Rings of Glory, Sands of Silver

It's strange to think that I've not written in this blog in almost three months. I suppose I've had alot going on, what with graduating, and ... yeah, that's about all the excitement. Let's attempt to recap, in a decorative and highly charming manner.

Worldviews brought me to an amazing place in my life. By the end of the semester, I felt so close to those previous dumbasses in my class, and on my final exam, when I was asked the question "what impacted you the most about this class?"-- my answer was the dude who actually annoyed me most. We'll call him Jimmy-Jimmy. He was super conservative, and I disagreed with him every class, and once or twice, he got frustrated and told me that I was exhausting. But I was SO challenged by him, and, in the end, when I looked past his worldview, and really tried to understand him, I realized what a solid, good man he is. It was such a revelation. The final paper for that class ended up being nigh on... 36 pages, I believe, and I cracked through so many of my heady, rational, fix-it-smartly-and-handle-it-without-emotion tendencies. I realized that, as my dad has told me a thousand times before, I shouldn't doubt in the dark what God showed me in the light. What is human intelligence and wisdom compared to the wisdom of God? Is that in the Bible? Don't even bother looking for it, you won't find it anywhere.

My thesis turned out to be the most important piece I'd ever written in my life. I didn't mean for it to be so important. I thought I would throw together something, in a decorative and highly charming manner. But on the beach in October, I realized that I wanted to tell one of the stories of my dear grandfather--and I wept as I trod through the waves, and went back and wrote the entire short story in three sittings. That story become an honored shrine of memory to one of the best men I've even known, and I'm unspeakably proud of what I did. The fact that it made a good thesis was immaterial; yay for me, I passed and graduated. But the real accomplishment was the reflection of my grandfather.

So I graduated. Summa Cum Laude. The college president complimented my "bling" as I shook his hand and took my diploma. I'd like to think he was commenting on my decorative and highly charming medals and honors cords and scholarship pins and such--yes, that was a blatant plug for my own awesomeness-- but, in truth--I think he noticed the dogtags I was wearing above everything else. As a retired Navy dude, Dr. Struble rocks the respect.
My family was kinda... really proud of me. I'm kinda...really proud of me. But it still hasn't completely sunken in yet, you know? Everyone tells me that I'll feel it for sure, once school starts in a few weeks and I'm not there. Sniff.

So, yeah. I'm thinkin'...grad school. I'm thinkin'...within the year. I'll give it time and thought and prayer and counsel amongst my lofty few (read: Da, Mum, Cait, Jeremy, and Andrew, pretty much), but I know for certain where God wants me--St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. I'll basically spend two years reading Aristotle and trying to make sense of it. H-AMAZING. But, again, there is much to confer about. Applying, money, timing, moving, work, a place to live, etc. I'm working on my application, but I'm not making any definite plans til I can talk to Andrew. The fact is, yar, I am waiting for him. But the other fact is, I don't have to putter about in the same old job in the same old city whilst I wait. But the third fact is, I don't want to be in the middle of a semester when he gets out of the Army and have to say "Sorry, can't come road trip with you-- gotta discuss Proust."
Another fact: these are still all my mental brain-things inside my head. Andrew tends to have this nifty way of seeing a situation or idea, and finding this occam's razory answer that makes me feel both stupid and relieved. But he's very patient with my little acronym-forgetting peabrain, and that's one of the one-thousand-and-one Arabian reasons that I love him.

Speaking of which, he'll totally be here in about 29 days. I can't believe the first half of the deployment is almost over--so much has happened here, and so much has happened there. His unit has lost so many men. I've watched Andrew, albeit sporadically and from far away, go through the stages of grief. The denial phase was fun, before they lost anyone, and while it was still a bit of an adventure. The anger was hard, because he turned very inward and became annoyingly selfless (as in, he was telling us not to send him stuff or write so much, because it probably was so inconvenient for us...{what a dumbass}), and honestly, he was pretty uncommunicative. That was unbelievably difficult. That was when I found myself crying constantly, and questioning constantly--but thank God--that was also when I wrote my Worldviews paper and discovered (to my chagrin, I managed to weep about it in class) that I was doubting in the dark.

I think Andrew may be in the bargaining stage right now, the whole "just let me live until mid-tour, so I can see Chelsea and my family one more time" thing. Being as resilient as he is, he's pretty optimistic, I think. But also, his unit got pulled back to the big base, and they got to stop dying for awhile over Christmas. He's lost so many friends... I've also been agonizing about how to help him. It's been driving me half mad, because I feel so inadequate to fight against the monumental brutality of the things he's suffering. But as always, Mister God was right there, and in the middle of my agonizing, He said to me oh-so-gently, "Andrew was mine first. I will heal him. I love him more than you do, and I always care for those of My household. I will heal him."
So here I am. Counting down days, filled with plans that can't be settled yet, but still happy. I feel... like I've relearned how to trust, lately. It's a peaceful thing.

I dreamed about Ray Charles last night, and he could see just fine

So, I'm pretty much loving blogspot. I'm probably gonna import my wordpress stuff sometime today, to show my true transferal of loyalty. Despite what Caitlin posited--that wordpress was easier to format and work with pictures and such--I think blogspot is superior. Or maybe I was just too dumb for wordpress and I understand the concepts here better... with wordpress I was always somehow screwing up my formatting and I really never knew how I did it... I would add a photo or try to justify it or use boldiness and in some strange way I would end up converting all my changes into massive amounts of code. I mean, maybe wordpress is a way into the matrix. Who knows. I don't want to mess around with the matrix. I'm strictly a blue-pill kind of girl.

Anyway. I'm really excited for Whit to move into the house tonight, and for Laura to move in next week. The first few days of chillaxing here alone were awesome, but I think since I got Andrew's we-nearly-got-'sploded letter on Thursday, I've been super super unbearably lonely. I think the most overwhelming feeling is uselessness---there's nothing I can do but wait and hope and pray and love. And those are wonderful things, don't get me wrong, but my physical body kinda yearns to take some kind of helpful action. But as I've said before, I'm proud to join into one of the oldest almost exclusively female traditions, that of waiting for our men to come home from war.
I remember the first time this idea, this tradition occured to me. It was in my first reading of my second favorite book, Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier. There's a moment where the heroine Liadan makes some mention of how one of the most significant tasks of women is waiting---waiting for harvest, waiting for a baby to be born, waiting for men to return from battle. And I like to think that I'm the kind of woman who has the patience to take on this task of always waiting with quiet strength.
I heard so many stories from Andrew, right before the 5/2 deployed, about the way the other wives and girlfriends were acting. He said that the guys were really astounded at the fact that I wasn't complaining about him having to leave; I wasn't bitching about being left alone for so long. Geez. I am astounded at those women. What kind of selfishness does it take to make your boyfriend or husband feel even worse about leaving? I'm ashamed of them. I mean, I'm not an especially selfless person. In fact, I think I'm incredibly selfish, and yet even I can see how these men need to reassured that the people back home will be okay.
Because no matter how much it hurts, still the days go by, and bring him closer to coming home.

New thoughts

I got a letter from Afghanistan yesterday, which is about my favorite thing in the universe. As I was about to leave my parents house (I always stop by after work because I'm right there, and since my little brother is just moved out, my mum is rather lonely), when I got a text message from my older brother (to whom my mail is still being sent because of address changes and such), saying "You've got a Cook letter!"
Of course then, I shrieked most fetchingly and leapt into my car, all the while smiling and trying to listen to mum as she told me "don't speed! it'll be there! be careful! oh dear..." It seemed to take hours to get to my brother's apartment in Asheville (I still think of it as my apartment...sigh). My heart kept spinning as I reached each visual marker... the highway... the junction to 240...the expressway... Charlotte Street exit--oh my gosh--..finally the road to the development...I halted in front of the apartment and literally jumped out of the car and ran up the walk. When the door was locked, I hyperventilated and knocked about ten times. After a moment, Phil opened the door and he laughed at me as I slithered past him and ran towards the stack of mail I saw on the dining table.
Amazon, Amazon, something from Montreat that I've already gotten, junk mail and then---there it was. A letter. A nice, thick letter, full of pages. My pulse was tingling in my fingers. I looked up at Phil and squealed a bit, and he laughed at me again while I tried to be polite and make some conversation--"how are you? is Ben settled? kthnxbai."
I truly did consider the possibility of waiting until I got home to read the letter. For about 10 seconds, I thought I would give this occasion the import it deserved, and wait til I could sit down on my deck with some dinner and a cranberry Mike's---wait til I could be calm and devote all my attention to every word that he wrote to me.
Yeah, that didn't happen. Before I was back in my car, I had pulled open the envelope and snatched out the letter. By the time I was seated, but before I had closed the door, I had read his familiar greeting--"Hi babe!"--and by the time the door shut, I was crying.

Sometimes I wish he weren't such a good writer. I think it would be easier if I loved a soldier who was more like the Army-grunt stereotype, who just wrote things like "How are you? It was super hot today. I missed you alot." Instead I love the soldier who writes things like this:

"It's always a surprise when that moment comes... that moment you've been preparing for but never ever could really expect. Our base was attacked today. One minute I was walking down the dusty, scorching streets, looking at the dirty sun-soaked signs posted on the stone walls that turn the roads into tunnels, and the next---that moment. Those sounds, that energy and impact that happened so quickly it was like my body was metal and the sand was magnet, I hit the ground so fast. It was beyond sensing. The fire, the debris, the screaming, the death. When finally those automatic actions we take for granted restarted, when I was able to see and move and focus again, you were the only thing my mind could locate to keep me sane...to think that 30 seconds ago, I was standing where the bombs hit and it could have been me. But it wasn't, not yet. It may seem strange, but I suddenly understand that my life is not my own. If the time came that I had to give my life the way others did today, I would do it gladly. My life is not mine. My moments are not mine."

Then he closed the letter, 3 pages later, with two sentences that I had to read twice, because I thought I had misread them at first--"Every day I get more tired of being your boyfriend--I want to be your husband."

I don't have it in front of me, but I've almost got it memorized by now, so I think that's about 85% verbatim. I cried so hard after reading that letter. I'm not sure what I was feeling. Not sadness, exactly. Sorrow that he had to suffer through what he did. Agonizing joy and relief that he was alright. Terror, because it finally, truly, one hundred percent sunk in how far away he is, and how dangerous his world is. But more than anything--I think I felt gratitude. Gratitude that the Lord brought this man into my life. Gratitude that I've been afforded such an incomprehensibly stunning romance. Gratitude for His perfect design, His deep love for me and for Andrew. Gratitude that suddenly I have so much perspective on the stupid little dealings in my life--all this stuff about renters and money and "oh, I'm such a hardass?" Who cares? I'm full of love and softness now. I've been reminded what matters. It's not about power and control and making sure that everybody does what I need them to do. If I may be pardoned a line that I never thought I would say outside of jest or quoting, love is all you need.
Thank you, God.