"Because our hearts are so shy"

Relationships can do one of two things: Blind us to our inadequacies (via blame) or make us painfully aware of personal shortcomings. While these may seem like two mutually exclusive realities, the dichotomy is not so severe. Indeed, it's almost easy to grab hold of moral superiority all the while knowing in your heart you harbor much deeper deficiencies. Perhaps that's why we all fear being known, i.e. intimacy. It's just easier to sleep at night without the gnawing sensation that some flaw needs to be addressed. When no one knows you, there's no reason to fix yourself.

I read the Song of Solomon a short while ago. It shook me. In Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller said salvation is actually about relationship. The Song paints a portrait of that Truth while pointing to the great human need/fear of intimacy. Which brings me to the Question that's been hounding my soul for the past nine months: Have I found the One my heart loves or will my own insecurities keep me from committing? Can time tell?

Sick cycle

According to some talking head on the news, the frequency of illness during the winter is no longer attributed to the cold weather outside; rather, people get sick because everyone is huddled inside where the air is dry from heaters. Once one person gets sick, everyone else gets sick. I have found this to be true in the last 48 hours.

Over the past week, several people in our newsroom were sick, so I was not surprised to find last night as I groggily assembled this morning's paper that I may have caught the bug. Sure enough, as the night stretched on the tightness in my throat became more of a throb. When at last the time came for my weekend to begin, I staggered out to my car feeling utterly defeated. The disease had caught me.

I awoke this morning to the distinct feeling one gets after swallowing a porcupine. And so I have spent the day chugging green tea and chicken noodle soup while laying on Cliff's couch trying desperately not to infect anything. Although my present state of discomfort reeks, I am quite thankful for several things:

--Cliff... and his couch
--My last two bags of Zen tea
--The chicken noodle soup recipe I invented two weeks ago

Life, love, labor... Missouri style

I've long neglected this little blog, but I have an excuse (and a pretty good one at that). I don't have internet access in my apartment. It's one of those things I haven't quite figured out how to fit in the budget. And with WiFi available in many public places (and in my boyfriend's apartment), my very own hookup to the information superhighway is just not a priority right now.

I am on the internet a lot at work, but that's work. One is not supposed to update one's blog at work. I think that's a Commandment. Anyway, I still read other people's blogs while I'm at work waiting for stories to come in and what not. I figure if everyone else gets cigarette breaks, I'm entitled to my blog breaks. I'm sure my lungs will thank me later.

Since last I opined, I moved to Missouri. It's been a pretty good move if you ask me. I'm still loving the newness relocation begets. I suppose in my heart I'm still a nomad.

I now live very near to Cliff and that is an incredibly wonderful thing. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but it does absolutely nothing for the growth of a relationship. I commute an hour each way to work, which I actually enjoy and might even love if it weren't for high gas prices, scary semi-trucks and ice/snow storms. I don't have a TV, so I've been able to reconnect with one of my favorite forms of mass media, the radio. It's a pretty sweet medium for me because I can listen in my home and on the road.