I Stopped Waiting For Awe To Find Me

Now, I Find It

Hello Dreamboats,

Something that has been reflected to me a lot this year is how much joy I’ve managed to find in this time, and how that’s difficult for people to wrap their minds around. I’m guessing it’s something that is far easier to wrap one’s heart around as it doesn’t make a lot of sense in my mind either. What I’m learning is that my experience is not uncommon, and though it may prove to be an experience not easily described with words, I hope to someday find the words to explain it. For now, here’s a little stream of thought (or stream-of-feel) piece I wrote yesterday morning.

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Every moment of the day I can hear my mother on the other side of the country praying for my happiness. She doesn’t tell me she’s praying. My hearing has improved. More days than not, her prayers are wholly answered, but I know how difficult it is for anyone to believe the light of my joy has not been dimmed by cancer. The only way I can explain it is to say, I stopped waiting for awe to find me. Now I find it.

By the end of our lives, if we’ve not said “WOW” thirty million times––we don’t get into heaven. What purpose could I possibly have that’s greater than building my goosebump collection? Last night I lifted my head to the Northern Lights and they flew six thousand miles to see me. I’m on their bucket list. You are too. We are on every miracle’s bucket list. Chemo turned my memory to dust and I could still look you in the eye and speak four hours and sixteen minutes of poems I have memorized.

When the electricity went out at the drive-in movie, I stood atop my car with a megaphone while an acre of headlights beamed at my voicebox. That’s a lie right now, but I still have time to make it true. We have time to make everything true, and we will even when we don’t. Death is not a finish line. The gun goes off at the beginning of the race for a reason. Pass me the baton and I’ll run in the direction of what’s important: the ice cream truck. The ice cream truck is a serious thing because––trust me here—happiness is a serious thing.

People think I’ve gone mad because I’m not mad at my life. I haven’t lost my mind. I know exactly where I left it. I’ve simply learned to think with my gratitude, pray with my pain, love with everything I could ever and never lose.

Do you know how hard I try to not use the word hallelujah in casual conversation? I simply can’t do it. I fall to my knees in standing ovation for a drop of rain. I go back in time and say yes to the boy who asked me to camp with him atop a mountain in December in Maine. What is winter but a snow globe in love’s hand? What is summer but my grandmother’s smile, alive on my face right now?

None of this was anything I tried to do. I just woke up one day with a heart that knew how to break/into laughter. I understand why it’s hard to believe. But what kind of poet would I be if I could only make hard things beautiful on paper?

Love,

Andrea in Awe 🖤