I have a heap to write. Firstly, Anzac day. Haven’t really done anything but it reminded me just before o fan Anzac dawn service that we went to in the Solomons, it must have been 4 years ago. Our motive – the free breakfast, ha! with real bacon and orange juice (luxuries). As it turned out I think I got ham and not bacon.
I can remember being cold, excited and bored all at once. The trumpet – when it was blown funnily enough was the most moving part of the morning. The solemnity of a lone trumpet still gets to me and I’m guessing does the same to most. Mournful, lonely yet hopeful.

We had the breakfast, it was for expats and held at the Yacht club. I had the camera with me and I remember walking out on the tiny jetty and looking at Savo (dormant volcano) and the water. I don’t know if it was that particular morning, or another in the same place but there was this massive blue butterfly – the name escapes me now, just sitting on the water. Beautiful.

I got a photo of that jetty, one which I later painted. It inspires me (now) to go and find the photo, it was a still, calm morning and the absence of people in that image reflects the peaceful nature of my world before it turned upsidedown and erupted with complications: the plans to return to Australia and the intricracies my brain created – all of which got into a ginormous mess and is only now begining to defragment.
God you were there, I remember thanking you.

The second thing, coming across an old journal of mine. But I need to do some more thinking before the words will come, for there is too much – ha, let’s be dramatic and say: dark history. At least a smudge on my twelve year old self that has taken a very long time to heal.

A slightly disrupted day. I woke up around 9 with the intention of getting to my essay – later finding out its due next week, probably a good thing I hadn’t done too much. Anyway, I badly wanted to do the breakfast thing with you God. Then nextdoor neighbour started his tractor so I ruled out using the verhanda and opted for the chair in the lounge. I nearly had breakfast ready when Geoff comes an dhe and dad sat down in the lounge. And so that time has been pushed back until now 1:30.

Cleaned my room – stripped a lot of old stuff off the walls and rearranged desk seeing as my room is limited in what you can change. Decided I needed a bit of a change, go to back to more of a minimum. I destress by cleaning – rather if my room is clean I, ha, feel a lot less bothered for some reason. So now I am doing what I wanted to begin my day doing, absolutely nothing except relaxing, writing, praying, music.

It’s strange really – changing things. It’s as if I am ever so slowly letting go fo what was before, less and less clinging to the past and though it will always have a sacred place inside me, it is because so much good came from it and not because I wish myself back to the way I used to be. There is much improved. I will alway smiss the Solomons and the many many fond memories I have of my friends who were more like family.
I have left my heart too long over there and drawing it back hasn’t been something quick and easy. Satistfaction with who I am, where I am has been a battle fought on and off – yet continuously, and it has been a way too effective in presenting it’s lonely face in my present.
God you hold teh past just as much as you do the future.
You know how it affects teh way I live, how I respond and how I think.
Don’t exclude me from it God, because I don’t want to lose that piece of me, but don’t let it dictate me.
Let it be and remain a memory.

..to muse, wonder and disect the past is drifiting through my own life on a shaky cloud platform, my words become the clouds and do not sound like me. This is honesty sheltered in mind words of someone who has spent too long dreaming.

Jan ’05

I wish my world was paper thin, made of smells and beautiful even painful memories that I could revisit.

God, I miss it so much, I miss what used to be. I miss my friends.

Change is such a beautiful, terrible thing. It presents promise and the unknown and reflects the past. How does change differ from growth? Are both the inevitable, do both hurt?
Why is change so desired and so hated?
How does change both crush you and build you?
Why is the template of our lives seeped in this mysterious happening, is it wanted, is it needed Lord?
Why does change bring both hope and grief? How can we look back and be grateful for who we are now and at the same time look at now and wish we were back there?

A question: can we travel life’s journey without change affecting us so strongly? Do things have to change so we can grow? Why when the past is left behind you does it slip it’s fingers back through cracks in your vulnerability? Why aren’t we satisfied with stability nor appreciative of the disruptions.

Help me to live God.

…. Is change a process of regression when acknowledged?

It’s hard being an MK (missionary kid). Those times when you come home from being out at someone’s place with whom you grew up with. Lonely. You wish you could walk back through thoses memories and savor them – relive them – escape back to the innocence, the simpleness of that life before. It’s like you have lost something very wonderful.

Others envy you for your interesting life, “All your experiences have bought you so close to God…” and you’re like, No! ha! I’d give anything just to be ‘normal’. How hard it is to leave.
But then you know deep down that you’d never want anything else, never. What I wouldn’t give to be back there again. Doing everything and savoring it that one bit more.

Purely want to remember this one because it shows me just how patient God is in getting through to us and walking alongside us, willing us to understand….

————

You really don’t know me that well

I know, but you know me, isn’t that enough?

Why dont’ you take a little time, show me your day, spend a few hours, more would be better, but for now…

I’ll get interuppted, sidetracked.

I know. But you’ll like it, being with me. We’ll take some risks?

I’ll take some risks?

Not by yourself, with me.

Why?

To let you know who I am.

But you know me, isn’t that enough?

No. Friendship works two ways. If you know me, it will be better. I can hold you up because I know you better than you know you.

Then why should I let you? Why do I need too?

Because I care. If you know me just a little more… because friendship works both ways.