Living on a Bridge

As I sat down today to start my blog, I really don't have anything of interest to say. I have had a few fun activities during the last week that I will blog about at a later time but really I am just still at a loss for words about anything. I am still mourning the loss of my cousin Lance. It's been almost two weeks and every single night as I am trying to fall asleep, I relive the moments when I found out he was gone all the way up to his funeral. I keep replaying everything in my head and I don't know how to make that stop. I try to move along but still find it so hard to believe that he is really gone. At Thanksgiving I will still be expecting him to walk through the doors. It will be so weird, our family not entirely complete anymore. I keep myself busy through the days and weeks but still he is not far from my mind. I hope and pray that angels guided him to my daughters so that he can truly see how beautiful my girls are. I miss Lance so much still.

Also I was wondering...can you have a mid-life crisis at age 32? If so, I wonder if I am having one. I feel as though I need some kind of change in my life. I am desperately wanting to go back to school. It is such a dream of mine and I am having a really hard time facing the fact that this dream will just fizzle away. I doubt I will be able to go back to school. Financially, we can't afford it right now. I could probably get financial aide but then I think, I will be 36 years old before I get a "real" degree and finally settle into a career. Bummer. Big Bummer.

Also I wanna move away. I don't know why but Tony and I both have thought about moving somewhere. I feel like there is some major bullshit in my life right now that I wanna just run away from and never have to face. Yet again, I am an adult and I surely know that running away from issues will not resolve them. I am facing things like a big girl and some things I am trying to avoid all together. I feel as though I have been hurt one too many times by people who are supposed to love me. I feel as though I have dodged one bill too many for the millionth time. It's stress at it's finest people...that is my life.

So I feel as though I am suspended on a bridge right now. One leg is on one side with only Tony, Betsy and myself and we are running as far away as we can from our present lives. We want to take with us our friends, our church family and our favorite TV shows. The other leg is on a side of life where we have nothing like we have now. We are debt-free and living in another town. But our friends are not there and our church family isn't either. I'm suspended.

It is an uncomfortable place to be. It is constantly being rocked by winds of change in the lives of people around us. It's a feeling of always being the last one picked for sports during recess when you were a kid. So here I sit...suspended. I am in the midst of this ever-present internal struggle. I am on a tightrope of staying in faith while not getting my hopes crushed. I live in the expectation that our promises will one day be fulfilled and our lives will be exactly the way we want them to be. Through it all, I have to keep my eyes on Jesus. I need to be reminded of my favorite scripture, Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Wouldn't it be just like the devil to put me and others into a self-absorbed tailspin? Wouldn't he love to keep us wrapped up in this roller coaster of emotions so we don't fulfill or even SEE what God has in store for us?

I do live in hope because, after all, bridges do lead to somewhere. And that somewhere is usually good.