I never thought the day would come, but here it is: I have officially outlived Kurt Cobain.

Today is my 28th birthday.  I’ve waited ALL YEAR for August 4th, and it’s finally here.  Not to make a big deal out of it or anything, but… okay fine.  I am the birthday girl!  Yippee!

I’m so glad to be 28.  The only thing that makes me a little bit sad is that I can no longer refer to my birthday as being “one score and seven years ago” – because that was clever of me, wasn’t it?

Probably not as clever as it sounded in my head.

In all seriousness, sometimes I think that I’m the luckiest girl in the world.  I am surrounded by the world’s best humans – ones that draw out the good, and sit with me in the ugly, and love me regardless.  I have a job that I really like with people that I really love.  I have a body that works and does everything that I need it to do.  I have the sweet serenity of words and books and songs.  I have amazing, life-giving opportunities to pursue the things that bring me joy.  I have a home with hardwood floors and a dishwasher and tall trees outside the windows.  I have an abundance of quiet – which is never to be taken for granted.  I have a humidity-free summer.

A HUMIDITY-FREE SUMMER.

I have nephews who, last night, asked for the story of “Beauty and the Beast” in its entirety, and then wrapped their little arms around my neck and told me that they love me.  And then this morning, sang me “Happy Birthday” with their sweet voices.  And then asked if I was wearing a wig.  And then told me that the man emblazoned across the tush of their underwear was “General Obi-Wan Kenobi.”  And then yelled at each other to stop singing while going to the bathroom.

And for some unknown reason, I have you coming back to this space on a regular basis, reading along and offering more to me than I have ever offered to you through these cockamamie posts.

Most importantly, I have hope in my heart – and hope is just another word for “something wonderful is about to happen.”

So here I am.  28-years old, the luckiest girl in the world, with hope in my heart.  Something wonderful is about to happen.

I am never allowed to complain about anything, ever.

“As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water.  I knew the weight was there but it didn’t touch me.  Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown.  So I just didn’t stop.

The substance of grief is not imaginary.  It’s as real as rope or the absence of air, and like both those things it can kill.  My body understood there was no safe place for me to be.“ (The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver)

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I love the way that this woman writes.  My body understood there was no safe place for me to be.  That is grief in its truest, most potent form.

I am finding in the most concrete way of my entire life that there is absolutely no hope apart from Jesus.

This is not a “Christian blog” in the same way that some are – I tend to write more about my hair and my bras and my couch than I do about my faith.  I know that a lot of you reading this do not believe the same things that I do, and let’s be honest – talking about pop culture and music and whatever tomfoolery I got into over the weekend is usually more fun than a bible study.

But in the midst of it all, and above it all, I believe in Jesus – in redemption, in healing, in grace.  As much as my hesitant heart fights it, I believe that God loves us and has good plans for our lives.  That is my bedrock.

So when I hit rock bottom, standing on that bedrock is a good place to be.

The grief is still there, and the substance of it is so real that I’m afraid it will strangle me – but grace is flowing downhill, and pooling in the darkest places of my life.  It is taking on the weight of my pain, lifting the burden from my head, and moving me forward.

I’ve heard it said that to start anything requires a certain willing suspension of disbelief.  You have to allow yourself, on some level, to dare to hope – even in the face of potential disappointment or failure or heartbreak.

What a scary place to live.  There is no guaranteed win.  But thankfully, as a sweet friend recently reminded me, “winning” is not the point.

We might not be fearless, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t be brave.

I want a heart that’s rolled open like a welcome mat.  I’m working on it.

Last week, my sister-in-law lost her dad.  My nephews lost a grandpa.  And all of the Parsons lost a man who has been family for the past 9 years.

Today, Kent McElroy will be laid to rest in a cemetery in Missouri.  A few weeks ago, he chose his plot, and bought kites to be delivered after his death, asking that Jeremy and Ashley take Micah and Tyler to fly them next to his grave.  He knew that he was leaving.  If he could have willed himself to stay, he would have – but cancer does not honor our will, our wishes, our fight.

It is cruel.  It is callous.  And in its aftermath, it tempts me to be the same.

But Kent was the opposite.  He was generous, and positive, and selfless.  In the face of terminal, inoperable cancer, his heart was continually for God, and for others.  He touched so many in his 56 years – and never so many as in his last one.

I was in Kansas City last week to say goodbye.  It’s so hard to see death up close – painful, and terribly sad.  But it’s also an enormous privilege to be invited into that precious time.  I will never forget it.

Hearts are broken today.  They will be for a long, long time – and maybe forever, because I don’t know that we ever “get over” the loss of a loved one.  I think of my sweet sister-in-law Ashley, and how the mountains of her heart have slid into the sea – how nothing will ever be the same again, how nothing COULD ever be the same again.

But, as the Heidelberg Catechism says, my only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.  I believe that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (II Cor. 5:8).  And even when I can’t see it or feel it, I have faith – and faith, no matter how small, is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1).

The other day, this was my Facebook status:

As futile as Facebook can be, I took a shot of it because I wanted to remember that moment – that realization that the darkness that I’ve been sitting in for going on a year now just isn’t really there anymore.  Perhaps this is tempting a jinx, but I will say it anyway: life feels pretty good right now.

I know that in the middle of the depression, the disappointment, the pain, no one really wants to hear, “Don’t worry, it will get better!”  Those honeyed words can feel hollow and nugatory – because when all you can see is darkness, it’s hard to imagine the light.  In my experience, when well-meaning people try to band-aid despondency, it highlights a disconnect, and makes the depressed person feel even more alone.

But now, on the other side of this most recent bout with a powerful hopelessness, I am just so grateful that it’s over – and I want to remind those who are in it that it’s not always going to feel this bad.

It’s not.

It might feel bad for a long time, and before it gets better, it might even get worse.  I know that some of you out there have experienced mammoth losses, ones that I cannot comprehend.  Some of you have broken hearts that feel beyond mending.  Some of you have faced disappointment after disappointment, or suffered a family life that you didn’t ask for, or simply fallen into this same old rut over and over again, with no idea how to change your stars.

I do not pretend to have the answers “why.”

But it’s not forever.  You have not been abandoned.  You are loved beyond all measure – and even if you know it in your head, someday, you are going to feel it again, too.

So don’t lose hope.

It’s been awhile since I’ve talked about my feeeeeelings.  For those of you wishing to keep a finger on the pulse of my emotional health, this one’s for you.

I remember around this time two years ago, soon after I had moved to Nashville, feeling lonely and afraid and sad.

This move could not be more different.

Not much scares me these days.  I don’t know why this is, why this time I feel so much more stable and confident – maybe because my reasons for moving are different than what they were two years ago.  Maybe because of what I experienced in my time in Nashville.  Maybe because I’m just a little bit older.

Nashville was an amazing two years – but it was loud, and it was painful.  I will never be sorry for the time that I spent there, but to be honest, it felt like being put through a cheese grater.  A big part of me died while I was there.  I was stripped of a lot of things: dreams, expectations, confidence, even truth.

A lot of times, I forgot what I know to be true.

This past month has been quiet and understated – a welcome change from the chaos of my life for the past two years.  I miss my friends in Tennessee, and start to feel a bit left out when I think of their lives going on together and without me (because how could they possibly live without me?), but most of the time, I feel calm.  My heart feels still.

I have no idea and no expectations for what this season in life will be or bring about.  But I am seeing glimmers of revival in the parts of my heart that I thought were dead and gone.  It feels foreign, but it feels like hope.

A childhood friend from my hometown of Montrose, CO, is being featured on Tom Brokaw’s documentary, “American Character Along Highway 50,” which airs tonight at 8/7c on the USA Network.  Watching Jeff’s clip reminds me of just how beautiful western Colorado is – one of those things that I didn’t appreciate until I moved away.  If you can, tune in; I’ve watched some of the teaser videos, and it looks fascinating.

Also, Tom Brokaw… who doesn’t love Tom Brokaw??

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I hate it when people just write recaps of “what I did this weekend” – because BOOOORING – but I’m sorry, this was a great weekend.  Why, pray tell?  Well…

- I spent Friday night at a private party for the PBR – the bull riders, not the beer – and Pat Green winked at me from onstage.
- My dad came over on Saturday morning and helped me hang up my curtain rods and do all sorts of other “dad” things.
- I sold my couch on Craigslist for $15 more than what I paid for it…
- … so I bought these towels (please don’t look at the price, it’s embarrassing).
- I went on a long run (7.3 miles at a mile high – not too shabby).
- I had Thai food with two new friends, Karmen and Scotty – and they’re really great!  Finding good people in a new city is an amazing thing.
- Duane was the East Nasty of the Week.
- One of my best friends from high school who lives in the Denver area had her first baby – welcome, Noelle Elizabeth!
- I went on a 6-mile walk around the city.
- I drove the hour down to my parents’ last night.

I don’t know, it was just a really great weekend.  Productive without being work, fun without being exhausting.  So far, this move has been surprisingly okay.

On Sunday, while talking to my mom, one of my major insecurities fell out of my mouth.  Without the slightest hesitation, it slipped off my tongue – and landed right there on the coffee table.

“Where did you learn that?” she asked.  “Why do you feel that way about yourself?”

And for the past 36 hours, I’ve been thinking about the “reasons why.”  For an all-around self-confident girl, I’ve spent a lifetime banking reinforcements for a few stupid insecurities.

A few days ago, I got word that John Medina, a dear friend, former employer, and bona fide GENE CLONER was going to be speaking in Denver last night – so of course, I went.  I’ve heard John speak in Seattle many times about his research on the brain – how it works and what we know – but no matter how many times you hear him, he’s always engaging, entertaining, and brilliant.  It was so good to see a familiar face.

Last night, he said that research shows that it takes 3 reinforcements for the brain to learn something, and 50 to unlearn it.

For a girl like me with a lot to unlearn, those are some really bad odds.

Once again, it’s time to combat with a Hiroshima of Truth.

I don’t feel much like writing these days.  I’m tired and sad – and those things don’t make for good fodder.

Sorry that the blog has been pretty lame for a while now.  I don’t even know why I’m apologizing – or who I’m apologizing to.  I guess it just feels like the only thing to do.  Life changes, as do the seasons, as do our hearts – and sometimes we get tired and sad.

I struggle with depression – I always have.

But I’m also a Christian.

I’m a depressed Christian.

I can be both, you know.  They are not mutually exclusive.  I can be both.  What it means is that I’m not the one in the front row singing, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart!”  Instead, more often than not, I’m the kid in the back, responding with the bewildered and suspicious echo: “Where?”

But God is bigger than the way that I feel.

Some of you may not believe that.  Sometimes, I don’t believe it either.  But I suppose that this is where Mark 9:24 comes in handy: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.”

I love to send cards in the mail.  I am always on the lookout for witty, pithy, quotable cards – and when I find a good one, I buy it, regardless of whether I have someone to send it to or not.  Sooner or later, a situation warranting the card is bound to arise.

About a year ago, I saw one of those square cards – the ones that cost extra for postage – with a George Eliot quote on the front:

“IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO BE WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN.”

As a person who is all about pursuing dreams, I bought it, thinking that someday, one of my friends would have a huge career change, or do something crazy just because it brought them life.  But for all of the wonderful things that my friends have done and are doing, for some reason, this card has sat in my stack for months.

I had no idea that it was for me.

There is a God who says that he is making all things new.  And it recently occurred to me that it is never too late to be what I might have been.  It’s not too late.  I’m not too old.  I’m not too broken.

Be encouraged.  The same goes for you.