I miss California like crazy, which surprises me daily. How can I, in the midst of all this? I think of my close friends from years past, and simple things, like walking through the hills behind our house and looking down at the cars driving through the city -the lights reflected in the clouds. I still think of it as home. Or so I thought.
The other night I was driving alone down the windy 2 lane 55 mph road that cuts through the riverside forest and leads to my home. I found myself instantly annoyed when the person in front of me was driving just below the speed limit, and my first thought was, “He must not be from around here.”
After I recognized that this particular thought had indeed just been birthed from my brain, I freaked. I had just unthinkingly classed myself in with the locals, subconsciously recognized the outskirts of a tiny Washington town as where I was “from”.
I rode my brakes the rest of the way home, letting the poor man drive as slow as he wanted – remembering my first time driving these roads at night, white knuckled and leaning forward as if my posture would affect my perception of the road appearing out of the fog.
Why would I feel such an intense rush of disloyalty from that small incident? Guilt crashed in waves against my heart as I pulled into my driveway, like the niggling disloyalty of claiming a new boyfriend in public while the old one watched from the sidelines. California was my home nearly all my life, could it really only take 8 months for my loyalties to transfer? I don’t know. I have a small fear that a part of me doesn’t want to fit in here. So much of my homesickness for California is mixed into a jumbled mess of fond memories from happier days, and I have to constantly remind myself that I may not be missing the topography so much as the companionships.
Sometimes I think I think too much.
::insert a good transition here, I can’t think of any::
I have laryngitis. After experiencing difficulty speaking loudly or singing for the past 3 or so months, a doctor inserted a tube up my nose and down my throat to examine my vocal chords for suspected nodules – an issue that could only be corrected by surgery and a long and quiet recovery. I was intensely relieved to hear that no nodules were found on the chords – the discomfort in my throat had been for so long and the fear of a bigger problem so great that I couldn’t even bring myself to write of the possibilities. However, the news of long-standing laryngitis was a bit surprising. The solution? Less talking. No singing. Steroids. Speech therapy. A vocal coach. And a follow-up appointment in 3-4 weeks, with a potential second and more extensive “strobe light” examination for cists within the folds of the vocal chords – something the initial examination wouldn’t have caught.
My voice is soft, a bit scratchy, and speaking is very uncomfortable. Which means that teaching recently has been fun. But my students have been great, and have helped in leading discussions and spelling bees to give me a bit of a break. No telling how long this will stick around though – since it’s already decided to set up camp in my chords. I can smell their bonfires at my comfort’s expense.
On a more serious note, today, I have had something on my heart. I’ve been noticing the self-centered nature of my recent thoughts, and wondering what good all of my inner broken hearted evaluations were doing. So all day and all evening, I haven’t been able to get one simple line out of my head, “‘Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God.”
Not the heart of Randi, the heart of God.
So while the broken record was repeating this in my head all day, I couldn’t help thinking what it must be like to live in a world where you feel you have no hope, no purpose, that there’s no meaning in anything. I empathized by putting myself in that situation, and my heart broke…breaks… with the weight of hopelessness. Yes, I feel the heavy, heavy burden of sadness on my heart during the days and long nights. But underneath, my heart has a certain amount of comfort, because I know that my God is bigger than anything that I can understand in the here and now, and I know that He can see a beautiful picture that I am only seeing a tiny portion of. I see my life like a Monet painting. Up close, where I am – the dots and splashes of color aren’t anything special to look at. Some of them seem downright ugly, and others could simply pass beneath my glance without me even remembering I saw them. But God, He’s standing behind me, looking at the picture as a whole from afar, and what he’s seeing is a masterpiece where all I see are blotches that mean nothing to me. I want to step back and see the big picture, but God is standing near me, whispering “Not yet, not yet.”
When? I don’t know. But at the end of the day, I can rest in peace, because I know that somebody has it covered. Has me covered. And though sorrow comes in the night, joy comes in the morning. I’m waiting for my morning. And those who can see no morning in sight – those are the ones my heart weeps for this night.
Sure, I may miss California. Sure, I may feel strange about settling into my new town, feeling a part of it while feeling so different at the same time. I may hurt over a breakup, be sad over an illness. But how much do things like this even matter in the face of bigger things, soul shaking things? Not at all, really. Not at all.
I am selfish and self-centered. We all are, to some extent. Think about it.
If anyone else is reading this, whisper a prayer for those who will go to sleep tonight wondering why they are even bothering waking up in the morning. I have to go, so I can do just that.
I’m resting assured, knowing that the streets are safe with tourists.
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