The Weeks Past

Everything happens for a reason. And I know it now because I'm right where I need to be. And 6 months, a year, or 20 years from now maybe this will be something that happened that I look back on which adds context but does not define me. Or maybe it will be. But life is beautiful and changing and all together more mysterious and bountiful than we sometimes give God credit for.

Everything has happened in a span of weeks, and most of it is in my head and my heart, and only some of it makes sense. Like reading a book while listening to the music that you put on a mix for a boy while riding down the highway on the way to a family reunion. A zillion thoughts stemming from one little speck of me as I barreled away from one place and towards another. How South Carolina looks so different from North Carolina. How most things seem sweeter, smaller, older, closer. Signs for peaches and ice cream and boiled peanuts. The single-wide trailers well rooted in the ground with porches and gardens out front. A sign that it isn't a temporary stop, but a place to live a life. The air becoming more and more humid. My sister and Eric sleeping. Wondering what she thinks about when she's in his arms. Or if she maybe just doesn't and is happy to be there.

Scooching down in the seat and turning my attention back to a book which whisked me far away and sucked me back in immediately. Becoming all too caught up with the characters the way I always do, letting their emotions and circumstances become my own. A risky way to read. Defining my life in terms of the written words, trying to make sense of my own feelings. Feelings. Feelings of soooooo much not knowing. Which is funny, isn't it? When you think so much yet know nothing at all.

Then arriving there to see all the old people whose names I didn't know and faces which may have seemed familiar only because they favored that of my grandpa. So I ate and sat awkwardly and waited for someone to tell me I was pretty, which they didn't, which saved me the effort of being shy and grateful. And then later I just went outside in the heat, found some shade in a door frame of the church we were at and read more and more. And somewhere in between so many flipped pages I stopped and paused and looked out sadly at the grass that was just a day or two past needing to be cut and the wildflowers popping up here and there and sang myself a little song. It was about needing and wanting and wishing, and thinking that even though maybe I didn't tell somebody to come, I still wanted them there. But that didn't mean too much. It didn't mean I wanted to be in love, or was, or am, or anything. It just meant that when I closed my eyes they were there. That all the unnamed relatives and gospel singing and balmy South Carolina weather would have been more bearable with them there. And a line about the sun in my eyes being bright, and the want for something summery and simple. And I wish I remembered how that song went.