In which things I love are serious...

You know that dream where you're watching something awful happen, and you want to look away or move in to help or call in the troops or scream or something but all you can do is just watch it and watch it and watch it? 

Yeah, me too. 

And I'm sure you know that feeling that comes with the dream. It starts in the pit of your stomach where it settles some of itself like lead to hold you down. Then it kind of gnaws its way up your rib cage, twisting your heart strings and numbing your limbs, working its way to your throat where the sound should come out. But nothing does. You say nothing. You go nowhere. You are unable to accomplish anything. And doing nothing makes that lead in your stomach feel heavier, your limbs feel number, your words less accessible. And that's the worst part of it. You can't stop the hurt happening in front of you, and you can't stop the void going on inside of you. And you can't look away.

It's like that sometimes in real life, I think. Bad things happen. You can't stop them. You go numb. You watch the hurt and sad go on around you. But you can't get your words to be useful or your arms to provide comfort or your eyes to cry. You get down on your knees to pray, and you can't even conjure the words to send up and over and where they will matter. And you can't look away.

And then one day you wake up. You can pray and comfort and laugh and move. And you can look away, but you don't.

 *******

This past Sunday the family was able to be together for my little brother's 20th birthday. 20 years old. I can't even believe it. When I turned 20 everything was ahead of me. I was engaged to my very best friend, had 3 crazy semesters of college left, and the world was truly my oyster to cradle me and pummel me and smooth me into any shape and color of pearl I desired. And that was just 1 year and 10 months ago. Since then life has changed drastically.  It's filled with more people to love and be loved by. It's teeming with different stressors and different fears and different monotonies, but it's also alive with different dreams and possibilities and inconsistencies. But it is all still ahead. All fresh and smacking of adventure.

And now he's 20, too. Or his body would be, I guess. But who knows how old his Mac Daddy soul is. Probably much older even than the hill he's buried on. But I would like to think that it's still green, full of the freshness of youth, as bright and shiny as his little blonde boy-curls in that picture of him on the spinny chair. 

Round and round and round we go. Where we stop nobody knows... right?

We all lose things and moments and people we love. I don't know why the whole world doesn't stop and wait for us to catch up with it, but it doesn't. But maybe it's because sometimes, when we are finally done with the round and round part, where we stop is important and full of good. Maybe.

Happy birthday, McKay.