I am ready

I move out in 20 days.

It's a strange thing. I've never moved out before. Then again, it's something nearly everyone does. So it can't be that bad, right? Besides, I'm ready. That's such a vague statement, "I'm ready." This is how I know I am ready.

I used to feel panicky about it. Every once in a while, something would trigger the panic, some statement or realization. And then it felt like I was caught in a massive, grey tornado, moving too quickly and too loudly. Not knowing which way was up or down or foward or backward. Watching the things I loved the most being ripped away from me and flung who knows where. And all I would be able to do for a few moments was to stand still, hang on to something, and concentrate on breathing. It's very hard to breathe inside of a tornado.

This happened for the last time at the beach with Mel and her family. I had set up the beach as the barrier between me and change. After that vacation, Mel would leave, and more friends would follow, I would start working 40 hours per week, and I knew that school would hit me like a brick wall soon after. Fortunately, the beach has a certain timeless quality. Minutes, hours, days drift by and no one bothers to keep track. Until. Until the second to last day, Ange mentioned that Mel had three Sundays left at home. And that brought on the tornado. It was the biggest and blackest of them all, and while everyone else was lazing in the sand, I lay face down on my towel, fists cluthing the fabric under me. For a few minutes I thought about breathing. When I had re-learned how to do that, I grabbed my journal and anchored myself as well as I could. It worked a little bit. The center of the storm had widened, and I could see that day and the day after. But if I looked any further, all I could see was blank, dark, walls of wind.

I spent the afternoon staving off the tornado. It required a lot of moving around, a lot of half-thinking about things. When a real storm cloud gathered over our house, I volunteered to run down to the beach and rescue the towels. No one wants to pack soggy, heavy towels. I left the house full of people and laughter and love, and walked outside. My fright was juxtopsed in the thick wind and grey sky. My tornado closed in again, and I turned to the only constant thing I have. I told God that I couldn't do it if it was a trade-off. I couldn't go foward if it meant leaving everything I cherished behind. I explained that it felt like the end of that week was the beginning of the end of everything that I loved.

When I reached the beach, a herd of kids were running along the water and shouting. Adults were standing and pointing out to sea. I saw a grey back with a fin slide up out of the water, just beyond the sandbar, and then glide back in. It reemerged a few feet down the beach, and disappeared again. I had never before in my life seen a dolphin. But ever since my parents at Myrtle Beach, I must have been 3 or 4 or something, had told me that they had woken up early and saw a whole group of dolphins, I have wanted to. I smiled for the first time all day. After I watched it progress out of sight, I gathered the towels into a heap and began to walk back to the house. I talked again to the constant thing. I thanked Him for showing me a dolphin after all this time, in the middle of my panic. And then my tornado broke into a million pieces and all I could feel was sun.

New words, warmer and more solid than my own thoughts, said, "Rachel, I've given you wonderful things your whole life. What makes you think I should stop now? Your future is full of love, even more love than you have today. More love than you can imagine for yourself. I promise. More love." Then a warm and solid chuckle that clearly said; have some faith, you crazy girl.

Usually I don't go for the whole finding God in the wind thing. But then I remembered that we had a washer and dryer in the house, and I looked at the heap of sandy towels in my arms, and the rain started to fall and I just laughed at myself. I've also noticed that the tornado hasn't been back. I now know that the future does not belong to me. But my future does not belong to blank, dark wind, either. This is why I am ready: I do not feel like my life is being dragged out of my grasping hands. I gave my future to God, and He put great and wonderful things into it. Now all I have to do is go after the life that He has made for me.