The IPod Haunting

This is the best title I could come up with...The IPod Haunting.

Succinct. To the point. Accurate.

My IPod is haunting me.

I am getting ahead of myself...

I went after work today to get a manicure...a much needed (and wanted) manicure. I am excited because I have decided to have my nails painted black again...as I did right before Haiti (the first time EVER). I loved them...but more...the kids in Haiti loved them. So now those silly, shiny, black nails will be associated with those kids rubbing on them wondering how and why this blanc's nails turned black. :)))

This beauty's name is pronounced "Was My Love"...and she stole my heart. She was also FASCINATED by my black nails. :))) 


I digress....

So right after I sit down, I suddenly realize (I am bored...manicures are boring) that the entire radio selection is the golden 80's....as I flash back to every bad high school dance I ever attended, embarrassed myself at, etc.  I was one of those that thought I could dance...I could NOT dance. I also was one of those misfits...I wasn't cool...I wasn't not cool...I just didn't fit...anywhere. That said, the memories aren't bad, as much as they are embarrassing, awkward and icky. I mean...I nearly took out the entire ozone, singlehanded, with my hairspray use....my hair was HUGE.

So...as I sit there having flashback after flashback, I suddenly have the thought of how music operates like a time machine for me.

...and I simmer on that while Gena works on my nails...

...and she did an AMAZING job...black is NOT easy...

Later as I get in the car....dying for a Black Iced Tea and my IPod (the music selection never got better), I opted to put it on shuffle. The whole IPod. I have 2,160 songs on my IPod (and yes I checked ;)). As the songs played one-by-one, I was struck again...the time machine....every song on there takes me back to an old love, a new love, an old job, a road trip, the streets of Dublin, the hills of Haiti, a mountain in Colorado, the paths around Cong, Ireland, a farm in Kentucky, deaths and subsequent grief, a birthday party, the kitchen at The Farm, the beach at Panama, overlooking the creek at The Workshop, walking the streets of Nashville for a Krispy Kreme with Rachel (now there is a memory...we should be dead...it is a miracle), Sam playing baseball, the lobby of the Inn at Carnall Hall, Jordan's prom, Jon's birth, a favorite film, a favorite place, and on and on....

Isn't that simply amazing?!?!

I am in awe.

Rosanne Cash's "Dreams Are Not My Home" is one that came on...that entire album "Black Cadillac" helped me survive a couple of really trying times in my life, and is beyond amazing. Tonight this particular song took on new meaning....dreams are not my home....let that sink in. If you have read my blog since the beginning, you know that there is a huge part of this girl trying to get "home" (or #home as I have started hash-tagging those things that feel like home to me) to whatever that is...I really believe I am on the verge of cracking the code (so to speak) on what "home" is for me. Please pray.  That said, if my dreams are not my home...well, that is going to either crack the whole thing wide open OR shatter it...Completely.

So...I simmered on the drive home...playing the song over and over...internalizing the words...did I already know the answer?? 

The one on the left I got in Haiti, and you can see it if you look close, there is a spot on the top bead (right above the yellow one)in the picture shaped like..you guessed it...a heart. The second one is made of river rocks (from the Buffalo National River area) that a supremely talented friend of mine Kate Baer (Kate Baer Fossils) in Ponca made. Both are treasures of #home







Home.

So if the dreams I have spent a lifetime...well, dreaming...aren't my home???...then I wonder...

Could it be that easy???

I took about 15 minutes to just think about what I was suddenly recognizing as my own truth. I have been clamoring after the wrong damn home...All. These. Years.

Well CRAP.



In this moment I am smiling convinced that God did in fact create me to be the very gypsy I am...that I fought against...that I am once again. Good grief.

When you have an empty place inside of you (or more than one empty place), it is very easy...natural even...to seek to fill it. To grasp onto those things, places, people that you think can fill it. I have done ALL of those things. I have been blind.

I have even sabotaged a few things for myself...yup, I said it.

I have been at the helm of my own ship for so long...too long...so long that there are some in my life that truly (with love, not ugliness) doubt I can give it all up. Be truly obedient. I'm with them. I say, "Me too." with both hands raised....High. No ego here.

Here is the catch though...all the other times, it was my control and therefore dependent on my skill. Not this time. I'm out. I really want to let him steer this ship; this time is all him.

Truth.

I am all of the things you believe me to be....stubborn, driven, Type A, borderline OCD possibly, opinionated, a planaholic, list maker, list checker, list writer of lists to make...

Weary.

I am weary.

For the most part, since the age of nine, I have directed my life. God sat me on my butt last November helping me to recognize that he had given me all of my heart desires (prey one, but even it was close), and I was STILL not happy. Was I finally, willing and able, ready to do it his way?

I was.

I am.

God is meeting me where I am...Every. Day. Let me tell you....he has a job in that too...because where I am, where my heart is...is changing...Every. Day.

That is how God works...for me. That is how he will work...for anyone. Anyone.

I am proof positive of that itsy bitsy fact.

All of this....from music...from shuffle on my IPod. Well...he has used far less for more...I will take it. ;)

If I ever get really, really brave....I mean BRAVE...I will write about what it is like to be a single woman in the "church" today. I am nowhere near that brave, but I know in my heart that I cannot, and am not, the only single Christian woman out there who is struggling at the crossroads of giving it all over and still trying to make their own way....and not finding any real help or guidance out there. Sometimes I feel like an animal at the zoo with people staring through the glass at the anomaly that appears before them. *Sigh*

...and that made me LOL...

Life is a journey. Life is a struggle. Life is a gift.

The glad game is He is always there...Waiting. Listening. Patient.

Scandal of Grace by Hillsong United

Hoping.

Note: #home to me will always be a patchwork quilt of the people and places who have made me who I am, loved me when I was unlovable, taught me, and the lesson is that they all remain with me in my #heart...I take each and every one of them with me where I am led to next...wherever I go. It only took me 42 years to learn that one to my core. :)))

Sunshine Dreams to You ~ Today and Every Day! :)