A year ago, almost to the hour...

A year ago,
In all it's glory,
I was on a couch,
Similarly tired,
Looking forward to rest.

A year ago,
In that span of time,
I received word
Shockingly scared
Changing my life forever.

A year ago,
Incredibly so long and so short,
I was heading into the unknown
Blessedly confident
Doubting not that we would last this long and beyond.

I'm not sure where this month is slipping off to. This weekend is eaten by a Junior High event and then off to Rochester. The next weekend is the all-church retreat and then it's Labor Day weekend. I've lost track of the dates, I am utterly convinced that I will wake up tomorrow and it will be mid-September. But, as Dan so happily reminds me, we are getting married in 8 and a half weeks. One of my students was working at church today and asked what I was doing at work, since there wasn't any programming to be working on. If only it were that easy. If only there wasn't a few dozen unaccountable details to nail down in the next month. Speaking of which...I should get back to work.
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Part of the beauty of falling in love with you is the fear you won't fall
It hasn't felt like this before
It hasn't felt like home before you
And I know it's easy to say but it's harder to feel
This way
And I miss you more than I should than I thought I could
Can't get my mind off of you
--Joshua Radin

I don't know where the line between assumed accessory and left out is. They both require the same amount of silence.

a year ago today

There is this scene in the movie Garden State. Essentially the entire movie is the story of Andrew Largeman's homecoming, he returns home after his mother dies and the story plays out from there. Eventually the homecoming expands in theme to become a homecoming to life -- Largeman (played by Zach Braff) comes to life and starts living again. The journey to homecoming is mirrored by many other smaller journeys throughout the movie, in particular this scene to find this guy named Albert. Albert lives on the edge of an infinite abyss. In effect, his job is to live in an ark on the edge of this cavern and prevent others from exploring it. In actuality, he explores the infinite abyss under the cover of darkness. The turn in this scene, for Largeman, is when he realizes that this journey is not limited to being home, but that the infinite abyss is also life, and is demanding to be explored dynamically. "Good luck exploring the infinite abyss." "Oh thanks, and hey -- you too!"

A year ago today, I stood on the edge of the infinite abyss. A year ago tomorrow, I began exploring my abyss in ernest. I boarded a plane to Vancouver Canada and began making decisions on which part of the infinite I was to tackle first. That's the thing about infinite things for finite people -- every decision to explore one part means that something else falls by the wayside. Maybe to be returned to, but most likely, not. I decided to not live in Canada, and I will never know what that life would have looked like. And moreover, I don't want to know. If it was a life that meant I couldn't easily come home for my grandfather's funeral, that I couldn't have traveled to be at Deanna's wedding, that I couldn't be there to meet Jess' boyfriend...to even be there when Dan proposed to me...I don't want to know that life.

As I lay there this morning, reading text messages from over a year ago, I wondered at that girl and who she was. What she was thinking. How audacious the signals that she was sending were. I tried to remember the thrill of boarding that plane and the anxiety of being cut off from everyone. The abyss changes you, I can't go back to who I was, even a moment ago, I can ony be who I am in the here and now. I canonly hope that that girl continues to live and to feel and to explore the infinite abyss.