A few years ago, when my faith was more of a religion and I spent more time on behavior modification than reflecting on grace, I bought into one of Oprah’s recommendations–a book called Simple Abundance. Did you read it too?  It was a day-by-day series of reflections on gratitude, and I naturally bought the accompanying journal, where I was to note my 5 things to be thankful for each 24-hour period.  I did this for about a year, starting off with an excited bang and pressing pen to paper in a hurried rush to record all my points of gratitude.  As you may expect, this practice went the way of new year’s resolutions after awhile, and the book/journal combo took up permanent residence on a bookcase.

A few weeks ago, I was introduced to the blog of Ann Voskamp, a writer whose book One Thousand Gifts was just published and is already a New York Times bestseller.  This achievement is noteworthy because the book is blatantly Christian–but not in the religious way.  In the grace way, the God-is-in-the-details way rather than the come-closer-so-I-can-thump-you-with-this-Bible way. Ann’s words are poetry in the form of prose, and they will change your life if you let them.  What I’m saying is, go out and buy this book.  And read her blog, aholyexperience.com (it’s on my blogroll to the right).

Ann’s premise is similar to that of Simple Abundance, but instead of being an activity dependent on me–I look around and identify things for which to be thankful–it’s about having my eyes opened to what’s already there, what I’ve been missing.  It’s about finding the sacred in everyday life, and this is where its predecessor fails: it assigns a source to the sacred.  It’s about him. It’s about this: “I redeem time from neglect and apathy and inattentiveness when I swell with thanks and weigh the moment down and it’s giving thanks to God for this moment that multiplies the moments, time made enough.”  It assumes as fact the lofty idea that Jesus can take me further down the road than Oprah can.

I’ve already started my list of one thousand things.  I knew I would have to take the challenge when I finished a run the other day, sweaty and beat, and began to pray.  And for some reason, at that moment I became overwhelmed with how terminally ungrateful I am.  I realized (and I may have had some prompting here by a certain spirit) that so much of the yuck I tread through daily, the self-sustained sinfulness that takes my eyes off him, has at its source ingratitude.  And for the first time in my life, I was both moved to grief over how much I’ve missed due to the posture of entitlement–and lifted up in hope by the truth that it doesn’t have to stay that way.

I walked home and started my list.

We humans are so judgmental, so short-sighted and two-dimensional.  We assign good and bad designations as if we’ve been around for all time and know when the story began and how it will end.  We take a glance and make a call and move on to the next moment and wonder why we feel so empty sometimes.  We have no idea of all that we miss because we think we know everything. Powers move and principalities exist in realms beyond our conception, continuing a narrative unbound by time.  Meanwhile, the sun rises over the Chattahoochee at 6:30 am on a Thursday morning and for the first time in months of driving this route and trying to just stay awake, I see it.  I see the sky’s pink and purple shades uncovered, spanning over still water, and I remember that this day is not under my command.  And I give thanks that it is under someone’s, and he is quite the artist.

An artist who works not just in what I call beautiful, but in a palette that includes all shades.  Even the dark ones.  A palette in which everything is grace, even what I would shun and try to “fix” and move past, the uphills of life’s run that I just want to escape.  All is grace, all is tied to him, and if I begin to see the world this way–not as a goal to be conquered, but as the place where I commune with him–all is holy.

The other day I sat down to do an exam on a patient with Asperger’s syndrome.  As I put on my gloves, he asked lots of questions.  He wanted to know exactly what I was doing, and with no socially-motivated filter in place to halt his verbal barrage, I got an earful.  I headed toward him with the fluoride, explaining that I was about to put vitamins on his teeth.  To which he replied, “Okay, but just don’t get them on my tongue.  If you get them on my tongue, I’ll get really riled up.  And I’ll start doing this–” (he waved his arms around emphatically)–“and kicking and stuff.”

That is one self-aware kid, I thought upon leaving the room.  And I considered how the inability to posture oneself according to social norms, how an excess of natural honesty, can land one in the “disabled” column of our culture.

A few minutes later I received an expression of ostensible concern (layered over discomfort) about one of my recent blog posts.  My musings had apparently been discussed among a panel of reviewers and deemed depressing, and now my well-being was called into question.  From my perch overlooking the promise of spring outside, I assured the reader that rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated.

Since I try to wait until after 5 pm to bombard The Husband with the estrogen-soaked issues of the day, I rang The Sis for an assessment on whether my words actually convey the hope in which I believe. And, as usual, she was a voice of reason–my unflappable alter-ego, the Me I would be with four inches of height added and the temper subtracted.  She pointed out one of the real issues at stake, which is that going public with my thoughts will inevitably lead to their being misunderstood–this is the price paid for transparency.

I don’t know if it’s a Southern thing (I tend to blame my dysfunction on either the South or my family, scapegoats that are diminishing in power as I become ever-more aware of and reconciled to the facts of the Fall and this broken world), but for much of my life I have been surrounded by, and have participated in, a group effort to promote conformity at the cost of creativity, to squash imaginative efforts with ridicule when they make me uncomfortable or point out truths I’d rather keep denying.  I remember when I arrived on the New York scene and couldn’t believe the celebration of individualism, the variety of conversations that spanned beyond football and hunting, the encouragement of artistic endeavors, the absence of words that reduce a group of people to a color or sexual orientation.  I remember thinking that this was what the world looked like when it wasn’t just white, Christian, and conservative (three things which I still am, minus the demand that everyone else be too…most days…), that I could be anyone I wanted here in this place, most importantly myself.  And how being that person didn’t look like it had back home: trying, working, measuring, acting.  I looked different–more free, more real, more honest.  More flawed.

The journey that began when I climbed out of the U-Haul on 92nd Street and First Avenue has led me to ever-increasing points of openness, both with myself (hard) and others (harder).  It has led to a blog that discusses depression and struggle, sometimes at the expense of a roundtable on whether Carrie should have married Big.  What I believe, and what my faith confirms, is that vulnerability is the shortest road to community, because the work of evil is to leave us thinking that we are the only ones facing This, that we’re the only ones guilty of That.  An isolation defined by the singularity of our shortcomings rather than the commonality of them.

Now that Spring is upon us and my mood is lifting, there may very well be more posts about makeup and laughter, maybe even a review of Sex and the City 3: Did I Leave My Dentures on Your Nightstand? But the fact remains that who I am is all broken bits and rough edges this side of eternity, and it would do me well not to deny that in thought or online.  I am on a path that has left me a different person than I was ten years ago and will lead to even more changes down the line.  What remains consistent is my ever-present fallibility.  What remains more consistent is the ever-present grace that meets me in those broken and rough spots, filling holes and smoothing edges and doing so in its own perfect timing and way (which is to say, usually not mine).  Last night, in a fit of the anger that seems always ready to be tapped just beneath the surface of this broken world and my fallen heart, I slammed the uncooperative dishwasher shut so hard I broke a glass.  The flu-ridden Husband rushed over, picking up my broken pieces and meeting them with love rather than judgment–and better at it than I may ever be.  And I realized that the Gospel was written for people like me, who fail so often but at every point of that failure are met with love.  And that is a LOT of love.  I am not where I will be, but I’m not where I was–and I’ve got the words to show it.

Idol exposure is some painful business for the recipients of its chisel.

Time and again I am reminded of what a failure I am as a human being.  Anger, self-righteousness, grimy iPhone screen. I can’t escape it.  And time and again, I attempt to–to prove my worth, polish my image, look to have it all together.

Only grace can save me from both my failure and my constant efforts to avoid it.

Running as been a barometer for my life since I took it up fifteen years ago.  I wasn’t good at it, so I quietly sought to conquer it.  I grabbed the dog, poor low-riding basset hound, and jogged down the street past the cute guy’s house.  I attacked the circle around my college campus, pounding the pavement solo or with girlfriends as last night’s beer and pizza spun around our stomachs.  I stretched beside the Central Park Reservoir and put foot to gravel.  But the starting and finishing lines began long before I took up this sadistic hobby.  When I look back, I know that all my life has been spent running.  Though I imagined myself headed towards a goal, I was actually running away from everything I feared: low self-worth, unpolished image, appearing to not have it all together.  If I could conquer this thing (school, career, love life), I would be okay.  Except the ticking off of the items on the list didn’t bring peace, and the unaccomplished items carried devastation.  Nothing was ever enough.

And yet everything mattered too much.

Last week, I was reminded that I will never be immune to idol-building, this side of eternity at least.  A series of shitty runs left me feeling like a novice, and I realized that the thing I was afraid of this time has always haunted me.  Followed me around from location to location, from Montgomery to Birmingham to New York to Atlanta.  Followed me, me, grown-up me, with the husband and the house and the diplomas and the sparkling floors and iPhone screen.  Followed me to mile two and left me gasping for air, that singular fear:

I am a sham.

And everyone will soon know it.

This is literally what came to my mind as I walked home feeling the big L etched into my forehead, walked home like a girl. I was afraid of exposure.  And I don’t even post my runs on Facebook!  And then the universality, the insidiousness of it all, hit me: there is nothing that this world, that I, won’t ruin.  The floors will attract crumbs like a magnet and the bathroom that was sparkling yesterday is speckled with water stains hours later.  The smile of a child gives way to the cynicism of an adult.  The heart wears down and stops beating.

There is only one whom decay dared not touch, not after three days in a dank and dark tomb; not after forty days of fasting and taunting.  Evil will ultimately succumb to one alone, and it is not me.

My lifelong efforts to be someone I wasn’t had to fall apart sometime.  This is the way of the world, fault lines and fissures.  Only one can never be what he isn’t.

When I finally let it go, this pressure to be perfect, to run the farthest, that’s when the truth broke through.  And I saw that what I had always secretly believed to be God’s bullying–bolstered by an ignorant yet world-sanctioned misreading of that Book, especially the part with Job–was anything but.  He was never the mean kid on the playground who stole my lunch money for laughs.  Those things I felt were taken from me were never mine–they only kept me from him.  And he didn’t take them, because here’s the thing:

Nothing in this world was ever meant to bear my full weight.

Nothing–not marriage, career, children, legs. Because everything of this world, even the world itself, was (intelligently) designed to send me to him, not take his place.  And every last one of those good things will crumble and die under the pressure of my expectations and need.  My bottomless, ever-present need.

He is not taking away anything but the mask.  He is in the business of revealing. And as everything else in this world follows the timer of its own demise, only he remains as he started, never to change.  This is what I was made from, what I will return to.  The only thing that holds up.

Being single most of my life, I was never a big Valentine’s Day fan.  Being prone to cynicism still, I remain unconvinced of its historical credibility and more certain of its commercial value.  BUT…I have opportunity to reflect on love, what with it all around me in flowers and cards and songs (and that’s just at CVS). So reflect I will.  Just in a non-Hallmark way.

The Husband and I had to part ways during our recent run.  A couple of miles in, it became clear that my body was not going to cooperate with that physical venture, and I grabbed his shirt.  “I can’t!” I wheezed, exulting in my relief and agonizing over my failure.  And so the student became the teacher, as I gave him permission to go ahead and I headed home to a warm bath and the temptation to beat myself up.

But on the way to both, I decided to call The Sis.  She’s been a runner for awhile too, and my sister for forever, and besides all this is one of the most practical people I know.  Girl-wise, anyway.  I told her about my crappy run, my frustration and discouragement, my fears over the health problems this all could signal–the tumor eating away at me, the aneurysm on my doorstep.  Yes, this is where my mind goes when it’s left to its own devices.  The Sis listened, and then she answered.

“You know I’ve heard all this from you before, right?”

I paused, taken aback and confused that she wasn’t offering advice from her medical background as an NP.  “Huh?”

“You called me the last time you were training for a half, all the time telling me about your sucky runs.  And then you ran the race and it was fine.”

Pause again.  “But are you sure it’s not something chemical–”

“NO!  Except maybe you should eat less fried chicken.  But it’s mental.  You have to stop putting so much pressure on yourself.”

“But the last time I trained, I don’t remember ever having this much trouble–”

“You did.  And I heard about it all the time.  AND THEN YOU RAN THE RACE.”

Her words, epitome of tough love that they were, were also just what I needed.  I walked into our house, the one planned and saved for years in advance by TH–this man who wants to make a home and a life with a crazy person like me.  I looked around at that life, at the glasses by the sink and the cloudy film and fingerprints on them, signs of ourselves that I am always only too anxious to wipe away or trade for a shinier version.  I realized that the greatest evidence that I live in a broken world is me: my ability to major on the minors, to turn everything into an ordeal, to take a blessing and twist it into a burden, to dabble in and perfect the snide art of meanness, to in so doing make a mockery of all the love spent on my behalf.

Dear God.  Is there no end to his patience?  To the patience of those who put up with me alongside him?

I turned on the TV and Sex and the City lit up the room.  I thanked God that even in the crassest trappings of our pop culture–some of which I just love–he shows up.  He’s not above any of it, if we’re willing to look for him.  Because he lives in stories. And I laughed hard as I told him–“I am such a Miranda.”

And then there’s my Steve, setting out a giant card to greet me when I came downstairs this morning, arranging for flowers to be waiting on my crazy ass when I arrive at work.  The husband I wanted for so long and looked for under every gross rock I could find, until I gave up and was re-met with a love that transcends even vows and cake and heals me daily, makes me whole as I am broken so that even in my utter brokenness, I do not rely on that husband for life.  I rely on him for so many things–laughter, warmth, Thursday night comedy partner, finishing the leftover food on my plate–but I did not step into this relationship with a need for him to give me an identity.  My wholeness rests in the realm of eternity, where moth and thief cannot touch it.

I wrote his card last night, telling him that I still can’t believe we are each other’s, and I realized that this is the ground in which so many of my problems grow: in unbelief.  Not believing that I could be loved so much and so well by him, or by the God who made me.  My inability to stand underneath it, to receive this love that is so relentless it is almost too much for my heart to take.  And then I realize that it’s these moments–when I am staring this love in the face and finding I can barely stand it, that it’s so great my heart tries to hide–it is these moments when I am finally beginning to see love as it was meant to be.  And I will run to it.

Earlier this week, The Niece stayed home from school with a cold.  Sure, she was missing a quantum physics test and a crucial lecture on DNA synthesis, but what can you do?  I drove over to baby-sit for a couple of hours while The Sis did some work from home (i.e., shop at anthropologie.com).  As I was gearing up to leave, The Sis turned on the TV and there upon the screen glowed a classic episode of Beverly Hills, 90210. Being Experts on All Things Pop Culture, 1990s Edition, The Sis and I immediately recognized that this was The One Where Dylan’s Dad Explodes.  We groaned with knowing trepidation when Dylan took the call from Kelly and his dad went out to move the car.  And as the flames lit up the screen, we remembered that we were not alone in the room, and we turned to The Niece.  Who was not only watching the tragedy unfold from her Bumbo Baby Seat, but gazing with eyes wide and mouth in an “Oh!” shape and just the hint of a smile on the corners of her lips.  And the fear that we were beholding the birth of a pyromaniac gave way to laughter at her enthrallment with this box that plays her two favorite shows: 90210 and football.

The scene was not so funny a couple of days later on my way to work..  Rain slicked the streets and wiped the “Ability to Drive” section of everyone’s brains clean, and I found myself wondering why work is something everyone simultaneously complains about and rushes to get to.  I imagined myself and the surrounding cars as components of a pinball machine, veering and swerving our way around the thickening traffic, but with an added and overblown sense of control over our paths.  Water pelted my windshield and a car cut me off and I congratulated myself for, rather than flipping the driver off, giving him a very sarcastic double thumbs-up instead–God is at work in me!  But you’re still a jackass–and as the road ahead filled with red brake lights and the sky above filled with angry gray clouds I knew that something was going to have to be bigger than what my eyes told me if my attitude stood any chance of being salvaged.

And in the midst of the deluge, I remembered that I know someone who is great at walking on water.

My newly opened mind recalled the words I had read just minutes before. Hebrews 11, the Hall of Fame for Faith.  A chapter full of liars, adulterers, prostitutes, and murderers–who were noted not for their record of wrongs, but for their willingness to keep believing.  Despite floods, unborn children, unreached lands, and–I would imagine–traffic.  And all that kept them going was all they couldn’t see.  A steady gaze beyond the road that lay ahead.  Because this is not a God whose raw materials are limited to what’s in my line of vision.

“What is seen was not made out of what was visible.”  I think about all the wars that are waged and hopes that are lost because of an unwillingness to admit there can be more.

And then I remembered the one who was born son to a carpenter and therefore a carpenter himself, because that’s how it worked then, and I try to imagine but I can’t even conceive of it: how it felt to head to the workshop every day, hidden knowledge of what lay ahead his constant companion.  What he looked at every day, holding in his as-yet unscarred hands the raw materials that would one day hold him above a mocking crowd and stain red beside the nail and the flesh as he pronounced an end to life being about traffic or work or anything else I can see.

My iPhone lied to me this morning.  I rolled over and touched the Weather icon, one of my favorite apps for the feeling of control it gives me over what’s happening outside just by knowing the details, and saw 43 degrees.  Doable.  I emerged from my bed cocoon and pulled on my Under Armour running gear, yanked my hair back, and laced up my shoes.  Just before I opened the front door, I checked again.  Just to be sure.  28 degrees, my screen said, laughing maniacally (or so I heard).  Whaaaa? I opened the front door and was met with a frigid blast that definitely felt closer to 28 than 43.  I called for reinforcements, opening my laptop and heading to weather.com.  Indeed–colder winds prevailed.

Faced with a new decision to make, I considered this week two years ago, when I was preparing for my first race ever (and only one so far), the Central Park half-marathon.  I ran it in 15-degree-with-wind-chill-of-9 temperatures, with three loyal friends and the then-BF waiting for me at the finish.  I was strong.  I was raw.  I was a warrior.  But that was then.  Today, I picked coffee over cold and replaced nylon with flannel.  And I headed downstairs to talk to Jesus and make a strata.

I read an interview this week with Becky from Glee, the Cheerio with Down syndrome who serves as Sue’s right-hand girl.  The 20-year-old was asked how it felt to be a member of the cast, and she answered that whenever she wears that uniform, she feels like a typical person.  I wiped my eyes and pushed away mild rage over the impending rarity of innocence like this, given our human propensity for prescreening and discarding scenarios that are inconvenient and imperfect.  Then I considered the contrast between people like Lauren (her real name) who just want to be “typical” and so many of us who yearn to be anything but.

For most of my life, I longed to just fit in.  I frantically scrubbed away at any qualities that could keep me from being camouflaged.  It’s called being a teenager (though it lasted well past those years for me).  Then that effort fell apart, and I embraced an atypical existence, driving 1000 miles north to find it.  Walking the streets with celebrities, running in Central Park, staring up at the Empire State Building, knowing when to hit Magnolia Bakery so there wouldn’t be a line.  Meeting and falling in love with a man lacking a Southern accent and NRA membership.  Who voted for Obama, for God’s sake (and is living with the consequences of that choice).

And now, here we are, living in our wooded community with our two-car garage and pool/tennis membership.  I’ve made pot roast, meatloaf, and the aforementioned strata along with dozens of cookies, all this week.  I held a Swiffer in my hand for the larger part of Wednesday.  On Sunday we will join a church that doesn’t have a New York Times best-selling author as its pastor.  We’re contemplating buying a chocolate Lab.  I could be scooping up turds on a street near you someday very soon.

What the f%$k happened?

Leaning over the boiling crockpot and the bleach-drenched tub this week, I thought about Sex and the City.  Specifically, the second movie version of the show.  And why it sucked.  And though I still contend that the major reason behind its critical and box-office failure is that they abandoned the city that gave the story its life, I also have a sneaking suspicion that not as many people want to watch these ladies live in another setting: Domesti-City.  Single girls running around at midnight in brightly-hued high heels are much more fun than moms baking cupcakes.  And I wonder if, for those of us who have turned the page on the wandering portion of our lives, the end of all our T.S. Eliot-style exploring will be to arrive where we started…and be bored as hell?

Then, still bent over that pot and that tub, I thought about all that has happened to get me to this point of stability, of doors without eviction notices and streets without drunk men accosting me.  And I realize that because of all the love spent on my behalf–on trees and in trenches and in front of oceans, repeating vows–I am unlike anyone else.  Just like you.  I am an atypical person living a typical life.  This primal desire to which I find myself connecting looks more like home-cooked meals than one-night stands, and I see the blessing in that, a peace untouched by the frantic furor of high heels on pavement and feminist movements.  I know that my truest self began to be unlocked on that city pavement but continues today, here.  I realize that the life I am living, even/especially the part of it with ladles and sponges, is an act of worship acknowledging a plan that is bigger than a five-year chapter.  And I wonder if, just maybe, there is more challenge to consistently finding God in soap bubbles than in the light reflecting off the Chrysler Building.  If there is a holiness in this new home beyond what I can imagine.

After all, it would serve me right.  He always has a way of showing up where I least expect him.

Saturday night, when the sky was still clear and the week ahead filled with workdays, The Husband and I headed out for a Suburban Date: dinner at Chili’s and a movie.  We watched the Seahawks beat the Saints over chips and salsa, then headed to the theater to see the movie he had been anticipating:  Tron.  My experience with video games was limited to Frogger as a young kid, Super Mario Bros. as a medium kid, and the refurbished Donkey Kong as a college big kid; TH boasts a much more complex record than that.  While my nose was buried in Sweet Valley High and Babysitters Club books, he was enmeshed in the galaxy of games like Tron and their pop-cultural accompaniments, the original movie being the piece de resistance.

All of which is to say that he was beyond excited and I was willing to tolerate two hours of confusion for some popcorn and M&Ms.

Being a writer who keeps a well-appointed apartment in her head as a second residence, I look for meaning anywhere I can find it.  Being a believer who lives in a world that often seems devoted to tarnishing the sacred, I look for God anywhere he may show up.  Which, as it turns out, is pretty much everywhere, especially outside the church walls and predictable boxes where we file him.  And that’s how I walked away from Tron with a renewed sense of the ever-presence of divinity.  And a blog topic.

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we here in Atlanta have been housebound since Monday, preserved under sheets of ice and mountains of blankets.  Businesses have shut down, government has run even less effectively than usual (in other words, not at all), trash has remained uncollected, mail undelivered, and children uneducated.  We live in a neighborhood that is wooded, hilly, and therefore practically undriveable for those of us without four-wheel drive (read: everyone–suburban SUVs are for show, not function).  And so, two weeks after the Christmas break, we are experiencing another week off from Regular Life.

Here’s what such a week looks like in our house:  endless pots of coffee, countless batches of baking cookies, P90X workouts in the basement, soreness all over from said workouts, sledding with the Sis-in-Law and nephews on boogie boards and trashcan lids, and a messier house than usual due to the combined presence of two people who are, in “normal” circumstances, at work most of the week instead of burrowed in the couch, spilling coffee and scattering cookie crumbs.

Let’s stop there.  At the messy part.

I know in my head the metaphor that marriage and mess provide for my walk in faith, for my growth in grace, for my move toward becoming less of an asshat and more of a person.  I know, as I have constantly chronicled, that chasing life with a dustbuster is not the surest way to find it, that laying that wonderful appliance down and being still within the mess of life is the tea party (no political affiliation implied) at which God is most likely to pull up a chair.  I know all this.  Know know know. After all, I’ve been a student most of my life; retaining information is my specialty.  But that distance from my brain to my heart is not a straight line, and much like the roads in my neighborhood now, it is long, convoluted, and filled with stalling and sliding.  Retaining is an act.  Change is a process.  Only the perfect dance of time and grace can wrench the spray bottle from my hands, the planner from my bag, the pen from my fingers, and replace them with peace amidst chaos.  Character amidst corruption.  Faith amidst turmoil.

So.  Back to Tron.

The climax of the film involves a confrontation between Jeff Bridges’ character, Kevin Flynn, and his creation, Klu (Jeff Bridges plus makeup and CGI).  Flynn’s original intent behind the game was to create a perfect universe, and Klu was to be the agent who enacted that perfection.  Klu carried out his purpose, leaving a trail of destruction (in the form of genocide) in his wake. Sound familiar, history buffs?  A bit heavy-handed, but this is a video game movie.  What Flynn discovered too late was what he told Klu: “Perfection is not what we are striving for” after all–it is both “unknowable” and “standing right in front of you.”  Two seemingly contradictory ideas if this world we live in is all there is.

When I opened our front door on Monday morning to the scene pictured at the above left, I caught a glimpse of that perfection that is unknowable this side of eternity: unblemished whiteness.  Sparkling counters, functioning faucets, dustless surfaces.  The kind of perfection that, here on earth, can only be observed from a distance if preservation is the ultimate goal.  Then…the picture on the right. A day of sledding, of climbing, of laughing, of falling.  Of being in the mess.  Life this side of heaven, standing right in front of me.

After a seven-month break from the bike, I showed up a week ago to a spin class at LA Fitness, the gym here in Atlanta that The Husband and I just joined.  I waved to our realtor, who was setting up her own bike across the room.  Then I pondered the dilemma that confronted me as I stared at the contraption before me, one that in no way resembled the bikes I used to ride at New York Sports Club.  The new bike whose controls are unfamiliar, whose water-bottle-holder is in a different location, whose square footage of space is surrounded by strangers.  My dilemma, one I have faced throughout life, was this: Do I ask for help?

Throughout my early years, I flew quietly under all radars and tried never to rock any boats.  All of that hiding came to a head and a crashing halt when I up and moved across the country to the loudest, most radar-blasting and boat-rocking city of them all.  And the extremes I had spent my life up to that point wavering between–silent meekness and angry explosions–began to be sanded down and evened out by this city that could both inflate my identity and deal me an ass-kicking any day of the week.  And by the God who could do the same, but chose instead to operate within the realms of love and grace to accomplish his purposes.  (Though often, love and grace felt more like ass-kickings than getting lost in the subway did.)

And the thing that I know I will never get away from this side of heaven, the sin that so easily trips me up and entangles because it is a part of our human condition and one that is often praised and placed on pedestals by the names of Ambition and Drivenness and Hard Work, is this: my constant pursuit to prove myself, to establish myself in any name but his, to “here I go again on my own” or “I did it my way” in the traditions of Whitesnake and Sinatra.

Which is why, even though I capitulated to that growth in grace enough to ask for the spin instructor’s help, my immediate inner response to her question–“Have you done this before?”–was, “Not only have I done this before, but I’ve done it for years in gyms across Manhattan and on Park Avenue that I walked to from my New York apartment in the snow uphill both ways past celebrities and financiers and instructed by a tiny gay Asian man with an earring who could school you and if I can make it there I can make it anywhere especially this wannabe gym and your amateur class.”

Of course, I didn’t say that.  Out loud.

What I said was, “Yes.”

But my inner monologue revealed to me once again, as ever, how desperate I am to be an expert.  At anything. At everything.  How much of my activity is dedicated to flashing my credentials, how much of my working and running and cleaning is motivated by that ugly buried desire to have people look at me in a certain way.  An impressed way.

How everything I believe in tells me that all that stuff is filthy rags compared to what has been done on my behalf, that records broken or unmet or, well, records at all just don’t matter.  Which is why, when I show up at 10 am on Sunday morning carrying my baggage of deeds good and bad, my ugly thoughts and my judgments, I remember that there is no room for them here.  I am not meeting Santa Claus and his naughty-or-nice lists.  I am not meeting someone who is interested in lists at all, which at first is a disappointment because I’m so good at making lists! but then is a relief because I’m not always so good at sticking to them.  And all the preening and strutting I’ve perfected throughout the years will not get me to, or keep me from, his lap.  The one place where I can be exactly what I am and loved at the same time.  Grades and accomplishments and successes and failures notwithstanding, because when he looks at me and is impressed, it’s not because of anything I’ve done.

Yesterday I spoke to a troop of Girl Scouts and when I was introduced as a dentist, one of them asked, “Are you rich?”  I wanted to tell her a lot of things: hell no; that right now, nobody is; that “rich” is not about money; instead I just laughed.  Because we human beings are all about measuring things.  And God is so not.

The Husband (under the direction of his dad) gave me a fabulous Christmas gift this year: a walk-in closet.  For my past five years of New York living, my closet has been the only thing in my life smaller than my apartment, a corner in a shoebox stuffed to the gills with stuff.  The Container Store became my best friend during those years as I shoved cotton, silk, and wool into canvas hanging shelves and stored coats under my bed.  Now, room to breathe…and organize.  Two of my favorite activities.

The benefit of my New York closet system was that it left no room for the unnecessary.  Changing my wardrobe over from winter to summer and back again invariably led to garbage bags filled with discarded outfits and a subsequent trip to Goodwill.  Shopping trips carried a downside not only because they required money I didn’t have, but because one item in the closet meant another item had to go to make room for it.  More trouble than it was worth.  And still, my closet doors didn’t fully shut until the day I emptied their insides and moved out.

Such is the ordeal of those who are blessed to the point of abundance.

And now, with my beautiful white shelving units and drawer systems and double racks, I just stand and twirl around, as a recovering New Yorker is apt to do in areas of arm-spreading space, and marvel at the gifts I’ve been given.  While, at the same time, I resist the opportunity to hoard them that this new closet provides.

So much life can happen in a day.  But I’m usually so buried in my closet or my planner, storing up clothes and plans for next year’s winter, that I allow it to pass me by.

Yesterday I took the time to slow down.  Since singleness, while I was living in it, was the scourge of my existence, I failed to notice the parts of it that I enjoyed in all my introverted weirdness.  Like seeing movies alone.  Such an activity may seem relegated to the arena of serial killers for those who don’t appreciate it themselves, but there’s something about two hours of not talking or sharing popcorn that leaves me giddy.  So yesterday, when I called TH and let him know that I was going to see The King’s Speech solo, his initial alarm (“By yourself? Are you sad?  Is something wrong?”) gave way to a repeat of his Christmas gift of space to me, and I headed into the theater, small popcorn and Mr. Pibb in hand.

Talk about being reminded of the fleeting nature of life.  Within minutes, I was surrounded on all sides by a seeming brigade of senior citizens.  The woman two rows behind me accidentally hit the woman one row behind me with her steel walker.  The man in front of me sported noggin-encompassing, hearing-enhancing headphones.  A lady to my right kept voicing her displeasure at the seating arrangements (“I can’t see! But I can’t see anything!  No, it’s not going to get any better!”) until a kindly usher with a flashlight led her to a new perch.  And throughout the previews and exquisite movie, comments peppered like dropping bombs throughout the audience: “Well I won’t miss seeing that one!”  “What did he just say?  What?  Oh, that’s funny.”  “That character is just a jackass.”

Then the movie ended and the benefit of being the youngest audience member revealed itself: getting into and out of the bathroom before everyone else.  I walked out of the exit and into the sunlight just in time to see a van pull up with the name of an assisted-living facility emblazoned on its side.  I realized that the past two hours, which were a brief diversion for me, constituted A Big Event for the rest of the audience.  And immediately, all I wanted to do was get home to TH and enjoy the rest of our day together.

Sometimes space is just what I need.  Other times, it can put too much distance between me and what matters most.  I’m beginning to see the challenge I face in living in whatever space is mine and just being there, soaking it in and staying still long enough to appreciate what Now brings without jumping ahead to the next moment or the one after that.  Reflected in the countertops that sparkle for seconds after I clean them then so quickly become dirty again, time flies.  But somehow I seem to be consistently–faithfully–given exactly what I need for the flight.

Friday night, the sequined skirt and heels finally left the closet and went out on the town.  The Bro-in-Law’s retching a distant memory but for reenactments provided by The Sis, they along with The Husband and I celebrated New Year’s Eve by leaving the suburbs and hitting midtown.  A rare event and spectacular feat considering the ever-ready excuses of a three-month-old (them) and an aversion to situations without designated, ahem, cab drivers (us).  Excuses aside, we convened at South City Kitchen for the early bird special at 6 pm and ate our prix-fixe dinner while watching the action unfold at Opera, a nightclub across the street from the restaurant.  A group of bouncers, all decked out in tuxes and over-the-shoulder holsters with some packed heat, were in a huddle taking their orders from Head Bouncer.  After them came the bartendress crew, the bottom of their skirts in ridiculous proximity to their cleavage.  Finally, a few party buses showed up and unloaded an unfair-seeming girl-guy ratio, the effects of which have surely appeared on the internet by now as photo documentation of a night full of bad decisions.  And to think, just a few years ago I was squatting outside with friends in a sub-zero New York parking lot because the line to the bathroom was too long.  A memory I recalled only after critiquing the barely-there attire and stumbling gait of some of the partygoers.  Nope, I’ve never made bad decisions–not me!

After dessert and more entertainment by the Opera pit crew, our foursome headed over to the Woodruff Arts Center on foot like a bunch of New Yorkers. Now for some full disclosure: the men on our arms were not as thrilled about the evening’s entertainment as The Sis and I were, and our excitement stemmed more from the opportunity to wear fancy clothes and drink champagne out of fun flutes (word to the wise: the symphony now allows beverages inside the hall.  SCORE!) than from anticipation of the culture we would be sampling.  But we all climbed to our nosebleed seats like good sports (the glasses in our hands helped) and settled in.  And that’s when the magic happened.

From the first note, the orchestra played melodies we had all heard somewhere along our various life paths, and not because we’re the culture club.  I can only speak for The Sis and me on this, but the typical mud-riding-on-a-farm-in-Shorter-with-a-keg-in-the-backseat music is not a selection of Mozart’s finest. But you can’t reach adulthood without hearing some of these tunes, even if it’s in a Velveeta Mac and Cheese commercial.  The first part of the all-Italian program featured Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, and other operatic composers.  I melted when “Nessun dorma” from Turandot was performed–a song I last heard (other than on my iPod) while in a wine-tasting van with my girlfriends rolling through the hills of Tuscany.  At intermission (which TH likes to refer to as halftime at any event, be it a hockey game, Broadway show, or, apparently, the symphony) the boys chose to forego the “out” we had given them earlier: if it sucks, we’ll go drink somewhere.  And our perseverance was rewarded not only by another trip to the bar but by a more current second-half selection: The Godfather theme, Sinatra hits, and music from Jersey Boys (another good memory–the first Broadway show that TH and I saw together).  We all left the hall humming, which is quite a step up from New Years past.  Like last year, when I was virally parked on a California motel toilet; or the bakers’ dozen or so before that one, when I was testing my hepatic function.

As we walked to the parking deck, TH and I passed Opera, its walls thumping with bass and revelry.  It was ten o’clock, and we were headed in for the night to watch a DVRed episode of The Soup then celebrate the ball-drop with Ryan Seacrest and a recovering Dick Clark.  Our old hometown pulsed onscreen with the addition of thousands of bodies ready to party in Times Square, and for the second time of the night I was watching a scene of which I am no longer a part.  But in the symphony hall, embedded in family, and on the couch, embedded in my favorite arm, my nostalgia was curbed by the essence of belonging, of having arrived home–an arrival preceded by bad decisions and outfits, but not prevented by them.  A home like a song, unexplainably familiar and big enough to envelop me in beauty.