2003-09-02 - 5:41 p.m.
I can't remember right now why it seemed perfect and appropriate for a White Russian, but it was when I came to settle down for the night in Madalyn's shared abode.
That night we lapsed into old-times, into the days when we could not help having a party as long as the other one was in the same room, so we would stay up past mid-night, or I would at any rate, to finish my work. Even though there were no scholastic demands, I still found important reading to be done and a letter I had to begin before sleeping. Sleep can be a buffer from initial thoughts or feelings to which I can never return, or never have.
After five days of company with old friends it was hard to wake up this morning. Part of that difficulty was sheer exhaustion, but after that I did not want to face cleaning the apartment or going out of doors to do whatever seemed to be at the top of my priorities, the day feeling purposeless and lonely the further I contemplated and prioritized my list of things-to-do.
I told her how unhappy I was to be living without a goal or a five-year plan. I talk about Australia as though if I talk about it often enough that dream will come to pass like so many hopeless dreams I dreamt in high school. I think about that path with uncertainty because I do not know where I would want to go from there, so I bite my lip and cook something.
Before I could go on about how or why this made me unhappy, she asked what was biblical about the five-year-plan, and I glared at Chicago in silent anger that everything for her came back to the bible. I didn't see why it mattered or how a five-year-goal contradicted a Christian life, and I told her it had nothing to do with the Bible. She made a point that at the time I was unwilling to hear, but sunk in like a worm today.
I am, with utmost certainty, where God wants me now. And I think that He intends for me to learn to wait on Him, daily, during this year. The whole weekend preparing, attending, and leaving the wedding I fought back tears because I felt I had lost one of my best friends. I have lost her because she is now one with a man who was always very cold toward her friends. I felt, most keenly, from his demeanor at the wedding and the demeanor of his groomsmen, that she would be jealously gaurded, and her identity slowly swallowed from her old friends. I felt all this with the sinking feeling that I recognized God's hand in her marriage; there was no doubt her husband was meant for her.
The whole dilemma of submission crashed down upon me. You have no idea how relieved I was not to be the bride because I am not at all prepared for that submittal or obedience. This year of working constantly in the now will teach me. I think I will get sick if I do not learn.
Please remind me when ideas wrack my brains like fireworks that I am yet young. There is still time to do the other things I want to do, and time enough to do the things I am doing now. Time for nothing else, but time enough.
