It's 12:03...

It's not really 12:03. It's almost 2 in the afternoon actually. The title of my blog comes from an epiphany I had around 5AM, a thought that near woke me up, but that I was already awake, but NOT at 12:03. As always, there is more to my story than just my story. A couple of examples will help in this case.

Last weekend, with the help of a dear friend, I made some attempt at cleaning my house. I am TERRIBLE at cleaning my house. I think I'm starting to pinpoint some reasons why. As I was straightening a bookshelf (which I've never straightened since I moved in this house over three years ago), I found my ex husband's jr. high school yearbook, several books belonging to the most recent disaster to call this house his home, and a stack of condolence cards sent to me after my mother passed away.

I'm not a TOTAL packrat, per se - holding on to random things simply for the sake of holding on - but when it comes to places where my heart has invested - I am AWFUL.

So my dear, wonderful Michelle (don't tell her I said that) offers to help - to literally hold my hand & scrub my floors. She finds, on my refrigerator, a card given to me by an old friend, who is no longer a friend. A woman who, at one point in her life, sent me a card telling me how wonderful and important our two decade long friendship was - who, in another moment, opted to kick me while I was down in a brutal way and then not speak to me for almost 10 months - that woman is enshrined on my refrigerator.

Michelle was kind enough to throw away the card. But that empty space on my refrigerator hurt. Empty spaces hurt me.

New Years Eve. Midnight. I'm sitting in a friend's basement, witnessing about 10 couples ringing in the New Year in the traditional way. Again, an empty space. Granted, it's a space far preferrable to the space I found myself in when ringing IN 2006, but a painful, empty space nonetheless.

Fast forward 5 minutes. It's 12:05, and someone is moving towards me, wishing me happy new year. Kisses, hugs, I'm lifted from my seat, and I spent the next space of time among genuine, safe people, and I got plenty of kisses to boot. We toasted Mom, ate herring, and music prevailed til dawn and beyond.

On Tuesday, my cousin sent me a book she'd just finished. She sent along with it, a card. A card in which she shared with me the reasons she appreciates & loves me. It's hanging on my refrigerator right now.

I woke up last night, thinking about another area of my life which seems clearly to be approaching that farmiliar territory of disappointment. Once again, I've put myself out there in ridiculous measures, and appear (at this point in history) to be, once again, swinging from my own rope. Note my parenthetical tendency towards hope, even now.

So I'm awake at 5AM, and the thought occurs to me - It's 12:03AM. The moment I'm now in is only two minutes away from the moment two minutes from now. Twelve O Five's a coming... It always does.

The emptiness that I've always feared, the sting that I've gone to such foolish lengths to avoid - might it be a necessary evil? Might it be not at all evil, but rather a sweet, pregnant pause, as a way is paved for the rushing in of all that I might find wonderful & fulfilling?

What mistakes have I tolerated as I have attempted to shove SOMETHING - ANYTHING in lieu of NOTHING - into that blessed space? What glories have I missed out on? What might be waiting in the wings even now - even now, as I hesitate to give life to this philosophy by writing it out?

At 5AM, the idea was beautiful. Throughout the morning, as the words came to attatch themselves to it, it grew in sensibility. But, now, as 2:45 approaches, as Saturday night again looms, this typing is painful. To hope in what is not seen is to use muscles which I've allowed to atrophy.

And me with so much reason to have faith...

Happy New Year!

If you'd have told me at the beginning of this year that I would be in this place at the end of it, I would not have believed you, and it only would have served to depress me that I couldn't even fathom such a thing. It's true. Had you found me in the CTA station at the corner of Lake & Clark at 4am on January 1st 2006 - with a dying cell phone, no taxi, and a smelly, 6'4 drunk passed out on the bench behind me (one I had to get home with me) - had you at that point in time told me - well, let's just say it's probably a good thing for all of us that you didn't.

Oh the foresight I lacked! The angst I wallowed in that night! Two months later, it was over. Two months after THAT, I knew it was over. And the rest of the year took OFF. I learned so MUCH in 2006! My kids went to camp - and they loved the camp I loved at their age. I spent a month in Costa Rica for WORK - and I there experienced new things I could never have even imagined. I found a church home, and a ministry which seems to have been my whole life in the making. God proved faithful, even after my most faithless season. Hope was restored in ridiculous measures. And I found friends - more than that - kindred souls, who I never could have otherwise known without the honest Jenn that was drawn up from the bottom of my heart kicking and screaming. A week before the end of the year, a lifelong dream began to take shape, as my place on next summer's team to Israel was confirmed. Oh, Mother, where art thou?

So, how is it possible that the last night of the year might top off all THAT? How can I express to Marc & Donna my gratefulness for what turned out to be so much more than hospitality, more than simply allowing me to share in their celebration? What can I say to convey to them the appreciation I feel for the place I found myself exactly one year after the aforementioned nightmare? I struggle to recall the times in my LIFE where I've felt so "at home" - a place where I know I am safe & loved & appreciated without a single ounce of pretense. I call that "family". How do you thank someone for that? How do you thank dozens of people for that? How do you thank God for that?

2007 is set to be the best one yet. This year in Jerusalem. Happy New Year to you all!