closing the door

somehow it seems very appropriate that we move on graduation weekend. this, the weekend before, is when i shall pack. if i can find enough boxes. but i'm sitting here looking around at all the stuff that now must somehow find its way to a new home in findlay.
i hate packing not only because it involves lifting heavy things and being forced to purge others ("what if i need that later?"), but because it also means saying goodbye. i remember the feeling of packing up at 1605 in University Commons and hated the entire thing... not only because the girls next door had a party and my parents were arriving the next day to load a truck, but because i was saying good bye to some very very wonderful elements in my life. i knew life would never be the same.
and it's kinda that way now. to jj, this house was our first home, the "love shack". to me, this was my first step into adulthood, the home to so many memories of wonderful times. it started with scraping wallpaper with mary and taping box patterns in my bedroom with scott. then there was "fun with ang and chad" night- complete with Pit and Anna and colored guitar. sitting on the couch with kristy, coming up with some of the best and worst ideas for youth events ever. i wish i had a dollar for every glass of wine we drank on that couch. then there was the crotcheting. and when K hung her hideous Kuenzli Tacky Craft wreath over my clock and wouldn't take it down until may.
Then Clinton nearly broke a toe trying to get Kristy moved out. watching movies and making smores in our backyard. small groups coming over, taking up my entire street because of bad parking jobs. setting up stations so that kids could pray throughout my entire home. making christmas goodies with alyssa, rachel and jordan. kelsey or abbie coming over so we can run.
it's crazy that it was a year ago when i said goodbye to being a church staffer. and now that i'm also leaving the place that was home to so much of that, i can see how important that space in my life really was to me. i knew it was important when i left the job, but now that i'm leaving the town, the home to it... well, i just miss it, that's all.
i'm sure ryan can vouch for it, but really it's harder on this side. kids loose one youth director (and get another). retired youth directors loose 50 kids (and there's no such thing as replacements).
ok, i need to be done with the melodrama. time to wish another one of my wonderful memories a happy grown-up life at their graduation party. onward we go.

i don't really understand... but i guess it's okay.

i saw brian beall at work the other day. we hadn't crossed paths in a while and i realized the time had lapsed since his wife was scheduled to have a baby. so i asked about her. little one is doing great, happy healthy... all that exciting stuff.
so that closes out the numbers. all the people that were due to have babies at approximately the same time as me (some of them within days), now are at home with babies. the little ones have been born and there are reasons to rejoice. new life is always a reason to rejoice.
it's just hard to believe where life has brought us in the time that we lost our baby. life has changed SOOOO significantly, and continues to do so. good things. don't get me wrong, the miscarriage was one of the hardest things i've lived... but i'm in amazement at where life has taken us since. jj swiching careers. moving. a second chance.
though part of me wants to be a little sad for myself when i see May Baby pictures, there's a part of me that just trusts. i have to. if God can change things, bring things that we need- before we even know we need them - then how much more can we trust him.
may 9 passed by pretty uneventfully... no one really noticed. but i guess i shouldn't lend any more significance to it than what it's due- that time has passed, life has changed and that each day, God brings us what we need. and he'll continue to do so every day.