Intentionally Placed

It's snowing outside - or at least it feels like it. Our faucets are all running a little bit to prevent them from freezing. And my heart? It feels full, but small, then contracts. And my eyes? They don't stop tearing up and then crying. I push my fingers through my hair and I breathe out deeply and I wonder, why? Why the crashing? Why the feeling of no and yet too many feelings?

On account of the weather I have been taking the bus instead of driving. I forgot how much I enjoyed public transportation. More than not my experiences with trimet have been good but those few bad ones usually deter me.

One of the things I like most is that you have to slow down your day to fit in a bus ride. And while you are on the bus, often standing in my case, you get to watch the city go by. I live in a magnificent city. A deaf man gave me his seat yesterday. So today I gave my seat away - though less elegantly. I thought of all the little things that people do that are kind - even though it took me 2 hours to get home in 23 degree weather - I appreciated the reality of life.

I wonder if everyone has really experienced the world of public transportation. I think in the life of a car driver we forget about the people who don't have that luxury - or in the case of many people in Portland, who choose not to drive. I don't know. It gave me a greater respect for others. It is not easy scheduling your life and having it at the mercy of others - even though really we all experience that, most of us just don't feel it. I think if someone hasn't experienced this (or similar things) that they need to take away some of the luxuries and break down their barriers - or how will they ever understand or embrace beyond themselves?

How is this relevant? Well, I felt so peaceful today, like I was sharing in something. I know I have often written of my belief in our need for community and I feel like in the absence of one in my life, the feeling of community amongst strangers was pretty significant.

And yet with the people I love I am distant. I do not write the friends I want to write, I do not call my father, I am sharp on the phone with my mother and I am, lately, stingy with my heart to Kyle. I have been very anxious about life, having all kinds of existential crises surrounding death and both the inevitability of it and the fear of its sting capturing me or someone I love at any moment. Irrational? Probably, but it is only a piece.

It is not why I am crying. I am crying because something feels apart. I've said before, this time of year is hard. It is now when I miss parts of my old life. My different life. It is also when I have made my worst decisions. So when I experience the anxieties I am currently carrying I fear that there is any truth to them. And what if there is?

And yet I still don't know if that (fear/anxieties)is why I am crying. I tend to hold the tears in and it seems it has been long enough. So I need to cry. I need to fill this hole and I need to let my eyes flood into pools.

I need to exist, be thankful, be true and know that this is not all there is - this day, that twinkling tree, that anxiety, that fear, this love, the goodness of strangers - that these are all pieces and I am intentionally placed exactly where I am meant to be in something so much bigger.