comments.

i’m about to die if somebody doesn’t comment on my blog.  i look at my stats, folks, and i know that there are some people that have at least PEEKED at what i’ve written.  you don’t have to fawn over me.  you can read it and just write, “Bekah, that is total bologna and you know it.”  that’ s fine.  just give me something.

 it’s almost Christmas!  and my birthday!  [twenty-three.]  we’re having tamales and going to see Christmas lights for my birthday.  i love low-key celebrations.  and i love presents.  both ways–in and out, giving and receiving.

 too many good things all around me: Texas Pecan Pie Bars, Orange Cranberry Bread, Peppermint Bark, Chocolate Fudge, Pecan Pralines… Yikes!  Fasting in January…

me and billy.

billy collins says that he only began writing good poetry when he realized he had nothing new to say.

my sentiments exactly, mr. collins.

i have to quote you to even say that i have nothing new to say.  in fact, i have nothing to say at all, but i still want to put it down, all the nothing and the worn out and the simple.

like the fact that i don’t know what i’m doing with my life and i feel like that girl i heard about the other day who was playing musical chairs and was sitting down in the very last chair when her opponent pulled it out from under her and she fell splat on the linoleum. 

and like the fact that i am reading Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoffer.  and i want you to know what that means: that it means i want to live life with someone and multiple someones and i have no idea how so i’m reading a book written when my mom was a year old by a man who conspired to assassinate Hitler. 

and then there’s the problem that i’m an introvert and as much as i want to live life with people, i also want to hole away in a hut a lot of the time.  so i leave college graduation right when it’s over and think up excuses to slip out of parties and somehow end up in the bulk food section at the grocery store, buying organic dried mango.  my favorite.  and an excellent substitute for chit-chat, of which i have about 45 minutes tops stored up inside of me to pull out in emergencies.  after that, either i tell my conversation partner a secret that i never meant to tell them and they act thrilled to know or i leave.  sometimes, i do both, which is worse.

the best thing to do is catch me one on one, especially at barnes and noble, with a good magazine in front of us to look at when things get dull, or take me to see music so we can watch it and comment on it when we’re tired of talking about how our weeks have gone, or just walk with me by the river or up a mountain.  that is enough.

love.

     To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.   [C.S. Lewis]

Dang it.  I hate being vulnerable.

arrival.

I finished my very last final of my undergraduate career today at 4:49 pm.  I walked out of the Baylor Science Building and felt like a fresh breeze blew through my rib cage.  I laughed, and smiled at unsuspecting victims of sleep deprivation on the sidewalk.  I ran across the street in the face of a red hand on the pedestrian screen…when I should have waited for a green man to signal safety…and a car almost plowed me down.  How ironic would that have been, to finish school after four and a half years, and then get hit by a car. 

 I thought the other day about whether or not it would be possible for me to die right now.  I feel so clearly that God has called me to Kansas City to do the One Thing Internship that I just can’t picture Him letting anything happen to me.  I don’t think I’ve ever felt this fearless and invincible.