My Story: In a Nutshell

On my left arm, from shoulder to elbow, I have a tattoo. My tattoo took three hours to complete and a good chunk of my savings at the time. In script, sandwiched between roses at both top and bottom, my arm reads, "For I know the plans I have for you, [declares the L-rd,] plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Though the design is beautiful, over the following weeks, I struggled with the decision I'd made to get this large tattoo. I think a piece of that struggle had to do with what prompted the tattoo in the first place.

When I was eighteen, I fell in love. Shoving all my logic and my reason aside, ignoring the code I'd created for qualities my future mate must have, and blind to all but my feelings, I quickly got engaged. Over the next three years, I missed sign after sign that this relationship was not meant to be and I slowly lost sight of who I truly was and what I truly valued. Though I didn't think I was altering myself to please him, who I was changed subconsciously. College is a time of great change for most people and that was very true for me. At the start of freshman year, I was completely in love with the wrong man and only marginally faithful to G-d. As my collegiate career progressed, through the influence of my friends, professors, and classes, as well as the calling of the King Himself, I changed. I started to fall out of love with my fiance and draw closer to G-d. I may have realized the second part but it is only in retrospect that I can understand the first.

Before my King pulled me to Him, I ran away. I got scared I think and I wasn't ready to sacrifice the major life changing decision I'd already made, to give my life to this man, for a far off Creator who I didn't feel very close to. I felt my life could both serve Him and hold to the decision I'd made. Worse than that, I fell down a rabbit hole. I made some very large mistakes and I gave myself to him before I gave myself to Him. In the name of love, I broke the promise I'd made when I was nine years old. I had sex before I was married.

Only four months after I initially made that decision, G-d started to convict me. He laid it on my heart that what I was doing was wrong. But after talking out my confliction with a close friend, I tried to make things right with both G-d and my fiance. The resulting conversation was the worst fight I have ever been in. The heartache I felt that night, the number of tears I cried are something I wouldn't wish on another. Somehow, we put a band aid on our relationship and lasted another nine months. It took six months for him to be all but done and another three for G-d to fully work in me.

As my first relationship fell to pieces, I clung to G-d. I clung to His promise and His truth. I knew that He had plans for me that I knew nothing of. I knew He had a future for me and that He knew who my future husband was. I got my tattoo while I was still healing from my heartbreak. I took His promises and I had them engraved on my body. I struggled to come to terms with my tattoo at first. I wondered if I'd ever look at it and not think about my heartbreak. I wondered if I'd ever get over what went wrong in my life. I wondered how that story would affect my future. Then people started asking about it. I started encountering people outside of my circle, who didn't know my story. They'd see flowers poking out of my shirt and they'd admire the beautiful artwork. Inevitably, they'd be surprised at such a large tattoo on such a little girl. And they'd ask. They'd want to hear the story. Where are those words from? What made me chose that?

The tattoo on my arm started as a way to heal, a reminder of the promises He made and why I'd chosen to end my relationship, to sacrifice that part of myself. These days, it's so much more. On a regular basis, I have customers at work ask me what it says, admire the roses. I'm able to share an abbreviated version of my story with them. I'm able to tell them that all my plans fell apart but that I trust Someone else has better for me. And today I sit here, in Ohio for the first time in my life, my head resting on the arm of the man who now means the world to me. I know G-d has better plans for me. And today, I'm able to start living them. What's past is past and my future sits beside me. No matter what lies ahead of me, I know that G-d has a future in store for me and my tattoo is one small way that He reminds me of that on a daily basis.

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G-d: In the Details

This summer has been so very full. So much has changed. I feel more fully me now than I did at the beginning of the summer. I'm closer to my "true name" now. I feel comfortable in my own skin and I feel closer to being an adult. A real adult.

One of the things that has changed this summer is my relationship status. It's impossible to make anyone else understand this but three months ago I didn't know Wesley and now I'm head over heels in love with him. I truly believe we have a future together. This relationship is something that G-d put together. They say nothing is like first love and I do believe that. Nothing will feel quite the same as falling in love the first time. My relationship with Ron was unique. And I did love him, truly. But it wasn't what G-d wanted for my life. Decisions I made were made outside of His will and somewhere in the back of my head, I knew things were wrong. I knew that my life was going in a path that it wasn't meant to.

This relationship, already, is like nothing I've experienced. Before we were even official, Wes decided he wanted to pray with me. Our relationship started rooted in faith, in G-d. I prayed that if G-d wanted Wes and I to become an "us" that He would open all the doors, and if not that He would slam them shut in our faces. We're like nothing else. I'm confident that he is what G-d wants for me. The way I feel about him is hard to put into words.

I remember asking Auntie Lori about how you knew you were ready for your first kiss years and years ago. (I think I was about 15 at the time.) She told me you just know. And honestly, I do believe that. I also believe that I just know that Wes is the one. It's impossible to put into words how I feel about him. Just like you can't explain what it feels like to be ready for your first kiss, you can't explain how it feels to know that G-d is writing your love story. I feel completely secure in this. Yes, things are going fast according to typical standards. But they don't feel fast. Camp, like college, gives things a jump start. Just as I was super close to my roommate and the girls across the hall within a few weeks of school starting freshman year, just as Emma knows things about me that friends I've had for years don't because we lived together, or as Emy and I got close enough to share a bed within about a month and a half of knowing each other in London, Wes and I got started being trapped in canteen together for seven hours a week into the summer. Things have moved fast because they've been put into a sort of crucible. They've melded together, fused together quickly.

Today seems like a day that G-d is making Himself known in the little details, the little choices of my life. I've had three job interviews in two days. Two for one place and one for another (that one was a second interview; the first was on the 9th). I didn't really want to even apply at the one that I've had two interviews for. I did it to please my dad. After the first interview, I really didn't want to go back for a second interview. I didn't get a good vibe from it. But to please my dad, I went to the second interview. I waited for 20 minutes before they finally saw me and then after a 10 minute interview was basically offered the job. I asked about benefits and pay rate. They're both worse than at the other place. Yay for my gut feeling being backed up by facts.

Afterwards, I met Wes for coffee and bagels and then we walked home. When we got to the pond, I chose to go the long way around. I hadn't been that way in forever and it's prettier. Halfway round, I look across the pond and see someone walking a dog. Ron. I haven't seen him since before I left for Europe. Didn't know where he was living, if he was even still in state. (Frankly, I had suspected that he was still in the area. His motivation and his work ethic were not up to the ideas he had. But I assumed he wasn't living with his parents.) I was surprised to see him. If we'd taken the short way back, we'd have run into him. And I'm glad we didn't because I'm glad he's not part of my life, I'm not sure what I would say to him. To quote Blake Shelton, "Not only [I] don't love [him], but [I] don't hate [him] anymore." It was the way I'd feel running into a friend from high school, the way I felt when I used to run into Lindsay at Jo-Ann's before we patched things up. Awkward and unsure of how to act. I would have had the same reaction if Wes wasn't there. And I was startled to see him. In the same way I was startled to see a comment from Reigna on an old FB photo. I'd forgotten she might show up there and her presence shocked me.

But if we'd gone the short way, we would have run into him. It was right about even with how far we were. And the fact that I chose to go the long way today seems to me like a little detail in which G-d is showing Himself. The reassurance that I am making the right choices with my life now, that I am happy and that my past is truly my past... I see G-d working in my life, orchestrating the details. And I am so glad my G-d is so big, so strong, so mighty. There truly is nothing my G-d cannot do.

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The Sweater Metaphor

There's this sweater I have that I love. Or I used to love it. Lately, it seems stretched out, baggy. It's not as sleek as it used to be. I don't feel as attractive in it as I used to.

Once upon a time, I felt confident enough in this sweater that I wore it the night I knew I was getting engaged. I wore the same sweater 11 months later for our engagement pictures. See how happy I look? Well part of that has to do with being ridiculously in love and part of it is that I felt confident.

That sweater? It doesn't fit so well these days. I feel sort of slouchy and not pulled together in it. I wear it only when I'm running out of other clothes. 

So why am I taking the time to write about a sweater? Because I think it's a metaphor. I think there are things in our lives that fit perfectly once. They're just right at that time. But they can shift. And they suddenly don't fit us anymore. That shift can happen without us even noticing. And, like me with this sweater, sometimes we refuse to get rid of it because it used to be perfect.

The night I told my ex I had taken off my ring and that I was willing to let him go, I insisted before we go into Starbucks, before I told him, that he kiss me one more time. After being with him for so long, after loving him so much, I wanted one more kiss. In the words of Ilsa Lund, "Kiss me as if it were the last time". (Newsflash: that kiss? Saddest thing ever. Yes I got my last kiss from him. But tears were streaming down my face. I knew he didn't want to be kissing me. He didn't love me anymore and it was the most soulless kiss I've ever experienced.) As we walked inside, I grabbed his hand like I'd done a million times. I held the hand of the man I loved desperately. One. Last. Time. And do you know what?

It didn't fit.

His hand, which once felt like it was made for mine, didn't fit anymore. I don't know when that changed or how long I clung to the idea that his hand filled the spaces mine left like none other would. But it changed. His hand felt awkward in mine. It felt strange. It did not belong there. I thank G-d for that. Those last moments, that horrible last kiss, the walk from the car inside holding a hand that didn't fit anymore are awful memories. They hurt even now to think of them. (It's been over 14 and a half months since then and I'm still on the verge of tears over these memories.) But remembering how we didn't fit anymore, how the spaces my body leaves are not designed for that man anymore, it reassures me that I did the right thing.

It's so easy to remember the nights our bodies curved together perfectly. To miss the times he held me and my head fit perfectly in "the nook". (For those people who have never watched Sex and the City, "the nook" is that space between a guy's neck/shoulder/chest. That's where my head goes when I sleep-and I mean REM cycles here-with a guy.) This time of year, with Valentine's Day just behind me and my birthday just around the corner, it's really easy to miss having someone special to celebrate with. It's moments like this morning though, when I realize the significance of a stretched out sweater, that remind me why I'm single.

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