In Review

Wow... I've officially had a blog for a year!

So far there've been:
3 Facelifts
23 Posts Published
55 Facebook Followers (Increase the number here) 😉
and a LOT of Things learned. Things like:
How to use emojis on blogger 😑😶😀😏🌝😻🙀😸💓💁💚💛💜 (etc., etc.)
How to make posts accessible
How to write clearly
and very importantly, How to be honest. Because that's hard, especially here on the interwebs.

I've shared about my dreams and struggles and other stuff. Not everything of course, but. . . enough, I guess. So here's where my life's at now:

I'm still living in the little shop apartment with Bailey. It's been fun! Not exactly sunshine and roses though. My house is a mess, (and I don't say that lightly) Bailey and I both have anxiety issues, and I really hate washing dishes. If I'm not careful to regulate Bailey and my routine, she has an annoying tendency to pee on my clothes or poop on the floor. And until maybe a week ago (when my best friend saved my knees and back from hours of scrubbing) the bathroom floor was covered in dried kitten diarrhea. It smelled amazing! 🙄😷😑

I've mostly graduated high school. . . Just the scariest part to go! #GED #MathAndScience I'd love to get a job, honestly, but finishing the GED test comes first. And then learning to properly keep house. As in, consistently. And then, maybe I'll believe I have what it takes to enter the workforce! Of course, that's all my plan. God might very well have something else up His sleeve, and if so, I'll probably kick and scream and then write a lovely blog post about His plan- once I settle down.

Spiritually I feel like Habakkuk, crying,

How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, 'Violence!' but you do not save? 

Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. 

Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

These verses just. . . resonate with me. I know I'm not the only of God's small ones that raises a cry. We look around and then shout, "Daddy God! Look! Violence- people are killing each other and wounding hearts and look at all of us down here bleeding! Government isn't working, we don't trust our leaders, and right and wrong are so tangled we can hardly tell what's what! ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING?"

And of course, we know He is listening. I think. 😕 He must be, because I believe His reply to Habakkuk is still valid for me, right now.

“Look at the nations and watch— and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. ..."

So, I'll try to wait. I'm watching.

Y'know, all this time I thought Habakkuk was just kinda. . . stuck in there. Like filler material with a conveniently laughable name. In fact, I felt that way about most of the minor prophets. Then, of course, I gave myself a challenge of reading through them all. (Not for any spiritual reason. I just wanna be able to say that I've read the whole Bible except Song of Songs so I can quit being such a disappointment to our youth pastor.)

But it's been good. And now I hafta go home to my house and quit using my parents' internet.

Goodnight everyone! I might not know you, but I love you! If that makes sense. . . Whatever. Byeee~!

~Dolly

Empty Places

A memoir assignment in English IV landed around the one-year anniversary of my grandparent's death. Here's what I wrote:

"I love you Grandma!" a little girl exclaimed while rolling out sugar cookie dough. Flour and sugar dusted the table, as well as most of her lime-green jumper and one small eyebrow. 

"I love you Grandpa," that same girl, a little older now, thought as she climbed out of a farm truck. Her eyes sparkled as she thought of the joke they'd just shared.

That little girl was me. Years later, as I stood beside a pair coffins, part that little girl still inside me. . . died.

I clearly remember the weeks leading up to the car wreck. Grandpa and Grandma were going to go on a road trip across the United States, stopping in at friends' and family's houses on the way. Spring was coming- Easter was soon. Grandma talked of almost nothing else, and Grandpa talked of almost nothing (as usual). He still showed anticipation though, in his quiet way. Everything reflected hope.

Just a few days before they left, we stopped in for a quick visit. Grandma excitedly beckoned Mom and me over and pulled something out of her dress pocket- a cell phone! She showed us how it worked, told us how many minutes they had rolled over. Her excitement was contagious, and we all laughed before she gave me and Mom each an enthusiastic hug.

Then a few days after they left, a Friday- Good Friday- Mom and Dad called my brother and I downstairs. Somewhere in Wisconsin, there had been a random car wreck. But for us, it wasn't so random. Because Grandpa had died immediately. Because Grandma was in a hospital somewhere far away, on life support. This wasn't just a random wreck on the news. This was pain. Loneliness and uncertainty, yes; but nothing at all like random.

At first, there were no reactions. Just silence- then came quiet crying that morphed into sobbing; this was real. Dad flew out to Wisconsin that day. He came back and got me a week or so later, I think. Time blurs around these memories: there are clear scenes and moments, but no full, coherent timeline.

The hospital was comforting. Sterilely white; white walls, white hospital beds with white sheets, white ceiling, white tile floor that reflected the blindingly white lights. There were no emotions here. Everything moved on a schedule, everything was structured. Everything would be fine.

I spent a lot of time in Grandma's hospital room, and often there was just the two of us. I'd sit in an office chair that was about as tall as me and I'd color and pray. I also brought a paperback, spiral-bound hymnal and my Bible, and sang out of one and read out of the other. Days at Grandpa and Grandma's house had always been bookended with Bible reading, and Grandma and I used to sing together while washing dishes. I hung on to hope that those things would happen again.

Then on Dad and my last day in Wisconsin, a cocky young intern or something came in and started unhooking the tangle of wires and cords attached to Grandma's head. I asked why.

"Because she's just doing so much better!" he replied cheerfully, barely glancing up from what he was doing.

Hope! Maybe God wanted to help us!

We flew home shortly after that. Driving away from the airport, Mom and Dad started discussing what would happen when Life Support was pulled off. I freaked out. Uncontrollable crying; intense, sharp jabs of pain through my heart and stomach. Complete helplessness. Everyone knew this was coming. But Dad was dealing with so much that he'd forgotten to inform me of what was going on. So, I had no introduction chapter to grief- not for the wreck that killed Grandpa- not for the sustained injuries that killed Grandma.

Coming home was hard. As in, it-would-not-be-Christian-to-punch-this-person-in-the-face, kind of hard. Whom did I want to punch? Those relatives who put on an elegant display of tragic grief, the people I didn't know at all who introduced themselves just to force their grief on me, and definitely that lady who looked at me so sympathetically and insisted that things were absolutely terrible for me and I was completely miserable from being reminded of my horrible loss at every turn. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy. . . long-suffering. . . " Sigh.

Now, as I sit in what used to be Grandma's kitchen and write about her, as I gaze out at the washroom where Grandpa used to come in to clean up and I write about him, I realize how much they taught me and how much their death changed me. From Grandma I learned industriousness, how to respectfully disagree, and the importance of loving those people you disagree with. From Grandpa I learned to wait for others to speak, to value words, to talk (safely!) to a stranger, and how to say things without speaking.

In losing them, I utilized what they taught me. I had to love those people I wanted to punch, and to express that love by letting them speak their grief. I had to learn to say, "I get it. I'm dealing with this loss, too," without talking, to use a simple facial expression to communicate openness and sympathy. I learned that people struggle, and I need to have patience and love them anyway. I learned that hurt doesn't come all at once, but in waves. Even now, over year later, some residual grief will wash over my heart, and its salt will sting the places that are still cut open.

But I can look back, back over what my grandparents taught me without saying a word, and forward- forward to seeing them again sometime, who-knows-when, and saying "thank you" for all the things they taught and still teach me.

You are honored, missed, still loved and forever(?) remembered. 

Tea Memories

I haven't always been a tea drinker, at least, not a sophisticated one. My mom's always been a coffee person, so I grew up appreciating lattes, breves, normal coffee with (lots of) cream, etc. My Dad kept a stash of mint teas, and Mom occasionally made us drink chamomile (ugh) or sleepytime blends when we were having particular insomnia, but I'd never had experience beyond that.

All that changed when I was at Brownsville Mennonite's Girl's Club, and we had a tea party. The ladies in my cousin Jenny's (here's her creative blog. she writes her own poetry!) family are all avid tea drinkers, to the best of my knowledge, and Auntie Dorcas (her very insightful blog is here) brought an array of teas, including some fancy loose-leaf black tea from Kenya. Honestly, it wasn't my favorite. Kind of bitter and dark and strong, so not the ideal tea to start out with, but it broadened my horizons.

Later, after I (finally!) passed Driver's Ed (That's a story for another time, if ya'll wanna hear. . . read? . . . it.), Mom and I stopped by Auntie Dorcas's to tell them the good news, especially since it's a house full of empathetic listeners. When she heard the news, my cousin Emily (her blog is here, and it's pretty awesome. She's pretty adventurous.) literally jumped in the air, then ran upstairs to grab a celebratory pot of tea she'd been brewing in her room. (I told you they were avid tea drinkers.) That's when tea started to become a sign of happy memories and hospitality: something warm and comforting.

Then about a year ago, one of my favoritest people started broadening her own tea horizons, and I was invited along for the ride. This past school year and summer vacation especially, Hannah and I hung out a lot. And tea was quite often involved. We would sit around, listening to a new favorite song, talking about her latest Ted Dekker book, and catching up on each other's lives. And drinking tea. My personal favorite was Meyer Lemon (which we can only find at Fred Meyer's, which amuses us), and Hannah tried something different each time. She's more of a tea-adventurer than I am. During this time, my appreciation of tea deepened and became a sign of connections and friendships and shared enjoyment and peaceful. . . just abiding together. To me, abiding is being so comfortable with someone that you can totally rest in their presence without feeling threatened, and bare your heart without fear of rejection. That's what tea started to represent to me.

During this summer vacation (I think), Hannah made us a London fog. I pretended to be helpful and tried to stay out of the way. More recently, we experimented together on Early Grey Shortbread Cookies for a tea party. That's when tea, specifically Earl Grey, came to represent teamwork and warm fuzzy feelings, like the wonderful smells of cookies and tea mingled together and filling the kitchen, or the companionable feeling of making a drink together and then getting to appreciate your efforts. In short, I'm sitting by an empty jar that used to hold a London Fog I made this morning, and remembering how I got to this point. A year ago, I maybe would've had an idea of what Earl Grey was. Maybe. Now I have an entire (though short) tea history to look back over!

I'm grateful for the people that helped me get here. Auntie Dorcas, who introduced me to black tea, Emily, who introduced me to the celebration of tea, and Hannah, who introduced me to the companionship of tea. You have truly filed my life with good things. I'm grateful for our shared tea memories, and the new tea moments we'll hopefully share together.

~Dolly