Living so consciously is the most dang tiring thing. I am ready to zone out and these days very few tricks work to help me forget our place. its been 8 months. its been 4 years. i don't know which to pick where my longing began to growl. funny thing is i don't want to long anymore. except this week, i read the following: "befriend our yearning instead of avoiding it, enter the spaciousness of our emptiness rather than trying to fill it up, live into the longing rather than trying to resolve it." And then, " longing is the best altar for our prayers." and then, this real ringer... " By withholding vision, God extends longing, through longing, He extends the soul, by extending the soul he makes room in it. Let us long because we are to be filled... that is our life, to be exercised by longing." - St. Augustine

All i can say to the above is that I am full of space with a stretched out soul and all worked out. Longing is hard to befriend but she has kept me company so freakin long now, i mine as well call her that. recently we cannot pass a day without Hannah asking when she gets to go back to Charlotte. She misses her friends and her house and her cousins and seems to be everything. I think the last move really threw her. Anyway, her longing is constant and I am so worn by my lack of ability to give her the answer she wants, which at this point would be flight dates. i wonder how on earth to hug her longing all the while mine is over capacity in an air tight room.

all the while days carry on that cannot be missed and must not be just survived but seen and lived. so we do, with all that we can muster. Stephen continues to work diligently with little thrills, ohs and ahhs, except from me who is very grateful for this provision. I have begun my search for work and accomplished 4 meetings/interviews in the last 7 days. Im pretty sure that is the 4 times I have used my hair dryer in a year and after a few wobbles, i settled back into my heels. i love them actually. Being back on the street feels mostly good and I am energized by these conversations. Only shortly after each ends and I have pretended I am a total rockstar the truth of our life and timing sets in and I beg God for fresh air and a spoon of hope. I need a serving a day to believe that after these 8 months or 4 years or however we want to look at it, that somehow someway we'll have a place in 6 weeks when our lack of home and work sets in full. thats 35 days. i think i just threw up a little.

celebration is still worthwhile and i intended to include it. with the help of my incredible mother, we survived the move. we even squeezed in a final happy hour with the neighbors. Hannah has finished school for the year. I cannot get her to come inside, ever. She wants to bike, swing, and most recently hit the ball all the time. We live near some great trails so the other sunny night we decided to test out and see if Stephen and I could run beside her while she biked. She made it 3.4 miles. A wee determined. I was in TOTAL heaven. The next night we all biked on the trail to dinner & picnic. Double heaven. And then she decided that she didn't really need the tee for tee ball, since she had been hitting on it for say, a week, so she moved the tee and began hitting the ball! She is doing right by her Ba. the girl cracks me up. her own joy at these accomplishments is so beautiful to see. i so wish we could all be that proud of ourselves. well, actually I have been trying too, to have some personal wins and I have been training for a half marathon. last week I made it to 10 miles. i cried good sweaty tears. i love a win.