I’m taking advantage of my summer off of teaching school to be artistic and learn new things.
- Boxing class.
2. Pysanka Eggs
3. Flute: I can play one note (b)
4. Photography: My favorite pictures are of the building in which I take boxing lessons and of a bee and poppy in Eugene, Oregon.
5. Reading I just finished Where Lilacs still Bloom
6. Praying. This has been a challenging few months. I’ve come through with a stronger faith though.
7. Poetry
Happiness is Now Not When
I weep a lot.
The future I expected is denied me.
I stand in the moment, a place of pain and suffering.
Trusting God has never been harder.
All the past trauma at least had the delusion of a duration.
When I grow up.
When I get married.
When I have kids.
When the kids grow up.
Then all will be well.
Then I will be happy.
Everything will be okay.
Middle age has come.
The When would have happened if it were ever going to.
New trials are upon me, and I can’t wait them out.
There is only this moment followed by another moment
I fear the pain and suffering.
I fear the future.
The children’s choices.
Sickness
Death
Pandemic
Famine
War
The When is clearly not happening.
I am not well.
It is not okay.
My heart says that there is peace within the storm, but I drown, and do not see Christ walking on the water.
I feel abandoned.
Alone.
I expect myself to brush off my knees and carry on as I have always carried on through everything.
Instead, I lay prostrated, a trail of tears trickling down my face.
I feel the hurt, the trauma, the deaths that were put off for When
The When that will never come.
Delayed moments ensnare me, bind me, tie me down.
While today’s suffering pulls out old tears previously unshed, left to fester until now.
Maybe the future will have its own suffering unburdened by these shadows of the past
Oh God save me, have compassion on me and show me your loving kindness, bring healing to my soul.
The future will not be what I imagined.
Not what I desired, but perhaps also not what I feared.
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