggled the price down "because you can." Sick that I was a part of a group that treated them like a nuisance, when I was there to treat them with hope. Sick that I really believe I saw a trafficked girl and wouldn't know what to do to help her mostly because I never come across such a brutal reality at home.

And I am committing myself to pray for ways to commit myself more in that direction next go 'round. With a little less home and a little more sick.

Not because it's the right thing to do or to get all high and mighty and in peoples face about complacency but because God got all high and mighty and in my face about complacency. Which is His place and certainly not mine. Not to prove myself better than anyone else, but to prove Jesus better with the life that I have in whatever home He'll give me.

By the by, when I say God got all up in my face, I should clarify that I do not mean in the angry, cocky way you might expect of, say, a person like me. He went the nicer route you might expect of a God who gave His Son on a cross to die for us-- He got up in my face with the gentle, humble (sometimes energetic!) faces of these people:

Searching

First of all, I am sorry if the following words, or amount therein, reflect this month-long blogging absence. Given that I've had three references from other people regarding the length of my typical post, I guess those of you still here are used to it by now.

Where have I been?

Well, Peru, for starters. Also, Paron, Arkansas. I know, world traveler. I'm VIP like that.

Actually, a good deal of my time finds itself devoted to making me feel not so important.

In my teenage days (i.e. a year ago) I would've taken those thoughts in for a tea party and we'd sing songs and I'd be so proud of myself that I-- seemingly far before my peers-- was no longer wrapped up in my own importance. I was humble, if you will. (shakes head "no")

Over time, though, the pride would fill my heart and move on to my lungs without having become good buddies with selflessness back at the tea party. My words, even those joking prods, carried with them such self importance. By the time I really heard them coming out of my mouth, I'd be mortified.

Why?

Because in the depths of my heart (where sometimes there is only the darkest of corners reserved for Jesus) I hate selfishness. I hate being inconsiderate. I hate feeling important.

Really.

What I'm finding is that there is some amount of humility involved in that sentiment. But it is lost on the pride that eventually makes it's way to the power of my words. And those words could be making their escape because Jesus has only a dark corner reserved in my lungs, as well. I end up hearing what I'm saying and how it must be affecting hearing ears and then I beat myself up, convinced once again that I should never allow myself to feel important. And the cycle begins again.

If you're exhausted, join the club.

So sure, there is some good coming from the mindset that says "what I want isn't that important." But done in the spirit of being a hero or feeling not in the least bit useful is contrary to what Jesus taught his difference-making disciples who were, by themselves, unimportant.

Jesus will whisper something to that effect to me from His corners. But the message comes across much clearer when I have Him to the sunroom for tea.

I'm learning to not let feelings of inadequacy or even total selflessness take His spot. They are not always helpful and they do not put me leagues above my peers, as my pride tries to convince me of. If I let myself feel unimportant, I am ill prepared to believe God to make a difference in and then through me. What a terrible thing to miss, given that to love God and to love people is the purpose of my existence.

I've spent the past month searching for the words to write about Peru. I felt, though, that in order to properly report, I'd need to be able to share exactly how the trip changes my approach to my future. I'd need to be able to say how I'm changed. And that, to be honest, remains to be seen.

The stories I encountered were amazing, the children so loving, the opportunities amazing. Don't get me wrong. But I can't get on here and say that it changed my life without any examples.

I can say for certain that Peru gave me a desire to make a difference. While there, I heard the Whisper from the depths that said I've got to see in myself the potential that God already sees. I have to believe Him to make a difference and, in that, find my importance. I'm finding that my struggle all along has been feeling so terribly unimportant while carrying a burning desire to live a life of importance. The former tends to smother the latter when one loses confidence in (or sight of or time with) the One who makes the difference.

So I'm done searching for the words to say about where I've been.

And this day, for starters, will be about seeking where to go from here.

This girl with a shy heart is doing her best to dream big in hopes (and there is hope) of discovering a bigger, more able, more important God. Of course, He will not have changed. But my view of Him will have.

I crave that. For my future. For the future of my relationships. I want to know that gradual transformation for the sake of making a difference in the lives of Peruvian and Arkansan kids alike.

It worked once before, the dream big thing, with the college era. But I want it deeper still. The opportunity for that knocks as the era comes to an end.

Timid-to-dream me is reading titles like "Cure for the Common Life" and "Captivating" and "You Matter More Than You Think", believing now that there is a very dangerous aspect of feeling not at all important. It has much to do with having very little faith in the ability of God to make dreams come true for His glory.

In Peru, dreams came true for me. And I believe God was glorified through our time and work there. It's time, now, that He be glorified by the future I pursue given the dreams He made come true then. Given that He once again proved Himself faithful.

Across 3500 miles.

The stake no longer sits at 1000.

Lord, show me how to meet you where the stakes are higher. My feeling unimportant reflects a laziness to pursue the important difference you want to make in my life. Be the difference, God, as I count the cost.

Why Peru?

In January I wrote a post about numbers. And Uganda.

What I didn't know then was that I was writing about 7 interns, a great boss, one of the most generous families, a little church that could in the heart of D.C., and Peru. And a lot more.

To me it was mostly about $3400 and the feeling that I might never know where to best serve God through a mission trip and even if I did that it would literally cost too much. I ran across Katie's blog. She's in her twenties and is the mother of 12 Ugandan girls. She began a ministry back in 2006 called Amazima and as I read, I had the very real desire to be her. Or at least be as selfless and held by the Lord as her.

For a week I couldn't get the idea of at least joining with Amazima for at least two weeks out of my head. But I reminded myself every time that I could not afford $3400. What with school loans to pay off and no certain career lined up and a car that will only be reliable for so long and flights to pay for and what not. There was no way. Nuh-uh, no way, no how. See ya.

That Saturday night I got a facebook message from Matt Paxson offering me a job and a salary that would all but pay for Uganda. I cried and thanked God and immediately felt like the whole situation wasn't about me going to Uganda, but God's absolute ability to provide a way. It was a humbling experience to completely write God off one minute and see Him make a way seemingly out of nowhere in the next. And once He made the offer, I realized that my doubt needed addressing before I was going to even know where in the world He willed me to be.

At my first meeting with Matt, he offered me the chance to go to Peru with the youth as a leader, and even reduce my fare further for doing so, technically, as a staff member. The total cost to me would be $500.

It would also cost me my naivety in believing that I was too poor to follow God wherever He calls and that He had no use for an average privileged rich girl like me.

No, no, He has use for me and it starts with asking me to count it all as loss compared to knowing Christ Jesus as Lord. And this I actively do as I sit down to full meals and sweet laughter and a bonded family rich enough to muster up a week to make a house a home for its newest member and his parents. We are rich. In many ways I am so thankful for that, especially in the ways that have no monetary value attached. And it is an aspect of our lifestyle not at odds with God or Christlike living.

But. For some reason God has put on my heart that it could all be gone in an instant. That it could all literally be lost and Jesus Christ would still be the giver of righteousness, just, and the source of joy.

I've also become more aware that on my own, which I will be soon, I really don't have that much aside from loans and last semester's salary. That takes me back to how rich I am in things not of monetary value, like parents and siblings who would not only support me through rough financial times but already encourage me, no matter the cost, to follow God's leadership in my life. I have a happy childhood, meals on the table every day either at my home or at a restaurant and the luxury of pedicure outings with my sisters (including mom) or movies with friends. I have access to medical care and the physical means to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I have the safety and security of knowing I am loved by many and would be missed if someone, say, grabbed me off the street. There are people seeking relationships with me who care to be my friend. If I had none of this, I still live in a country where running water is so plentiful it's free.

And even if I didn't have that, there would still be this:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

-Philippians 3:7-14

That hope makes me rich on its own. Living like I have that hope should be my desire each and every day. And it should make a difference. I think it's hard to do so-- live like I've been redeemed and have it make a difference-- in America, where the majority of people aren't often faced with not having things. And then the things get confused with hope. And soon people live like all hope is lost when they get a $40 ticket or the team didn't win or the server is slow or there isn't enough money in the bank for a trip to the mall to buy more hope.

I get so caught up in it all. Like my day is the worst because Mom asked me to unload the dishwasher or because my hip hurts from painting the air conditioned home.

News flash for Sadie. I'll be going from working in this

to this

in one week. And with me I better be taking some hope for the people who would be happy with four simple sturdy walls and a family to work alongside. Who would be thrilled by some medical attention or the leftovers I just threw out. The good news is that I do have Hope and even if in my rushed, hurried life I don't take the time to know Him as often or deeply as I should, He will reveal and does reveal Himself to those not as rich as me in languages I don't know based on their own commitment to following Him.

And in doing so He makes them rich.

In doing so He makes me rich.

So, dear one, put aside nuances of how much you do and don't have, how much control you want of your life and circumstances and look to me for worth and profit.

I can't meet every need I'll encounter in Peru, or here at home. But I know Who can. And He asks me simply to point them in His direction. I look forward to doing so in a place and amongst people who have little. The sights will be hard and shocking, I'm sure. Orphans are hurting, people with destroyed homes are devastated. But they are not shy in admitting their need.

^{As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"}On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

-Matthew 9:9-12

Why Peru? Because God can. Because Jesus said "follow me" and, like Matthew, I want to listen. I'll let Jesus speak for and defend himself among the cynics (including myself) and those who say I'm too good to make a difference amongst those financially poorer than me. I'll return to America hoping that conviction will hit me closer to home so I won't feel I need a Peru to make a difference or address suffering with compassion and mercy.

I'll consider myself amongst the sick, because I, too, need a doctor.

I'll Be Home For Christmas

More like I'll be boarding in a few minutes, really.

But I felt like if BWI was going to be so kind as to offer free wi-fi over the holidays, I should at least put it to some kind of good use. (Does this even count as "good use?") I was reading over my Airport letter and cannot believe that was only thirteen days ago. I used to read about the Cuban missile crisis and think "it was just several days." I would now believe John Kennedy if he told me those were the longest days of his life. Actually I wouldn't because I feel like November 22 would take the cake. Technically though, it was a pretty short day for him.

For the record, I do not recommend stream of consciousness writing within the first 48 hours coming out of exam week.

I must say, though, Katie Jones wrote a fabulous stream of consciousness essay on going green and sea otters (or should I say "hotters") in the hours after her last test. It involved an otter saying "peace be with you" and her responding "what are you, Jesus?" Then he chased her and said "live long and prosper" to which she responded "what are you, Spock now?" And something about how now she loves to recycle whereas she used to choke the hotters with plastic 6 pack things. Her dramatic, if abrupt, ending was "You're welcome. K, Bye."

Sadly I cannot share this essay with you as it was removed from the Time to Hope website. Haters.

All I'm saying is that I love an airport. Always I do. When I'm looking at 2 weeks of nothing but work or I'm sittin on the flipside, I love chilling against the wall at a gate, with my bags surrounding me, watching little kids dance and parents wish they had a leash for said dancing kid. Then there are those parents who actually have leashes. I love that usually it's just me and the Airport. And, of course, everyone else. It's a time for detox. This is my time to let it sink in.

I'll be home for Christmas.

I'm proud of the work I put into the past couple of weeks. But man, I am so over it. Thank you, thank you, God, for the strength.

Okay now I have to go because I am all up in the way as the pilots are lining up to get on the flight. I feel like I should move, because they are fairly crucial to my getting home.

For Christmas!

Dear Airport.

We meet again.

You know I love you. I can’t deny it.

I love your people and your staff and your shops.

I love it when you’re bustling. Then again when you’re still.

You’ve got some crazy patrons—wound up over their flights. For some the tension is exerted by straight up running. Scarves fly in the air behind them as, with bags in arms and shoes still off from security, they book it with all of their might to get to the gate before the dreaded words scroll across the check-in counter—door closed. They exclaim some words I feel should be left to Jack Bauer when his plans to save the world are yet again thwarted, but hey, this is their crisis. And for some, apparently, the end of their world.

Good news, folks. There are helpful people who, get this, are paid to help a sister out.

Yes, airport, I do love you.

Still, others release their tension once at the gate in the form of very harsh words with said paid help. “The security line held me up!” “This isn’t my fault” “I WILL expect compensation.” I think some people live with their panties in a wad.

And yet. There is love. I sit here, airport, and observe your baggage claim area. Where people are reunited with their belongings (well, okay, some people have a few choice words with the claims department) and their peeps. It’s even cool to watch the professional exchange of businessmen and dudes who have made the scronniest, though I guess manly, signs bearing names of men they’ve never before met and, after today, will most likely never meet again. There are daddies and little girls and husbands and wives and servicemen and little ol’ ladies that everyone tries to find a balance between respect of an elder and wanting nothing more than to get around her. Then you see that her husband is being wheeled behind her by yet another helpful employee and it gets you thinking that this is probably their last holiday season to travel. Maybe their kids will visit them next year. Or maybe they won’t last that long. Morbid, okay. But true. And real.

Peoples’ colors come out at an airport. It's reality.

And so. I love you.

Even on this day when our meeting implies a journey back to a place I do not care to be, really. That place is not Fredericksburg or hanging with friends or in the will of God. I love those places. But this place I do not care to be is more of a time span. Two weeks. Of papers and tests and, dare I say it, stress. Yes, it is truly inevitable, the stress. I do not care for that.

Still, not only does stress intensify, but so does the joy. The love shared between friends is at it’s greatest when it comes down to the wire. Almost like at an airport. You’ve got the mad man at the counter but you also have a little girl hugging her daddies’ neck. It depends on what you’re looking for at any given time.

So, Airport, you’ve brought me here and taught me a lesson and I love you, once more, for it.

I will see you again in two weeks.

Scratch that. 13 days. If Kennedy can deal with a missile crisis with Cuba in that amount of time, I can write a few papers and take a few tests, right?

Right. I best get to steppin'

With love,

Sadie

A Feeling

Today I haphazardly hummed the now all-too-familiar Black Eyed Pea's song. You know the one. "I've got a feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night, that tonight's gonna be a good, good night." I wasn't considering the significance of the tune. Until Katie said "especially for you, huh?" And then I thought. Oh yeah. Especially for me.

But that's just a feeling talking.

Well, memories of last year are a factor, too, I must admit. The coffee in my system as I write from the corner window of Baltimore Coffee and Tea might also be having a say so.

But still.

Tonight's the night. Let's live it up.