In-Between

Today marks the end of the fourth week (!) since I finished up work at University Presbyterian Church. I have been living in Beacon Hill at my grandma's two-bedroom condo, and have been spending much of my time cleaning up and cleaning out the place to get it ready for sale. My grandma has vascular dementia and for more than a year has been living in assisted care facilities while her old condo has remained vacant.

The kitchen and hallway closet which have since been significantly de-cluttered.

Systematically going through different sections of the condo boxing up items to donate to Goodwill, and cleaning (sweeping, mopping, dusting, vacuuming), has been a welcome challenge to tackle in this in-between time prior to my return to Bolivia in January 2016. I am amazed with the sheer amount of unopened items (platters, vases, clothes, pots, pans, mugs, tea pots) Grandma stored in her closets. I assume she intended to either use these things later, or give them to others as gifts.

My favorite things I have stumbled upon so far have been some precious old photos from my dad's childhood and even from grandma's childhood, her high school diploma from Franklin High School and her yearbook (1949). She also tended to save birthday, Mother's Day and Christmas cards from family. Those cards kind of make me sad when I realize she probably would have little to no interest in reading them in her current condition. I am saving them in a box anyway.

As I reflect and pray about my upcoming departure to Bolivia, I am overcome with gratitude and also hit with a considerable dose of sorrow thinking about the dear family and friends I will be leaving in order to serve with the Bolivian church and to engage in God's purposes there. So I am doing my best to be grateful for each day here in Seattle. It's not always comfortable to be in this in-between space between points A (UPC) and B (Bolivia) but I so am thankful for it! Working, resting, waiting, praying, preparing. It is all good!

Sunrise from Grandma's condo

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight" (Ephesians 1:3-4). 

Family

First vacation since entering the workforce in November of 2012? Absolute luxury. Spent a week in central Oregon with my mom's side of the family biking, jogging, eating and playing Bananagrams. Like, a lot. It was a really special time in light of my big move coming up in a couple of weeks.

As our family has really begun to show signs of aging in the past five years or so, the emotional stakes are increasing exponentially. When my cousin and I played and sang a send-off song for our great aunts and great uncle, we were surprised to find ourselves choked up and nearly unable to finish the final stanza. Although we sang, "until we meet again," our power to control whether we would actually see them in the near future, or if God decided to "take them home" before then, was totally out of our control.

Time is funny. Think about siblings... You spend practically all your time together growing up. Then marriage and kids hit and it gets tougher to get together. Then old age hits and due to disability it's a downright struggle to meet, especially when living across states. I got so sad watching my grandpa hug his lil' bro goodbye. I mean, he really doesn't and can't know if he'll ever see him again.

Enough sadness, though. What was really sweet this vacation was to see how all the younger (as in under 70 years of age) people pitched in to serve the elders. It felt so Asian; it was awesome. We had a buffet-style dinner at my grandparents' unit every night, and they got the place of honor at the table with my great aunties and great uncle. Since my grandma is in a wheelchair, others in the family would volunteer to make her plate and bring it to her. One time I was re-heating lunch leftovers and my great-aunt said to me, "That's really nice that you do that for your grandma." But to me I was like, "What?" I guess because we've been doing it for so long that it just feels natural.

I also loved the way in which the young people (as in my generation people) were really demonstrating being adults. It was so refreshing! We got to cook a big family meal together of "street tacos" three ways (pork, chicken and beef) with corn, grilled vegetables and two kinds of fresh salsa. To see that the rest of the family truly enjoyed the food was definitely a surprise. And talking late into the night with my cousins I understood that they, too, are thinking about Grandma and Grandpa and the fact that we don't know for how much longer they'll be in our lives.

I was struck by something my oldest cousin said. She said more or less that she had expected Grandma and Grandpa to go years back. Everything beyond that as been "gravy," she said.

Wow. Instead of feeling entitled to more time with Grandma and Grandpa, and maintaining a mentality of never wanting to let them go, she sees it as just a gift--a pure gift to have time, any time, with them now.

That sh1t is f*cking profound.

Free to Be

Yesterday I received in the mail a bottle of "Riots Not Diets" 3-free indie nail polish from Plump Polish, a brand recently launched by fat activist bloggers Kyla and Margitte. Each of their fun and quirky colors are named after a different blogger ("Riots Not Diets" is the name of Margitte's blog) and include colorful confetti! I was surprised how excited I was to receive and try out new nail polish. Like, I was really delighted. Why do I find so much pleasure and solace and satisfaction in painting my nails? I don't really know. It's therapeutic to me, and that's all that matters.

So what if nail polish is a conformist way of performing my gender? So what if its unnatural-looking and artificial? It's one hour a week where I'm doing something utterly and completely mindless, where I don't have to analyze things or be intelligent and articulate and self-aware.

Last Saturday I attended a six-hour long retreat meant for a time of silence and listening to God. I fell asleep three times. It's so hard to transition from "work" April into praying April. I still feel like I need to be super competent, "on top of things," focused and "in the zone" when I'm with God. I feel like I need to be thankful for all of the right things, and praise him instead of being self-involved, and have all these deep questions for him, and know exactly how to express my needs and desires to him, and pay attention without my mind veering.

And yet the phrase from the Bible readings that stuck out to me most at the retreat was "just be there" (from Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of Matthew 6:6-7 in The Message).

Hm.

I've been considering to myself lately, "Who do I feel safe with?" Who do I feel safe enough with that my "just being there" is enough--I don't have to "perform to the best of my abilities"? In those safe relationships, I can exhale mentally because there is no performance compenent to our relationship. I'm not expected to be my "best self." I'm just expected to be myself.

Whew, I cannot wait to spend time with Rachel tonight so that I can just be me. ilu, Rachel. Happy Friday, everyone!

Thankful

One of the perks (among many) of being a young person is having a continual sense of how transitory and fleeting everything is. Like, not in a morbid or Buddhist sense per se but in a grateful way. It's hit me lately that the things I enjoy today, I may not be enjoying five years from now.

For example, my parents and I hosted an Oscars viewing party on Sunday evening and invited my grandparents and my uncle and aunt over. We've done a lot of things like this over the years--had people over to watch football games or other random crap. Nevertheless, I was very thankful for the gathering, just because I don't know how much longer my grandparents will be able to travel, or how much longer I'll be living at home with my parents. I made a huge pot of chili with brown rice and my favorite braised collard greens recipe. My aunt brought over spaghetti with multigrain noodles. My grandparents brought delicious fried chicken from Skyway. It's the same thing we've done time and again and yet I was very grateful for it.

Or I was thinking about how special it was to get together with my close girl friends the day after Valentine's Day and share dinner together. I think about my mom and how her (formerly) close friends have husbands and kids now, and it's much more difficult to get together. Just the fact that my friends can come over and we can play jenga and laugh at our own unfunny jokes and binge-eat chocolate... I'm just really glad that (for now) we can still do that. It's actually incredible that we're still in the same geographic region (again, for now).

Or even last Friday taking light rail from work and getting picked up at the station by my grandpa (like last year when I used to live with him and grandma) and eating piroshkis with them for dinner while watching the six o'clock news.

Or walking to work with my mom at 7:30 in the morning while it's cold and windy, but her hugging me and wishing me a good day--I mean, isn't that sweet?

Or meeting up with my Christian friends for coffee and knowing deep down that they care about what's going on in my life and the things that I think and stuff?

These fleeting moments of togetherness with the people dear to me--I've really been taking them to heart lately. I don't know where I'll be two years from now; I don't even know where I'll be one year from now! All the same, though, life is good.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, God. Thank you, Lord.
-my standard before-dinner prayer

Valentine's Day Reflections

Kay had a couple of epiphanies so I need to type them out really quickly before se me desaparezcan.

Romantic love and desire to to be worshiped

I was doing some self-examiniation this morning--just trying to press and prod myself to figure out why in the world I'm so bummed to not be in a romantic relationship at the mo--like, I don't really understand it? THEN IT HIT ME LIKE A TON OF BRICKS (hackneyed idiom use is ironic, duh): I miss being worshiped! When I was in a relationship, I had this constant stream of affirmations coming my way (at least when we were in the initial honeymoon phase). It was like, every time my ex would find out something new and unexpected about me he'd be like, You are just the cutest thing! I wanna put you in my pocket! He basically thought I was adorable. I felt adorable. I was like, Yah, that's right, I'm the sh1t!

Being in a relationship fed my vanity so much, because my ex would tell me in person or through his hand-written letters (yep, we were one of those couples) all of the little detailed things about me that he loved. Wow, I could get used to this. Someone is fascinated by me. Finally, I'm getting the recognition I deserve for being so amazing! HAHAHAHA. This is nothing new, but it's nice to be noticed. It's nice to be paid attention to.

So on Valentine's Day, when lots of people are going out to celebrate with their "special someone," I'll admit, I miss having a person to treat me like I'm special! And I berate myself for being an ungrateful brat because obviously, I have so many people in my life that appreciate me on a daily basis--mostly my parents and Rachel and HALF and, like, hella women at church are super affirming and nice to me--soooo why am I pining for a guy to gush about how awesome I am? I don't know. Why do I feel what I feel! "STOP. POOPING." -Chris Traeger of Parks and Recreation.

The point is that I realized that some of my motivation for wanting to be in a romantic relationship is purely selfish and vain and needy and weird? K. That's one epiphany I had.

Romantic love as discovering another person

The other plus to being in a relationship is, like, really delving into the mystery of who another person really is. Having a crush is exhilirating because I'm thinking to myself, Who are you? Definitely meaning to be arrogant, I can usually "get" people pretty quickly--like I understand their motivations for behavior and can predict pretty well how they'll react to me. I guess it's a gift? Intuition, BAM. Thanx, Lord, for making me the way that I am. The exciting thing about having a crush is that there's more of a sense of a challenge.. Like, the guy I am interested in currently, I can't read for crap. It's like, I seriously don't know what he's thinking, or how he'll react to me. It's frightening because I'm proved incompetent in the very area that I profess to be infallibly competent (intuiting peeps), but also great???

Thank you, nedroidcomics for your eerily apropos art.

Anyway, that's enough self-actualizing for now. Happy Valentine's Day to my readers (e.g. Mom and Rachel). Don't worry. I'm, like, 67% content with being single, and a D+ in this department is pretty much good enough for me.

I LOVE YOU ALL and APPRECIATE YOU ALL--YOU ARE THE BEST.

Positivity and the like.

Post-GRE Catharsis Post

AHHHH words cannot express how elated I am to be done with the GRE! I prepped for three weeks off & on, did four practice tests and have been waking up at 6:30ish for the past seven days (ugh, it was TORTURE) cuz I had to get to the testing center by 7:30AM today.

It's always crazy scary to embark on high-stakes endeavors, like when I decided to go live in Mexico for ten weeks. So trying to get into graduate school it's like WAAAAHHHH, please let me not mess this up. There's a lot riding on this. And it's tough to be honest with myself but really really I am so excited at the possibility of being in UW's MPA program, but I'm trying to temper my excitement just in case I don't get in this time 'round. They only admit 220 students a year!

But ya know what? I'm not eaten up with anxiety or fear of being rejected. I figure that if I'm not ready for the program, then I'm not ready. I'll redirect--keep looking for a job and do all of this soul-searching/discerning all over again. As much as it seems that peeps may lock into a profession and ride it out until retirement, I'm kind of excited that my generation basically hops onto whatever--I mean, seriously, opportunist much? ;) I'd like to think of it as a form of flexibility and spontaneity and adaptability.

Anyway, I had a point that I was going to get to. These high-stakes moments where I'm doing something kinda crazy and out of my control are the moments where I'm just smacked in the face with the reality of how loved and supported and blessed I am. I'm so thankful to have a big huge TEAM of people that pray for me and text me to ask me how things went. Like, it does loads for my peace of mind and self-confidence and makes me feel so warm and fuzzy inside! I mean, here are some examples:

• My aunt and uncle lent me their laptop for a week so that I could do practice tests (mine was incompatible)
• My parents paid for the cost of taking the GRE and emphasized that they believed in me, and not to put so much pressure on myself because it cost so much
• My grandma kept asking me every Tuesday how it went, until the actually Tuesday of the test when she called me and told me to watch "Modern Family" to relax afterwards
• My peers (Lydia, Faith, Hillary, Rachel) and my family (my aunts and uncles, cousins, parents, grandparents) were all praying for me, even though I know their schedules are already packed 
• My parents took me out to dinner at the RAM to celebrate

All I can really do in response is say THANK YOU, LORD, THANK YOU, GOD, THANK YOU, LORD. Everything went well this morning. I was able to roll out of bed with plenty of time, enough to enjoy a nutritious fiber-filled breakfast (oatmeal) and prepare my thermos of chai. Traffic was virtually non-existent and I arrived with 20 minutes to spare. During the actual test I didn't get frazzled, even though some of the questions definitely stymied me. And the cherry on top: My multiple-choice scores were higher than I got on any of the four practice tests. Ugh, so much #winning, I don't know what to do with myself. I AM NOT USED TO SO MUCH SUCCESS WITHOUT AN EQUALLY PROPORTIONATE AMOUNT OF STRUGGLE.

All I can say is that this has to be by the grace of God alone. Admittedly there have been plenty of moments in the past months full of flailing and anguish and discouragement. But this one good day--wow, I'm going to hang onto it. I'm just so happy that no matter what I can just enjoy life because I'm supported unconditionally and my life is in the hands of a God that is ordering my life "just so."

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift my soul. Teach me to do your will, for you are God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

Psalm 143