movin' on .. maybe -- from 2-26-23

 sometimes we must move on.

sometimes all we can do is move on.

sometimes we must simply move on.

sometimes it's as simple as moving on.

sometimes, though it hurts, we must move on.

sometimes we just must.

--

From August 2021 to May 2022, I was enrolled at the loveliest little Christian college.

For 9 crazy and wonderful months, I was a Grace Tiger.

My coach still tells me I am yet a Tiger.

But of course it doesn't feel the same. I was a Tiger for a year, I may forever be an old/alumnus/honorary Tiger, but I will (likely) never actively be a Tiger again.

It cuts. 

Like tiger claws shredding my heart. 

It really hurts.

these days I am a mostly-miserable community college student. I'm the worst student I've ever been. last semester I got a 3.47 GPA. I've never had a GPA that low. I didn't make any lists--not the President's List, not even the Dean's List.

last year, as a Tiger, I made President's and then Dean's.

I've just become worse and worse as a student since high school.

i don't know what I'm gonna do with myself.

these days I am filling my time, my soul, my heart, my head with select 80s music, inflated procrastination, the looming doom and gloom of the future, and the ever-abiding (even if just an undercurrent) feelings of hopelessness, despair, and emptiness.

I go back and forth, often, on longing for a boyfriend/future husband as well. I've never been in that kind of relationship. sometimes I doubt I ever will. sometimes I'm sure I will someday, but I'm tired of waiting. sometimes I'm scared of the prospect of being in a relationship like that. sometimes I don't mind being single; it's "safer," it's familiar, I can handle it and maybe I'll be single forever.

more than longing for love... I'm longing for just something fulfilling. something reassuring. something exciting, some sort of adventure, but careful and calm and controlled, too. something with just the right balance of surprise and familiarity; something perfectly thrilling and gentle all at once. it's a balance.

spring break's coming up. I've never really done anything for spring break. this time I'm thinking I've got to do something. I've just got to get out of here, even if it's just a day trip, something, anything. I've felt stagnant and trapped, almost, for far too long and I just need some sort of little lovely adventure.

I'll probably just go out on a drive. that's what I do, when I can, to make myself feel better or at least to better tolerate the awfulness.

i went on a midnight drive a couple weeks ago. I'd never done that before. i just walked out to my car at midnight and drove off down rumbly dirt roads, through a tiny sleeping town, around a little lake, past country houses, down country roads, for a good 45 minutes or more, phoneless (how freeing) and having swapped out the current CD in the player for an old favorite I hadn't played since summer.

it was a good drive.

it did make me feel a bit better.

come to think.... i'd like to do it again.

maybe I just will.

On Bebo Norman, Music, and the Glory of God

 I've become "very musical" the last couple of years.

Lately I've been on a Bebo Norman kick. I have four - four!! - Bebo Norman CDs in my car (along with my 40 other CDs, spilling out of a torn old plastic bag across the backseat) and the past month or so I've been flipping between his "Try" and "Big Blue Sky" albums. (Right now "Try" is in my CD player. Fabulous.)

Bebo Norman is, since 2013 ish, out of the "official music business" (to which I say good for him) and is currently a Physician Assistant in Tennesee (to which I also say good for him). I only know this from my brief, bare-minimum, and very interested Googling. It's kinda funny to look at his picture on the hospital website -- Bebo Norman, one and the same as the much-younger and more dramatic-looking Bebo on my four (four!!) CD covers -- now pictured looking a little older and wearing glasses and a white lab coat.

It makes me smile. :) 

An old interview of his that I found online featured him recounting how he had planned, out of high school, to go to med school and enter the medical field, but his so-planned *one year of doing music* turned into a very successful 20-year music career, which he eventually decided to exit due both to wanting to spend more time with his family and feeling the weight and daresay, at times, shallowness of taking personal, meaningful songs and stories -- and resinging, retelling, reperforming them night after night. The authenticity, the realness, even the power and the magnitude of those songs and stories rather dim over time of resharing them too much.

--That's partly paraphrases of his own admissions, and partly my own (sympathetic? critical? self-imposed?) speculation.

--Anyway. 

I, a hopeless-romantic, ever-daydreaming-20-yr-old currently working as a part-time flower-waterer and part-time calf feeder, will keep on singing and humming and listening to my four and counting (four!! and counting!!) Bebo Norman CDs, and Bebo Norman, I'm sure, will continue in his "newfound" medical career for the foreseeable future. (For a while, anyway.)

Music is timeless, as long as we have record of it, or the tune and the words, or the memory of the song -- music is timeless, but our life circumstances at any given point in time are not.

Who knows where *I'll* be 20 yrs from now? (--Raptured, I hope.)

Who knows?

Will I still have my Bebo Norman CDs?

I'm sure I'll still remember his songs.

And it doesn't much matter where I'll be 20 yrs from now, because I'm not there now. I'm here. And right here, right now, I have my four (four!!) Bebo Norman CDs, which I am very much enjoying. I water flowers and feed calves, and Bebo does medical stuff. ;P

I believe God has placed both of us right where we are, intentionally, for a reason and with a purpose.

I wonder if Bebo ever hums his own songs while he's moving about his day. Maybe he hums other people's songs. 

I hum his songs, anyway. They are a cheer and a comfort to me, and though I've never met him and I truly don't know Mr. Norman, via his songs, he feels almost like a bit of an old friend.

His music points me to One Who truly is my Friend. To One -- the only One -- Who is guiding me through my life by His plan, Who is sustaining and covering and holding me secure with His goodness, love, mercy, grace, discipline, and sovereignty.

May I never (if I even could) find more comfort in a song than I do in my Savior.

The only comfort in music comes from said music lifting up the Name of the Lord, pointing my weary soul and my lowered eyes to Christ, and reminding me that He is good, He is holy, He is gracious and merciful and just and sovereign, He loves and cares for me, and He is in control. He has been so kind to me and done so many wonderful and mighty things; He has been faithful, is faithful, and will ever be faithful.

We need to engage with God-centered, God-glorifying music. Too much music out there is blasphemous, heretical, wicked, shallow, self-centered. There's no room for navel-gazing, though I admit I often fall prey to such a practice, and it slips into a lot of otherwise very good songs.

I alternate my Bebo Norman -humming with hymn -humming lately, though as I've got Bebo on repeat in my car and not hymns, I'm more easily able to come up with the Bebo lyrics than the hymn ones. And that's not inherently wrong.

May we (I) always be quick to evaluate our motives, what we are doing, thinking, dwelling on, and why. May we make the necessary corrections to ensure we are living our lives in accordance with God's will for us as laid out in His Word; that we are doing our very best to live to glorify Him.

-

Bebo Norman will never see this blog post. (I can pretty confidently say that.) --And that's okay. I deeply appreciate his music and am happy to know even as little as I do about him, and I'm sure he'd be likewise happy that I and the general public like me know only that little (--who wants a complete stranger to know half their life story?). So I am content (more than content) with what little I know of Bebo Norman. He is not defined only by his music (his medical career, at the least, proves that), but God has sure blessed him with great musical gifts, and I'm so grateful that he used them to glorify God and point others to Him.

May I do the same with the gifts God has given me, whether it be music or medicine or anything else.

God is good. 

Always. 💚✝

Grandpa & Grandma -- 8-15-22

Last night, Grandpa had me look in the closet in the laundry room (the "little bedroom" as we call it, I believe, though I don't think it was ever a bedroom...) for a new bag for the vacuum. Yes, an old enough model to require a vacuum bag. ;) - It feels like one of those "if you give a mouse a cookie" stories, but go figure when I looked in the closet to get the vacuum bag, I saw a bunch of Grandma's old sweaters, cardigans, and shirts hanging up, which, of course, reminded me of Grandma. And reminded me how much I miss her. And the sweaters still smelled like her and the cardigans still had old crumpled tissues in the pockets. I nearly expected her to come around the corner and put one on. I was really wishing she would. - I mentioned it to Grandpa-- missing Grandma. Naturally, he shared the sentiment. To him, she was a wonderful wife and mother. To me, she was a wonderful grandma. She was an all-around wonderful lady, and we loved her, and as such, now that she's gone, we miss her. - The thing about missing her is that it reminds me how grateful I am to still have Grandpa. So it's kinda bittersweet. I wish I still had Grandma--boy how I wish!--but knowing she's gone keeps me remembering that people are temporary--they don't live forever--and that reminds me to make the most of the time with the people I still have. Like Grandpa. - I miss my dear Grandma. A whole lot. And so I cherish deeply my time with Grandpa; I know someday I'll miss him too. But not right now I won't, because he's still here. And I'm deeply grateful for that. 💚 --- old writing I stumbled upon tonight: --- What do I want maybe most in the world? I want to hug my Grandma. I want to fold into her sun-spotted arms. I want to press against her wrinkled cheek. I want to breathe in the sweet nostalgic scent of the hairspray she uses to keep her light white curls intact, and the gentle musky perfume she’s applied since forever, and I want to match the pace of my tennis shoes to that of her old tan oxfords as they scuff dependably across the floor. I want to hug my Grandma. But I can’t. I can’t hug her anymore-- she’s no longer here to hug. She’s passed away. She’s inhabiting Heaven. I still want to hug her. I really want to. I miss her something awful. But I’m okay. It’s okay. Because Grandma’s okay. She finally truly is. And someday… Oh, someday soon… Someday soon, I’ll be okay too. I'll be somewhere Where I'll no longer miss her. And I’ll be there forever At long lovely last. 💚