A Portrait of Middler Year . . .

November 15, 2005

It takes so little to push to the  brink doesn’t it? So little to send us to the edge – our toes curled over, our arms flinging, trying to fight gravity and utilize balance – doing our best not to fall off the edge. It take so little. An unexpected death. Dashed expectations. A packed schedule. An onset of the flu. We’re going along just fine and then bam! We find we’re on the edge, fighting to right ourselves and step back.

I suppose I could re-title this blog, ‘surviving middler year.’ The seniors tried to warn us, but I suppose I didn’t believe it until the year hit me and my friends. But here we sit, pushing against the edge, blinking back tears, struggling to breathe normally, swallowing down the screams that are fighting to erupt.

You pass us and ask us how we are and we tell you just fine. You do a double take because our faces say otherwise. But really, what choice do we have? We don’t have time to not be fine. We have vocabulary to learn, paradigms to memorize. We’re trying to figure out why bad things happen to good people and learning to recite over and over that theology is about confession not explanation when really all we want is for someone to explain. We have churches to serve, classes to teach, relationships to nurture, friendships to maintain. We simply do not have time to not be fine, so we will continue.

And we will survive. We will not leave unscathed, but we will survive. And there will be joy in the morning . . .

Posted in school by Sarah