(This one’s for KA, because she asked…)

GAH.  So much to say, I feel overwhelmed even trying to start.  So I’ll start with last weekend, where the “so much” began.  (Arguably, it began in the hand of God before time was conceived, but let’s just start with the weekend.)

The BF (a.k.a. Guy in a Suit) flew to Atlanta for some interviews on Friday.  I waited anxiously by the (cell) phone all day to hear updates.  Naturally, he rocked both companies and walked away feeling good about offers.  On Friday night, I stayed in with the Roommate for one last night together (read: ordering in fries, pairing them with wine, and watching DVRed Thursday night shows) and went to bed early to prepare for a day of going to work then traveling to Atlanta.

Ha, ha!  But there’s this thing called weather!  And it erases the numbers on your airline ticket, making them meaningless!  And no amount of checking www.weather.com can change that!  So when I boarded my plane, shocked to be taking off on time, I thought I had beaten the system (the system being Things I Cannot Control But Try To Anyway). Then the captain came over the loudspeaker and told us, in the friendliest of voices, that we would not be taking off for another two hours.  While the two men behind me argued about which free items this development entitled them to, I tried to pray and read Anne Lamott (two of my favorite forms of worship).

We did take off, and we did land in time for the BF to pick me up and get me to the Sis’s with minutes to spare for a quick shower and a quicker glass of Cava (that’s champagne in Spanish, y’all).  Then we four went to meet the future Bro-and-Sis-in-law for dinner, laughs, and my post-flight pronouncements of not caring about people (therefore I would never make a good flight attendant). Sunday morning was church and lunch with the little men who are beginning to refer to me as Aunt Stephanie, which totally kicks ass. Then the BF and I went to look at apartments, the threshold of which he can carry me over once we’re legal, and after that we had a drink with a woman who offered me an amazing job that was not available last year when we were originally trying to move to Atlanta.  Hello, Stephanie.  Are you there?  It’s me, God.  Want to start trusting my timing anytime soon? The BF left Sunday night, which meant dinner for me with the Sis, Bro-in-Law, and nephew Steve the Dog.  The next morning, the Sis and I checked out the apartment that the BF and I ended up choosing.  On the way, we each consumed our share of a half-dozen fresh, hot Krispy Kremes (two for me, two for her, two for the baby).  Then she dropped me off at the airport, where I took advantage of another delay to consume a Chick-Fil-A combo.  (And so I made a deal with myself: whenever I miss New York, I will go to Chick-Fil-A.  Then the gym.)

The picture above was taken during my descent into Atlanta, when the uncertainty of even taking off was exchanged for the delay, but still arrival, of my original plan.  The dichotomy of Me will always struggle with my schedule being upset.  But as I gazed at the nature occurring outside my window, the source of which I can only believe to be Him, I was struck with just how temporary the clouds and storms are in their restless anger.  How a glance out of a tiny window in time may mistake them to be The End rather than the opening act.  And then, later in the weekend, I struggled with the differences to come once we leave this particular city where we met.  How there will never be another Tim Keller or Magnolia Bakery or Gramercy Park or rooftop of the BF’s building, but how my time with each has allowed me to approach the world less cynically and yet still with wisdom, two qualities I am discovering do not have to go hand in hand.  I have lived for five years in a place and among people (crazy, challenging people–like me!) that have exposed the anger I carried around and forced me to pull up its floorboards and face what was rotting underneath.  The superiority and inferiority complexes that originate in the same spot of insecurity, the inconsistency, the paralyzing fear of being found out as less than what I advertised.  I realized that maybe it’s time for me to stop assuming the worst of people, to maybe start believing that they’re sincere until they give me a reason not to.  Because in this move, this major life change, I will gain nothing by approaching everything and everyone with fists raised.  (Of course, if later I find out they are jerks then all bets are off.  Just sayin’.)

There is that moment in flight when you soar through the clouds and begin to float in the light that is the layer above, where you may even forget that such things as storms exist because you remember there is something bigger.  Then that something bigger releases you back through the gray to make a landing among the earthly stuff, and you know this time that there is not one part of you that hasn’t been prepared for the road ahead, no matter what surprises await.