Things I Love

The first one in a while, I know.

On this, the last day of my twentieth year of blessed living, I will give you twenty things I love.

1. Jesus, for existing alongside me in all of the glorious and fragile moments.
2. SNOW! Yep, it snowed. In South Carolina. In fact, it has snowed three times in the past five days. Because life is amazing.
3. My fabulous family. My dog even recognized my presence as I walked in the door, so that was pretty impressive for such an old guy. Families keep you in place, they're good reorient-ers
4. My darling friends. The family I chose and chose me. God only knows what I would be without you.
5. Wheaton, IL. Last year I was riding down Washington and counting myself lucky to be living inside of your small but loveable lines and I feel the same now. It's an enduring kind of adoration.
6. Glasgow. You taught me what love is, in the oddest way, and how faithful the Lord can be.
7. Mary Oliver. When I first met you on paper I judged you hard core, but you became a beautiful and ever-applicable companion.
8. Food. Where would I be without you? Between Thanksgiving dinners and cheese cakes and four pumpkin pies, you make life worth living, truly.
9. Crafting. I wish I did more and did better and had more money to do more and better, but alas. But the attempt is so exhilarating.
10. Risks. I used to hate you so so so much. I was so afraid of you and the entire world. But walking down the side of mountain this summer, you and I became friends. It was one of my better moments.
11. Mischief. The kind my friends and I get into when stealing a tack board from Lower Beamer. The kind I'll get into later this semester with surprise art and love. The kind that is always surprising me.
12. Winter. I dreaded you, you were the enemy and I had so many weapons until I realized that it's better to justice relax beside you and enjoy the particular joys you bring. Thank you for a reason to sit down.
13. Homes away from home. I have about five of you, and each one is a different shade of love and peace, reminding me of all the ways that love and peace can find me.
14. Unrequited love. I talked about you yesterday and how you give me a greater capacity to love and greater appreciation for the large amount of love in my life. So, ever present friend, I'll hold your hand as long as needed.
15. Adventure. Will you be my best friend forever? Please? Because so far this has been legit.
16. Endings. Because just as your whole life ends you understand how to craft a new one.
17. Uganda. I hated you sooooo much while I was with you, and it's not until a year and a half later that I can mean it when I say that you are the pearl of Africa.
18. Edisto Beach. You hold the best parts of me throughout my entire life.
19. Letters. Only good things come from the mail, from coupons and catalogs to love letters and thank you notes.
20. Breathing. The simple act of taking in the air and redistributing a different kind to the rest of the world, this silent, thankless function of my lungs and diaphragm that soothes the anxious pieces and fuels the brave moments and is the engine for the laughter. The miracle of existence is so ordinary, so boring, simple and scary. But we keep on breathing, because it's worth taking in and it's worth giving back.

Much love,
Em

A Warm, Cozy Monday

You know that part at the end of Willy Wonka (and yes I mean the Gene Wilder version, because I love Johnny, but seriously, what the heck?) where they're in the glass elevator spinning above the town and it's beautiful and Pure Imagination is playing in the back ground. Wonka tells Charlie that he'll be running the factory and his family can move in, and then says, "Now, remember Charlie what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he ever wanted." Charlie asks what. "He lived happily ever after." And then Wonka and Grandpa Joe and Charlie spin into the sweet, chocolately future.

A while ago I was basically offered everything I ever wanted. A long term missionary position in Glasgow, with possibly a job State-side while I fundraise. And then I freaked out, because what if it's not everything I ever wanted? My heart is my compass (something I love and hate about myself), and my heart just froze. It's like that moment on a speed boat when the engine cuts out and the boat is just gliding on the water from inertia and there's just silence and no control.

But I've got time, right? There are no deadlines for me. I'd like to have a plan. I'd like to have a crystal ball and play the guitar and make art with my friends into the sweet chocolately future. But somehow I think my future will be sweeter. Because my patch work life will continue to be warm and whole and odd in the way that having oompa loompas and making candy that never loses its taste is odd. Odd but wonderful.

So, here's to living happily ever after, and being willing to think that everything you ever wanted is possible. Or at least worth seeing just once.

Much love,
Em

Because I don't talk about the meaning of existence enough...

Let's just talk about other things that are amazing.

Hilariously, the first time my friend group has had real drama was over the Thanksgiving dinner we're planning this weekend (also my birthday dinner! So. Pumped.). Through an actually funny bout of miscommunication responding to miscommunication, we figured out that just calling someone and using the human capacity of voice is always better than text. It's not Thanksgiving without some drama, right? My friends really love me and really wanted to make sure that everything was okay, that my feelings were too bruised, and that I knew that they love me. We're talking about dinner. About a miscommunication over plans and timing. Something that was fixed within a couple of hours. Yet, everyone took efforts to make sure that there was peace in the valley and love all around. That's how amazing my life is.

Yesterday was commitment Sunday, and while I am in a nomadic time of life (unfortunately when I wrote that on the Commitment Card, I spelled nomadic "gnomadic", which left me feeling less confident in my intelligence, but hey) and cannot commitment consistent funds, I still found the sermon captivating. My pastor was in financial trouble, and he said to the Lord "I don't know how this is going to happen." To which the Lord responded, "Do you trust me?". Chris said yes, and then God said "Then there's nothing else to talk about, is there?"

I trust God. So, there's nothing else to talk about as far as my future and if I'll pass philosophy and what the meaning of my existence is. Yes, I have an internship interview on Wednesday that I am nervous/excited about. Yes, this will be a full week academically. Yep, some other exciting things are happening this weekend which will be awesome and nerve wracking (cooking a turkey for 12 people is no joke). But I trust God. So there's nothing else to talk about. So I'm going to get to doing.

Much love,
Em

SNOWSNOWSNOWSNOW!!!!!

There just aren't words for how much I adore snow. It's not sticking right now, but just the sheer fact that such fresh loveliness is currently falling from the sky and polka-dotting everyone is amazing. Snow reminds me that even in the cold winter, there is beauty and wonder to be found. Snow reminds me that the ground can be reinvented into newness, a clean sheet tucked into the corners of the earth. Snow reminds me of the feeling of forgiveness and new dreams and possibilities. Your world becomes whole and clean in a matter of hours, and for no other reason than the Lord loves us.

This weekend I discovered that I've grown up since I was sixteen. My fabulous friend Megan came up from Louisiana to spend her fall break at my place, and there's nothing like seeing your home through a visitor's eyes that makes you appreciate it more. Yes, Wheaton dating is funny. Yes, I live in a bubble. Yes, I still don't really know what I'm doing and it scares me. But, I've grown so much since my junior year of high school, I've learned how to stand strong and take risks and move far away and like it. I can navigate a major city and discover new neighborhoods and want to move to different countries. It's all possible.

Megan and I!

What really gives me hope though is that Megan and I can become completely different people (when I was in high school, I did not want to leave the Carolinas. She wanted to get the heck out of dodge. Now, I don't really want to go back South, but rather get a job in the Midwest and then go to Scotland. Now, she wants to teach English in Louisiana or back in South Carolina) yet we still love each other and are best friends. Yes, I was friends with all 99 members of the SCGSAH Class of 2011. Yes, I basically only talk to 3 of those friends now. But, I can carry people in my heart and they can carry me in mine and that can last through time. 

My favorite building in Chicago, on the River Walk of Wacker Drive

Also, I just love this city. I never thought I would love any place that was large and not-Southern. But I was proven wrong, as I will be proven wrong so many times in the future. I welcome that now.

The sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide 

This is the wonder that is keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Much love, 

Em

Things I Love

When am I not on a Weepies kick?

There's nothing like Nick Offerman being a man reading tweets from children to make a rainy day better.

And last but not least, a poem by Mary Oliver. Because life is better with Mary Oliver:

Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like on stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard, I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing
as though I had wings.

Much love,
Em

Back From the Vortex

This happens every year. The light becomes a scarce friend, classes pile up, the stresses from the previous quad solidify into one large stone weighing on my heart until I'm like Giles Corey from The Crucible, being crushed under the weight of so many stones.

But this morning I emerged from the black vortex. Because I remembered this little gem from Parks and Rec. My alter-ego Leslie Knope feels like what she does, the work that she loves, stacks up pretty poorly compared to her fiancees DC colleagues. So she goes back to Pawnee and enters her own black vortex, and tells her adorable side kick Andy Dwyer "Maybe Ben should just go in a helicopter and drink champagne with Hot Rebecca and leave me." Andy asks who Hot Rebecca is. She's a compilation of every successful, beautiful, flawless woman that could ever exist, a phantom character Leslie puts all of her insecurities in and lets her imagination run wild. Everything Leslie dislikes about herself, Hot Rebecca has the opposite in spades.

Andy says, "You're not Hot Rebecca. But you're Kick Ass Leslie. And that's so much better."

So, this is what I have to say world: I am not Hot Rebecca. My finances are a small disaster zone, I am under academic water, my scale always says bad things to me, my friends are walking through their own mini-disasters, and I feel powerless to make it all stop. But guess what. I am Kick Ass Emilea. And I'm not powerless, I get the chance to refocus. I'll feel like I'm Kick Ass Emilea because I have a budget (it's not sexy, but neither is debt), because I am doing homework almost 24/7 (because having a bachelor's degree is considered pretty hot in the job market), because I am actually taking care of myself, because Jesus loves my friends and is walking with them step by step when I'm not there.

I'm Kick Ass Emilea. And that's way better than Hot Rebecca. Because Hot Rebecca doesn't get to live my awesome, blessed life with my fabulous, beautiful, and remarkably amazing friends.


Much love,
Em

And to be honest, I'm not quite sure how Hot Rebecca could beat this. Take a look at me and all my friends from this weekend. Aren't we fabulous?

Things I Love Today

This:

This:

This:

Much love,

Em

The Struggle Bus

The struggle bus isn't so much feeling defeated and tired and deprived of every good thing and yet are forced to move on with life. It's a place to recover when all that happens. The struggle bus is a safe place to look out the window, know the Lord is good, and when you're ready to be on your on two feet walking out your path, you can.

And that is the vehicle I have been riding the past four days. Every insecurity I ever thought I may have was confirmed on Friday. The feeling of defeat is sitting on my heart. My friends are broken and my dreams are fading and failure feels inevitable. On this struggle bus, I'm passing that afternoon when I was nine and it was cold. My mother picked me from carpool and we went home, swaddled ourselves in blankets, and drank hot chocolate. The feeling of total comfort and peace exists. I know it, I've felt it. It just happens to be absent right now.

The bus seat in front of me has all kinds of grafitti torn into it by Swiss Army knives and pencils: "Jeremy was here," "Life Happens," "I <3 John." The notes of my predecessors, who are probably frolicking in some distant field. I imagine they turn their heads just enough so I can hear them say "It's possible."

Because it is. Living in the romance of the past is atrophy, living in the romance of the future is deception.

Victoria Park, Guess Where 

This place exists. The rumble of this bus goes on and on because as long as the bus exists, we know that there is a place to recover. We know that recovery is possible.

Much love,

Em

Friday Fears

This week I entered a house filled with beer bottles, beer yet to be consumed, cigarette packs, and pounds of free coffee. I do not know what these men's aspirations are, but currently they work at Starbucks/Panera/Caribou. And my stomach did backflips, because right now I am staring my future in the face and have this gnawing fear of wasting my potential. I will have a college degree and the world (kind of) at my feet and I could waste all of my potential. Work at Starbucks. Forever. Giving away bags of coffee while watching all the things I have ever hoped I could do or all the things I legitimately could be go down the drain. I will be stuck. I will be unfulfilled. I will have wasted everything.

Or.

Kelvingrove, Stupidly Happy

I could apply for jobs (which I have been) and have a plan (which I do) and be going after my dreams (which I am) and just see what happens when you jump off the cliff. 

I had dinner with a friend the other week and we were talking about our future plans. He said it is really strange to have these plans and to realize as you're approaching them "Hey, this might not work out." But I think we're just young enough for it to be okay to take a running leap off of the cliff. Because they might work out or you might work at Starbucks, but I would like to know that I tried. So here I am. Trying.

There's a River Runs Through Glasgow

Much love,

Em

Things I Love Today

I am sick. I have class. Tomorrow is a midterm. This is what gets me through the day:

Amy Poehler always wins. Period.

This legit making-of video about Volcano Choir's latest album.

This song is on repeat.

Much love,

Em

They Love Each Other. There Is No Loneliness Like Theirs.

So, on Friday I had three different plans for this weekend. The last one won out, and in thirty minutes I packed, hopped in a car, and ended up in Neenah, Wisconsin with three of my dearest friends. There were three things for my to do list: laundry, rest, work.

Rest

Breaks typically give me a space to zoom out, take a couple of adventures, and think about priorities. Am I living the fullest life possible?

I have no idea. I can sing the entirety of The Sound of Music from beginning to end right now, but I have no idea if I am actually climbing every mountain and turning over every stone. I'm a little obsessed with the idea of dreams right now, of how God gives people literal dreams, figurative dreams, and how we cast our own. I find myself crying while watching Pocahontas (which should surprise 100% of no one who knows me): Or do you still wait for me Dream Giver/ Just around the river bend.

Cheesy, yeah. 

True, yeah.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Ps. 37:4


When I was in Glasgow, I was talking with my small group leader Roxy about how unsure I was about trusting my love for the city. Because when you love something, you know you're not exactly right in the head. You're just wrapped up in the mystery of how your beloved breathes, whistles, walks across the street. That mystery clouds all good judgment with a beautiful mist that is wonderful, but also causes widespread car wrecks. Roxy said "He gives you the desires of your heart for a reason." Trusting my heart is a little like walking on a log across a river: one unsure step at a time, aware of the rush of water, hoping the solid ground comes soon.

Suddenly I realize that if I stepped out of my body I would burst into blossom -James Wright

But after a weekend of reviewing how my life is going, I feel settled. If climbing every mountain is finding a dream that will need all the love I can give, then I can honestly say that I am giving all of the love in me right now. My heart is swollen with love for my friends, my parents, my brothers, my mentors, the leaves on the ground, the snowflakes about the fall, I am sure that I would burst if more was added to me. For which I am profoundly grateful. There were no revelations this weekend. I saw a beautiful city with dear people, God reminded me of His beauty and faithfulness, and I return to school with a bag of clean clothes, an empty to-do list, and a refreshed heart ready for the next dream.

Much love, 

Em

Aren't they great?

Bright & Beautiful

A friend asked me yesterday if I kept a blog. I said yes, but I was ashamed, and so I've decided to re-curate this guy. A small dream of mine is to have an online publication, to have my friends as contributors and make something truly amazing that we can keep. I like new creative projects, but in order to start this other thing, I've decided that I need to learn how to be disciplined enough to keep up one of these blogs. So here I am.

I'm Emilea. I've seen You've Got Mail two to three times every year. I love poetry but I am studying International Relations at a Christian college in Chicago. This summer I went to Glasgow, Scotland asking the Lord if it was the place for me and I'm pretty sure He said yes, so I will have days where I miss Glasgow so much my heart hurts and I have no idea whether being a missionary in a place I love is a good idea, but here I am. Going for it. I want to write, make art with people I love, change policy, and make Glasgow a better city.

This blog will mainly detail my hilarious life. I am the least graceful person you have ever met. Today, in public, I admitted to how hard core I stalk my crush-from-afar. (In case anyone wasn't there and is curious, I know his new photos, I have a playlist of things he's been listening to recently because we have the exact same taste in music, I know what he's posted and posts that he likes on Facebook. It's not healthy. I am so aware. And yet...).

So, read this if you want to feel better about your life. Read this if you want to know how God shows Himself to me and others. Read this if you want a lot of Parks & Rec/ New Girl/ The Weepies/ random movie references.

Much love,
Em