4 AM...

"We're all looking for redemption/Just afraid to say the name
So caught up now in pretending/What we're seeking is the truth
I'm just looking for a happy ending/All I'm looking for is you"


Sometimes other people say the words that I'm searching for.


Sometimes I am talking to myself and I say, "“I am trying to learn to love someone without losing myself in the process.” And there are so many hard truths in that statement, about how exactly I have loved in the past, and how I'm thinking about love going forward, and what on earth these past three years have been about.



"I wandered out into the water/I thought that I might drown
I don't know what I was after/Just know that I was going down"


Everyone in my family talks about the "old Joy" and the "new Joy." Some of the change in me has been ridiculously superficial, and some of it has been profound, and probably most of it has just been growing up and being an adult.



I never quite seem to say the right thing about this- and so I fall into songs and poems and books that say it better than I ever could.


"The clouds broke and the angels cried/You ain't gotta walk alone
That's why he put me in your way/You came upon me wave on wave"


Sometimes I want this space to just hold this truth- I loved my old life hard, with all that was in me. And at the same time, I want to figure out how the heck I'm going to fall into a space of trust and openness and faith in happy endings. And somehow those two truths coexist in me.


It's not profound or deep or life changing. It's just hope. The redemption that I'm searching for is hope.


"It came upon me wave on wave/You're the reason I'm still here, yeah
Am I the one you were sent to save/It came upon me wave on wave"


(That's all Wave on Wave by Pat Green, and it might be my favorite song ever)