What have you been up to?

I've been re-connecting with a lot of college friends recently (thank you, Facebook...and yes, I do remember how much I ridiculed it back in the early days when it was just for the whippersnappers). It's been a lot of fun. What's not always so fun is providing an answer to the major re-connecting question: "What have you been up to?"

I tend to think of myself as pretty entertaining in person and in writing, but pretty boring as far as actual life details go, especially when about seven years of life details are being condensed into a few sentences to fit on somebody's Facebook wall. I drudge up last summer's Europe trip a lot. Because Europe is cool, right? (Kerri, back me up on this.) And otherwise, what do I have?

Same job for seven years.

Same church for seven years.

Same apartment for seven years.

Same roommate situation for seven years (just me and the bird).

My life is pretty stagnant, if you look at the broad-strokes version. Especially when so many of my college friends have Facebook profile pictures that feature themselves with their significant other and/or their children. Because before I actually went to college, I would have said that that would be me. Wait, I DID say that, in some college interview...I was going to be married with kids in ten years, and it's been eleven or twelve now. So much for my advance planning skills.

But there are other things that have happened in the past seven years. Things I don't think to talk about as quickly because they seem either only marginally connected to me or all too connected.

A divorce in the family, with painfully far-reaching effects.

The death of a beloved grandfather from a long illness.

The death of a beloved cousin from a sudden car crash.

The weddings of several family members and multiple friends (some that overlapped, as when a church friend married into my family...weird).

A struggle with depression.

And then there are the little things, the things that sift down and fill the cracks between the rocks and pebbles in the jar of the past seven years (belabor email-forwarded metaphors much? me, neither).

The birth of a friendship out of the ashes of a battle-scarred relationship. Actually, several of these, but especially the first one, which provided evidence that all the healing that followed was indeed possible.

The growth of patience to the point where people can see it...not always the patience, but the growth.

The friends who were there even in my darkest hours when they didn't know what to say to me.

My church family, including a grandma and little siblings and a whole string of cousins-in-law.

The small voice that I listen for more often now than I did seven years ago, and with a far greater interest in hearing what it says instead of only what I want it to say.

They've not always been fun, these past seven years. But they've been good, because God is good, and because I'm more sure of that every year.

What have I been up to? 

Living, mostly.