:::Day 6 -- A Long One About Life:::

{Written too close to midnight. May contain numerous errors.}

I get it, I'm lucky to be here.

I set my heart on living in DC when I first visited my oldest sister during her college internship in 19(yep, that long ago)99. 1999.

I didn't make it back to DC until fall 2002 when I was doing my own internship. That move wasn't permanent though, and I had to leave again to go back to BYU.

After that, I repeatedly visited my middle sister who had recently made DC her home. Each time I left my heart would ache for this place. Without a shadow of a doubt, I knew it was where I wanted to be.

But...


Life takes time, and no matter how much I wanted to be here, I knew that it just wasn't time. There were a few false starts when I thought I was on my way, but my plans continued to fall through.


After a brief stop in California after graduation, I moved back to Provo and spent some good years there making some of the best friends of my life.

But...

DC was still nagging at me.


Fast forward a couple years, and it was 2007. There still weren't any doubts in my mind that DC was where I was headed next. At that time I finally felt that I could start praying for a way to open that would take me from my here and now and toward my long held dream.

Oh, I prayed mighty prayers, through the tail end of winter, the budding flowers of spring, into the scalding heat of summer, and past the changing leaves of fall, and then it finally happened -- I lost my job.

That was my ticket out.


I sold my belongings, wrapped up loose ends, packed up shop and drove home to California. About a week later I flew out of LAX nonstop to DCA. When the timing is right, things come together like legos. All the pieces that used to be laying scattered on the floor quickly snap into place and you are go-ing places.

But before that I waited. I waited for eight years.


Eight years.

I waited eight years for something that was perfectly reasonable and perfectly wonderful.


This is what I know about the Lord's timing -- when it's right, it feels right. When it's right I don't feel constrained. I feel free, as if something is pulling me forward. The visions of what I've been waiting for become crystal clear in my head, as if a connection has been made between my current heart and the soul of my future self. When I hit my window of opportunity it feels like rush hour traffic has just broken up and I'm sailing down the freeway.


It feels like angels are hastening me and loved ones are cheering me.

I feel endowed with power, ability, and confidence. I know that things are going to turn out the way that I see them.


I know what the right timing feels like. I'm thankful for that.

I'm thankful that the wait ended, and that I finally got what I was waiting for.


I took a cab ride at dusk this evening that led me through all of my most favorite parts of town -- from the mouth of Georgetown to Foggy Bottom, down Penn to Constitution, past the back of the White House and the Washington Monument, behind the museums, and up, up, up the hill, which is The Hill. For the price of a cab ride I fell in love again with all that I originally loved about this town, and I remembered how badly I wanted to be here and how certain I was that this was the place.


I love this town. I don't like the urban lifestyle, I miss wide open spaces and big blue skies, front lawns, stars at night, grocery stores, cars, silence, full-size church buildings, wildflowers, the frontier spirit, fabric stores, fewer options, more options, nuclear families...


But...I love this town.

Serenity now.

I can do this. I want to be here.

Serenity now.