Fireflies

Today has been a lovely day, I think. I get woken up to drive one dog to the vet, only to find out he has Parvo (PS Who knew what Parvo was before Cinco got it? Not me). I got called by the other dog's name twice, confirming my suspicions that my parents bought her as a replacement daughter. My dad Cloroxed the yard and I enjoyed the look of my new, nice, clean room. I also did dishes and moved furniture and other 'womanly' things, but we won't go into that right now.

I got back from the vet a little angry, just because they had to keep Cinco and he might not make it and my mom cried and I hate pets because all you end up doing is loving them for the fraction of your life that they're around and then cry because they're gone to whatever dog heaven awaits them, if indeed it's different from our heaven. And since I was upset, I began to attack my ceiling with an almost vicious vigor. I had noticed that my stars as well as my comets had dust tails and decided that the glow in the dark sky needed a make-over. Just as a postscript, it's not an astronomy obsession to have a star-ridden ceiling- it was Stephen's and Jackson's when they had to share a room, back in the day. Geeze, I would have thought I lived in a post-modern Haunted Mansion, the amount of cobwebs I had. And as I much as I enjoy the analogy of scrubbing clean a room that looked at least tolerably neat before, I'll spare your intelligence. I don't think my mood was lightened in the slightest by this idea- I was too busy being angry at the dust in the first place.

The slightly funny thing was that I had just made the point the night before that it was much easier to be patient when it was just me and God (though I'm not always patient then) and I wanted to know what He was going to do to help when I woke up the next morning and had to help get the house ready for my grandparents to come up for Jackson's graduation. I've perfected the angry hand clench as a means of keeping my mouth shut, but I'm sick of having to keep anger bottled up. Listen, I know that most everyone has heard me outburst at least once- I can rant all day long (probably 9/10ths of why I have a blog)- but I really don't say everything I think. It's like that one guy on House who thought terribly mean things and then ended up saying them all because he had some mental disorder that started out with a nosebleed and then Kutner said it was like the Sorting Hat- we are who we are because of our choices. And at the same time that I was thinking about how angry I was and priding myself on keeping it all inside, I was berating myself for not being good enough and upset about the dog and a million other things. Honestly, one person shouldn't have all this on their minds. And still, twenty problems were not solved and I just wanted to fly away, since I don't run anywhere- though I'll walk quickly in your general direction if you need me.

Well, the momentary agitations left, sprinkled with little bits of encouragement from college and old friends and somehow it ended up being dark enough for me to start noticing the fireflies as I sat on the porch swing with my mother after reporting to everyone the results of the phone call saying that Cinco was wagging his tail and vomiting and apparently this is all a good thing. See, in one of my pissy, emo days where I fought with God over every little thing because I was convinced that He could not have anyone's best interest at heart, I sat on a bench just in front of the Old Well, facing Franklin, watching the darkening quad. I sat on the bench, quite cross, and stared at the empty air in front of me and asked God for one little firefly. I figured it'd lighten up the air, it'd certainly make me happier and it wouldn't be that big of a deal. One out of season firefly, no trouble at all for someone who's got the entirety of theoretical physics worked out in His head, completely ignoring the whole you shall not test the Lord your God bit of the Gospels. So needless to say, I stared at this little bug, not really listening to anything my mother said because I need something to make my life more than ordinary.

Then Jackson started a fire in the fire pit, driving away all the bugs by us and we sat and talked about random things, because nothing in my life can make sense. I did dearly intend for this to end up being encouraging, or at least make sense, but sometimes random epic fails are wonderful, like too many red sprinkles on a cupcake, something that would only bother those of us who are looking. I'm glad it's not June 5th anymore, but nothing promises that June 7th will rise above June 6th. But the great thing is that the Person who I doubted (doubt?), who has provided for everything, no longer seems like a stingy King sitting far away, withholding blessings from people not in His favor. He became human, and this helps me understand Him, though only a little.

Oh my God, it is so much better to be in love with You. You're much more patient with me when I leave and though You don't like the dust, You are much better about remembering that stars shine. And I forget.