things i've learned since this time last year

 

 

this weekend was a lazy, hazy delicious dream of a break. the only weekend we have free for the next few weeks. there are weddings coming up, the ever anticipated trip to the middle of nowhere for the mount olive pickle festival, and concerts on grass lawns.

but this weekend offered a reprieve from responsibility, and fairly seasonable weather. warm during the days and what i like to call "light sweater weather" in the evenings. it was the commencement of my birthday week, which is always one of the best, best weeks of the year!

this time last year, i was practicing, panting and shaking nervously in anticipation of my master's thesis defense. i was driving an hour away during my lunch break for last-minute speech therapy visits and driving my friends and co-workers crazy by rehearsing my speech aloud every free moment available.

but this year is different, a bit more relaxed. and i've learned some things in the interim.

great things move slow. they take patience and perseverance in measures typically beyond what we consider humanly possible. but bend with it. fall into the wait and find that it, too, has a very specific sort of beauty. what is God saying during this time? we can't add a single second to our life by worrying, and fretting about an event will not spur it to occur any faster.

we all need a phone drawer. a place to drop that beautiful burden of an instrument the second we get home. because the life span of people and puppy dogs is infinitely less than the life span of technology, which will only grow and develop and become more youthful as we benjamin button-it into a more refined state. on the other hand, you've got living, breathing, speaking and barking, flesh and blood dependents who are, for a lack of a prettier phase, dying every day. and as much as i adore instagram for its ability to make me feel like a photographer, and as much as i care about e-mails and even this little blog of mine, i've got to find a balance to counteract the oppression of the screen, and the mindlessness it forces me into. for me, this means allotting one evening a week as screen-free. with the pretty weather and longer days, this is completely do-able.

where your treasure is, there your heart is. and you deem something your treasure by the time you assign to it and the passion with which you approach it. i've learned to choose my treasures better this year, weeding out faux riches for the real gems. but it's a journey, and one i can only wish to travel my whole life through.

so 26, huh? too late for that quarter-life crisis john mayer sung about. or is it? every day is a bit of a crisis, to some degree. a time of danger. but i'm learning how to pack my armor. that counts for something, i suppose.