The Windows are Open and I'm Waxing Nostalgic

Summer is here in the South. Our windows are open and the sweet sounds of birds chirping (and garbage trucks barreling by) prance inside. As I sit here at my computer, there's a gentle breeze at my back, while I relish this annual milestone of letting the outdoors in.

Fortunately, our new little home is surrounded by large trees that work to keep our little apartment cooler than you'd expect. When we moved in, the branches were bare and I didn't really believe my landlord when she told us that the entire yard would soon be coated in shade.

Yet, just three months later, here we are. When I first planted my container garden, the leaves were still unfurling and the backyard was filled with light. Now the leaves have grown in so much that it has become a dance of scooting and twirling the containers so that they can bask in the sunny spots that are ever-changing.

I asked my husband the other day, "Does it feel like we've been living here a long time, yet?" Because sometimes, it feels like we've been living here for what seems like forever and at other times—like when I fight to find the light switches, groping for the places they were in our old apartment—it seems like it hasn't been that long at all.

When I think back on all the places I've lived, from Cincinnati to Athens to Birmingham to Grand Rapids to Atlanta, there are aspects that still feel like they happened yesterday: Walking along the cobblestone streets of Athens to meet my best friends for a picnic on the green. Fighting giant cockroaches and grasshoppers with my roommate in Birmingham. Driving to the beach on Lake Michigan. Packing up a huge moving truck and making the two-day journey southbound, with my husband of one month and a future unknown.

And yet then I think about how much has changed, and this thing called life astounds me at how it seems to move so quickly and yet so still at the same time. Somehow, it is both at the very same time. Isn't life such a mystery?

Like the leaves that take shape and the breeze that whispers through my window, today slips by so slowly it is almost unnoticed, with its promises of all that may be. And yet, it changes everything.

Here is to today...

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Staying Productive Without a Job

I'm still new to this unemployed stint of mine, just a couple of weeks fresh off of daily phone calls and wrapping up loose ends.

It's not all that easy, you know, to spend a whole day by yourself and feel useful. It's a job of its own, to keep up with every little thing there is to do and actually do it, now while I can. The weekend that my job ended, I pulled out a big colorful weekly agenda and began scrawling out a massive running to-do list, whether big or small. Moreso than before, I feel like this is essential to enjoying this respite in which I've found myself, because without some feeling of fulfillment or satisfaction, what can be relaxing can easily become racking. This has become something of a security blanket when the feelings of boredom start to well up. I turn to my list, divided into categories, another page for daily tasks, and I get to work checking them off.

I've found it to be incredibly useful, else I'm afraid I might find myself in the middle of my living room, looking around with eyes wide, lost, and unsure of what to do with myself. Of course there are always things to do; that's one of the things I've learned about life. You can make a great meal tonight, but tomorrow another will need to be made. You can get ahead on this week's laundry, but next week a new load will surface. There's always something.

And so I endeavor to strike a balance between these productive "to do's" of keeping up with an apartment forever gathering dust and mounds of day-old clothes as well as trying to take advantage of the extra time I have to spend time at length with the Lord.

I recognize that there are few opportunities like this in life, when I have little responsibility tugging at my sleeve for 40 hours a week. It's the first time in six years I haven't held down a full-time job. And when most women find themselves staying at home full time, it usually comes with the around-the-clock job of motherhood. But here I am, a stay-at-home wife.

I don't want to look back on this season—whether it lasts a month or a year—and wish I'd taken advantage of this jewel frozen in time when I have all the time to spare to be Mary and sit at Christ's feet and soak up his teaching and ready myself for this next season of life that awaits.

And do you know, sometimes it's hard to let myself just sit. I've been in such the go-go-go, do-do-do mindset for years, that sit-stay-pray is difficult. Yet, I recognize how much I need it. For today but also for all the days to come. This is a time for me to root myself in the Lord. A pocket of time when I have the opportunity to readily drink from those waters without deadlines or diapers cutting me short. A pocket of time I must make sure to protect and savor and put to use—that unique usefulness that matters most.

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