:: growing up ::

meet my oak tree. 

once upon a time, I left the place where I grew up. there were new things to see, new places to go, new people to meet; it was exciting. it was an adventure. I took my memories, and thought that I could always come back, because it would always be waiting for me. as if here stays the same: as if I can be 8 again and there will be the garden -- the railroad tracks -- grace & allie & eva & john & andrew -- fresh strawberries, pine needles, games of pretend. 

I didn't understand time. I didn't understand change. (I still don't. for the record.)

of the few definitive mental snapshots of my childhood, this oak tree is near the top. I played house with jessa in the tall spring grass, crushing rooms and passages in wavy mazes. we chased crickets when the dry grass got mowed in the fall. we explored the dirt piles and picked morning glories and sat in the shade on the bedroom porch (to the right of this tree; not in the picture). and one grey morning, we stood outside under the oak tree, just where the shadow falls, and mama cried as daddy read isaiah 40.8: "the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever." and it started to rain. 

I think of that baby sometimes. 

I didn't understand a lot when I was little: like why mama cried on my best friend's mom's shoulder that afternoon. I didn't understand why, a few short years later, that best friend decided she didn't like me anymore. I didn't understand why I cried the day we drove down this driveway for the last time, because I didn't understand that "people change, darling," as do things -- and places -- and I. 

this trip has been an incredible one, but like travel always goes, it involves more than physical moving. I find myself growing and changing and learning. the painful thing is in being gone for so long and coming back to find that I don't fit anymore, don't fit in the place I've always held in my mind as The Place I Can Always Come Home To. it's like I thought that it would wait for me; or that I would wait for it; or that I could slip back to when I was a kid and ignorance was bliss, because I thought I had it all figured out. 

news flash. I don't have it all figured it out. 

I've cried here, remembering and missing and regretting. it's been almost harder to come back than to have not come at all. nothing is the same. I'm not the same. somehow it makes me feel adrift and lost.

   sure, I'm 21: still young. I still have time to discover and make a home of somewhere new. I have homes and homes ahead of me! but it makes me ache to come back and have everything unfamiliar, with a thin veneer of "but you do remember this" glazed over top. uncanny valley of memories. 

   it feels like a different life to me -- I wasn't at all the same person then that I am now. and that lack of continuity makes me feel so alone.

so I went outside last night and lay in the short grass underneath my oak tree, looking up at the stars.

starmaker

standing high above

wrapped in life and crowned in love

dark shaker

it trembles at your name

and here with you we are amazed

what else can I say

but sing in adoration

you are holy

high above the earth

creator

what mysteries you hold

your words worth more than wells of gold

soul waker

it was so peaceful. and I thought of the oak tree again. why? 

the oak tree is the only thing that really seems the same. it always looks like the tree I remember, and it's so solid. so eternal and unchanging. (...sound familiar?) 

some constant, that's what I'm looking for, what I've been chasing all my life. ironically, it's been right here in front of me, in the love of my Savior, but it took coming "home" to realize the place I no longer recognize doesn't have to break my heart. I won't ever find that place on earth, and I know that now. I still have changing to do, but my old oak tree will stay with me as a symbol of change and stability: life happens around it, but I have a constant in my life. 

I also have years of homes ahead of me. I haven't gotten to some places yet that years further in the future I'll remember with fondness, places yet to mold and shape me. But if this trip is teaching me anything, it's to better treasure where you are -- for all I know, this (eternal) time in kentucky will become its own life, too, and I'll visit louisville just as tearfully in 15 years. (...okay, I doubt it.) the bad things are so quickly forgotten, though, and so many good things that I may not even realize are good will shine through in hindsight. 

so many times this trip I've wished to be young young young again -- if only I could go back to that very moment, or that one, or that one. but in a few years, THIS moment is the one I'll wish I could revisit, so I'd better enjoy it; make it worth remembering. like that old TtWS song: "there is nothing but the moment // don't you waste it on regret." 

buck up, girl. homes to come. nothing is as good as you remember it being. this too shall pass. with the homes will come heartbreak and I have heartbreaks to come as well. 

oh life. 

california delta breeze, blow back my hair as I march on. 

when I die my body will say goodbye

to the things that held me down

to the fear that kept my hands tied

when I'm gone my heart will carry on

past the valleys I called my home

where my questions and concerns will piece together

until then

I'll ride the wind like a feather toward home