I was in Nashville last week, where, as a friend of mine said, it was “hotter than a three-balled tomcat.”  The heat in the South is truly, truly oppressive.  You don’t know what you have until it’s gone – and yes, I am referring to AIR.

I am also referring to my car every time it gets stolen.  But I digress.

And I change the subject.

Who has World Cup fever?  Not me!  I wish I did, because it would give me something to talk about with other humans (I have enough trouble with that as it is).  It’s sort of like living in Denver and not being a snow-sporter – I am automatically an outsider.

I can’t help it.  I would rather talk about my feelings.  My feelings, or how long my hair is getting (almost to bra-strap length, which is the goal, by the way).  Or how much I am loving Jakob Dylan’s “Women and Country.”  Or the fact that I recently referred to what could have been an awkward run-in with someone as being, in fact, “super natural” – and the other person translating it as “supernatural,” and how that confusion delighted me to the very marrow in my bones.

Mostly, I think that I just love words the very most of everything.

Good gracious.

I am in Nashville, where I have been hit with humidity like a French kiss from the devil himself.

Oddly, I don’t mind all that much.  Being with these people that I love has been so good for my soul.  I’ve overbooked myself (as usual), and am running a zillion miles an hour to keep up.  I wouldn’t skip a single thing, though.

I am so thankful that I am currently able to live life in both Colorado and Tennessee – able to be closer to my family, and still maintaining so much of what I have going on here in Nashville.  I get the best of both worlds.  I couldn’t have planned an existence in which this would be possible – and yet, here I am, living it.

Life is not always easy, but it’s wicked good.

Now, you know I love me some Nashville, but two weeks is a long, long time to be away from home.  After 14 days of suitcase-living, I will board a plane tonight, and head westward back to Denver.  I am grateful for the time I’ve had here with my Tennessee family, but ready to get back to my ever-loving routine.

I hope the thrice-stolen Honda is still parked where I left it.

For those of you who don’t live in the area (or… don’t pay attention to the national news), you may not know that this weekend, Nashville got 18″ of rain – over 25% of the average yearly amount in just two days.  Having lived in the Northwest, I thought that I was used to a lot of rain – but the storms in the Southeast are truly astonishing.  I have never, ever seen so much rain in my life – for 48 hours, it was unrelenting, turning the streets into rivers and basements into swimming pools.  Everything flooded.  Buildings went floating down the interstate.  People were being rescued from their homes in canoes.  So many people lost so much.

But I watched the people that I love jump into action on behalf of others.  Bailing water from basements, checking in with each other to make sure they had what they needed, braving the flooded streets to give each other (um, me) rides…  It reminds me that in my two short years in Nashville, I somehow became a part of a true community, one that tangibly demonstrates servanthood and selflessness.  I saw it offered to others, and I felt it offered to myself.

I am ready to leave today.  But I will never get used to saying goodbye.

I’m alive!  I finished!  And I cut 9 minutes off my time from last year.  I’m glad that I did it, and glad that it’s over.  That just about sums it all up.

I will never be one of those people who loves to run, or who is super fast – but I have an able body and legs that work, and therefore, it’s a privilege to participate in something like a half-marathon.  A sometimes torturous privilege, but a privilege all the same.

Such a privilege that I will post a grody picture of myself.

If I were to write a (very late) blog today, this is what it would say:

3 months of silence.
Followed by 1 week of crazy.
Beat.  Sapped.  Tired.
But happy.
Ate so much.
Ran so fast.
Didn’t really sleep.
Got something I was hoping for.
Love my friends gobs.
And gobs and gobs.
Like, hug-you-in-the-sunny-parking-lot gobs.
Gorgeous in Nashville today.
Flying to Austin tonight.
Val’s picking me up.
Hooray, Val!
Joey and Sam are getting married tomorrow.

But it’s snowing back in Colorado.
And Mom’s in the hospital.

I can’t really focus.  Social whiplash and emotional incongruity.  Reasons to cry while the sun shines down.  And I think that’s just like life.

It’s all going to be okay.  Right?  It’s all going to be okay.

“Show me a man with a tattoo,
and I’ll show you a man with an interesting past.”
-Jack London

Have I mentioned that I’m in Nashville this week?  I am.

I flew in for a wedding this past weekend (Mark and Erin MILLER – holla!), and am sticking around to work from the home office for a week before flying on to Austin for another wedding.  What can I say – three one-way tickets were cheaper than two round-trips.

I am staying in a posh condo right across the street from work, running with East Nasty a couple of times, having fantastic hair days, and getting some good, quality time with my amazing friends.  Call me dense, but I didn’t realize how much I missed Nashville until I got back.

Yesterday, I accompanied the Handy Graham to get his latest tattoo – which was my first time witnessing any such thing.  At one point, I knelt down close to ask him how much it hurt.  “Would it be like me digging my fingernails into your face?” I asked, and thought about trying it just so he could give an educated answer.  But he is tough and manly, and didn’t let on how much pain is inflicted by applying the 11-needle buzzing PEN OF FIRE to one’s achilles tendon.

Today just happens to be his birthday.  Happy birthday, Grahamer!  I hope you aren’t scabby!

And that is a birthday wish I can always stand behind.

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.

We are down to single digits: I am moving in 9 days.

And yes, I have Christmas parties 6 of the next 9 nights.  I might run out of outfits.

That said, posting may be light until after I get to Colorado.  I don’t want to miss out on a single moment of Nashville until I have to.  The thought of leaving these friends of mine – the ones I just tried to list by name and then had to stop because it would have been too long to read – keeps me awake at night.

I want to love on these people who have loved me for two years.  I want to write them each letters and tell them exactly why I appreciate them, exactly why I am going to miss them so much my heart might dissolve.  I want to sit face to face with them, and hear their voices.  I want to hug them while I can still touch them.  I want to take pictures with them, to capture this sliver of time that is flying by much too quickly.  I want to let them know that I believe in them, that I want good things for them – that, quite simply, I adore them.

Nashville, get ready for some lovin’.

Some of my best moments have been in this town.  But also, some of my hardest.

Isn’t that the way it goes?  The joy and pain are always intermingled.  It’s impossible to separate them – the laughter and the tears – because life cannot be compartmentalized like a preschooler’s cubby wall.  There is always something difficult to deal with – and there is always something to be thankful for.

It occurred to me the other night – Nashville did not fix me.  I didn’t realize that I had the expectation that it would – not until my mom got cancer and all of a sudden I am leaving this town as big a tangled mess as I have ever been.  Nashville did not heal those wounded places deep inside me, didn’t fulfill those dreams and unidentified desires that I’ve always had, didn’t make me cooler or smarter or prettier or more at peace.

I cried to my dad a couple of nights ago, telling him that as I prepare to leave, I feel an unexpected sense of disappointment.  It surprised me.  I didn’t know I felt disappointed – but I do.  I definitely do.  Nashville didn’t fix me; in fact, in some ways, it ripped those wounds open even wider.

I’ll be honest: I am a wreck these days – a bona fide disaster.  If you don’t think so, that’s because you don’t know me – or because I’m a seriously good faker.

But the people that do know?  They make up the biggest part of why I will always and forever be grateful for my time spent in Nashville.  They have not fixed me – but they have put an arm around me.  The “fingerprints of God,” my dad called them.

We are all weak.  But it’s better to know that we are.

I struggle with the question, “What am I doing with my life?”  I always have.  And with each passing day, week, year, I am no closer to finding the answer – I am learning to just take one day at a time.

However, even though I might not know what I am doing with my LIFE, I think that I will always know when it’s time to do what’s NEXT.  And once again, I’ve reached that pivotal point.  The doors have flung wide open in an undeniable way, and I am choosing to walk through them.

I am Denver-bound.

It turns out that my mom’s cancer is more serious than originally thought – and I need and want to be there throughout her treatment (another surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation).  The worst feeling in the world was getting that dreaded phone call, and being 1200 miles away.  I cannot rest in that reality.  My mom is my “person,” and I need to be close.

I am in the incredibly fortunate position to work for a company that does not see their employees as a commodity, but as humans with real lives – leading the “powers that be” to be gracious and supportive in the midst of crises.  Emma has a small Colorado office, and is willing to let me work from Denver on an open-ended basis.  I am heading west around Christmastime.

I am not calling it “moving.”  I am leaving my stuff in storage here in Nashville, and “temporarily relocating for the indefinite future.”  I don’t know what will happen, or where this will lead – it’s impossible to know what the coming months will bring.  But I just know that it feels too early – too sudden – to close the door on my Nashlife.  That may or may not wind up being relevant.  But it’s how I feel right now.

I am hoping to rent a room in Denver, or house-hop for a bit – giving me a place to sleep during the week, and leaving me free to spend my weekends in Colorado Springs with my parents.  So if you happen to live in Denver and know of any options, please let me know – because I don’t want to live under a bridge.

Obviously, there are still details to work out.  But I do know that this is “what’s next.”  Until then, you will find me crying most days, snuggling with Julie and Mel most nights, praying for my mom, and hoping that God knows what he’s doing.