tiny human.

a first post back & all i have to hand you is cloudy thoughts on sorrow. what a week it has been. 

berwyn is not my dog but his passing is still sorrow. it reminds me of my own little puppy who called it a day in september of last year. it was awful. 

berwyn was diagnosed with lymphoma about a month ago. his glands started swelling one day, no other indicators. the doctors said 2-3 months if left untreated, maybe longer with steroids. 

they were wrong. 

he's known the last week. he knew and i knew, and so did everyone else. there was no pretending. just lots of loving. lots of lying on floors with a sick beautiful puppy who was still full of love. 

thursday night his nodes were bigger than they'd ever been. friday morning around 4am, he tried to jump in my bed but he missed. i woke up & and carried that sweet little furry human into the bed. for the first time all week, he wanted to be near. his heavy breathing gave away his fears. so i held him and prayed and told him how loved he was. after a few minutes of settling into the coming sadness, i prayed again and texted brianna, who was asleep down stairs. i don't ever wake people up in the early hours, but this time was appropriate. she sat with her sweet boy & worked through what the day would look like. her sister eventually came in and we tried to figure out who would be where. it was time to let berwyn go.

in general, heaven means very little to me. it has never been something I've cared about and for me, it doesn't do much for my framework. I've been studying Christianity for 8 years now, tons of different eschatology options, arguments, all of it. what is at the end of life? what difference does it make. but then there are dogs. dogs make me believe in heaven. i love humans and care so terribly much about humans. but as far as rewards at the end of it all? meh. but dogs? there better be a rewards at the end of it for such faithful little companions. the world seems unpalatable if berwyn isn't running around a giant green field somewhere.

before i left for my internship, i laid on the ground with berwyn with all the tenderness of sorrow that i had left. he knew. i kissed his tiny little forehead and said goodbye. my boss gave me permission to leave when i needed to so as soon as bri texted me, i started towards the clinic.

 i knew when the drip started and i knew i wouldn't make it in time. it didn't matter. i had already loved berwyn as much as i had in me. i walked him and sat on the curb with him when he got sick the first time. i threw a ball around with him. i played within his limits at the end. i fed him in the mornings before i left. i stopped doing homework to play with his red bone. i followed him on the carpet when he moved away. i curled up with him to sleep. i loved that tiny little noodle. so when bri texted me that it was done, there was no regret about not leaving earlier. and knowing that she had the space and privacy to grieve over her dog was important. 

the weather on the drive back was crap. gray and foggy and rainy. the perfect mixtape for loss. i read the text and felt the grief crawling into my chest. and instead of fighting it off, i helped make a little pallet and said 'you are welcome here, stay as long as you need to.'

 i thought of cassie last year and the sudden absence of your most responsive companion. i think my dog taught me about moving through sadness. she would sense it & just sit with me. no barking, no playing, no moving. just sitting and letting the silence find the porous pockets in your bones. i don't often feel lonely, whether its the companionship of friends and family or my own insistence at including noise in my life. but when my mom called me and told me about cassie, i came home to a raucous silence. it was the most violently loneliness I've experienced. to walk through the house and not hear the tiny clicks of little paws. that is where i understood sorrow the best.

so this past weekend, without a 30lb heater curled into the bed, i heard a loud silence. i felt the absence of a tiny human (not actually a human) who interrupted most of my homework. i missed the beautiful brown eyes and even the startling barking when i stranger would think about walking past the door, never mind cross the line of vision. i miss those beautiful things and i feel the grief in it.

today is new and old. full and a little less robust. today lacks a certain furry companion to ward off my demons. and my academic bear traps. i raise you the fury heard in ben howard rewrites, and the grief of noah gundersen. i miss you little berwyn. i miss you a lot. 

a story of stories.

I'm sitting here in franklin TN, watching a documentary about sharks, not surprisingly. a friend texted me today to tell me that she was sitting on the beach by herself, sans family. i could feel the rest for her bones, a thousand miles away. she asked me how the transition was going, and i told her i felt alive & at home.

there are probably times where that answer has been true, probably even in recent times. but i can't think of them. i feel alive. i feel at home in my own skin. i would pen words to that feeling but I'm not sure they're adequate.

 i moved to TN 3 weeks ago. my old testament professor-turned-friend brought her daughters over to help me pack up. a few sets of hands joined in & we finished packing the uhaul with plenty of time to spare. so we made breakfast together because there would be no more appropriate way to move out. emily manned the pancakes, dr qualls took care of the sausage & i had the bacon & eggs. a full kitchen to balance out my empty room. goodbyes were emotional & we prayed together. and i was loved. i was so very loved & so very grateful for that love.

I've moved myself a couple of times but I've never had anyone load up my car. it was new and nice and kind. they waved me off as i reluctantly put my foot to the gas petal. it felt like the movies. i cried for the first 30 minutes of the drive and it was the ugly kind because id lived there 7 years. minutes after my eyes dried, i got a phone call from christa, where we talked about crying & trying new things. and then the call got interrupted by one coming in from dr qualls. (whilst discussing her brazen prophecies for our future). aside from my slow winding trek through the mountains, i spent my entire drive on the phone. but i made no outgoing calls. these were my friends, walking alongside me through 6 hours of highways. it was so beautiful. christa & dr qualls traded hours where they would call me. i felt so loved. it was so wild.

i pulled into the parking lot in nashville & felt like i hadn't yet left. a friend of mine once said in regards to our tribe, "i carry you all with me always." thats what it was like. it was the scene from harry potter where he's turned the resurrection stone (except obviously i wasn't facing lord voldermort, and i had no world saving to do.) i was in the company of everyone who had walked with me in friendship. what a kind thing for love to do. a refusal to leave me stranded.

ive thought of my friends often in during this move. really, i think every post in here eventually comes back to them. but they are my grace and God has not pulled them from my view.

i worked my favorite camp for just a week this summer. it cranked like an old car; rusty but resolutely faithful. the pace of camp requires a tremendous kind of energy. one that i legitimately cannot sustain in real life. but for a week, i can live in that exhaustion/aliveness. i got to participate in people grace & friend grace & team grace.

 i watched profound social anxiety turn into LITERAL dancing. i met a boy named sam, who came without knowing a soul & taught him to play vance joy. he became a camp rock star during the volleyball tournament. i played soccer with a boy from nepal named deepan & another boy from some profound country in africa. his name was gadsoni, and together we all played soccer. i got to sit for worship and breathe. i felt life in a way that i have missed. my sense of spirutuality is not so fine tuned & sensitive as it once was. the vocabulary of spiritual insight feels bitter & foreign in my mouth. but the gritty work of hands on plows makes sense to me. that is where my spirit comes alive.

it was so good. luckily, there was another mid tenty on the team & we connected well. camp life is this wild thing where time passes like it does in the narnia series; slowly & all at once. (and also the john greene series, since i love that quote) you live a year in a summer & a month in a week. we shared stories and comments that fermented a few years longer than for the rest of the team. and it was good. 

it was good to meet someone in my own skin. it felt good to share life again in danville & to be in a way better place. the last time i was there, my personhood was still pretty fragmented. i was still trying to fit into my old skin with my old words,but the  skin  had a tear & no longer fit. i actually read some older posts from that time. i referenced my demons coming out of the rafters & the anxiety in the posts was so loud. its almost jarring in how that picture was juxtaposed this time.

marilee and i shared stories, demons & dreams with ease. THAT is what i believe in. being seen & heard. trading stories with honor instead of shame & fear. it felt so good to sit in my own skin again. to feel alive in yourself again is a profound grace. 

i dont understand how passport camp works. in general, its WAY outside of my comfort zone. but its a place to my hands in the dirt. i get to reconnect to myself. i get to see these tiny glimpses of Gods kingdom & where God is moving me inside (& outside) of that kingdom. i can see where my design has niche & my presence is specific.

 i used to be afraid of that. today im not. today im 25 & 4 years have passed. the broken pieces mended & today i get to breathe with my fearless lungs. that feels so good. im not anxious right now. i am alive & i am well & that is not always the case, so i celebrate.

when dr qualls asked me how nashville felt, i told her that i felt alive & at home in my own skin, in a way that i hadnt felt in years.

we dont get all the pieces back when the paradigm shatters. but if we'll steady our hands, the mosaic on the other side sits in the same space, just in a different shape.

feels nice to be alive again. to open & honest & brave. 

i pulled out my box of letters, just to browse in the midst of transition. i have gracious friends who wrote me letters & told me what they saw in me. some of these date back beyond college & into early high school. in almost every letter was some semblance of, "im grateful for your friendship.. i love your honesty.. i love how real you are.. i love your courage." its neat to come full circle again, sharing life on a kitchen floor & sharing stories, breathing life back into those qualities. neat to make a new friend (who you shouldve met before but didnt bc of diff circumstances) & to wear those badges again. differently, but still authetically. neat to share life & know that dark doesnt always win (& it dossnt always mean bad or forever). 4 years can be a capping point & a place to re-walk your own personhood.

florence + the machine has a new song called Third Eye. her whole album sounds like a diary/self-talk-mirror, but there is a line in that song that she screams out of herself, in a loving desperation to make herself hear. "hey look up! you dont have to be a ghost here amongst the living! you are flesh and blood! and you deserve to be loved! and you deserve what you are given!" so fitting that a florence song frames this post. full circle, shake it off framed the other one. 

you deserve to be loved.

you deserve to be loved.

you deserve to be loved.

amen.

ben howard and deep graces.

write chelsea, just write. write all the words that you are thinking and sort out the difference later. write on, right on.

i think the only time i truly feel compelled to write is when i am in the midst of transitions that i don't readily fathom, though they are usually borne of the choices I've made.

im transferring, leaving this tiny town. i made my bed here, made it my home & laid down for some rest. a few months from now, ill be packing my bags properly and shipping out. i will no longer be the host for visitors, i will be the visitor.

last night a group of us stayed with a friend who fits like family. she is a mother to us all and we are gratefully indebted to her service, though we know that she would never ask us to return the favor in any way. as i was leaving this morning, she reminded me that soon my departure would be a little more permanent. she said any time i come back, i will always have a place to stay with her and her family.

i came really close to melting. and by melting, i mean crying. i didn't. but the tiredness of this week and the reality of my roommate moving out somewhat unexpectedly, enmeshed with coming down from the natural high of the past 2 weeks spent with great friends & i had in my hands (heart) all the feels. maybe not all of them. but something in the depths came out to play. and it knew that walking away would be more like speeding off.

this is a good place with incredible people. hannah and mary came into town from richmond and chicago and they were welcomed back in celebration. they both felt inexplicable love and swelled with gratitude. i listened to them talk about their re-entries into this town and i recognized that at some point in the year, that would be my story.

bri came over from nashville last weekend and we filled our house with as many old friends as we could. that is what boiling springs means. forget the piddly little spigot. its not the dribbling stream. its the rocks that surround the stream. that i recently found out were strewn near the waters edge in honor of a young woman named pam.

its the good rocks that surround us. the ones that allow us to scale the walls when we fall into our own deep wells. the good rocks that we throw into lake hollifield on nights when our realities are far too tremendous. that what makes this town so sacred. that when we are here and for as long as we remember, we have soldiers that guard us and keep us company. 

im taking my time on my way out. i withdrew my application from a job i LOVE, one that has been feeding my soul for 3 summers. just so i could say goodbye slowly. so i could walk past the daffodils and know their names. stroll down the trails at the mighty broad river in my own time.

im not there yet. time has not hit its mark. but as i watch the gait of those who walk ahead of me, im taking notes (perpetually). i am picking up the things i want to take with me. building a small shrine to the last 7 years of growing up and  re-growing up. retrying things for the first time. 

walk well. pick your feet up, pick your head up, and walk well through this season.