Sickness, Dancing, and Turning 22

So here I sit in the emergency room at the Orange City Hospital-which is not the same of the Orange City Hospital-waiting for Ellen, who happens to be very sick and, apparently, needed to undergo a bunch of long tests...or something.

She called today and this is how that conversation went:

Phone: "ring!"

Me: "Hello?"

Ellen: "Sam?"

Me: "Yeah Ellen, what's up?"

Ellen: "Are any of you there that are.."

Me: "Actually, we're all here"--this wasn't true, Amy is visiting her brother at college.

Ellen: "Well, yeah, I was just wondering if any of you weren't too busy this afternoon.

Me: "I'm not busy at all Ellen. Did you need something?"

Ellen: "I was wondering if maybe someone could, um, take me to the emergency room."

Me: "I'll be right there!"

*At this point, Ellen entered the computer lounge of the hospital and informed me that, after having undergone a few tests, the doctors determined that she had a "viral infection" which, in English, means that Ellen is sick, and that she should sleep a lot and drink fluids.

Now it is almost a full week later. The day after my 22nd birthday in fact, so there is much to tell.

Last Saturday, NWC held an event called "Dancing With the Profs" (like Dancing With the Stars, but better). A good friend of mine, Amanda, performed a disco dance with a psychology professor and completely blew the competition out of the water. It was fairly amazing. I was so proud of her and she seemed to feel so much joy in performing. I was happy when she one.

Afterwards, she decided that she wanted to celebrate by...dancing. Yes, she wanted to have a dance party in her apartment across the hall. So she, Kristi, Amanda, Jenna, Tyler, Galloway, Kuik, and I all danced to very loud hip-hop and pop music in her dark living room. It was fairly magical, though probably not so to the apartment below us, who began punching the ceiling to try to quiet us down.

Ineffective.

Yesterday (Wednesday), was, as I said, my 22nd birthday. It was wonderful. I woke up to Tyler giving me a kiss on the forehead and informing me that he had brought me breakfast in bed in the form of my favorite breakfast food--Banana Nut Crunch. Poor Tyler did not notice that Amanda had laid out a basket platter, nice glass, silverware, bowl with a fancy napkin with which he could present the aforementioned breakfast. He brought it to me in a plastic bowl.

It was terribly sweet.

At that time, I also received a tiny teddy bear from Becks, and a note from Kristi saying that, throughout the day she was going to leave me 22 notes with 22 reasons she loved me. It was fun to find them throughout the day (though I only ended up with 19...whoops).

I then went and worked out. Miraculously, no one was using the ellyptical.

I came home, showered, opened my presents from my Mom and Dad (a food processor and a gift card), picked up a bag lunch, went to work, went to one class and came home to work on my painting. Tyler then came over, we fought a bit, then we went to premarital counseling, and then came home where I found my roommates preparing an amazing birthday meal: pineapple chicken bake, fruit & spinach salad with homemade lemon poppyseed dressing, and hawaiian bread. It was probably one of the best meals I have ever had. They worked hard.

Then, people slowly began filtering into my apartment, giving me cards and paintings and recipes with ducks on them. Amanda had told everyone to bring me a duck for my birthday party! It was so great! The other Amanda had set up a power point with ducks and babies to try to condition me to want children. Kari painted me a duck and Ellen drew me a duck.

Carl, CJ, Becky, Tyler, Jenna, Kristi, Galloway, Ellen, Kari, Stephanie, Amanda, Amy, Michelle, and Amanda were all here.

Then Becky and Amanda brought out a store-bought birthday cake for me, and we all know how much I love store-bought cake.

The evening settled in, people left (to go watch Lost), and I returned to my painting.

It ended perfectly. Tyler brought me a note from Kristi, kissed my cheek, told me "Happy Birthday Sweetie" and left.

Indeed.

Dreams

Tonight we had D-group with the girls across the hall. We talked about dreaming, what it is to dream, and whether or not we are called to abandon our dreams for God. Isaiah 37, Romans 12.

There seemed to be a feeling that, God desires us to dream as he made us dreaming creatures in his image, but that if our hearts were truly aligned with God's desires, we would dream God's dreams for ourselves and the world.

We did an exercise in which we wrote down a picture of our dreams, and afterwards I decided that I wanted to write some dreams here:

I walk into my workplace, colorful and lively. It is a place where I feel valued, befriended. A coworker greets me with genuinely welcoming eyes and I know that I am where I can use the gifts God has given me to meet the needs of those around me.

I gently set a small cup of salad dressing on the table as I finish a meal I have made for Tyler and I. Tyler sits in his slacks and shirt, home from a longer day of work than usual. He smiles at me and thanks me for the work I have done and I smile and thank him with my eyes for the effort he puts into sustaining us. We sit down, pray to the Lord who provides our food and eat, genuinely thankful for what we have with each other.

I cradle a baby with dark brown waves. Her head nuzzles against my shoulder as I tell her how much I love her, how much God loves her, and how powerful she is and will be as a person and a creation of God. She grasps my hand as if she understands, and perhaps she does, but she spits up on my shoulder.

My daughter and I eagerly mix the cream in to our mixture as we make cake batter ice cream.

My daughter brings her friends over for break from college. As they comfortably stroll into the dining room, Tyler and I bring out dense bread with seeds and honey butter, tender chicken, and fresh salad. They feel cared for.

I often feel like I am not a very creative or deep person. I have much to learn about my faith. That's not a dream. That's just reality.

I desire so deeply to watch Tyler grow, become more conscientious, gain perspective, and love people more fully and gently than he could ever conceive of doing in this moment in time. May he know the joy of loving people in word and thought and deed.

I Am An Even Worse Blogging Failure...

...but at the moment, I have time on my hands.

As I type, it is 8:24 PM on a Sunday, the first of the second semester of my senior year. It is strange to think that in about four months, I will embark on an entirely new journey, one marked by more uncertainty and risk than any other venture I've undertaken. Marriage. Job. New. New. New.

Tyler and I arrived back on campus after a decidedly unrestful Christmas break chuck-full of Christmas gatherings (6), showers (in 5 different houses), joy, travel (to Jenna's house, to Kari's house, to Sioux Falls, to Whitewater, to L.A., back to Whitewater, back to Orange City), and incredibly unpleasant arguments partially due to the stress and strain of never having privacy and always being together.

But break is over, and the beginning of this last semester seems to be affording more relaxation than I can remember ever having in the recent months. Last semester was a whirlwind of papers, tests, Honors classes, and obligations. This semester I'm down to 12 credits (four of which are taken "pass/no pass"), in order to spend time with friends, plan a wedding, make room for two work-study positions, and find a place to live.

So as I sit here in the library, my laptop Internet non-functional, my back very unhappy with the squats I did yesterday, and homework completed...I am sad to say that I am bored to tears with having nothing to do for two hours.

Last night Tyler and I had a special date during which he made me ham and potato soup. His effort: valiant, his soup: tremendously salty. He had read the term "two teaspoons" as "two tablespoons". It was perfect otherwise, but the salt limited my consumption to about 1/3 a bowl. He also made some Italian bread. Yum.

I had a bowl of Easy Mac later. He was really getting down on himself about his "failure." Sometimes his propensity towards negativity weighs my heart down about 100 lbs. There is no need for the negativity, and all it does is make an unfortunate situation terrible. I hope that, as he matures, he will see the folly in exacerbating a situation to the point of sucking the joy out of everything. By doing this, he only weighs himself down and makes romantic moments desperate pity parties. I believe that he recognizes this, especially after we talked about it, but it's a hard habit to break.

After watching Slumdog Millionaire, which was a good movie, we discovered that Sam M., Sam G., Jason, John, Kristi, Audrey, Sarah K., Julia, Jenna, and Amanda M. were all going to have a snowball battle. We joined, but the efforts failed spectacularly as the snow was not packable. In lieu of this, we sojourned to the green to engage in a bit of snow tackle football, with me as gimpy, heart problemed all-time quarterback. It didn't go so bad, and I threw a couple of nice passes. Tyler also threw a nice snowball pass straight into my open eye as someone was snapping the ball to me, causing me to let out a choice word, and cry as my eyes tried to clear out the chemicals.

Poor Tyler. He just shouldn't throw things at me.

The evening ended nicely with snow slushies and Chai tea while talking about our favorite professors.

Yup, I'm going to miss college.