anxiety

sometimes, i feel like i'm the only person in the world who struggles with anxiety. of course, that's part of what all people who struggle with anxiety feel, which sucks, because worrying alone always makes matters worse and makes your mind feel like it's on constant spin cycle, like the washing machine, wanting for rest and peace all the time but never getting one second of it, really.

i will make a confession to the internet: about six years ago, i was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. and it makes so much sense to me, because when i think back on school from an early age, the first week was always like a living hell for me. everything was new, nothing was familiar, i had to make new friends - which takes time, and people with anxiety are low on patience - and had to be away from my family, who i had made into my rock and my refuge. then, sometimes, waves of worry would come over me for no reason at all. the only language i had for it was a mental image i got, of me standing in the ocean (in carlsbad, if you must know, wearing my red plaid one-piece bathing suit) with sets of overhead waves hitting me again and again and again; allowing no time to get my feet under me.

so as the years have gone by, i've sought relief from my anxiety in different ways - often through other people, or seeking control of different variables, or trying to get perfect grades and test scores, or counseling, or talking, or hiding, or medication, or prayer. but it still haunts me, nips at my ankles and clouds my mind, this unwanted friend.

now, my life circumstances include almost all new things - only even more intensively than the beginning of the school year or going to Europe for a semester. i'm married, and we live in a new house, and i quit my old job and don't have a new one waiting for me, and this is hard. zack bears a great deal of this burden with me, but i'm still working on the extent to which we should carry it together and the part where i bring it to God and lay it at his feet.

i had a fun coffee time with a friend this morning, and she mentioned that she leans toward anxiety at times, too. cognitively, i know i'm not the only one. but experientially, i feel lonely in my anxiety.

all of this is to say something publicly that i think is good to say publicly, and also to issue a giant thanks to zack, who i love with all the sappy, grateful, fierce love that i have. and the rest of the reason i don't really know. but there it is.

back from the honeymoon

and, though i have plenty of words, for now, i'll let the pictures do the talking. you can see a couple sets here:

Shanni's Blog

and here:

Gabriel's Blog

with love love love to you all!

help is always on the way

"all i knew was that help is always on the way, a hundred percent of the time. Rumi said, "someone fills the cup in front of us." i know that when i call out, god will be near, and hear, and help eventually, although it is hard to envision this at the moment ... god always hears our cries, and helps, and it's always a surprise to see what form god will take on earth: the the old joke, a man whose plane crashed in the tundra bitterly tells a bartender that god forsook him - that he waited in vain for divine intervention & would have died in the snow ... if it hadn't been for some f---ing eskimos's who came by." --Anne Lamott, via mm.

all roads lead to LAX

i'm convinced that this is true in my life. while i was walking down its storied halls yesterday, i tried to add up how many hours i've spent in that place. i stopped counting early on, because that's the kind of thing i give up on quickly. so let's pretend the number is somewhere between 24 and 500. i think that's realistic.

necessary stops include wolfgang puck's in the united terminal. united is really the only airline i fly with consistency, so i don't have many other suggestions, as one probably should when one begins a list of 'necessary stops.' there was a burger king in the virgin america terminal i was at yesterday, but i didn't go to it.

across from said wolfgang puck's (where the cashiers are always mad at you, by the way), is one of those 'california' shops with pre-packaged see's candies, magazines, newspapers, LA paraphernalia, bottles of water for $4.99, curio, kitsch, souveneirs, and bric-a-brac.

i would recommend picking up an US or PEOPLE magazine for your flight. somehow, it always seems to me, if there are people in the world who write about what katie holmes at for breakfast or how jon gosselein cheated on his 23 year-old girlfriend with a STAR magazine reporter but then went back to her (and it's not that i don't care; believe me, i care) -- somehow, it seems like the world that allows that kind of minutiae to be published will surely not allow a planeful of people to die upon takeoff. this is why i always read trashy magazines on takeoff. this is also my advice to people who deal with planeophobia, which as we all know, is the real name for fear of flying.

south of broad, part ii

i'm done with the book. it was a thing of beauty, and now i'm in that post-novel denouement into which pat conroy invariably hurls his reader. if i could have one super power, it might be the ability to pick up a book for the second, fourteenth, hundred time just like it was the first.

reading minds would be nice too, though.

in the meantime, go out and buy the book and get yourself a nice plot of land and park there for one day and you'll know what i mean.

karl barth on theologians:

"You can tell what kind of a theologian somebody is by what they smoke.

If they smoke cigarettes, they’re liberal; if they smoke cigars, they’re orthodox; and if they smoke a pipe, they’re neo-orthodox. Then somebody asked Barth, ‘What if they don’t smoke?’ And he said, in his heavily accented English, ‘Then they’re no theologian.’”

(i don't know if he actually said this, but i read it and thought it was humurous. for the record, this puts me somewhere between liberal and orthodox. but at least i'm a theologian)

growing up

"I don't think that growing up should be synonymous with becoming stressed about life, though. I don't think it should have to mean losing patience on the freeway or running errands all weekend or dashing out the door for work without having eaten breakfast. "

i stole the above quote from my friend maggie's blog. i secretly like to read all the blogs that emily has listed, but now i guess it's not so secret anymore.

i've been thinking about growing up a lot lately. (A. LOT. - as michele would say). and when i think about growing up, i think about stress and bills and travel (not for-fun travel, but business travel with briefcases and work to get done on the flights). i think that when i read the newspaper, as a grown-up, it is no longer acceptable that i turn to the comics first or get bored by the front page or don't even bother to look at the business section.

i confess these things: sometimes, to me, growing up means being busy, all the time. hopefully busy doing really important things. and i kind of know where i got this picture, because both of my parents are very busy people. they like to be busy. but i forget sometimes the ways they build in 'play' to their daily lives. i forget about the things that mom says to herself just to make herself laugh, or the quiet mornings with steaming coffee and good music my dad has, or how he wears vacation hats and makes up stories or she does strange dances to christmas music.

i confess that in the middle of preparing and expecting, i forget and i grow anxious. i think of adulthood as what maggie reminds me it doesn't need to be: stressful, rushed, lonely.

awhile ago, my dad asked one of his friends what he needed to do to be spiritually healthy. the friend replied with characteristic wisdom and brevity: "you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life."
that phrase sticks with me, as i grow up.

i was in carmel with my dad last weekend, and went for a run that took me all along the ocean. i was feeling particularly anxious about growing up at that moment, and i detoured to some rocks and tide pools down the hill from the road. i saw a bunch of families out on a sunny afternoon, and watching the kids in their little-kid bathing suits with their little-kid floaties and little-kid bravado running up to wave after wave, i felt deep pangs of sadness for the little kid that i will never be again.

the more i watched, though, the more that i saw that it wasn't only the kids running and splashing in the water. their parents joined in. their too-cool older siblings got up and walked around, and their dogs ran and ran and ran until they could run no more.

the ocean is a great equalizer, and this is one of its ways. it is life-giving, and life-affirming, and reminds me that i am free to disregard whatever secret grown-up manifesto i keep thinking i have to embrace. Jesus does not stop doing his work in me because i am growing up; in fact, i expect that he will do even more. and isn't that lovely.