One Whole Year

It's been a vast expanse of a day. Academic and personal developments... it all comes at once, seemingly.

Starting on a big fat wad of joy I have to say I think that for now I've come back to being on top of it all. So glad to be spending some ace quality time with God recently, loving reading the word again and generally feeling good! I say this straight because it ain't that common and it is fabulous when it seems as real and peaceful as this. I have even been working with an attitude of doing it for God despite what I can achieve wordlyly, which is not at all how I felt a few days ago... so I'm lovin' it while I can..!

I don't really know how much to share. I'm gonna do what I normally do and go for honesty over restraint, which I may regret later but the worst that can happen is I look stupid... and there is no shame in the Kingdom!

Today is a significant one in the personal calendar of Kat(i)e because it is exactly a year since the last time I saw someone who used to be one of, if not the, most significant person in my life (they're not dead mind). There is tons of history I have no interest in going into but the short version is that I feel I was moved to Switzerland because God was taking me out of this really unhealthy dependent relationship so I could get free! Which has happened in a huge way. So huge that I never in my wildest dreams would have predicted it and back then the idea of life without him was as scary and alien to me as scary aliens.

So this morning I wondered about if I should wonder about it. 3 years is a long time in the life of a 21 year old (especially as I don't remember most of the early ones) so part of me felt like I should register and ponder on what it all means. The truth was, I didn’t know how I felt. How should I commemorate this? Write a song, an extra verse for another song, a poem, a novel, a play? I still have aspirations for a musical but the plots lines are more befitting of a soap opera than an actual opera! A fake letter, a real letter, pour my heart out into a journal that nosey grandkids may read? Perhaps I should blog I thought; I dismissed this for a time but it seems I have cracked...! Thing is though, it all felt a bit like an obligation and as I tried to express I really had nothing to think. This memory belonged to someone so distant from me it didn't make sense to analyse. I wasn't interested. I wasn't even sure what was real and I didn't care either.

Of course this lack of interest interested me! I got pretty darn excited by the fact I didn't give a damn. A new sense of freedom flooded me and I wrote a journal, a poem, a song AND a verse about moving on! And now a blog...

So is that it? Well no, 'cause that's untested. I am fine, see me smile. Later in the day (about an hour ago actually) I came a bit more earthward and felt swamped by life (specifically the aspects pertaining to the philosophy of maths). Still impressively (not my ability but I am grateful for it) undespairing but kind of morose, I leave the library an unhappy mathematician. Momentarily overwhelmed I wanted to cry quite a lot. And so I settle into my ipod for the trudge home with this message ringing in my ears:

"It Must Have Been Love but it's over now. Save Tonight, 'cause I'm Lost Without You and tomorrow you'll be gone, Leaving me working my way Through The Dark. This Same Girl is Still With You so please just Stay Another Day 'cause You may be Forgiven but you'll never be Forgotten. I Still Miss Someone and They Can't Take That Away From Me."
You know what? Sometime random is just wrong. I kept skipping tracks and I kept finding numbers that wanted to indulge my inner Mood Indigo... but instead I Dried My Eyes. I'm well out of the dark actually, I Suddenly Saw a long time ago and have been On My Way From Misery To Happiness for ages. The only person I ever have and ever will be Lost Without is J.E.S.U.S., Yes! He is my First, Last, My Everything. I Walk Away and I realise that That's What The Love of God Can Do. That's what the love of God did do. Hence the feeling like I'm living in a Whole New World.

I'm always going to hit these low moments, especially when I am in the process of being refined, no sense in denying it. But how good does it feel to know that this particular era of self-indulgent misery is in the past! I can find plenty of other ways to throw myself a pity party but that door seems to be officially closed and I am so glad I got to both realise and confirm it. Also, I know that with the highs comes the lows and that is just the "egg-card" balance (obscure Brit-TVAd reference). I don't mind. When I'm up I'm too optimistic to fret it and when I'm down I can look forward to being back up!

So umm, I don't really have a concluding paragraph. Ah well, you can read the poem if you're that way inclined. It's one of them ones with 'looser structure':

One whole year
366 days
Such a lot can happen
Priorities change
Yesterdays fade and make space
To embrace a different Way
What a cliché
“Year ago today”
Do I really care?
Is it not just obligation that recalls?
The tiny details of the past
They make a nice contrast
But that’s all

The only use of pain as I see
Is a reminder of how I came to be free
Do not dismiss the reality of misery
But embrace it, to mark the path to liberty

A milestone
Who’d have thought that I was built for endurance?
Long distance seems so boring
And hard
It will surely wear me down before long

But long has gone
My legs grew strong
And as I came to love the run I looked around
At what I would have missed were I still underground
From the rising to the setting sun
Trees in fields, mountaintops, valleys glisten with dewdrops
Now I’d welcome that flock of sheep
That I once feared when lost
I was asleep
Eyes shut, arms crossed

Then suddenly they were opened
and the glare ached
Until the spots had cleared and revealed the Truth
I though my heart would break
but instead it was renewed

What would I say
if I went back
a year ago this very day?
Crocodile tears are all that I could offer while my former cried
Quite estranged

So I write to recognise the inconceivable distance I've come
Not to revisit some long gone strife
Done with that, I celebrate Life

I wish I wasn’t a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

OK I’m not. I don’t have flowers in my hair and, technically, am not really a punk rocker either.

But I sure as hell look like one.

Today, ladies and gents, is the next installment in my most major, nay famous, analogy. My hair cuts. (See here for the full hairstory.)

I have gone and gotten all controversial on 1 Corinthian 11’s ass. Which I will in due course (or not, I am aware I make empty promises when it comes to blogs and apologise. Please Matthew 18 me) be expounding on but today in not the day for biblical debates (I think that sounds more like a Tuesday thing doesn’t it?).

I no longer have face length hair. It doesn’t even cover my ears. In fact, some may argue that my whole attempt to have long locks has been somewhat marred by my decision to cut it all off to not more than 2 inches in any place.

‘Citing though, in’t it?

I have been this way since Monday. The title might suggest that I am not best please with the idea. “Getting tired of it already are you Kat(i)e?” I hear you cry. “That’s what happens when you make a whimsical decision on a bored impulse.” Should have stuck to the waiting slowly and repeatedly recolouring to bring myself into some kind of semblance of truth till I had fully grown through, maybe?

But the thing is, it was getting a bit much. Constant redying was a drain on the resources if nothing else and the effect did not really last very long ever and wasn’t always as good a match each time. It stood me in good stead for a time but the fact remains that some things are too damaged to repair and you do just need to cut off and start again.

And this does indeed fit in well with where I am at right now. Check out Ezekiel 39 (particularly vs. 12-16) and you will see my life story. As long as you can replace Israel with Kat(i)e; Gog with [insert terrors from the world here]; skeletons with assortment of left over memories, insecurities, traits, resentments, attachments etc etc and tweak a few other key phrases like bury, search party and land. The essence is there though and I am indeed 7 months on from doing some pretty big battles (in the spiritual sense) and have been, on my return, doing some major cleansing (a mixture of literal and symbolic) and burying (of people, possessions and thought patterns – metaphorically that is). The to-the-day “coincidences” have been uncanny and I have, during the week at my folks, been doing some more sorting out of actual stuff. I am cutting the crap and sometimes you just have to be drastic.

And that is what I did hairlistically speaking too. I chopped away at the ashen (as in a shade of blonde and post fire!) remains and salvaged the roots, where the true colour is at. Underneath it all I had enough new growth to make a proper style of it. Just.

And that just is what I don’t like so much. It is cool enough and faking it was hard work, but really I do want more. I want to have a bob again and be looking forward expectantly to it hitting my shoulder blades. And beyond…

But this all takes time. Patience. Waiting. At least I am back to "how I was intended". The remnants of the bleach attack are, aside from a few tiny wisps at the front, all but lost. The colour? Fabulously "ginge" ☺ Being at the start of what I know will be a long process is pretty daunting whilst not particularly pretty, but it is real. I'm getting established and am on my way.

Which also fits in with what I'm getting up to. Yesterday I was all organised, checking out about studying, organising support, paying bills, ringing the gas man, seeing the carpenter, sending off insurance papers. Today a few more errands and dealing with "household affairs". All the grown up stuff! Revolution is indeed in the air.

The Anaesthesia is Wearing Off

When I got the placement in Geneva it really felt like I was being pushed out of the country. I applied 'cause it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss out on but I was comfortable in my existence, miserable though it was, and didn't actually want to go. Every stage of interview I went through I said "Yes" but only because I could not, reasonably, say “No”. I said to my mum back then that if I got offered the post I would probably do the same thing but I still spent my whole time making excuses for why it was not a good idea (they were crap by the way). As I made the phone call to refuse the offer, I remember the rainbow that I wrote about 2 posts ago and confirmed.

And so, in a moment, my life was changed.

When I went to La Suisse I took with me a lot of baggage (literally and figuratively speaking). There was a lot of unpacking that needed doing - it turned out that (metaphorically) I had gone and destroyed my heart completely and needed a transplant. At the time it was remarkable how I managed to let go so much of the past and just enjoy life again. With England in the background everything of before seemed a long way away and not at all important. With my new heart I was healed!

Yet there is a time to mourn and a time to dance. England is no longer a fuzzy memory but a very real and tangible place in which I reside. Amidst all the excitement about God giving to me everywhere that I put my foot I am realising that, though the battle is won, there are a lot of skeletons to bury.

It feels like, post-op and post-fabulous feeling of being made whole, the numbness is wearing off and with that I am aware of the tenderness around the incision.

Now, don't worry, I am not writing this in floods of tears. The main initial pain was incredibly avoided with the anaesthesia that is God's love. The new heart has been in place sufficiently long that rejection is unlikely and I still have a large number of carers to check I am stable and keep the wounds clean: Ana last night fed me the most sophisticated TV dinner known to man – stuffed trout with steamed veg, then totally let me vent to her; tonight I am off to house group with my sister and btw the leaders are North American which makes me feel strangely at home!

All of which is great 'cause while it heals I am at a higher risk of infection. For this reason I must be particularly vigilant with aftercare and staying away from major causes of disease till I am strong enough to “be a doctor” myself.

I just have to remember that the pain is part of the joy; acknowledging the past is part of the release from it. It needs to happen which is why I must neither avoid nor fear it. If I stayed in the Geneva mindset it would be akin to drug abuse, keeping anaesthetised long after appropriate and just running away. I know enough people that don’t face up to the emotional fall out of catastrophe to realise that this is the only way ahead. I don’t want to end up smacked off my head on pain killers – figuratively or not. Sometimes you just have to feel it.

But, and it is more of a huge J-Lo sized BUT, there is a huge difference with the inclusion of a new heart. My health is so much better that, while the tenderness is there, I am able to deal with the strain. Obviously it is the God aspect of that which makes a difference. I am fitter than ever before and it is sure not by my own strength.

I totally didn't realise (perhaps naïvely) that I still need to do this but I am content that it is all part of the process and that, one day, the scars will not hurt.

And so, over time, my life will yet again change.

[I didn’t write the rainbow post thinking I would write this a few days later by the way; it just seems to have fitted together as certain things have happened. Not surprising, God is cool like that.]