10.12.2012

ALT TAB: 41/52


For the amount of emotion packed into such a short amount of time it seems likes many weeks, not just seven days since the last time I wrote.  The thing I take away from it all is that the beauty of the unexpected is intrinsic in why life is so great.

If there was a way to see the pattern my life takes it would have a bunch of circles working together to create this super cool and personal mosaic of how things take on real meaning to me.  There's knowing something because you've heard about it, and then there's knowing something because you've lived it.
I'll start out on one of these circles, unknowingly sometimes, but see the pattern begin to link together.  Unfinished thoughts, a question hanging out there waiting for a resolve, wills tart to gain some perspective as experiences and conversations come together.
  Then as if the whole thing was designed just for me, it all somehow comes back to the original thought with a new understanding to complete the circle.  I've watched as this pattern has developed in my life and I really enjoy it.

I've been following one of these circles of thoughts over the last couple of weeks, looping around the topic of courage.  I've written about the whole experience somewhere else a little more personal, but the part I'll share here is finding out this week that my brother is going to Afghanistan in December.  This news brought with it a torrent of emotion and I think we're all still processing it in our own way.  It has added a new dimension to my thoughts on courage as I've thought about him. The timing of the news made me wonder if the process that started a couple of weeks was to prepare me in some way.  I have the utmost respect for Ben.  Many are called, but few are chosen.

I have been receiving texts from a friend who I haven't seen as much lately.  She 'was just thinking about me and wanted me to know'.  I don't often find myself in such an extended emotional state so I didn't doubt that the timing of her reaching out was more than coincidental. When we connected a few days later and talked about the timing of her texts right at the moments I needed them most; we acknowledged that her desire to have a more open heart directly impacted my life for the better in the most simplest of texts.

Life really is just cool like that.

Also cool: My Grandma.  Her outlook on life is so grounded that I can't possibly doubt as I listen to her that all things in life are meant to be just the way they are.
Speaking of Grandma Awesome - Let it be written that on the eleventh day of the month, I finally broke her winning streak and won the first game in since who knows how long.  It seems fitting that the 11th game be the one to break the streak.  Thank you eleven.  {remember the lesson I supposedly learned from her last week about quietly winning without boasting?}
"...peace be unto thy soul: thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment."

4 comments:

  1. I am speechless, Jenna. But I love you. And Ben.

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  2. First Iraq and now Afghanistan. My prayers will be altered yet again on behalf of him and his family.

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  3. Best wishes to Ben and his family and the sacrifices that they all make.

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  4. oh man. so many hugs. i am working on an email :)

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