It really is indescribably beautiful out here.

I’m sitting on my parents’ front step, taking in this gorgeous July sunset and the fluttering bits of golden green all around, typing out a blog post using my Dad’s iPad on the ground and a little Bluetooth keyboard on my lap. (What is Bluetooth, anyway? It might as well be magic. Like radios. And gravity.) I have to say this is my favorite way to write anything on a computer. Typewriting is good, handwriting is better, but if I’m going to be typing first-draft thoughts into a computer, I’d rather feel as little as possible like I’m doing so. (Oops, there’s an ant on the iPad. Technology, meet nature.)

For my Mom’s birthday, my brother sent her a book called Lit. She finished it already, and I’m halfway through it. (So far, although a harrowing story, it is very worth the read.) On one of those days when I was having a cow about life, Mom suggested a tactic which (apparently—I haven’t read that far yet) comes up in the book: shifting your focus from the negative by listing out the things you’re grateful for in this life. (Yes, like that.)

I strongly resisted this suggestion at the time (probably because I knew it would eliminate any cause for me to continue dragging myself around like a whiny baby). But last night after another draggy, sludgy day (which I ironically spent most of lying around reading Lit) I turned to Gil (who had also not been having a great day) and said, “We should say things that we’re thankful for.” As it turned out, we were both thankful that we were married to each other, and we were both thankful for our friends and family, and we were both thankful for our little home and for the good weather we’ve been having. But then Gil added, “I’m thankful that we don’t have to get everything right on the first try.”

And that struck me as just about the perfect thing to be thankful for.

Because usually, the reason I drag myself into a sludgy day in the first place is that I feel guilty about something (or many somethings) I haven’t “gotten right” yet—sometimes serious things, like friends I fear I have slighted or hurt, or my inability to stop judging people, but usually silly things like washing the dishes, or entering our receipts, or writing blog posts, or, lately, writing Thank You notes for our wedding (which irony, when coupled with the theme of this post, is not lost on me). When enough of these things pile up on top of each other I become overwhelmed and, as has always been my way, shut down.

But Gil’s item of thankfulness reminded me: this life is not a story about getting everything right (on the first try or ever); it’s a story about getting everything wrong, and being forgiven anyway. And along the way, it is a story of striving: of picking yourself up and trying again, because you are struggling toward something worthwhile. I was also reminded that those “silly” things really are silly, but that there is grace (and the chance to try again) even for things as insignificant as a dirty kitchen or unwritten Thank You notes.

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Speaking of gratitude, I want to give a big Thank You to everyone who commented on my de-lurking post. I suspect I didn’t really “out” all the lurkers (feel free to post a comment still if you have a change of heart!), but I greatly appreciated all of the comments and stories you shared. It’s encouraging and humbling to know I have the ear of more than a few real, live human beings. I hope I can provide, at least now and again, something worth listening to.

Yesterday we drove my friend Molly up to the Portland airport, where with a quick hug and a “love you, see you soon” (we were running a bit late, as per my usual), she disappeared into the terminal and presumably caught her plane back to Maryland. Gil and I went on to “adventure” a bit in Portland—we visited some good friends and ate at an absolutely delicious Paleo diner, among other things—but on the way home I had time to reflect on my visit with Molly.

I have been blessed with a number of amazing friends—friends with whom I feel confident that I share a view of what is most important in this world, with whom I can trust everything from my silliest whims to my most serious fears—and I treasure each and every one of them because each of them has witnessed an important part of my growth as a person, and each of them has left their own unique, indelible stamp on my psyche. I honestly can’t imagine my life without any one of these girls. And Molly is one of them.

Molly and I entered each others’ lives at a Gutenberg “Freshman Tea” one Sunday afternoon now almost five years ago. I’d like to tell you that we had a magical “friends at first sight” connection and that our relationship was smooth sailing from there until she was my Maid of Honor, but the truth is more like this: I latched on to her right from the beginning of our Gutenberg career—latched really being the appropriate word. Molly was the first of my friends to give me a real lesson on boundaries in a friendship; namely, her boundaries, and how I was blatantly unaware of them. Not a very pretty picture, is it? But it’s the truth, and the sometimes-ugly truth of our stories is often also where the beauty lies—because, though it so easily could have been, that confrontation was not the end of our friendship. We both adjusted, and grew, and we came back together as slightly stronger friends.

Also of particular significance to our relationship was the year that we decided to be roommates—our junior year of Gutenberg. We approached the idea with appropriate caution, I think, given our history; but I, at least, couldn’t help feeling a bit giddy about how cute we were going to make our room, how wonderful life was going to be, etc. (This is the way it goes when I approach a new living situation: the ways in which I believe it will improve my life know no bounds.) But reality, as it always does, interceded. We did, in fact, have a great time decorating our room. (It was amazing, if I do say so myself. I’ll have to post pictures of it sometime.) But it didn’t take too long for us to realize, individually, that we were stressed up to our eyeballs by the other person; by our communication, by our lack of communication, by our assumptions, by our fears and worries and annoyances. We got to the point where, in a lot of ways, it would have been easiest to give up on our relationship—to remain cordial roommates but not really friends.

But that is not what we did. Somehow, miraculously, we both resolved in ourselves that we were going to make this thing work, and we opened up. We took emotional risks and resolved things that desperately needed to be resolved. We dug deep enough to build real trust between the two of us—something which I don’t think had ever really been present before.

I thought about all this as Gil drove us home down I-5 last night and the sunset-lit fields flashed by my window. And I thought about how now, on this visit, even though we hadn’t seen each other for almost a year, being with Molly was as easy as breathing—how she and I have both grown and deepened and settled into our own skins, and how that has only made our friendship richer. I also thought about how having a friend like Molly is pretty much one of greatest blessings you could ask for in this life and how our friendship never would have come about without a lot of hard work.

Hard work is not something any of us tend to seek out, especially in our relationships. We would much rather take the easy way out—not admit that we were wrong, not apologize for hurting the other person, not open up about our fears and concerns. So I am thankful for reminders, like my friendship with Molly, that if, by the grace of God, you can make the choice to work hard, there are great rewards to be reaped.

Last year about this time I was putting the finishing touches on a backbreaking little project known as my senior thesis. I had spent the entire year before that immersed in the work of Albert Camus and Søren Kierkegaard, two excellent writers and thinkers (though not terribly health conscious, apparently–DON’T SMOKE, kids) who had a thing or two to say about despair–what it is, and whether or not one ought to. This was and is a subject near and dear to my heart, and though the process of writing my thesis nearly did me in, I am immensely thankful that I was able to finish it. And, in the end, I think I managed to communicate at least a little of what I set out to. So here it is, in case you are interested in reading it:

In PDF Format: The Leaden Echo – Albert Camus & Søren Kierkegaard on Despair

(If nothing else, you should download it and read the Gerard Manley Hopkins poems on either end of the paper. They are some of my favorites.)

Here we are, at the verge of fall becoming winter. The days, it seems, rush by just as quickly now that I am working as they did when I was in school. I tricked myself into thinking that there would, at some point, be a respite–a point at which I could step back, relax, breathe, and perhaps even achieve that apparently mythical feeling called “being caught up.” But no, time has continued to slip right away underneath me, leaving behind many unfinished projects around our house and inside my head, not to mention our wedding thank you’s (!).

It’s tempting to despair at this state of things, as there is little in this life that I long for more than that “caught-up” feeling. And I often do despair. (And by that I mean: pout, whine, tell myself stories about how my life is terrible, etc.) But sometimes, by the grace of God, I instead take off my frustrated blinders and realize how abundantly blessed I am and how comparatively little most of the things I spend my days worrying about matter.

And so, in this week set aside for giving thanks, I find that I am truly thankful. I am thankful for my family and friends, without whom I know I would be completely adrift. I am thankful for my work, even when I find it hard to enjoy (but especially when I don’t). I am thankful for moments of beauty, like the ones above, that step quietly into the middle of everyday tasks and lift my spirits. But most of all, I am thankful for the Creator who has given all of this to us, and who has pointed us toward a place where our desires will no longer be thwarted.

(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: