love thursday: the in-between

I’m thinking today about the in-between places, since we’re heading into one right now. Our current transition, of course, involves moving from one home to another, changing jobs, churches, etc…but I’m thinking about several physical places I’ve landed when I’ve been in between jobs, houses, school years or chapters of life.

One summer in college, I house-sat for my friend Sarah and her sister Mary, taking care of their little town house and their dachshund, Andie. I was working at my beloved Ground Floor Coffee House, and I treasured those long, quiet days alone. I slept on navy-blue satin sheets and ate my meals in a kitchen covered in bright scraps of origami. (Mary had one of those Origami-a-Day calendars, and the results were all over the place.) I played with Andie, who was sweet and brown-eyed and snuggly, and one or both of us spent many evening hours outside, in the freestanding porch swing, rocking back and forth and watching the stars.

I also used to house-sit for my friend Kendra, and take care of her big, goofy black lab, Jerry. Their house was north of town on Tejas Street, with a backyard for Jerry to run and dirt roads where we could walk or run together. My friend Jamie would come over and we’d cook dinner, and I burned mix CDs of country music off Kendra’s computer. And I’d watch the sunrise out my driver’s side window as I drove south down Big Spring St. to open up the Ground Floor.

The summer after college, I moved into my sister’s pink room in her college house, three blocks from my college house, while she was in Midland for the summer, and I was drifting. My sweet Bethany wound up moving in too, for the summer, into Leah’s purple room across the hall, and Leigh Anne lived in the room next to mine, and the three of us became firm friends. We watched Pirates of the Caribbean and Clue and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants; we ate copious amounts of chocolate; we agonized with Leigh Anne over her summer classes and B and I applied for jobs and worried about where we’d go next. We all cried when we had to hug good-bye. It was a perfect summer, a safe, happy one, cradling us before the big scary beginning of life after college.

I moved from that room into Mary Kate’s little green room in Tim and Julie’s house, while I searched for a job and an apartment, and found both within a month or two. I loved living with them – eating dinner with Tim in their cozy kitchen, talking to Julie about work and books and life, hearing Lucy (their other daughter) listening to the Dixie Chicks and the Indigo Girls in her room. Most of all, I loved watching the sunrise through their kitchen window, as nectarines and avocados ripened in the morning light. And knowing I was safe and loved – that was best of all.

I’ve been blessed in my in-between places. And today I’m remembering that, as I head into yet another one very soon.

Happy Love Thursday, all. I hope you love and feel loved today.

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