January 1. The earliest memory

May 19, 2016

Kansas City, Missouri

Dear Babette,

Today is my birthday and thank heaven above, it's the first night in a week, when I have not been hanging with a toddler during the hours 2-4 AM.  Now I like my children, but not particularly during those hours and maybe it's a chance to spend uninterrupted time with mommy and Daniel Tiger, but still, Daniel Tiger might be dead.

Thirty-two, is thirty-two supposed to feel like something different, because mostly it feels tired, like a really long, enduring, worth all the madness, show up everyday, we're building something variety of exhausted.  The other day at work, someone asked me if I was even old enough to hold a bottle of vodka that I was delivering to one of the guests.  I rolled my eyes and gave my best slightly annoyed, humoring laugh, because, hello, I remember what it was like to be twenty and that was way easier. When I was twenty, I was writing papers, frequenting the Starbucks, buying shoes, and eating sub-par cafeteria meals with my friends--having the very best time.  Twelve years later, I'm waking up early to write, drinking much better coffee, picking up 10 pairs of shoes a day, which are not my own, and making delicious food that is 45% of the time accompanied by the most ridiculous whining. I only like chicken quesadillas on Tuesdays.  Sauce! Why do we have sauce! This chicken is too chicken-y. (I mean, it's probably not as chicken-y as you think, let me tell you about industrial chicken farms for a minute.)  

So, what did I say to the oh, so clever joker, I said, please, my friend, I am nearly 32 and I have three lovely children, I've been married 8 and 1/2 years and I'm seriously, way too tired to be 20. Being 20 was easy.  I deserve more credit than that.  He paused, and said, damn, all the good ones are taken. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this life is a beautiful, wild adventure, full of wonderful sauce-hating children who don't pick up their shoes and have the occasional questionable sleeping habits. The laundry is always, greedily wanting to be folded AND THEN further still, wanting to be put into closets and drawers. Nonsense. And, it's jam-packed full of all the life lessons, all the live long day. Most days I collapse on the couch at approximately 8:10 PM, emptied out all the way.  

But wait...

The other day, during our morning lessons, we were talking about how nature teaches about God and how we can know so much about him, by paying attention to the way things act and grow.  And this question, always this question, Can we even see God?  It stops me in my tracks, because it's pretty huge.  And probably, it's one of the rare times when the room was silent.  I began,

Here is what I know,   I think we can always feel him if we're looking.  I always feel him in the crashing waves and when I'm standing in the wind and when I watch the sky fill with color at sunset. I think we can always learn things about God, when we take time to notice the tiny, little details of bugs and flowers and trees-- or when we work really hard to achieve something or forgive each other. I know we can always talk to God and I know he's always with us.  So, even though we can't always see him, like he's a person standing in front of us.  I think it's possible, that we can see him sometimes, because he is mysterious, creative, and good.  

That boy of mine, he looked at me and said, mom, can you pause for a little minute?  I just need to go sit on the stairs and think about seeing God for real.   Who am I to even say no to that, so we paused. I don't know what happened, but it was holy and whatever else happened in our lessons, backward 6's and squished up letters, commas and exclamation marks, that was my favorite part.

So, here's what I think, this is my jumbled birthday morning declaration.

Every day, every year, well, every single week is worth celebrating, because we're still here and we're doing it.  Some days we're freaking rock stars and some we pretty much just kept the kids alive.  It totally counts.  There are creative explosions and there are dry seasons, but we keep going and hunting down the maddening, dazzling beauty and mystery of this world, because we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that our creative souls are reaching for heaven and it's just here, all around us, if we dare to see.  We know that it's our entrusted task to share that with others in whatever ways we can. So, we paint, write, bake, and love.  We sing and dance (some better than others), we hope and endure, and we do it all over and over.  We create places and homes and meals and opportunities, we summon life into empty, weary spaces (sometimes, those places are us), because we can, because we are here and we keep showing up to this really great, really challenging life.

So, here's to a new year.
More art and more writing.
More adventures and risks.
More love and more holy moments.

Cheers.

All my love,
Olivia