dirty blue jacket

magnificent post number 12.

i'm well into the blogging world now. so much pressure to be clever. alas, i cannot handle any pressure today, so clever i will not be. in fact, prepare yourselves for sudden narcolepsy as you delve into a sea of ... ooh, are you asleep already? "delve" is an exciting word; i should have been more considerate of my narcoleptic readership.

well, for those of you who are left, enjoy today's entry ...

this afternoon, as i gathered my things at the office, shut down the computer and grabbed my coat, i noticed a subtle dirtiness on the right shoulder of my baby blue fall jacket. aghast, i inspected it more closely to find that really, the whole thing was obviously very dirty. i thought i had shoved it in the back of my closet because my sister told me i was a "spring" and baby blue just wasn't in my color palette. but nope, turns out the truth is i'm just too lazy to figure out how to wash a coat without paying mega-bucks to get it dry-cleaned. i suppose my thinking must have been along the lines of hoping the same monster who eats my socks in the wash would somehow eat my coat if i forced it far enough back into the mouth of this clothes goblin: "oh well, more clothing lost to the abyss. means i get to buy a new jacket." apparently, i have discovered that the sock monster in the closet does not like coats.

anyhow, my ugly vanity took ahold of me. for real. it was as if two long, spiny, grinch-like hands were grabbing at my ankles, preventing me from taking the usual route home via the el. obviously, there is an unwritten rule that the el line up to southport only carries the beautiful, clean, yuppie people. so i jumped on the 22 bus outside the office, made my way past the homeless guy sleeping in one of the seats near the front and stole the seat behind him.

and there, i forgot how much i like the bus. people look at each other on the bus, read over each other's shoulders, get too close for comfort - especially because there are more smelly people on the bus than on the el. but i like it. i felt alive.

this is a good thing. because tonight, i was talking to some friends who weren't feeling the goodness of being alive. there's honestly nothing to say in moments like this - unless you're really, really good like delilah or jane austen or God. but me, my natural reaction is to want to cry when they cry. and pet their hair. and give them my sleeve for tissue.

but tonight, something else was on my mind when they were talking - while all of me was with them, hearing them, loving them, all of me was also laughing, imagining, dreaming. you know that verse in ecclesiastes? the one that says there is nothing new under the sun? well, i'm sitting there listening to them, imagining them sharing these stories - these exact same stories, but each of us dressed up like the characters in the bbc version of pride and prejudice.

and i'm thinking, if that verse is true, if indeed there is nothing new under the sun, then 200 years ago, someone must have been feeling these same things. i love the thought of a young woman frustrated with money, another confused about love, and still another bored at work all talking to their friends in someone's sitting room, dressed up in the cutting edge fashions of early 19th century england. because it makes me feel not so lonely. someone's been there. and they made it through. i'm not the first to go through this and i'm not going to be the last.

hmm. to me, that's good news. it gives me courage.

i'm glad for this verse: "Enjoy life with your wife [ed. note: or your friends, or co-workers, or fellow public transportation users], whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun - all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might ..."

i know there's a heaven. or at least i've got faith enough to hope for it. so what better to do now than to laugh at the days to come? to enjoy this meaningless life? to work on behalf of the widow and the orphan? to love your friends? to care about them more than you care about your own meaningless life? to trust God and actually let Him be God?

to give yourself fully to Him? everything to Him?

everything? e v e r y t h i n g?

the very thought makes my heart feel overjoyed. He wants it all. my fears, my hopes, my expectations. even my dirty blue jacket.

... He makes me laugh :)