What's Next?

 I don't have any resolutions for this new year. I've been trying to remember when I stopped doing that, and I think it was 2020. When my health disappeared completely from December 2020 to January of 2021. I haven't picked up the habit again, since. To be honest, it seems slightly pointless to me.

I've been working, and hopefully growing, so consistently the past couple of years, that making extra plans or setting extra goals seems unnecessary.

2020 was a strange year. I think it started out well, but I don't actually remember anything pre-pandemic. I had a pandemic roommate for a couple of months, which was a new experience. It went poorly, which was even more of a new experience, and it definitely threw me off. In July 2020, my relationship with my mom shifted, and I became more independent. I went to Newport with just myself and Bailey. My first time taking a day trip without other people. In the fall, Mom and I went to Portland during what seemed like a lull in the pandemic, to celebrate my 21st birthday. We ate sooo much fantastic food, and I got to show her the Grotto. It's a really special place to me, and I'm not entirely sure why.

And then in December of 2020, I think I had an adrenal crash. All year, the drastic social and political climate had been wearing on me. I'd been engaging in small-scale activism and picking up other people's pain and burdens. I couldn't approach my neighbors freely without feeling defensive and endangered. My relationship with my former roommate had disintegrated. Every topic felt like an issue that no one agreed with me on, which was so stressful for my newly-forming sense of ethics and integrity.

I laid on my couch, basically paralyzed for over a month, maybe two months? I'm not sure. 

I slept roughly 20 hours a day, probably more. I was scared to walk down the stairs. I couldn't stand up straight or steady. I would wake up just long enough to take Bailey outside, and then need to nap for a few hours before I had the energy to sit up and try to eat. Sort of. My body was so heavy that I couldn't get it to move at all. I relied completely on other people to bring me food.

My doctor was no help. 

I started taking an adrenal support supplement on a hunch. I don't remember whose hunch it was.

Eventually I started feeling better.

All through 2021 I was scared and trying to find my capabilities. Whenever I would "overdo it" I would experience the same problem of feeling glued down to my couch for most of the day. Sometimes it would last a week, sometimes longer. I never knew where my limits were. They kept shifting.

Slowly but surely, I started to rebuild my life. With a lot of caution. 

I started therapy again. I started gaining more self-awareness. I started feeling like my life was too big for me to manage it. I started the project of moving into the trailer.

The trailer was a really good thing. It was always there when I had a spare bit of energy and needed something to look forward to. But there was no set day-to-day schedule. It was also something that my close friends and family really helped me out with, which helped me rebuild my sense of community, just a little.

Just before Thanksgiving of 2021, I went to Eastern Oregon. I wasn't sure entirely why I was going there, or how long I would stay, or how it would go. We parked the trailer at my Uncle Leland's place, in a spot that Aunt Sandra had lobbied for. It had an amazing view of the mountains.

I still miss those mountains.

Eastern Oregon was the first time/place in years that I'd really had a social life at all. There was always something going on, and I was always welcome to tag along. I was able to do as much as I had the energy to do, without the effort of being the one to make it happen. It was a really safe environment for me to settle back into my body and try to trust it again. And it's also where I had my first extensive set of experiences caring for babies. I didn't realize I could fall for someone that hard, but I loved and prayed over Uncle Lelands' foster baby every day. I adore her so much, and I'm really glad she has a good home now.

I explored a lot of things in Eastern Oregon. I tried out a new community, I started testing out the implications of the beliefs I'd started developing in 2020, and I started experiencing a sense of calling. A master plan for my life that fits just me. Something I greatly want to see and be a part of. I want to see who I am.

Eastern Oregon helped rekindle hope.

And then it was time to come home, in January of 2022.

I was just going to reflect on this past year, but I've gotten this far in the post and I don't feel like going back now.

This year started off with a bit more difficulty. The transition back to the valley was hard, but I knew I was supposed to be here. I spent a few months feeling discouraged that I still had some things packed up. The trailer wasn't in its (semi)permanent space, so I hadn't planned to unpack everything. But then I was stuck in a temporary parking place and also in a mid-transition rut for at least a couple months. It was depressing.

I think I started slightly entering the dating world in the early spring or so. 

I didn't find a boyfriend, lol, but I met some fantastic people, some of whom turned into lovely friends. I started learning about other perspectives, which were extremely different from my own. It was exciting and fun and deeply fascinating.

I need a sense of discovery to be fulfilled in life.

I decided I need a social life as well. That was one of the biggest differences between my life here in the valley, and the positive parts of life in Eastern Oregon.

Hannah and I decided to befriend a guy named Zeb from our church small group. The trailer doesn't have an oven that works for me, so I started baking at his apartment, where I also became friends with his roommate Mike. Between that and the people I met online, I started having people to hang out with and have adventures with.

Hannah moved into my old apartment this summer, which was amazing. We're closer neighbors than ever! It's so fun to be able to pop in for a cup of tea or a conversation. Or to just sit on her couch in the evenings and laugh at memes until I collapse.

I started doing campfires this summer. And that solidified a bit of a friend group. I reconnected with Marissa, who got to know Tristan in college and has become a lovely family friend. I started getting to know Maggie, whom I had gone to youth group with, but not really talked to before. There are many other people, but Marissa and Maggie and the guys were the most consistent, so we all started getting to know each other.

Marissa suggested baking a pie with all of us gals. We did it at Hannah's apartment, and we all connected and had such a great time, that we've been finding ways to hang out ever since! Even though the weather isn't great for campfires.

I've never had a friend group before. I've never had places to go and be with people and feel just as comfortable as I do at home. Places where I know the routines and dynamics and I can just settle in and be myself. I think that's a perk of having friends with their own places. We make our own routines.

I posted on Facebook awhile ago, that most of my friendships were formed this year.

It's amazing to me how quickly I've gotten so close to people. I mentioned to Mike last night that I've only known him for roughly 6 months or less, because he wasn't at my birthday party in May.

He's one of my best friends- Marissa and I baked his birthday cake in November. He offered to postpone his Thanksgiving plans if I needed anything during a family emergency. 

How did we get here?

I don't know, but I'm so grateful.

There's a lot I'm missing. Reconnecting with a couple of cousins on my dad's side of the family. Accidentally obtaining 2 new kittens. Having the first dtr conversations of my life. Becoming more and more independent of my immediate family. Connecting really strongly to my big sis Tiffany and her family in the past few months, especially. Learning to trust and rely on newer relationships: to trust other people. Learning to reach out to trusted mentors for guidance.

Learning the joys of discovery and the security of a strong foundation. Learning to advocate for myself and others without needing to be aggressive. Settling in to my relationship with God.

If 2020 was a year of fear and uncertainty, and 2021 was a year of loss and then rebuilding, then 2022 was a year of discovery and settling in.

My relationship with God is more natural and open than it's ever been. My desire to do the right thing has been slowly adapting to a desire to be myself. God created my core- my actual, true identity. I want to pursue that with openness and enthusiasm and vulnerability and tenacity and grace.

I want to be me.

I'm not entirely sure what that looks like, but I do know parts of it.

I am strong. I am caring. I am curious. I am full of wonder. I have integrity. I am joyful. I am open and uncertain.

I've been learning to leave room for the Holy Spirit in my life. I desperately want to be malleable. I want to be open and ready for whatever God asks of me each day, week, month....

This has been the best year of my life, I think.

I have laughed, cried, yelled at God, and confronted injustice. I have hurt and grieved and built something beautiful around me. God has given me all of this and so much more.

I'm not sure when the bubble will burst.

But until then, I choose to live with joyous abandon, relishing each moment of freedom and energy. I will cling to my friends and love them as fiercely and gently as I can. I will pursue God and continue to bring Him my challenges and questions and gratitude. I will care for the people around me without wavering for as long as I am able. I will pursue that which I am meant to be, and I will dive in, to the glorious and terrifying uncertainty of the future.

Here's to 2023. We'll see what's next.

~Dolly

The Spirit of Christmas

 To me, joy is such a part of the Christmas season.

Not just the gifts or the traditions or the food or even the loved ones to celebrate with...

It's a time that we focus attention on what is always true; we are each loved by an incomprehensible Being, to an unfathomable degree.

What's the opposite of Lovecraftian/cosmic horror?

Maybe it's wonder. Encountering the vast and unknown, and emerging better for it. Eyes wide open to take in the goodness in the world. And, speaking from grueling, painful experience... there is joy here. There is goodness in the world to be celebrated. All the way from a dog's wagging tail or a cat's sleepy stretch, to a foggy sunrise, to the very act of God Themself becoming a painfully fragile and sweet baby.

These are things to gawk over. Things that strip away our facade of dignity in the best possible ways.

There is wonder in this world, if we have the strength to look for it.

Sometimes we don't. But in this season where (hopefully) the people around us are also feeling the "Christmas spirit", may we all help each other to recognize the good and the beautiful and the wondrous.

Anyway, that was all intro, haha. 

The second of the Advent devotionals I wrote for church, came out yesterday. 😊 It's about joy. It's a little rushed and squished together. I wrote it last-minute, amidst a very intense family emergency. I also struggled to fit my thoughts into the the word count. 😅 

But I offer it to you anyway.

There's a podcast  version on Spotify, or you can keep scrolling on this post to read it, if you prefer that method. 

The Wonder of Joy

Receiving presents has never been the biggest highlight of Christmas for me. As a child, I definitely loved the excitement of whatever could be hidden in a brightly-colored package, but there's something just deliciously exciting about all the effort that goes into giving something. The time spent picking just the right thing, or the investment of making something meaningful.  

When my family opens presents, we go around in a circle. Whoever is taking their turn doesn't receive a gift, they choose one to give. And all the planning and excitement builds into the bated breath of that one moment. 

Because we're all caught up in the excitement together, the response is always worth it. Everyone comments on what a great choice the gift was, while the recipient displays it proudly.

It's lovely to know that you chose something meaningful to show care for someone you love. But there's something to be said about the moment right before the wrapping is pulled back. That feeling of vulnerability and excitement and love that all wraps up into a wondrous bundle called joy.

I wonder if that's how God felt a couple thousand years ago. He had spent so long preparing to give the most precious and meaningful gift available to Him, and here was the moment that it was about to be unveiled. Was God excited to give us something so precious? Was He nervous about making His Gift vulnerable to the rejection of so many? I don't know how God felt, but I do know that the angels rejoiced and the shepherds were in awe, and that God was behind it all.

Sometimes a small gift holds so much meaning and depth that it brings out a bigger reaction than you'd expect. But those are the most precious gifts of all.

Advent, Wonder, and Peace

 Hello! Merry early holidays! 😊

During the Advent season, my church does a devotional, where each day is written by someone from church. 

This year they asked me to write a couple, so I did. The overall theme for the whole Advent series this year is wonder, which seems so fitting to me. Wonder speaks to the bigness of God; the fact that we can't understand everything He's doing, but whatever it is, it's good. It's that awestruck moment that catches your breath away for a moment, when you catch a true glimpse of beauty and glory.

Like seeing a leaf trimmed with frost crystals, or a rainbow refracted in a dewdrop, or a golden sunset reflected on the creek. The little things that God sets in front of us, that reveal bits of Himself.

The first devotional I wrote was on Peace.

It came out on the church's Advent podcast a couple of days ago, so now I feel free to post it publicly, hahaha. It's not a spoiler anymore.

Anyway feel free to listen to the podcast, but if that's not your thing, here's what I wrote:

The Wonder of Peace

I love traditions. There's just something about the comfort of falling into a routine and being able to be fully in the moment, because you know exactly what's coming next. There's no worry about what each moment may hold, and no pressure to make any plans or decisions.

My family's Christmas Eve ritual is one of my favorite traditions. I remember being a small child, and running all through the house to collect every candle my brother Tristan and I could find. Mom and Dad would get out the oil lamps, because we probably would've spilled or broken them.

We'd gather all of them in the living room and light every single one. Tristan and I would excitedly compete for the privilege of turning off the big lights.

And then ...

We would all sit quietly and watch the dancing flames, until Dad would start, "And it came to pass, in those days..." 

We would all join in: "...that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed," and together our family would recite Luke 2 from memory, still watching the flickering lights. I can't describe that feeling of absolute contentment and stillness and amazement. In between the big meal and the exciting presents, we would all pause to let the truth sink in- that God really came and He was a baby, just like we each were, at one point. I don't remember all the gifts I got over the years, or all the delicious dinners. But I do remember pausing to reflect, to be still and know what Christmas is about. That feeling comes over me afresh every Christmas Eve- the peace and wonder of the Presence of God.