Every November, Laura Tremaine hosts a linkup called One Day, in which everyone posts the minutiae of their day that normally go undocumented. I’ve learned that these are the kinds of things you look back on and see how much in your life has changed (or not). While One Day is meant to happen on Instagram throughout the day, I prefer to post it all here as a photoessay!
Past years: 2013 // 2014 // 2015 // 2016 // 2017
Thursday, November 8
5:40 am: Wake up (around 20 minutes earlier than my typical weekday time). I use a real radio alarm clock, not my phone, and this one that I bought in college is still going strong.
5:45 am: Every morning, as soon as my feet hit the floor, Rufus runs to the bathroom to wait for me to run the tap. He rarely drinks from his water dish, preferring to follow me from sink to sink demanding running water. Cats.
5:50 am: I do Yoga with Adriene most mornings. I rarely have more than 15 minutes to spare, but those few minutes make me feel a lot better. It’s for physical and mental well-being, not to work up a sweat. Today I’m especially pressed, so it’s 7-minute Yoga for Stress Relief.
6:07 am: Make the coffee.
6:19 am: While I’m doing my hair, Taylor texts to say good morning and that there’s been another mass shooting. I turn on the news.
6:25 am: This is my skincare drawer for all my daily creams and toners.
6:40 am: Still loving this palette organizer for all my eye makeup. Most of my palettes are Makeup Revolution. Today I’m using Neutrals vs. Newtrals, one of my favorites.
6:50 am: Some humor. This was to Taylor, but I sent the same text to my brother, because laughing at crazy news together is one of our things.
6:55 am: A fall foliage view from my balcony. Downstairs, my wall of indoor plants! I have a few new ones for the winter, and recently repotted them all with special indoor soil. I also made other arrangements for two that needed more sun. You’ll see them later.
7:00 am: In the car. I ran my favorite race, the True Blue 5K, last week and one of the swag items was a set of stone car coasters. My coffee cup doesn’t rattle in the cup holder anymore! On the drive I hear an interview with one of the shooting victims’ dads before they knew he was a victim. I think about that poor dad all day.
7:15 am: So, I’m up early today because I have a counseling appointment. I’ve been seeing the same therapist off and on for several years. I don’t have a standing appointment – I just call her when I need her, on average every 2-3 months. My anxiety has been bad lately, and I’ve felt angry and impatient a lot, then upset with myself for being angry and impatient. Her diagnosis is cumulative stress with no down time, exacerbated by not being totally recovered from burnout. So basically I paid a professional to tell me what I already knew, but the validation always helps. She also gave me a few action items. I can’t implement all of them right now, but it’s something.
8:15 am: Headed to work and really enjoying this Neil de Grasse Tyson interview.
8:25 am: Every day I feel thankful to work in such a beautiful building!
8:30 am: At my desk and ready to go. (For confidentiality and safety reasons, there won’t be a lot of substantive pics of my workday.) I follow up on some stuff and update some reports.
9:50 am: I realize I signed my offer letter for this job one year ago today!
10:00 am: First meeting of the day. My team consists of two attorneys, two paralegals (I’m one of them), and an admin. This is our regular meeting to go over all the matters we’re working on. Our team generally has fun together, and the meeting usually starts with some silliness. One week my boss wanted to have an “In My Feelings” dance contest. This week he tries to remember some Manufacturing Excellence stuff and write it on the whiteboard, with our other attorney telling him the Japanese words, which doesn’t sound funny, but really was.
12:00 pm: Watering my cubicle plants! I get natural light in my cube (still amazing to me after 16 years of working far from windows at my last job), so plants do pretty well here. The crown of thorns plant and the aloe are the ones I recently moved from my house. The one in the gold pot is from IKEA, and I can practically see it growing. As it gets taller I plan to wind it all around the space.
12:25 pm: I don’t want to take a full hour for lunch since I came in late, so I just take a Lean Cuisine downstairs to our building’s hangout area. I eat here a lot in winter if I don’t have time to get off my work campus. This is the first quiet reading lunch I’ve gotten in a while. Ideally I need them at least twice a week. I finish my new book, which is about YA books of the 80s and 90s, aka Brenda Crack.
1:00 pm: Elevator selfie! This dress was a lucky clearance find at Kohl’s over the summer, and this is the first time I’ve worn it. I also just started wearing boots this week. I hold out as long as possible, because while I love all my boots, I know come March I’m going to be sick of them.
1:05 pm: My co-paralegal got me an iced tea while she was out. I love her and am so glad to work with her. And not only because she brings me tea.
1:15 pm: These are my usual rings on days when I go with silver jewelry. I bought this HOPE ring at a Catholic bookstore in 2002. They had Faith, Hope, and Love, and at the time I could only afford one, so I chose Hope (wow lots to analyze in that sentence). I got the knot ring on Amazon. Nail polish is OPI Blue My Mind, chosen for both Election Day and the start of Tiger basketball season. I got it from my friend/Rufus’s godmother, Stacy.
1:30 pm: Second meeting of the day. My former co-paralegal has been promoted, but we’re still helping her with a project she started over here. She wants us to review a summary she wrote. I try to focus on her overall point, but as the meeting continues, I go into editing mode and make a bunch of writing composition changes. She’s okay with it.
3:00 pm: I never get tired of this view. ♥ As the trees continue to turn, it’s a new show every day.
4:00 pm: A random quote I quote frequently (mostly to myself, mostly sarcastically) from The Devil Wears Prada: “I’m on this new diet. I don’t eat anything, and when I feel like I’m going to pass out, I eat a cube of cheese!” Well, roasted almonds are my cubes of cheese. I keep a big bag at my desk.
5:00 pm: Leave work!
5:10 pm: Another anomaly: I prefer to go to the Kroger by my house, but today I also need to get gas, and maybe the traffic won’t be as bad by the time I finish shopping, so I go to the Kroger by work. I cross off every item on my list, which is an achievement – usually something is out of stock.
5:50 pm: Gridlock. Hopes of lighter traffic dashed. This is one of my favorite songs right now – sorry not sorry.
6:00 pm: Taylor’s mom calls to invite my parents to their family Thanksgiving. This makes me happy.
6:15 pm: Rufus has different greetings for different times of day. This is the Home from Work Greeting: meeting me at the door, then flopping and rolling around on the countertop while I pet him. We both enjoy this. I put away the groceries, throw a load of laundry in the machine, change clothes, take out the trash, quickly cram a few chips in my mouth, and hurry to the gym.
7:00 pm: I go to the gym twice a week (plus one Pilates class a week), which is the most I can manage right now. At Taylor’s encouragement, I’ve started doing more free weights than weight machines, and so far I like it better. I only had one shot at this selfie stiff-arming TEN POUNDS WHAT WHAT (I’m still finding my sweet spot on free weights), because men in the weight area were already looking at me suspiciously. This session was followed by a mile on the treadmill and 45 minutes on the elliptical. My current elliptical show is The Good Place and I just started Season 2!
8:30 pm: DINNER AT LAST. I had a few options on deck depending on my hunger level, but can hang on long enough to cook an egg scramble with spinach, mushrooms, and goat cheese. It’s not an omelet because I couldn’t wait for an omelet, but I’m just pleased I’m not eating dinner from a plastic container. These gold-trimmed salad plates from my SIL Stefanie are my favorites – I happily took them off her hands when she and my brother moved, and she had to downsize her extensive plate collection. I follow this healthy meal with a bowl of the S’mores cereal I just bought. #balance
9:30 pm: Time for the hot shower I’ve looked forward to all day. I seriously feel like I might fall asleep in the shower.
9:45 pm: After sitting in my lap while I eat, Rufus is ready for a brief playtime. He LOVES this toy. I got it on eBay for $3.
10:00 pm: Doing a classic Queen Helene clay mask while I hang tops and dresses from the laundry – I never put these items in the dryer. The clothes in the dryer can wait to be put away another day because I’m done.
10:30 pm: Most of my days end with Colbert (sometimes Fallon), a note in my One Line a Day journal, and maybe a little reading. This magazine arrived today and I had to include it because HOW GORGEOUS. I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly, Vogue, and Vanity Fair, and digitally to the WaPo and the Daily Memphian. My family says I’m keeping print journalism alive. :P
10:45 pm: I think this is when I fell asleep. Good night!
3 Comments + Posted in: life lately, linkup
Main Events:
October, like March, is a gateway month. It leaves you in a different place than it found you. For me, it was still summer when October started, but now I’m wearing my Halloween cat ears surrounded by beautiful fall foliage and a cool breeze. I even started taking out the winter clothes this week.
Reading:
Technically I read three books this month, but: I finished Sea Creatures on October 1, read The Merry Spinster in one day this week, and spent the entire rest of October working on Stoned, an account of famous jewels and jewelry that changed history. It wasn’t bad, I was just too busy and woolly-headed to give it adequate attention. The stories of ruthless, megalomaniac rulers had the unexpected side effect of reminding me that nothing is new under the sun.
Listening:
Longtime readers know I’m an unabashed Hanson fan. This month I went to my sixth, and probably best, Hanson concert: String Theory at the Schermerhorn in Nashville with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. Debra and I got these tickets months ago (the show sold out within minutes). Hearing songs I’ve loved for years with that orchestral backing was surprisingly emotional, and I can’t wait for the album to pick apart the story the guys constructed. They delivered on their promise of some deep cuts – at the first notes of “Yearbook,” Debra was like “Are they kidding us with this??” – but it made sense to veer toward the more dramatic tracks. And as usual, there’s nothing like the atmosphere at a Hanson show: a packed house of women in their 30s who know every word and gesture, and their initially-reluctant partners.
In other news, I bought Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour after wanting it for months, and Carrie Underwood’s Storyteller album on Debra’s recommendation. “Church Bells” is an unexpected banger. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m also getting into Panic at the Disco. I suggested to Taylor that we see them when they come to Memphis, and he was like “Sure, let’s go for the two songs we know.” (I love those, though! The new ones, not their first hit that still makes no sense to me.)
Watching:
A Star Is Born deserves ALL the hype and awards. The acting, music, and story are all beautiful and devastating. After the movie, I had to hug Taylor for a few minutes and then try to compose myself in the bathroom (which I’m hearing is a pretty common experience). Debra and I saw First Man, which was also excellent.
My parents’ church has backed several independent movies, and their latest is Indivisible, a true story of an army chaplain in Iraq. We went to a screening last weekend, and it’s a pretty solid film. If you’re military and/or enjoy faith-based movies, I recommend it – it’s in about 800 theaters nationwide. Tia Mowry has a supporting role, and I’m always in for the Sister Sister sisters.
On the elliptical, I’ve finished catching up on The Bold Type and have started on The Good Place from the beginning. It’s as great as everyone says. I’m already spoiled for the twist, but that just means I can look for clues without having to watch it all again!
Travel:
I went to Nashville two weekends in October. The first trip was for my younger niece’s birthday. Her PJ Masks obsession has held strong for at least a year, so that was her party theme! The second trip was for the Hanson show. It was on a Sunday night, so I took Monday off, and it was nice to have a little more time. Especially since I stopped at McKay’s on the way out of town. There are no short trips to McKay’s.
Around Town:
October is opening month for Hoop City. Memphis Madness is basically a pep rally for the upcoming Tiger basketball season, and this year’s epic Madness launched the Penny Hardaway era. The Forum was sold out, fans were hyped like it was 2008, and tears were shed when COACH Hardaway came out of the tunnel for the first time. High high hopes!
Grizzlies season began, and other than an awful first game on the road, things are looking okay. My favorite Tiger of all time, D.J. Stephens, is finally on the Grizz roster and I’m in constant suspense to see when they’ll dress him out. Taylor and I got to attend a game in my company’s box this month! I could definitely get used to that setting.
Sadly, Tiger football has basically tanked. We were looking good against #10 UCF this month… until it started raining. At this point I’ve forgotten what it’s like to attend a football game NOT in the rain, and clearly the team doesn’t enjoy it either. Oh well. We’ll see the season through and enjoy whatever Darrell Henderson fireworks we get.
At Home:
My existing fall decorations weren’t doing it for me this year, but I found these beautiful, natural-looking fall florals for cheap at Jo-Ann’s!
Taylor’s Halloween yard decoration made me LOL when I pulled up and saw it.
Random Happiness:
Our long-awaited Trader Joe’s finally opened in September, but I waited a few weeks for the crowds to die down (we Memphians have zero chill about new places). I tried a good cross-section of items and plan to put a few in my regular rotation. What are your favorite TJ’s products?
I got my First PSL as soon as the weather was appropriate for it. #basic
My car hit 60,000 miles on the way home from my second Nashville trip. It turned five in July, so now it’s out of warranty on both fronts. I’m thankful it still looks and runs great, because I love it and plan to keep it for a long time.
I attended part of my church’s first ever women’s retreat. It was held at a rustic, pretty retreat center just outside Memphis that I never knew existed. Despite a lifetime of discomfort in large groups of church women, I actively wanted to go to this, roomed with a great new friend, had a fantastic time, and hated to leave early! This year, for the first time ever in a church setting, I feel like I can be my full, unedited self and not fear judgment of my messy faith and life. It’s a big deal and I’ll be grateful for it for as long as it lasts.
My work team had a day of fun that included Shelby Farms, a hayride, high-quality burgers, and bowling. #blessed
The most impactful thing that happened to me this month was getting a new co-paralegal at work. She’s a wonderful person and sharp as a tack, and I’m already happy to know and work with her. Now that our new team is complete (after two people moving up this year), my boss is going hard on training and establishing new processes, which is also positive (if mentally exhausting).
Wellness:
October was not a stellar wellness month. I often felt like I was skimming along the surface of life – throwing pieces of myself at a lot of things and not feeling fully present anywhere. I’m not making good use of my personal time either. When I do get a few hours in which I could do some desperately needed enriching activity (read, complete a project, create stuff, etc.), I can’t focus enough to do so, and can’t really accomplish anything. I’ve experienced a lot of this in my 30s, but this feels different and worse. Now I feel like I’m strong and capable enough to fix it, but I don’t know how.
My clothes are getting tighter again, and I feel at a loss about that too. I already work out and eat pretty healthily (lots of vegetables, whole foods, I even switched to organic dairy). I’ve considered some big diet, but know I’d crash and burn in a week, so right now I’m just trying to make lower-calorie choices one day at a time. I’ll do a lot to avoid hardcore calorie counting (which is the only thing that’s historically worked for me, but left me hungry and chained to a diet app for a year and a half).
Your Monthly Rufus:
Quote of the Month:
My favorite line from A Star Is Born. I got chills.
Good Reads:
♥ Alison Pearlman at LitHub: On the Weird World of Secret Menus
♥ Tonia Peckover: Overcoming Resistance
♥ Rachel Syme in the New Yorker: The Fashion Comeback of Fran Drescher in “The Nanny,” with Help from Cardi B
♥ Laura Jean Truman: Evil with Its Mask Off
♥ Kris Gage: How to Make a Relationship Last
♥ Addie Zierman: The Judging Tree
♥ Mandy Hale: Turn Toward the Sun
Parting Thoughts:
If you’re an American, PLEASE vote between now and November 6. This is not the time to sit apathetically on the sidelines or hold out for an ideal candidate who perfectly represents your views. I truly believe that this election will decide the course of our country’s future, and I’m both hopeful and terrified. Please make your voice heard while you can, and please let it be a voice for freedom and hope for people of all races, genders, faiths, and economic backgrounds. Thank you.
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Main Events:
September is a refreshing month in theory, but this one felt a little heavy for me. The heat remains unrelenting; the news is constantly exhausting; I had two unrelated incidents with my car; I’ve felt vaguely anxious, out of place, and out of sorts. But hopefully real fall is on its way, and in the meantime, good things are still happening. Let’s talk about them.
Reading:
Educated by Tara Westover lives up to the hype – I finished it in two unsettling days. As my friend Marie said in her review, it’s miraculous that Westover is even alive to tell the tale. After that, I had to cleanse my palate with a No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (I’m several books behind). I really liked the thoroughly South Floridian novel The Shark Club, which is deeper than it appears. I also finally got around to Essentialism, which covered a lot of principles I’ve been trying to implement into my life. I recommend it.
Listening:
This month I randomly discovered, and was instantly obsessed with, this Joseph gem from a few years ago.
Watching:
Taylor and I saw Operation Finale with my parents. I had never heard this story and it was intense. It also weirdly made me want to visit Argentina… like “Horrifying Nazi stuff, but wow, that café looks legit.”
I’m midway through season 2 of The Bold Type on the elliptical, and my primary reaction has been:
Also at the gym, I got sucked into a rerun of The Good Place, and I think I’m hooked! I’ve hesitated because I don’t have time to watch it from the beginning (plus I have a weird rebellion toward shows that EVERYONE LOVES), but I knew enough from articles to figure out what was going on, so I think I’ll just jump in!
Finally, I started watching Manifest, and will probably continue, even though it’s clearly Lost on Malaysia Flight 370.
Travel:
We took a last-minute trip to Louisiana last weekend, and it was just what I needed! Taylor and I dropped off his mom with family in Baton Rouge, then continued on to New Orleans for Memphis vs. Tulane football. We went to the game with my college roommate Emily and her family (they were all very gracious about Tulane winning), then hit Bourbon Street with one of Taylor’s old friends who happened to be in town. In the morning we did some brief sightseeing, met Em and fam again for lunch, and drove back to Baton Rouge for an LSU game!
I’d never been to a game at a really big-time football school before. Taylor, a lifelong casual LSU fan, briefed me on the traditions. It started raining while we were tailgating, and continued the entire night, but we still had a blast. I loved the fan engagement and the vibe of the whole event, and felt at home in my birth state.
And of course I devoured Cajun food and seafood all weekend. In that sense, it was a better trip than Miami last month. I think I ate several pounds of shrimp. #worthit
Around Town:
My mom and I love the annual Central Gardens Home Tour. This was our third year to attend (this time with Taylor, and friends we ran into along the way)! We made it to all but one of the homes. A couple of weeks later, I got a bonus mini-home tour when there was an estate sale at a mansion next door to my condo complex. The house has a beautiful stained-glass window seat on the stair landing. Maybe if I befriend the new owners, they’ll let me come over and read there sometime.
September also brings Cooper-Young Fest, aka Midtown Christmas. We hit the fest in the late morning, then had a sort of open house at Taylor’s for any friends needing somewhere to take a break. It was ridiculously hot this year and there was much discussion among our group about moving the fest to October!
Tiger football kicked off on our city holiday, 901 Day (September 1st). My parents and Taylor’s mom joined us for the first game. We can now walk to the Liberty Bowl from Taylor’s house, and have been doing most of our tailgating at the house, which is so easy and convenient. But it also means I still have a lot of Tiger Lane tailgate invites to cash in!
My church celebrated its 8th birthday. I feel really fortunate to be part of a church that’s evolving together with me. I love the weird, wonderful, holy thing we’re becoming.
At Home:
I did a long-overdue purge of expired foodstuffs. A few items were older than my nieces. My takeaways were: 1. I guess my home cooking now centers on soups, salads, and Asian-inspired dishes 2. It took me several years to relearn how to buy groceries for only one person 3. I’m consciously avoiding a stockpiling mindset from now on, unless the apocalypse is truly nigh.
Lots of hummingbirds have been visiting Taylor’s front porch. I love the time we spend sitting out there watching them and watching the world go by.
Eating:
I hit up the farmer’s market to roast and freeze some of the last of the summer veggies, and get some grape tomatoes for an A+ caprese!
Wearing:
Stitch Fix has a distinct style that emerges over time, and it’s not exactly mine, so I’ve scaled back to every other month. But this top is my favorite thing they’ve ever sent me! Despite mostly swearing off pants for work, I also kept a pair of pants. They need to be hemmed, but are great everywhere else, so I’ll want them when winter comes (which is currently hard to imagine). Anyway, I’m thinking of canceling Stitch Fix entirely and trying The Awe Box instead.
Follow-up to last month’s sandal search: I bought a strappier pair of OluKai (pictured in the above Canal Street photo) to replace FOUR pairs of flimsy silver sandals. These weren’t cheap, but the arch support is amazing.
Beauty:
I was pleasantly surprised by both the effectiveness and the lasting scent of Love Beauty & Planet rose hair mask. Other than that, after last month’s experiments, I’m back to my old hair product rotation. I’m also continuing the same skincare routine and have maintained clear skin for as long as a week at a time!! Fingers crossed that all this effort is starting to pay off.
Wellness:
I started Yoga for All with good intentions, but dropped out around day 4. Sadly, I can’t drag myself out of bed early enough for more than a 20-minute practice. I did make time one evening for the Fearless practice.
At the gym, I’m experimenting with doing weight training before aerobics instead of after, and so far it’s a win! I have more energy for the weights, and I like being finished as soon as I hop off the elliptical.
I started up with a new church small group this month, for the first time in a while. It’s just me and two other women, and we’re reading Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren. So far so good.
Your Monthly Rufus:
Rufus is obsessed with his new feather toy. He already had a similar one, but this one has a springy cord and the feather spins around. He’s also starting to enjoy the porch and a little of the yard at Taylor’s house.
On The Blog:
I participated in Laura Tremaine’s 10 Things to Tell You challenge on Instagram, which bled over onto my blog for two of the days: I Grew Up and Something I’ve Been Struggling With.
Good Reads:
♥ Michael Hobbes at Highline: Everything You Know about Obesity is Wrong and RELATED: Lindsey Coates: Why Am I Still Fat? And Other Stupid Questions
♥ Tara Bender: When It’s Worth the Broken Heart
♥ Helen Rosner on Yom Kippur: A brief story about transgression.
♥ Dan Greene in Sports Illustrated: It Had to Be Penny
♥ Amanda Magee: And just like that, it’s normalized.
♥ Lindsay Ferrier: I Just Went Shopping at the Mall and Now I Am So Confused
♥ Kate Beaton at The Cut: Our Sister Becky
♥ Addie Zierman, concluding a great series on the concept “Let Go, Let God”: The New Thing That’s Part of the Old Thing
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Something I’m struggling with right now is: spiritual reconstruction.
A pastor I respect recently declared his belief that evangelicalism is dying. I, for one, am ready to attend that funeral. Evangelicalism damaged me in ways I’m still discovering, deep in my bones. I don’t entirely blame it. I think it was a bad match for me, the girl who took every criticism wholly and instantly to heart; the girl who absorbed the teacher’s scolding of the whole class, even when she wasn’t misbehaving; the girl who wanted above all to please God, her family, her teachers, everyone.
I learned Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last. I learned everything in the Bible had only one correct interpretation, and we better pray and study to make sure we got it right. I was reminded often that my heart was wicked and untrustworthy, and I should submit to others, who knew better. I learned to erase myself and give God full credit for anything good that happened or anything I personally achieved; meanwhile, hurts, injustice, and hardship I suffered were His will that I should accept joyfully, or maybe my own sinful fault. I didn’t like myself much, so this really worked for me! I was all in and gave it everything I had. Then my life fell apart and I had to rebuild it. I had to learn to love myself. As I did so, the old narrative made less and less sense. Then suddenly, after about 25 years of devotion to Evangelical God, I was just done.
Despite what you might assume, it wasn’t one major event that did it. It was a million little deaths, disappointments, and false bills of goods I’d been sold. Waves eroding the rock of my persistence and certainty while the sun set. Then it was dark, and what was left of me washed out to sea. I never stopped believing in or loving Jesus. But I could no longer support a God who saw me as a cog in His sovereign machine, who had only saved me for the next life and was okay to let me hang on by a thread throughout this one, if that was somehow more glorifying to Him. I could no longer try to trust that God or call Him good. Deep down I still believed in a God who created me (and everyone else) with inherent value, a Father of abundance and light who wanted to give good gifts. I wanted to believe I could experience Him in a way that felt healthy and whole, not annihilating. This passage from Elizabeth Esther’s memoir remains almost a mission statement for me:
Well, these men can just sit here on my shelf and argue with each other. I am done listening to their voices in my head. If I am going to find my way back to God, I will start from scratch. I will choose the way of the illiterate. I mean, if God is abounding in mercy and loving-kindness, surely there is a way to God reserved especially for those who cannot read! I want that way… I want to experience the God who inspired me as a child, the God who found me long before I could comprehend a single word in my Bible. I want to experience God pursuing me for once. I am tired of seeking, striving, and knock-knock-knocking on heaven’s door. I no longer want to know that silent, capricious, harsh God who would just as soon throw me into the fires of hell as save me. I am challenging God to pursue me like someone who has never been exposed to the Bible. Love me, God. I dare You.
For the past couple of years, I’ve mostly floated, spiritually. I was too exhausted to do much else. I had to lie fallow for a while, like a field in winter, before anything could grow. I had to break down to my faith essence, which is basically yay Jesus, yay Holy Spirit, everything else is a big question mark. But all that floating – and recovering from burnout, and the love and support of a good man – has quieted my soul. Now I feel clear and strong enough to write these words, to admit these things out loud, knowing they might not be well received. I can occasionally read the Bible and close it without angst. I can make it through church without cringing. I can approach God and say, Okay. I’m ready to talk.
So I’ve spiritually deconstructed, as the kids say, and my reconstruction has now begun, and it’s a struggle. I am not interested in replicating the old blueprint. I’m looking to build a new thing – I am a new thing. I’m slowly sidling up to God and asking him to show me anew who He is, but every time I do, I remind Him I will not go back. Only forward. The nautilus grows too big for its chamber. It has no choice but to move into a new chamber that can accommodate its growth. Going back to the old one would smother and kill it. I’m inching forward on the hope that God designed both the nautilus and me that way on purpose.
This post was written for Day 8 of 10 Things to Tell You. Today’s topic is Something I’m Struggling With Right Now.
2 Comments + Posted in: faith, one word 365
We were born with sun in our teeth and in our hair. – Best Coast
I grew up in South Florida, eating fresh-caught fish and lobster, mangos and avocados from trees in my front yard. There was always a boat on a trailer next to the trees, and usually one more in some state of disrepair, waiting for my former Coast Guard dad to fix it. I played alongside lizards and locusts on carpets of St. Augustine grass. I wore bright colors and white huaraches. I got Publix bakery cake on my birthdays. I sang the Orange Blossom Song at school. When it rained a lot, I played in the flooded streets. When I went camping with my Girl Scout troop, we held contests to see who had the most fire ant bites.
Most Saturdays, I went to the beach with my best friend. We boogie-boarded in the surf, built sand castles, got into harmless verbal spats with snowbird kids, and ate pizza and ice cream from the boardwalk. I looked for shells to add to my prized collection of good specimens at home. I got a lot of sunburns, even though I knew better.
Though I’ve still never experienced a hurricane, there were a lot of near misses and one tropical storm. I have a clear memory of a gray, windy, choppy boat trip across Biscayne Bay with my dad to my grandma’s house. I was sure we went to help her put up hurricane shutters, but when I brought this up to my dad recently, he didn’t remember it. Maybe it was just a stormy day.
One year, my class’s song in the school Christmas pageant was about a snowball fight. We stuffed white socks with polyfill and threw them at each other on stage. None of us had any concept of actual snow.
I could snorkel before I could officially swim. I got a yellow snorkel when I was six years old, and only retired it a few years ago, when my family finally insisted I get an adult snorkel. We took the boat out to the ocean all the time, and even if we were there to fish or lobster, we usually jumped in for a few minutes to see some coral reef. My parents taught me the names of the fish. Black angelfish were beautiful; barracuda were scary; hogfish and grouper were delicious. Sometimes we saw a sea turtle or a nurse shark. Once, a flying fish did a few leaps alongside the boat. Once, when I was very little, my dad took me out shrimping with him at night. I slept in the tiny cabin until he woke me up to see all the shrimp in the water under a bright lantern.
On the last day of fourth grade, I hugged my favorite teacher goodbye, got into our van, and followed a moving truck to Memphis, where I would finish growing up. But my parents brought us back to Florida every summer, making sure it would never leave us. I have one tattoo, a nautilus that I got four years ago this month. It represents many things, but one of its purposes is to remind me who I am: a daughter of the sea. A pirate queen.
for whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea. – e.e. cummings
This post is part of the 10 Things to Tell You Challenge. Today’s prompt is I Grew Up.
2 Comments + Posted in: florida, memory lane, ocean, reflections