And after a week out of town, I’m back. I’ve been sinking in this comfey office chair, working on graphic design all morning. It’s starting to warm up outdoors, but Jerry keeps the a/c on freezing or below here, so I’ve pulled out the uggs to keep my toes warm…and JUST warmed up a hot chocolate. Odd? Yes, but it’s how we do in the GB world. And now, for my favorite part of the day…a quick catchup with YOU. Have you got a minute? I’m sure you’re surrounded by stickie hands or stacks of paper (or emails for the tech-savvy of us) or both…but surely you can take a minute and catchup?
Yes. They will wait. IT will wait. Take a moment. BREATHE.
I spent the better part of the last week in upstate New York taking my mini-me youngest and smallest Box sister to college orientation. Talk about a coming-of-age movie, I thought John Hughes was about to pop out of every bush with his director’s hat yelling “Annnnd CUT!” every minute. The gorgeous upstate New York college campus was filled with all these 18-somethings full of all the dreams and assumptions that youth brings with that young age. And in the middle of it all sat my curly, strawberry-haired darlin’ sis, the smallest of the Box clan. 90 lbs soaking wet and 5 foot nothing short, more often than not I was mistaken for the college student and her my illegitimate grade-school child.
(Lil’ Booger near the horse barn where she’ll spend every waking moment)
(Me and Lil’ Bit)
I sat in those great halls of learning, much like the ones I went to over a decade ago, and just breathed deep the musty ol’ book smell…and I remembered. I remember being wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. I remember thinking the whole world sparkled just for me. I remember thinking that first loves and adventure and rip-roaring amazing good times waited for me behind those solid oaken, collegiate-embossed doors.
And adventure and first love and hilarity did find me…as well as heartbreak and disappointment and disillusionment. Things I thought to be more sure than the breath I breathe turned out to be false and empty. And things that seemed so quiet and small that it didn’t amount to much? It turned out to be what I really needed, the real-deal. I can remember going to my own college orientation and asking my Mom if she would want to go back to college as an 18 year old. “If I could know what I know now, it would be fun to go back for a few weeks…but re-learning all that? No WAY.”
I wouldn’t want to go back. But I would love to re-kindle that wide-eyed enthusiasm about life, about what God has around the corner…that thought that at any moment the world might shift and He might reveal Himself more fully. Maybe I can’t really go “back in time”, but this past week, I saw the world through my 18 year old sis’s eyes and saw the world as it is: full of magic and adventure and all sorts of beautiful things of God.
Today, I’m looking at this new season as the freshest yet…where I get to live each day in the magical wonder of an 18 year old with the life experience of a 33 year old.
Contentment, I’m sitting in you.
Joy, you’re unconditional.
World, you are my oyster.
And Heavenly Father, You have always Been and always will Be, my Heart of Hearts…
Remembering back and looking forward…
Love y’all…
annetta
