float on

i'm trying to quietly tiptoe around in my normal life, trying not to think too much about white dresses or summer flower seasons while inside i'm secretly screaming little peals of giggles and girlyness.

its a weird place to be. this "i'm pretty much totally sure but maybe only like 96% sure and i want to be 100% sure and i am not in a hurry and i'm having fun and i don't need to rush anything but who am i kidding?" it's fun. it's exciting. it's totally weird and sometimes scary.

i re-read some old journals last night. one in particular turned out to be unexpectedly reassuring. one that i started over 8 years ago, and have been reluctant to write in more than once or twice every year or so. its a journal that R gave me when i graduated from undergrad. it is a fabric covered journal with unlined pages. she called it my "husband journal" and encouraged me to write in it about the man i hope to marry. prayers, notes, ideas, lists, anything. she said that maybe one day i would give it to that person, and we would read it together, and we'd laugh about the things that fit my daydreams and the things that didn't, and i'd be able to see God's hand in our journeys to each other.

i have to tell you, i sort of wasn't crazy about that book when she gave it to me. in fact, i didn't write in it for the first time until i had had it for over a year. it freaked me out. it sort of made me sad, because it was given to me by a very dear friend, but by a very dear friend who got married at 21 to her college sweet heart. it seemed like a little box of disappointment. it seemed like the watched pot that would never boil. at least, not for me.

i've written in it maybe 6 times in 8 years. it's kind of funny to read what i wrote - what i thought would be important to keep in that particular journal. some of it is ridiculously mundane. one entry in 2004 was just a sweet but silly musing about what did my 'future husband' do that day? and i imagined a couple of examples and wrote about what i had done that day. one informative but dispassionate entry during the time that i was dating Epic Ex, and wondering whether or not he could be "it". another entry about 6 months later, just as removed, stating that clearly he was NOT, and i'm moving on with what is next for me.

the last time i wrote in "the husband journal" was in July of last year. almost exactly one year to the day before the first time i met Yale in person. that last entry was sort of a declaration. a statement of relatively contented "ok-ness" with my life. an acknowledgement that things were going to get very difficult before they got better - with mom, with my job, my finances, my friendships. but there was an undercurrent of calm in it that surprised me when i read it last night. an acceptance that i don't even remember feeling at the time. no anger or resentment. a wish that i didn't have to face these hard things alone, and a quick self-reminder that i was not alone, and would never be.

it was good to read. to regroup and reground. to remind myself that my First Love has been with me and in me throughout everything, and that He will be in this crazy, fun, exciting, daunting, sometimes confusing season too. and that He delights in giving good gifts to His children. and that He is probably really happy that i am so happy. and it gave me more lightness to just go with it, to be happy and silly and girly. and to look to Him first and i won't get lost on the path.

one step at a time, where ever we may be headed.