It's about time...

Time is......nebulous.




Have you ever noticed how two people can be looking at the same thing and see it entirely differently? It's one thing, it only has so much room for interpretation and yet they can only agree on each others misinterpretation. And try as they may, the onlookers don't even see the thing in the first place.



I have always known what I want (for that particular moment, anyway.) And I've always known who I am, what I'm about. In fourth grade I walked up to a boy and said, "I like you. Do you like me or should I start liking someone else?" Pretty simple question, really. Yes. Or no. Guess I was never one to beat around the bush. And this certainty makes it harder to understand others hesitancy. Mother always said, "When in doubt, don't." (Of course, she was talking about clothes shopping but I think it applies to everything.) And if you doubt, then you put it back on the rack and move on to something else. But if a part of you is attached, then you keep it awhile and see if buyers remorse ever even enters the picture. (The point was to leave with something you really loved, not something you were settling for just because it was on the sale rack).



And maybe Mother's great shopping pearls of wisdom can be true of relationships greater than the ones we have with designer dresses (though for me, that love affair is incomparable). Maybe the people that we love are also worth holding onto, if the doubts don't outweigh the desire. But I suppose one of the greatest leaps of faith is trusting people you love in spite of their swirling vortexes of misgivings. (Yes, the labyrinth of plaguing apprehension is so great it calls for "swirling vortexes").

Jesus said, Trust Me, I know what I'm doing. And I do trust Him, even when the people I love aren't sure of what they're doing. Maybe that's all God wanted to test: Can we still love when all hope has seemed to vanish? And I do. Strangely enough, I do. A friend I have not seen in three years returns in several months and my love for him fills my heart with hope that we may be able to pick up our relationship from where we last left it, in spite of years of lost contact that would imply this will never be. Some people remain elusive and never stay in one spot long enough for you to love them and so you love them from a distance. But when they stay long enough to see that you loved in spite of them, well, then that's a thing that has no room for interpretation; simply bliss.



Sometimes things really are black and white. There are certainly grey areas, I suppose, but sometimes I wonder if that's just a cover to try and soften the blow of the black that's really there. Sometimes there aren't clear answers. Sometimes they are more complicated than the simple yes and no of fourth grade. But if you do ask and they say nothing, well, then it may be time to start liking something else.

After my first love, my first heartache, my Mom tried to reassure me that "this too shall pass." And years later, when I was recovering from a different heartache, she brought up that past one and tried to reassure me with, "remember, you thought you'd never get over that and now here you are?" Maybe we go through great loss to teach ourselves how to move on. We always think "this one's different" but it's really not, it's just another let down. And it's not the last. And in some backwards way, I find comfort in that.