Confession of a Yankee Doodle Dandy

Early morning on July 4th, after dropping my car off on the roof of a parking garage to secure our prime firework viewing spot for the evening, my husband and I sat at a Starbucks table on a hazy, city street corner. As usual, he read and I wrote. I wanted to share with you my journal entry from that morning as it wasn't only our country's birthday but mine as well. Maybe my heart's ponderings will resonate with yours, too. :)

July 4, 2014

26 years old today. At what point do birthdays become dreaded things? When the promise of friends who want to celebrate and share good food and make great memories isn't enough to ward off the feeling that life is dripping, draining, rushing away. Is it now, when college cannot, (no, it just cannot!) be farther away than the time it took to live it? High school went by slowly, perfectly. I had just enough time to make best friends and lose them and make new ones again. I grew, I changed, I became who I am. At the end of it all, they handed me a Prom Court sash and graduation cap and sent me on my way. College drifted by calmly like leaves on a river while I sat on the bank and formed relationships that felt like family, experienced my first real heartbreak, and eventually fell in love with the man I now call my husband. College promised so many things for the future-- every painting it portrayed was beautiful-- and the river pulsed at just the right pace so that by the time it was done, we were ready to move on. We wanted to climb into our own canoes, paddles tossed aside so we could never go back, charging towards the infinite ocean waiting at the river's end. 

But it was no ocean. Greatly fooled we had been.

It was a waterfall, relentless, thrusting all in its path away at an unforgivable speed. Instantly, college is four years ago but only feels like one. Suddenly, I'm 26 but when people ask my age, I want to say 22 because I still feel like a giddy young girl lost in her engagement and the prospects of new life. 

So, is "my whole life still ahead of me"?

Are there still "things I'll understand when I'm older"?

And sweet goodness, please tell my my "biological time-clock" isn't really ticking away...

I watched a friend lose his life during college and ever since then I've been fine with the notion of getting older. It's a privilege. A gift. Grace. Every year when the Fourth of July comes, I'm fine watching my years go up and up and up. What bothers me is how quickly that holiday comes around each year. The mothers in my life tell me about how fast their babies grow and I think really it's just life  in general that moves so fast, the waterfall raging, propelling all of us out to sea.

A downpour. A burst.

A firework. (It is the Fourth of July, after all. Surely it's only appropriate to include a pyro reference.)

The usual responses you'll hear after a firework display: That was beautiful! That was a great show! I really love the ones that shimmer. My favorite had the sunbursts at the end. It was awesome, just awesome.

At the end of the show, have you ever heard someone comment, "Okay, that felt way long enough. It really should have ended ten minutes ago..."? I surely hope not! If you have, please punch that person directly in the face.

But I think for today, a firework show is the most fitting analogy for my life thus far. It's had really hard times. There's smoke everywhere. I watch things explode. I watch things be destroyed. And if I step too close to the commotion, it only worsens-- hot ash raining down, little fiery pieces of debris from something that once promised to be beautiful.

Yet that promise was kept. Through the blaze and haze of smoke, there was a glorious, scintillating light, cascading over the sky, glittering off the city buildings nearby. I dare not look away, captivated and enchanted, my heart in a trance against the kaleidoscope above, each flash leaving and then coming so swiftly again. Awe-striking. Magnificent. And even though it's covered in fire and carnage, once it's done, all I want is more. It would never, could never, move too slowly, this prismatic concoction of death and vibrancy, which blinds my eyes and crushes my ears and leaves me in a daze. This birthday that came too quickly, this year that flew too fast, this life of bursts of florid light littered in wreckage. Rich, piercing goodness amid deep, abiding sorrow. Lovely, perfect moments among the taxing burdens we bear. Impenetrable, amazing grace flowing out of the garden that fell.

This is a life that captivates me, that will always move too fast. But as long as I have eyes to see, may I be thankful to sit on top of this parking garage and enjoy the show at all. 

Happy summer, sweet readers! Enjoy the show before you. :)

Agape,

CC

Thanks for celebrating the 4th and my birthday with us, sweet friends!!
(Click to enlarge)