Always Never The Same

I took a few classes (any that I could, really) during my time at Westmont with Mandy Ream, who was one of my favorite professors of all time. She was young and witty, incredibly insightful and passionate, and helped me to fall in love with the study of interpersonal communication. Her classes set the stage for my future studies of people and what makes relationships (of any kind) work (or not work). Something that she would say in class that has stuck with me was "to know me is to know..." fill in the blank. It's silly, really, that I remember her saying this in class after all these years, and after all of the other valuable things that I learned sitting in her classroom, but I do, and find myself using those words sometimes, and thinking fondly of Mandy, wondering what she and her firefighter husband are up to these days... I digress.

So. To know me is to know that I love country music; almost all country music, really, but George Strait is kind of the big one. He pretty much gets me every time. In the soundtrack to my life, especially my daydreams, much of the music would come from George. Or Alan Jackson, Gary Allan, Kenny Chesney, Sugarland...

















My life is not, on a day to day basis, all that similar to any of these songs that live so comfortably in my heart and play so religiously on my ipod. But I indulge freely and regularly in daydreams of wide open spaces, Texas sunsets, cowboys, porch swings, sweet love stories, dramatic heartbreak, reckless love, and people of who live passionately and say what they feel; simple southern summer nights filled with romance and cowboys and honkeytonks and margaritas... I allow these songs to transport me to a world I don't mind living in for a while in the least bit.

I suppose that what I might as well say is "to know me is to know that I am a hopeless romantic."

And that I'm a sucker for a good country love song.

You should check out my movie collection.

But, I'm okay with that.

George Strait has an album called "Always Never the Same," from which I borrowed the title to this site. I like that, always never the same; and I think it's a good name for a place where I am attempting to make sense of some of the questions and dreams and thoughts and hopes swirling around in my head and heart during this mid-twenties season. From jobs, to houses, to relationships, ideas, passions, and feelings, my life as a twenty-something seems to be always never the same, and I kind of love it.

Granted, on a not so great day, I am worn out and exhausted by all the change. I yearn for something stable and constant. I find myself feeling like I am struggling to keep my head above water while others around me are settling into happy marriages, with homes that they are building, and babies and puppies and stable jobs...

And then there are the other kind of days. Those are the days that I find myself bursting at the seams, celebrating every glorious moment of the life that God has blessed me with. This kind of day I spend time in places I love, with people I love, my heart at peace. I wear my favorite dresses which all have pockets, and I eat the food I love and everything tastes better and looks brighter and feels fuller. These are the days where I believe with everything in me that the God that I worship and love is a God who holds my life preciously in His hands. That He is sovereign and He is good, and He is constant. While my life seems so often to be a big fat crazy mess, He is smiling on my exhausted efforts to put together the pieces when He already knows where they all go. He sees the whole picture and blesses it. And some days, I am able to rest in knowing that.