hello

I love coats.  I love them because they are warm and I love to be warm, I really do.  I also love them because they have fun things like buttons and secret pockets and belts.  I found the perfect one the other day.  I feel like Mary Poppins in it and it makes me smile.  Oh, a spoon full of sugar.

I am good at finding coats.

I am also good at being a girl.  And that frustrates me.

One minute I am thrilled and swept up and the next I am watching the person across the room.  Does that stop?  I've noticed it in my search for the perfect church and career and coffee drink.

I read once that the part of your brain that deals with relationship doesn't finish developing until you're twenty-six.  Add that to the fact that hormones start exploding when you're thirteen and it's a perfectly good recipe for trouble.

How in the world do you go about picking out another human?  That's what I want to know.

A classmate explained that it is like shoe shopping.  Finding the pair that's the most comfortable.  The problem is, I change my shoes three times a day and I don't always care about comfortable.  Sometimes I want cute.  Or tall.

Another person told me that it's like running a race.  And one day you look to your side and there's someone next to you, running towards the same thing.  I got excited for a minute.  That's it!  But wait.  I switch directions all of the time.  Sometimes I like to walk. 

A friend asked me lately if I was ready for a relationship and I said that I supposed I was.  But I'm not.  Not really.  The idea of working at something that you give yourself to with no guarantee that he will be with you the next day is daunting.

I'm ready for the part after all of that.  The part after you've made your choice and said your yeses and stuffed cake into each other's faces.  I'm ready to work at something that is going to last.  I would like to age with someone.  To make mistakes and fall down laughing about it.   To get mad and lock myself in the bathroom while I remember how easy it was to be alone and then want him more for it.

I had a hard conversation a while ago.  I realized while I was on the phone that I was holding my breath and that my lungs were burning.  Breathe Tasha.  I called my brother after.  I wanted him to tell me that not all men are that way.  I remember quietly asking him.  Whatever you do, please be worth believing in.  Please live well.  I'm not sure I can handle another.

I was a little cynical for a while.  But I got tired of it.  It's maddness to try to hold on to thoughts that push you away from grace.  You can get lost in them and never make it back out.

I've decided that everyone comes and goes.  And sometimes their presence in your life is strong.  That it's ok to say no to yourself and it's ok to say yes.  Doors swing open and close.  And if I don't quit, if I don't give up on little things, then the big things won't seem so impossible.  There is such a thing as this: you can say hello and goodbye with the same measure of grace.  You can say goodbye without saying goodbye to yourself.  And once you realize this, the hellos are no longer about the end.