apartment 15B

What do you do when media and politicians push their agenda to convince you to see a changed world—a world transformed for the worse—yet aside from arrows on the ground, cancelled appointments, and moderate mass hysteria, your world feels very much as it always has?  It stings, maybe just a little, the first time someone mentions this will most likely affect the most important day of your life. But maybe you’re an optimist and “logically” this can’t go on that long. We’re not experiencing the Bubonic Plague or the Black Death here. But then the unrest continues and more people, more friends, more family lose hope that everything could possibly turn out okay. So what do you do?

The eye twitch that left in February is back.

There is no gym to burn off steam at.

America’s Next Top Model can only distract a person for so long.

So far, a total of three mail-ordered bras will not work for under a wedding dress and cannot be returned.

Who knows if a July wedding in New York will even be possible?

Who knows if going to school in September will even be possible?

There is only a certain amount of sanity a person can maintain while locked inside a studio apartment for over a month.

So Tanner and I take turns reminding each other that we’re staying in motion. That we are getting married in July regardless of whether or not it’s a party. That we have done every step we can do for school this fall.  That every aspect of our lives right now is a firm reminder that God is the only one who actually has a say in where we go and how and that’s what we want.

My sister reminds me that it’s still okay to cry and be a little stressed and not always feel peachy.

My best friend commiserates beautifully.

It’s going to work out the way it’s supposed to.

But that doesn’t mean my eye isn’t going to twitch for the next two months.

And that’s okay.

stage fright

There are parts of being human that I think will always be a part of being me. Throughout my life, I have been told that I'm very good on stage, I'm good with people, I'm understanding, I'm dramatic, I'm expressive.  I never thought the fear was allowed to interact with the qualities other people saw.  So I would try to push past the trembling legs and shallow breathing.  I tried to pretend I didn't break down into hysterical tears before every performance. I was supposed to be thriving.

A couple recent experiences have brought these memories to light, for a whole new angle of examination, which I'll talk about now:

1. For a short while, a friend and I were working together and she expressed a surprising sentiment. She confided that she was frustrated because she felt that her anxiety prevented her from connecting with our coworkers, that I couldn't understand her level of anxiety because she clearly has more of it than I do, and that people are more drawn to me as a person in general.  I was stunned.  Did she not know the amount of turmoil I experience on a daily basis over texts, let alone human interaction?

2. My roommate and I were joking about depressing yoga, and I did an Instagram live video describing the hateful universe while doing basic yoga poses.  Friends and family laughed, sending me comments about how funny it was, but some people missed it.  And I thought, "Hey, I could do this again, right?"  WRONG.  I turned the camera on and immediately began shaking.  Stage fright wrenched my thoughts from my mind and I sat in front of my phone, paralyzed in warrior 1.  In the end, I gave up, turned the camera off, and practiced yoga on my own in the quiet.

 In the end, my question is always this: who knows me better?  Me or the people around me?  And I think the answer I keep coming back to is not an answer to that question.  Rather, I'm encouraged to be thankful that God has enabled me to overcome crippling fear, and that He has allowed the people around me to see someone who is not afraid of the world around her, even if I still feel it.  Still human, but maybe a little less flesh and a little more soul.

buzz lightyear to mission log

Quarantine Day 20: There seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere.  The ant colony that wintered beneath our faux wood flooring has officially moved in.  They appreciate any dry oats and rice that we drop and forget to sweep immediately. Sadly, they don't appreciate the bright blue disks of death we set out for them quite as much.  I've been praying that God will give them a new home because I actually really appreciate their hard work, I just don't want to share a house with them. Like I said, no sign of intelligent life anywhere.

The days have formed a strange routine without work or social commitments.  I can't figure out if it's really good for me, or  really bad.  I'm reading three different books right now, compiling a poetry collection, walking upwards of 10 miles a day (complete with a daily stop at the post office), planning my wedding that hangs in the tenuous clutches of the CoronaVirus, shopping for bras online, and attempting to cook balanced meals without going to the grocery store. My mom and every close friend I've ever had have joked with me about my pending hermitage.  Friends, the hermitage is upon us.

It's funny how life changes when you actually don't have any responsibility, other than staying home and staying safe.  So much of my time was wrapped up in getting to work on time, picking up as many hours at work as possible, meeting this person here, and that person there.  Those aren't bad things.  They just might not have been the best things and choices.  It gives me a wild rush of anxiety to think about going back to work, and I get the same rush when I think of not going back at all.  There has been no option but to trust that God will care for us each day, just like he cares for the grasses and the new flowers stretching into bloom.

I've been reading Psalm 73 the past couple days.  I've always resonated with the second and third verses, "But as for me, my  feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked."  And I feel like that sums up so much of the Vivian I used to be.  She was so afraid of missing out, so concerned with belonging, and somehow always ill at ease. The psalm ends with a breakthrough in verse 28, "But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all his works." That is the person I started becoming close to 6 years ago, and it has been good in this time of forced rest to remember it again.  It brings me around to the other psalm that I've been meditating in this time, particularly the first verse.  It's so simple, yet powerful in that simplicity: "I love you, YHWH, my strength."  That's where I want to be.  That encompasses everything about learning where I belong.

normalcy in a realm of relativity

8:30 AM: I'm on the phone with my parents, doing my best not to audibly hyperventilate in a Starbucks bathroom.  Change, unknowns, current and future stressors feel like a typhoon crashing against the bamboo shelter of my soul.

Moments, minutes, hours later, my premeditated typhoon is nothing more than a ripple in otherwise calm waters.  You'd think that I would learn.  You would think that the next ripple wouldn't fill me with dread at its approach, but it does.  Because what if this is the one that packs enough punch to knock me over?

Fast-forward exactly one week.  I'm blogging these thoughts from a quarantined apartment.  Fragility is the front page of every newspaper, the headlining comment of every conversation.  It is the topic of my internal monologue on the potential rebirth of a planet after a cataclysmic event while I walk around the block for fresh air, and for the first time in a long time, I see no one - no cars, no children on the playground across the train tracks, no one.  Just me and the late flakes of spring break snow.

And yet, in the fragility, there is an iron-wrought spine holding my shoulders straight and head high. In a day, free from the script of work and imagined social responsibility, there is still quiet prayer, loud prayer, laughing prayer, singing, questioning, wondering...moments, minutes, hours alone with the Creator God of the universe.  That is security, a sense of normalcy, in a world that would love to break her neck in an attempt to twist upside-down in slow motion.

7:30 PM: I'm on the floor of my kitchen, doing my best to remember today has been a day.  Not a week.  Everything on the quarantine checklist doesn't need to be marked off yet.  Today has been a day.  Tomorrow will hopefully be another one.  And maybe, after a while, this, like so many things, will be something we all move forward from.

when your right eye twitches

Did you know that even if you've convinced yourself that everything is fine, your body still has ways of telling you that everything is not fine?  Like, say for example, making your right eye twitch for weeks.  A week ago, my eye and emotional well-being were in a state.  Planning a wedding felt like too much, going to a missionary training center seemed impossible, work was too much to think about, and my mind was still in New York with my family.  I was crying a couple times a day, no problem.

Fast-forward to this week.  My bestest friend flew out to Wisconsin despite the corona apocalypse, and the first thing she said when she saw me was, "I'm taking you grocery shopping.  Not for me, for you." We got groceries, and with them, we hatched the hair-brained idea to make the flower arrangements for my wedding arch ourselves.  (Spoiler: they look SO much better than I was afraid they would!)  We've eaten a lot food, talked about the wedding weekend, organized, planned, and purchased.  She's had the chance to spend time with my fiance.  We've slept in.

My eye hasn't twitched in 36 hours.

And I think that's the reminder or lesson or moral.  Not many parts of life, particularly wedding planning, were designed to be handled by one person in isolation. While I know in my head that God designed people for community, to be balanced and supported and encouraged, I forget that I am not an exception even though I have enough stubbornness and pride for an army.  Asking for help is hard.  Asking for help figuring out what I need help with is...confusing.  The small seed of panic in my chest knows that not everything is figured out, but that is why I have a small army of God-fearing women around me, for planning wedding to marriage and beyond.

no one shovels sunshine

Do you ever have a day when you, in your very innermost being, are convinced it is going to be a bad day? Like it’s the coldest week of this winter, your heat in your apartment is out, you almost overslept for work, and when was the last time you actively read God’s Word. I mean, yeah, that one verse in Proverbs 17 is still relevant, but that’s about a week old now. Praying and meditating is good. They need fresh input to be great.

Anyway, I was convinced today would be a toughie, but it’s impossible to shovel sunshine. God provided not one, not two, not three, but four undeniable blessings that spread light over my entire day. Just regular Joe-shmoe people saying, “Hey, I can tell something isn’t right, here’s a thing to make your day better.” And I knew it was God. 

God is just... He knows, man. He sees my anxiety about the wedding. He hears my concern about life after. He is no stranger to my fear gnawing away at the hope to pursue overseas ministry. And today He shared the sunshine with me. And today I am challenged to trust.

crash wedding diet

I’m not stressed out. 

You’re stressed out.

You’re projecting your stress on to me.

Side note: did you know that when I’m stressed (which I’m not) my body decides it isn’t really hungry and, in order to avoid nausea, I’m most content on Gina’s Y2K Liquid Diet.  But I’m not stressed out.

There are pieces of wedding planning that I thought would be difficult, like invitations and food and clothes. Turns out, no big deal. Do you want to know what has actually been the most harrowing on my nerves and overall well-being? RSVPs and the rehearsal dinner. No one warned me about those things! No one told me jack about the internal angst that would spring up from random emails telling me who is or isn’t coming to a party that I’m throwing in a place I’ve never been. And am I throwing this party or are my parents?

Which naturally flows into my colorful portfolio of current stress dreams. Like the one where Eminem is giving me poetry/rap lessons and then my dad shows up at my practice session, but I’m embarrassed and think he won’t enjoy poetry culture, so I ask him to go away. In the dream, his feelings are hurt so my feelings are hurt and I go to him to try to fix it and then my mom tells me his feelings were never hurt in the first place, but I miss the poetry show.  Or the dream where I can’t get into my mailbox, no matter how certain I am that I know the combination. Or the dream where it’s like the day of the wedding and Tanner shows up to marry me, but it isn’t him anymore, but everyone else thinks it is, and how does a girl deal with that?

I’m a little stressed out.

But the moments of quiet have been a blessing as well as a reminder. Sitting in the silence doesn’t feel like sitting with a stranger anymore. Lately, quiet feels like a warm cup of tea, over which God and I talk quietly and he reminds me of his big love for me, and my family, and the world. So I can stress, and you can stress if you want, but even stress that functions as a crash wedding diet kind of loses its luster when it gets compared to big love.