Annal 130: Tale from the Glower

Today is my last day in Manitoba.  I fly out first thing tomorrow morning, will get a few hours with my family back home, and then head back for school.  I have always hated the last few days of breaks, be they Christmas break or reading week.  I never feel like I get quite enough time to see everyone I want to see.  I didn't get to see my dad this break and texting each other is just not quite the same.  But I have had a lovely time visiting my cousin (including not getting to sleep until almost 4am last night... errr... this morning, because of introducing North and South to some of her friends... have to love female bonding over Thornton's glower).

We went for dinner last night with two of her friends.  The restaurant where we ate was out of town and so it was surrounded by trees and lit with garden lights.  I wish I had a camera that would have taken pictures beautiful enough to show you.  The pathway leading to and from the restaurant was tree and bush lined and lit with lights.  I felt as if the trees were calling to me, begging me to stay with them, to give in to their embrace, to join them.

There is a stanza in a poem by Robert Frost called "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."  The stanza goes like this:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep

I think that may best describe what I saw.  And what I felt. 

As we drove away I was overtaken by a sense of longing.  We drove through the park this restaurant was in, and moon seemed to be smiling over the scene.  It cast but the faintest of light over the surroundings, yet that haunting glow called to me.

I wanted to disappear in the woods, be swept away by their depth.

But I couldn't, because there are still many miles for me to traverse.

One thing that has been wonderful for me on this visit has been my discussing the future with my cousin.  I have felt so dragged down this last year with having to be in school when I want so badly to teach that I have forgotten the excitement I will be able to feel when I hopefully begin teaching next September.

I can apply anywhere I want.  The world will suddenly become open to me in a way that it has not previously been.  While I sometimes think that no class will be as perfect for me as my first class was, I am excited for the students I will meet and interact with.

Being able to discuss this sort of thing with my cousin (in the context of her wishing me to move to the prairies) brought me some more excitement to finish where I am now.  In seven weeks time I will be done the course work of my last semester of by Bachelor of Arts.  And I will hopefully be hearing from schools and knowing where I will attend next year.  It gave me a hope to not just look at the trees and want to disappear into them, but to complete the miles I have to go.

My life has not turned out the way I thought that it would.  And sometimes that frustrates me.  But I am where I am for a reason.  I have had to travel miles that I never imagined I would have to travel.  And yet, strangely enough, I would not trade those miles for stopping in the woods.  They have made me who I am.

You have heard me.  Sometimes I despair of who I am, of the fact that I am not becoming any more "normal."  Today I am not despairing.  Today I am recognizing that I have had to take a certain path in life, and it has not always been an easy path.  But God has used that path to shape me and form me.

And maybe men don't fawn over me.  I don't think that is because of anything that is wrong with me.  I have visited my cousin and gotten to know her friends and they don't seem to think I'm too odd for comfort.  We can discuss Thornton's glower and sing songs from the cartoon version of The Return of the King and I can fit in beautifully.  I can hear someone's cell phone go off with the Star Wars theme song and suddenly my phone with its Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past ringtone doesn't seem so strange.

I am different and I am unique.  And that is okay.  God has used the road I have had to travel to show me (among other things) that it is okay for me to embrace my quirks.  I don't need to hide them in order to belong.

And so I shall continue working my way along this path.  I will continue to allow God to shape me and change me and mold me into the woman He has designed.  I will try to embrace that and not complain.  I will try not to be the Israelites who see another hurdle and cry out for their life in slavery.  I will try to remember where I have come from and the One who has brought me thus far.  The woods still call, but the time for dancing within them has not yet come.

Such is the life of a Christian single.