Thursday, September 10, 2009

moodle my noodle

With dramatic flair last week, I was escorted from my institution of higher education. Collecting all of my things in my arms and walking slowly and carelessly down the steps followed by a business office employee, I walked as though we were stepping out to lunch rather than stepping out for failure to pay. There was no way I was going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me care; at that moment, I wasn't quite sure that I did.

The experience, as a whole, was either sadly hysterical or hysterically sad - I'm not quite sure which one yet.

It wasn't until after I had exited the building and climbed onto my bicycle that the feeling of arrest came. I might as well have been in handcuffs. The tears filled my eyes and began to wet my cheeks -- they kind of felt like handcuffs a little bit. So there I was, escorted off the premises, on my bike, with the tears that felt like handcuffs; I made it to the corner before having to stop to blink back the watery fog that had begun to blur my line of vision.

I wish they were tears of embarrassment. But they weren't.
They were tears of defeat.

Have you ever experienced a 'death of a vision'? It goes a bit like this: a grand opportunity is presented, life looks good; everything that should be seems to magically fall into place and suddenly a life purpose is more clearly defined. God is good - this is the birth of the vision - the death of said vision occurs when all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, this vision gets sent through a blender on mince, then subsequently through a washing machine on a repeated spin cycle without the Woolite. It is then hung out to dry, but usually for far past the time at which it has actually finished drying. God is still good.

That's right - God is still good.
So good, in fact, that I'm going to go ahead and say that this vision is not yet dead.

For the first time in a long time, I feel so comfortable in the place where I am. I feel a certain surety in my spirit that Philadelphia, and Moore College of Art & Design, and specifically 707A Brown Street is where God has brought me for a purpose that even I don't quite understand; but it feels good. That is, it has felt good.
While I am determined that it will continue to feel good, I have had a moment in which it feels as though the honeymoon is definitely over and the bill collectors have come calling (quite literally).

My ego has been bruised.
My heart has been smoldered.
My sense of surety has been shaken.

I can have this all restored. I can.
It's a choice, right? It's a choice to restore my ego, and my heart, and my surety.
It's a choice to lean into my hardships and test the things that I thought I always knew to be true.
It's a choice to accept that the things worth getting are not always all that easy to get.

I'm choosing to accept this as a vital party of my growth, I really am. I just need to have a brief moment in which I can close my eyes, cover my ears, and scream.