| I don�t think the title of today�s entry will have anything to do with its content, but I just like the way it sounds. This is my journal and I�ll do whatever I please�which leads me to the realization that there are so many blogs out there written by people I know. One blog has a list of links that lead you to more, which lead you to more, and so on. It�s nearly impossible to keep up with these things unless you have nothing else to do the whole day. I also realize that most of these blog writers are several years younger than I am, which goes to show you that�um�young people like to write? Oh the vibrant pleasures of getting your own place for the first time�raiding Target and Costco to buy all the necessities such as toilet paper (for the bum, not for midnight raids on your friend�s house), cleaning supplies, liquid handsoap, air freshener, paper towels. And like M. observed, �Why is it all about the smell??� I went for all the cheapie deals, but my one splurge was on a bathroom rug�white with a few rows of squares in various shades of green. Beautiful, just beautiful. And life. Life is beautiful as well. This past weekend, in some unfortunate moments of car trouble on the way back to LA from Sac, M. and I realized how fortunate we were. Our left rear tire flew off the mini-van, but it did not hit any other cars, it did not cause our car to go haywire and swerve all over the freeway. We just coasted to a stop on the side of the freeway. After M.�s dad came to pick us up in a rented U-haul, we still had two hours to go before getting home. About 20 minutes from home, the transmission went out, leaving us once again stranded on the side of the road. After a long day and night on the road, we all made it home safely, in one piece. However, we knew we could have been in worse conditions. The tire could have hit someone else or caused our van more damage, even putting us in danger. This could have happened later, making it impossible to rent from the U-haul company, which closed about 20 minutes from the time we first contacted M.�s dad. The tire could have came off a week earlier when the church borrowed the van to take some high schoolers to camp. It could have happened a few hours later when M.�s parents were taking a family of 6 to the airport. Before this all happened, I was pretty sad about leaving Sac. I had a good time with my family over the weekend, and enjoyed being back at my home church. But as I left my almost-emptied room, and as I sat in the familiar, comfortable sanctuary of the church, I had the heavy realization that things move on without me. So much has changed at church, and of course, everyone and everything has moved on. I haven�t attended that church for more than a few months at a time since 1997, so it�s inevitable that this would happen. But it leaves me saddened because I don�t have anything to replace that�yet. As everyone moves on, I know that I am moving on as well. It�s just that I still feel like I�m in transition. I don�t feel like I�m in that point of being stable and saying that I�ve found a place where I am settling down and moving on. Obviously, it will be in LA, but as I�m still adjusting, I can�t say, �This is my home and this is where I am settled.� As I watch everyone all comfortable and settled in Sac, I am envious for the day when I will display that same level of �home-ness� in LA. I also can�t continue to dwell on the past and just yearn for the days when I spent the majority of my week at church, hanging out with friends, being a part of the youth group. I can�t dwell on the days when I used to hang out with people in SF, exploring the different neighborhoods. To dwell on the past means missing out on the present. If I can�t live in the present, it is guaranteed that I won�t ever settle down, that I won�t ever feel any �home-ness,� anywhere. As God protected us on the road on Sunday, He showed us all how life presents such unexpected turns. Amidst all the fatal accidents shown on the evening news, our incident had a happy ending. Life surely is full of vibrant pleasures, and maybe it will take a sobering incident and the weekend at home to show me that to live and experience the present, I need to let go of the past. Even if I�ve been uprooted so many times in the past two years, it�s not too late to take hold and grow in the present. |
| vibrant pleasures 07.16.03 |
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