Today (now that it is past midnight) is my Aunt Annette’s birthday. I share with my aunt (among other things) a passion for creating, a love of dabbling in new disciplines, and an endless pursuit of excellent skincare. She has been a big and positive influence in my life, and I hope she knows it. In her honor, because she is a dog person, I share with you and her the above photos of an adorable doggie whom I recently captured surveying the backyard at a bridal shower.

Dear Aunt Annette: a card is on its way to you but will be belated by the time it reaches you. So let me, here and now, wish you a very Happy Birthday indeed!

Love,
- Your Niece

(I wrote this post a few weeks ago but never published it. I’m still in the throes of writing my thesis, but there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel. And it is getting closer. I’ll let you know when I surface.)

I’ve had the same bedspread since I was 14. That is going to change this summer, for obvious reasons, but for now I am still camouflaged by my bed when I sit on it in jeans.

Which makes me think of… (it doesn’t really, but I’m trying to somehow tie this post together) Anna Karenina. I finished it just in time for the discussion we had on Wednesday, and I do not think that anything I have read has affected me as strongly since The Deathly Hallows. (If you are tempted to laugh at that, please re-read the entire Harry Potter series and then get back to me. But that is a different discussion altogether.) The novel is incredibly rich, and I highly recommend it; please do not be scared of its 940 pages. Even if you take a year to read it, which I almost did, I think you will find it worthwhile.

One of the most rewarding aspects of the book is Tolstoy’s incredible grasp of the way people work. I found myself in every character he wrote, because no matter how evil and selfish some of the choices that the characters made were, Tolstoy refused to “villainize” any character–he showed their thought processes in such a way that it honestly left me wondering whether I would not make the same choice in their situation. This is the danger of all our evil; it is so easy to convince ourselves that it is good.

Song for today:

I am tip-toeing to the edge.
I am standing on a precipice.
I am overlooking an uncertain future.

Every future is uncertain, but sometimes it is more obvious than others.

It may not seem uncertain. I do know (as much as we can know): when I’m graduating (hopefully), who I’m marrying, when and where I’m marrying him, and where we will live.

But I don’t know: when I will be done writing my thesis, where our money will be coming from, what it will be like to be married, or what it will be like to live on our own. I don’t even know what tomorrow will bring, let alone the next new, uncertain year. I suppose this is part of the faith we’re asked to have—faith that tomorrow or the next day will not bring us more than we can handle.

I tend to underestimate what I can handle, though, so often I look at what the day has brought me and assume it is too much. Like today, when Gil assured me I could squat the weight he had put on my shoulders, and I whined and whined that I could not possibly, until I finally tried a little harder and did it. God does that to me almost every day; you would think, by now, I would have learned to not whine and to just push—but no.

Speaking of days, they are rushing past. Every morning I wake up (unwillingly) and stare down a marathon to-do list. I have to make choices like: will I work on my thesis, or will I do the reading that is due for this afternoon’s discussion? Will I chat with friends today at lunch or will I work out, since it is the only time today I can possibly do it? I hate that these are decisions I must make. I wish I could take everything just a little bit slower. I wish I could take spoonfuls of these last school days and roll them around on my tongue like the chocolate ice cream I just remembered I have in the fridge. Instead, I am gulping them down, because it seems that is the only way to fit everything in them that needs to be done.

I wish, I wish, I wish… and yet, I know I can handle this too. It may not be easy, it may not be certain, it may not be picture perfect, but it is a part of this life I am living, and it is full of blessings I forget to remember. Lord, help me remember. And help me push.