Wipe the Sleep

Funny the things you can procrastinate even over a break from school.

Good to know the desire to put things off will not end come May. Not so good is that I'm actively choosing, with every word I write on this post, to continue putting off the preliminary proposal I promised Dr. Rigelhaupt before Monday.

It's really not a big deal. Clearly it's not graded and I'll have it come Monday morning. It's the most informal paper ever. The first of many assignments revolving around the 1927 flood of the Mississippi to come. I hereby declare, upon my word of honor, that my posts will not revolve around the same topic. You should just know that if random words like levees, runoffs, and delta pop in here without warning as if I suffer writer's tourettes, that's just the thesis talking. I mean no offense.

It seems to have become the 6th of January with no real warning. If you don't count the poppers and the kazoos and my obnoxious repetition of auld lang syne. (a song that I still don't understand and phrase.org is zero help with. I do appreciate its reference to a Smith favorite-- the "cup of kindness.").

I had entertained the idea of participating in NaBloPoMo-- a post a day for the month of January-- but clearly that got away from me. I blame George W. Bush's Decision Points and the company of Noelle who obliged my wish to visit Barnes and Noble. Also Mom and Dad who gave me the gift card. Tsk.

Katie texted me the other day to express her dismay that graduation was yet four months away. "End college" were her words (she likes to be quoted accurately... I don't know what that is about). It sort of feels like this semester is one big 'o long finals week. It is, after all, the final semester. During finals, for me, there is but one goal: finish the task that is immediately before me. Which is hard because, from my perspective, I know that there is so much more to do than what is directly ahead. Also it's hard to get motivated to do my best on the very next exam because mostly the end is so near I can smell it.

Thus, I get where Katie's coming from. As with exams-- when I can't start studying for France until Spain is out of the way-- it's just impossible to start with summer (more dramatically viewed as the rest of our lives) until this spring is over. Unlike Katie, however, I'm more inclined to take solace in that fact and rest in the false refuge that this spring offers from the (yes I am taking the dramatic route here) rest of my life.

That, friends, is procrastination at its finest (this post is a near second). And it's worse than scholastic procrastination--it's life. The scary part is that if I let procrastination rule my every day in the small stuff (read: school) it's going to start reflecting in my attitude towards the big stuff (read: life) and soon I'll be that person that says "yeah I'll do something, I'll have that relationship with God, I'll be that friend." But, having become a professional procrastinator, I'll put it off. Dangerous part of this scenario: papers have deadlines, tests have dates-- but few people get to know the final hours they have to cram in the volunteering and relationship-building. Probably a good thing, nice going on that one, God, because then people like me would put the real life work off for the final days, weeks, maybe even months (if we felt ourselves really generous). Not only does he probably think* he, being God, deserves more than that but there's almost certainly an aspect of that we should be getting much more out of all of this than either a.) putting off the stuff that matters or b.) anticipating the next phase so ardently that I fool myself into thinking that then and only then can I be of significance.

*I do not mean to suggest a great familiarity with the mind of God, just a very shallow knowledge of what he's expressed himself in his word.

side note: I really love sitting at Chic-fil-A (did you know that Louie Giglio's dad designed the "C" in the logo? Thank you, Em) with this middle-aged couple sharing ice cream. Not with me. Just with each other. I'm only watching. Which now sounds creepy. I just like seeing people on a date, especially those whose relationship has been around the sun a few times.

another side note: have you ever noticed how downright impossible it is to find a good version of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms"? I have to give it to the producers of True Grit, there seems to be a severe shortage of artists who strike the balance between the appalachian twang and the gospel choir soul, but I refuse to believe that Iris deMent's nails on a chalkboard was the best they could do. I'll forgive them, though, per their great use of Carter Burwell's score, which is based on the hymn.

The not-so-subliminal message of this side note is that you should see True Grit if you have not. (If you have seen the movie, you might have picked up on my purposeful lack of contraction there as a sort of homage to Jeff Bridges). (While I have a track record of choosing who I want to win on the annual Oscar ballot with Jill, as opposed to actually predicting who will win, I believe Jeff has a good chance on both counts this year. Plus, I like a feel-good story and should Jeff win for best leading actor, he'll be the first to win twice consecutively. Oprah will be all over this, I'm sure).

I stayed at Emily's house last night because, as Jilly lovingly pointed out, I am a nomad this Christmas. Also because I love her and she reads things about nasty diseases to me while I share selections of political memoirs and we call this "fun." It's forever.

So I woke up to an empty house because big people have real jobs and they were long gone. So I took the time to thoroughly get ready, complete with plucking and moisturizing. And tunes. After the newest glee soundtrack (courtesy of Noelle and Creepy Chris) ran its course (and I belted my soul out to their version of Celine's "River Deep, Mountain High"), a song came on that I remembered from the freshman days of getting ready for outings/sneaking away with the gang in Ruby/not so diligently studying in a given location. Noelle gave the music to me on their way through to Texas and I'd totally forgotten it. The chorus sums up my approach to this new year we have on our hands:

You gotta get up and get the dirt off your shoulder
Wake up and wipe that sleep from your eye
So you won't waste away your life
Break off from the things that hold you
Grab your stuff and head right through the door
And get ready for so much more

-Jake Smith, "Get Up"

2010 was a lot of things.

It started with Emily taking skating lessons (with a man who may or may not be the infamous Alex's dad)

I loved the job (and taking advantage of the slippery floors for some friendly competition)

We celebrated Sarah's birthday (and last semester with us)

I had more fun in Charlottesville than I could've anticipated

There was the blizzard (and Ashley's unmatched love of snow ;-*)

Had a hilarious bunch of interns

Began to love DC (as in experience it) the way I wanted to all along

Watched another class graduate

Kathlean continued to help with the kiddos

Loved Easter

Became the recipient of the Yates' generous hospitality

I "adopted" Zaida

Went "mudyacking" with Gillian

and learned that she has a legitimate fear of dying of thirst

Roadtripped with Katie

2010 was 30 years for them

Sarah got married

Luke and Steph moved

Sarah was there for that (and then she CAME to Arkansas!)

But seriously, I loved my job.

Got to see a wonder of the world.

and this:

Mom and Co. redid my room as a surprise while I was away

I also returned to such an exciting family reunion of sorts

Noelle came for a vacation

Kidzcamp rocked my socks off

You may have heard of a little thing called Truett

I got to babysit like the good 'ole days ('cept for they were older) (also I sported a good many freckles)

Jackson "took a blow to [his] sensitives"

T came on with it

We had our first (and not last) 931 shindig of senior year

My friends were awesome

I just needed to include this one because I love these girls

Noelle was a bachelorette

then she wasn't.

Bess continued to make delicious baked things. (Dina said "she says she likes to bake her feelings. Which is fine, except for I live with her and I do NOT need to eat her feelings.")

The Smiths came to Washington

Then the other Smiths

Solomon!

Got more interns

Leo turned one.

Freshmans (distinguished from the collective and generic "freshmen") 2011!

Truett went house-hunting with C-Pap and Tutu

I got to travel to Atlanta for school

Mam-ma got to meet her late husband's namesake

We celebrated Christmas right!

Peterso finished!

We said goodbye to 4 Beeson Ct.

Dad changed jobs

Amanda Berry Dumas got married

(yes, that's as in Sarah Berry)

I got to hang with these kids

Celebrated Christmas with these kids

and these.

Dad got a hair dryer for Christmas

(that's a joke)

We moved into our home in Fayetteville

(yes, she knows she wouldn't *actually* be able to help him should he fall. It just helped)

Truett and co. came for that, too-- as a pleasant surprise!

These knuckleheads helped ring in the new year

as did these.

Mom and I helped Dad decorate his office

and did a lot of reading and lounging in our new hearth room. Errrr.

That. As they say. Is that.

It was good. I hope I've convinced you (with a sickening amount of pictures) that out of many things, life was good in 2010. But 2010 was a lot of things. And despite all pictorial evidence to the contrary, it was disturbing. My heart was stirred by many things I've seen and even what I haven't seen. Also what I heard.

What it was stirred to remains to be seen.

What I know is that he who calls me is faithful. I also know that my answer cannot be put off. Not this day, not the next.

This is the year of "to be." Because, as Sarah Holljes reminded me in a conversation last night, one year has the power to transform. Well, God does. The year is just a convenient time frame.

Also because I'm learning the real significance in being who I be-- no one else. Less persuaded by circumstance or affected by opinion. Swayed only by the plumb line that is the voice and word of God. (Consequently, "who I be" is not a hater).

L'annee d'etre. It has a ring.

So does this verse that Mom threw out there as a potential verse of the year for me:

"Let not mercy and truth forsake you;

bind them around your neck,

write them on the tablet of your heart,

and so find favor and high esteem

in the sight of God and man."

-Proverbs 3:3-4

I really couldn't dream better circumstances for myself going into 2011.

But I can sure conjure up a vision of a better heart, a better attitude, a better friend, a better servant, a better steward.

So if circumstances have been a dream, I want you to know that I'm awake. I see better. And I am wiping the sleep from my rested eyes to "grab my stuff, get out the door, and get ready for so much more."

To be.

Drop

I guess I never mentioned on this blog that we moved.

Moved. Past tense. That is so odd.

Let me tell you something else, though, moved is not synonymous with unpacked.

That is what we continue to work on, on this, the 30th day of December.

As in 2 days until 2011. Which is funny because that's the year I'm going to graduate.

Click.

Right, yes, I am graduating this year. It's to the point of being asked 36 times a day what I'm going to do after graduation and it's a legitimate question. The usual answer is something like "well I'm going to be doing some interviewing in the spring for flight attendant positions within the U.S."

Where? "Anywhere." Which one? "The one that will hire me."

It seems about as ridiculous as the conversations I used to have about going to some school far, far away that I knew no real details about.

Except.

Except for then I had a real peace-- a real sense of direction. Like I had no clue but I knew what I was doing. This time it feels like I both have no clue and no idea what I'm doing.

Which would be a little humiliating and quite frightening to admit to the general public (hello, family) except for that there is another option that I've been tiptoeing around for about a week now. And in all honesty, it seems a bit more synonymous with the UMW option of 2007 than the flight attendant thing.

Flight attending, while competitive and not a guaranteed position, is more like the safe route of the Ouachita option of 2007. Like that thing that I'd always pictured myself doing and feel I'd have no problem with and could do well and would probably have a good time with except for that I've made a life out of having a good time and would really like to know the God that I claim makes life worth living.

So I chose UMW against really all odds and with a Mom that pretty much thought me crazy right on up to the minute she drove away from campus with an empty U-haul and an outside-of-his-mind-sort-of-sick husband. Because the truth is that I hadn't a clue what I was doing. But I knew I was doing it. Kicking and screaming or not, God wanted me in that place and if he had to provide friends and community and great teachers and a church and a whirlwind job to get me there he would, but by God I was going to do it.

Seems like most of the time I spent at UMW has been to prepare me for the next step. And it is exhausting to keep up my own glass-half-full-I'm-here-for-a-purpose spirit amidst the things of life that become so daily. I get insecure and exclusive and persuaded and hurt and offended and I second guess myself more easily than I like to admit, but I know that ultimately things could be worse and I am here for a purpose and I believe that about everyone I encounter and would like so badly for other people to believe that about themselves and me that I spend hours talking about life and God and adjust myself to what I think those people might need in order to see that in themselves that I forget to stop and talk to God instead of about him and that's incredibly difficult when my job is to talk about him but most times I don't like to go before God because he is the one person who says "you can be yourself and I'll be happy" (matter of fact it's the only way he'll be happy) and I'm so, so caught up in what I'm supposed to be that I forget who I actually am and what I really want-- and that is to know him.

Longest. sentence. ever.

Not even really a sentence as so much the headline that scrolls at the bottom of the screen that is my mind.

Getting to know God is incredibly difficult when I don't know how to be myself in front of him. Even more difficult is knowing that who I am when I'm before him is actually quite frustrated by the person I am when I'm living apart from him.

As a result of this move out of 4 Beeson Ct., we lived with Luke and Stephanie for a couple of weeks. They lived with us for the greater parts of 2009 and 2010, so it was kind of an I owe you that was slated for like 2030 when Mom needs a hip replacement and Dad can't find his toupee that we ended up cashing in early. Still a generous gesture when you consider it was their first Christmas in a house with their little family and 4 grown folk straight descended upon it. They continued to speak of how they were happy to do it, and did so quite genuinely. After all, as Luke pointed out "C'mon, Mom, we lived with you for a year and a half, 2 weeks is like a drop in the bucket."

Now you know how well I do with expressions like this. (read: not well). I mean, I had an idea, but wanted to think off of accurate information. Phrases.org and I were buddies, already, anyway. So I learned that its meaning is "a very small proportion of the whole."

At the time he said it, I was brushing my teeth (as the bathroom is, indeed, the social epicenter of the Smith home) and I immediately thought of this move and my own next move. See, God did everything for us. Hence, the Christmas shebang. That's what we're celebrating. And the first question to ask myself is "did he really save me with the Jesus scenario?" Because if I don't believe that I am in desperate need of a savior and that he came, how on earth (literally) do I expect to live like I have one?

Then, if I truly believe my life would be pointless without salvation, everything God asks of me is just a drop in the bucket.

If I am Luke in the analogy, the recipient of an act of love and generosity (the ability to live with the parents for over a year) then shouldn't my reaction to God (the parents in this analogy-- they do so well with modeling the godly principles I need to learn) be the same?

God you have done so much that whatever you ask of me is all yours to have.

That is an idea that excites and haunts me.

Much like filling out an application to a school that came out of nowhere for no real reason other than I thought it might be a good departure from what felt entirely too safe and known. A thought that was extremely strange for me to be entertaining considering I was that annoying kid that would never distance myself from my mothers legs at any function long enough to make eye contact with a stranger.

Strangely enough, though I spent my life growing up in church, considered myself sufficiently versed in the Bible (as if), and honestly have always known that I should (and wanted to) consider God above all else in life, it felt like God was then making the point that he was that stranger I avoided looking dead in the eyes for an honest, humble "hello, it's good to meet you."

Because, you see, I clung to my mother for dear life even if she knew the person and vouched for them. Matter of a fact, it was especially those people she knew well that I dreaded because I knew she would insist I scoot out from behind her and offer a smile.

I remember very specifically the conversation she had with me one night about how it was rude to ignore people when they were just trying to be friendly and wanted to know me.

In true Sadie fashion, I was secretly devastated that I had offended people and tried to remember to branch out more than was comfortable so people would know I appreciated them being interested in shy little me who, left to my own devices, would just as soon have them turn around and leave me alone.

If there was anyone who deserved that extra effort from me, it was (and is) God.

Approaching the brave new world out there, I now feel like a kid hiding behind the legs of the Almighty himself. He's shown himself faithful to me, tending to needs along the way with a love that the five-year-old me had come to know of mom and dad. My efforts to be a little more bold, more audacious than that little girl taught me that the source of the love I've experienced as the daughter of Chris and Trudy Smith is much larger than them or their commitment to loving me as best they can. And whereas little me thought they were the apex of security and protection, my ventures have surprisingly proved me wrong. They long to provide those things for me, sure and I am so grateful to know it. But it's God who gives me the authority to risk that earthly notion of safety, step out from behind the comfort I've come to know he will always provide, and approach the world.

The big one with all of the pain and the hurt and the sadness that I can't fix by talking about life or about God. The world that I certainly won't help by ignoring the heavy stuff. The one I'm going to have to at some point look in the eye and address. People that God vouches for. The diseased ones, the "weird" ones, the democrats, the republicans, the homosexuals, the immigrants, the sinful ones. The people like me who I have no right to hide from because I have someone to duck behind.

God didn't humble himself to a cross so I could duck behind it.

He is there for safety and protection. He is the shelter of the Most High. He is all those things he promised to be through the prophets of the Old Testament. But if the book of Acts says anything, it's that safety and protection aren't the end of the story. At least not here. For many of the early Christians, the last chapter of their lives was all about action. Action they felt specifically called to because they knew, win or lose, security ascended to heaven 40 days after Christ won it for all and just would not happen on earth while Jesus reigned in heaven.

I want to be the person that asks "how high?" when God says "jump." It begins with a heart that says "anything, God, is a drop in the bucket compared to the forgiveness and grace you constantly show me."

"Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales; he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust." -Isaiah 40:15

I want to have weight in this world. But I will be little less than fine dust if I am not on the side of the Weigher, doing that which he specifically nudges me towards. Otherwise, I am a drop in the bucket and that is just a slap in the face of the man who died to offer my teeninesy self a little significance.

Lullaby

"Be near me, Lord Jesus!

I ask Thee to stay

Close by me forever

And love me, I pray.

Bless all the dear children

In Thy tender care

And take us to heaven

To live with Thee there."

I guess it sort of loses something when you aren't hearing Mom sing it over the baby monitors from the nursery. This is the 3rd verse of Away in a Manger that she used as Luke's lullaby in his duck-themed nursery 28 years ago. From the sound of it, she hasn't lost her charm.