Friday!

It’s Friday! You know what that means!

It means that on Wednesday, I looked at my blog and went, “MMMMM maybe not…”

And then I looked at it again on Thursday and went, “MMMMM I still don’t wanna!”

And now we’re here, and I can’t push it anymore, so here we go.

What’s the cause of my procrastination this time?

Well, I graduate in about a week. And my last graduation came with a lot of…unexpected changes.

Slowness

It’s been a rainy summer so far. Not that I’m complaining—well, actually I do complain about it, a lot, but I really shouldn’t. Because I like the summer rain. I like when it’s warm out, with the gray cotton clouds smearing the sky, with the rain falling around you in warm drip-drip-drips like you’re some small, chitinous critter skittering around the rainforest foliage.

It’s all very storybook, summer rain. And I love a good storybook.

But when you work at an ice cream shop, summer rain gives way to slow days. And there’s something to be said for that—slow isn’t bad, always. Slow can be good. After all, sunrises are slow, and sunsets. Waking up on Christmas morning and sorting candy on Halloween night—that’s all slow, and steady, and intentional. Slow things have a heartbeat, sometimes. A rhythm, all on their own.

But sometimes you need to make your own rhythm in the slowness.

Somewhere only we know

The ice cream shop was empty. The sky was snuggled in clouds, so the sun was a bit shy. Made the big glass windows in the shop’s front lose their gleam. The strongest indoor glow came from the freezer of ice cream in front of me, which I was leaning on with my elbows, tap-tap-tapping the glass with a fine-line Sharpie.

I was staring down at a hot-pink Post-it note. It was scribbled on—in handwriting not my own—with flavors of ice cream. Eight delicious flavors, not that there’s any other kind. I glanced up at the empty store. Then down at my watch. Going on…forty-five minutes of empty. I sighed. I’d been trying to find my own rhythm in the slowness by coming up with nicknames for the scribbled-down ice cream flavors…but, man. After a whole day of school, and two extremely slow hours of work…my brain was thick as apricot jelly.

But I wasn’t working alone. My coworker popped out of the kitchen and started sanitizing the tables beyond the counter. I glanced up at the squeaky scwee-scwee-scwee of the spray bottle. She’d cued some new songs on the house speakers—not that tired old, angsty folk stuff that’d been badgering us for the past few hours.

And I realized that the song playing was Somewhere Only We Know by Keane.

Siiiiigh…

I love that song, but in a Neverland kind of way, you know? Like how Peter Pan loves barging in on the Darlings, but there’s that underlying sorrow because…well, he knows it won’t last. It’s a moment in time—just a moment. And maybe that moment will last forever, in its own little picture frame tucked up-up and away in his mind, but that’s the extent of it. The Darlings will grow, and he’ll stay the same, and Neverland spins on like the fairytale top it is.

The song moved into the chorus.

And if you have a minute why don’t we go

Talk about it somewhere only we know.

This could be the end of everything,

So why don’t we go somewhere only we know?

The end of everything, huh?

I sighed.

I turned to my coworker. “I sang this at my high school graduation.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“I also sang at my high school graduation,” she said. “But that was, like, the Star-Spangled Banner or something.”

We chuckled.

“Well,” I said, “yeah, I mean, I guess my graduation was just two of my buddies and me in my friend’s backyard. I sang it with her.”

She stopped spritzing the tables. “Oh—what?” she turned to me. “The backyard?”

“Yeah,” I nodded.

“Oh, man. Why? What happened?” She said it with such compassion, like my school must’ve been swallowed by an earthquake or something. She’s sweet.

I laughed—”Oh, no, nothing. I was just homeschooled.”

That cued the all mandatory oooooooohs.

“It was also only a couple years after the big California COVID shutdown,” I went on. “It was just easiest.”

“Checks out.”

My coworker turned back to scrubbing the tables. I turned back to the Post-it…

“Makes me a bit sad,” I mused, scrunching up my lip.

“Why’s that?”

“The friend I sang this with…we don’t really talk anymore.”

The conversation breathed for a bit. The song played on between us. My mind was hung up on the lasts—the firsts too, but mainly those quiet lasts.

“Did you have a falling out?” my coworker asked.

I shook my head. “No. Yes? No…” I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

There’d been no fanfare. No shouting. No drama. Just…one day I woke up and realized it’d been about a year since we’d spoken. Somehow that made me feel worse.

But more than that…we’d been so close. We’d sung this song as we were moving on to new chapters of life, no clue that those chapters would take us so far apart. Slowly but surely, everything changed after graduation. She went to school, I worked a job. She went off to Japan for a year, I moved to Ohio. Big things. Big life things.

And those big life things weren’t bad…

But as I tap-tap-tapped at the Post-it pad, I couldn’t help but wonder what big life things would happen after this graduation. After all, I’m not a kid anymore. Does that mean I have more to lose?

Seasons

It’s been four years since my high school graduation. Four. Is that a lot? Or is it barely anything? It depends on how you look at it, I guess. Like an M. C. Escher painting.

Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?

There’s a real simplicity in childhood friendships. In those bonds you form when you’re young. In those days where ten years together is a crazy feat. But then you grow up, and move apart, and that simple thing gets lost sometimes.

There’s a little piece of my brain that wonders if, in four years’ time, I’ll look back on this graduation like my high school one. True, it’s not really the same scenario. High school isn’t trade school. And now there aren’t just three of us graduating together—there’s just me. Strange, when I look at it like that. Did I lose that camaraderie all around, or is it just a different season?

I’m not used to seasons. That’s one of my favorite “I’m from California” jokes, actually—What’s a season?

But I’m not talking about the weather.

I mean seasons, chapters. New doors, new roads.

But sometimes it really doesn’t feel like you’re stepping through new doors, you know? And it feels more like you’re climbing out the back window? Especially when you’re like me, and you think about it, and overthink about it, and turn it over and over and over in your mind like a chicken on a spit until it’s burnt to a black-leather crisp.

So I go into new seasons with the brain of a little kid—and not in a carefree, fun way. It’s a habit I’m trying to unlearn. I see a new season approaching, and I think, “Whoa, big deal, everything will be different after I cross this line.” Like progressing in a story-based video game. Sometimes you trigger a cut scene and you can’t go back. Maybe that’s because my high school life was completely overturned by Covid.

But when you’re on fire, you stop, drop, and roll.

When you’re overthinking, you stop, breathe, and go “hey, what’s true?”

The truth

My mentor pointed out to me first that, really, not much will be different when September rolls around.

I’ll still be in Cambridge.

I’ll still be writing.

I’ll still be at my church.

I’ll still be going to the schoolhouse, for cryin’ out loud, to work on internship things.

I’ll still be walking the path that God’s called me to walk, wherever it takes me. And if you’re on that path…you can’t really go wrong.

So what’s changing? Not much!

But as I stood around in that chilly little ice cream shop, listening to the scwee-scwee-scwee of the sanitizer spray bottle, I realized that one big thing is different from my high school graduation.

I am.

I’m different. And the people in my life are different too.

Heaven

Let’s go back to the “Oh simple thing, where have you gone.” Because I like the simple thing, and that lyric makes me sad.

However, the week before my slow, Post-it-tapping shift at work, my friend Bre shared something during church that I keep thinking about.

We were all worshiping the Lord, together—singing. And there was such joy in our worn-down little coffee shop of a church. I felt the Lord’s presence and the peace that came with it, like we were all tied together by an electric current.

And my lovely friend Bre commented that that was our eternity. A window into our oncoming “forever.” Worshiping Jesus, together, as one. Friends and family coming together to meet the Lord. That’s what Heaven will be like.

That’s a pretty simple thing, I think.

And that song lyric ends with “I’m getting old and I need something to rely on.”

Simple thing…to rely on.

Can’t get much better than eternity with Jesus.

And I say this only because there’s a closeness, with my friends out here, that I didn’t have with many of my friends back in high school. And I mean, not all of them were believers. Some were, though. Heck—I was, too!

But it’s different now.

I’ve grown a lot in my faith. Matured a bit—a lot more than I ever would’ve thought possible in two years. And I’m surrounded by people who are inspiringly dedicated to pursuing Jesus. They keep me honest, and aware, and on track. And that’s not to say people back home haven’t grown in their faith or something—they have. It’s awesome! I’ve had some thought-provoking phone calls, and I cherish them. But they’re there, and I’m here. And so here is where my community currently is. And I can feel that Holy Spirit bond between us like I never would’ve imagined when I was a kid.

So…what’s changing?

Like I said, not much. It’s the same path. But as you walk down the path…of course the scenery might change a little. You’re walking! The only way things stay the same is if you’re not moving. And even then, maybe someone else will come along and bulldoze the forest around you.

So hey. The path curves down the road, but it’s the same path. It might go from dirt to gravel, but it’s still the same path. I might trip, or stall for a second, or get a pebble stuck in my shoe and have to shake it out—but it’s still the same path.

The same path, just…a little to the left.

So I’ll keep on walkin’, and shake out the pebbles.

Thanks for taking the time to walk with me! I can’t wait to see where we go next.

---

What’s new with you?

Still reading? Why, hello!

Tell me—what’s new with you? Any tilts to the path you’re walking? Any new trees or pesky pebbles? Let me know in the comments below and I’ll pray for ya.