I use this app that compiles a one second video from every day into what is now a several minute video full of my life. It’s probably really boring to an outsider, but to me each second represents a flood of memories and it makes me really nostalgic and grateful. It also makes me kind of stressed out because I can literally watch my life passing by. There are so many lives I wish I could live, like why am I not a farmer? But that’s a rant for another time.
I was watching the video the other day for the first time in a while and there are certain clips that represent some of our darkest moments this year. There is a hardly noticeable clip of a beach view in Laguna, but I remember the day so vividly. Trever and I had received some really horrible news the week before and we had pretty much stayed home all week. Saturday came along and we still didn’t want to see people but we wanted to get out so we went to Laguna with puffy eyes and had lunch on the water. I remember exactly how it all felt. I was so raw, all the callouses has been ripped off and I was so alive to pain and grief and God in some bizarre ways. The pain was so acute, the fear overwhelming, our unknowable future taunting, and yet somehow in the middle of it there was peace. There was a connection to hope I had never before experienced. There was a proper view of life and what mattered that I wish I could bottle. There were parts of how I felt that I wish I didn’t have to let go of.
But of course we settle in, and when we were once positive we would never feel normal again we do. Human nature is to crawl back to that homeostasis for survival, but sometimes that normalcy is numbing. It makes us complacent. We forget what we learned in the darkness. We forget what matters. Where the veil between us and the divine was thin in tragedy, we find it once again thick and elusive in the mundane. Our longing for the hope of the eternal fades to the background because life feels ok.
I feel this way. Right now I dream a lot about having a kitchen and less dust and more homemade coffee. The day-to-day has captured me and I can remember clearly what occupied my mind just months ago. This is not to say I don’t think often of Colette and melt into a puddle of fear begging for mercy on an hourly basis, but in general my mind has compartmentalized leaving extra room for mostly the mundane. Now all those spiritual practices that were once part of survival have again become disciplines, choices made because they should be made. Now that my happiness feels within grasp I want it more than anything. I think I want it more than the hope that once held me up, well the hope that still does hold me up whether I remember it or not.
Maybe this is human nature that we’re made to find balance and peace. It seems it’s how we survive and yet the flip side is we lose our souls to it, we so easily lose our purpose to complacency and new kitchens. But maybe it’s ok that I rest in this moment of peace seeing as how we're just SIX WEEKS away from meeting baby girl and all that will come with that. I don’t know.
Things to notice in my video– First, anytime my brother-in-law Tyler is in the video he’s flipping me off, which could either be representative of a contentious relationship between the two of us or his general bad attitude regarding documentation in the form of videos. Second, Trever at one point is wearing a facemask, this is actually a regular occurrence post turning thirty. Third, my friend Jessie can complete entire sentences in a one second clip, she believes this is a skill, we just think it’s very loud. Lastly, my cats are very fat; we would appreciate if you would hold off on the judgment as we are currently working very hard on getting them a legitimate diagnosis so as to alleviate us from our responsibility for their obesity. If you know a shady vet hook it up!
Also our kitchen is done today. We all need a good happy cry over this! Pictures to come.