Tripping Down Memory Lane
The Princess Bride just might be prophetic, I don’t remember signing up for exposure therapy, and a throwback playlist.
The mercy of the world is you don’t know what’s going to happen.
— Wendell Berry
By the time I was 12, I had watched The Princess Bride enough times to memorize the entire screenplay. The life I envisioned for myself was no fairy tale, nor did it involve being kidnapped by “poor, lost circus performers.” My adolescent brain didn’t foresee any of the unpleasant realities of life even though the Dread Pirate Roberts warned me! Silly me; I mistook his predictions as entertainment.
Exposure therapy
I’ve been back in my hometown for three weeks and every time I leave the house I’m sucked in a vortex of memories. Landmarks hold stories from my past, mosaics of happiness, sorrow, fondness, and distress. Emotions spring up quick. Wait. Is that a tear? Where did THAT come from? I’ll pass through one area of town and smile, then a few blocks later another memorable location makes me wish I’d taken a different route. I’m thinking, Hold up. I did the work of processing all this stuff. I thought the uncomfortable aspects of my past were wrapped up. Who is in charge?! Will someone please turn off the waterworks?
Welp, welcome to exposure therapy, darlin’. While you’re here, pull up a rocking chair and get reacquainted. “It’ll be fun!” they said. Who are they anyway?
I’m pretty confident I could write volumes of what I would’ve missed if 12 year old Emily had known the future. Mercifully, she didn’t have a framework for the depth of heartache to come — not to mention how impactful others’ suffering would be. If little Emily had received an advance copy of my story, I think she would’ve requested a rewrite.
I’m glad she didn’t know. First, because innocence is precious. And second, I am equally as confident that girl would not have known love as richly as I do now. I doubt she would have understood the term “empath” or had the ability to embody compassion in the same ways. During a seminar on Job, Garrett Kell highlighted the difference between the “executioner’s sword” and the “surgeon’s scalpel.” Both objects wound and cause pain, but the enemy means to cause destruction with one, and the Lord uses the other to bring healing.
This whole being-refined-by-fire thing hurts in its process of creating beauty. I guess it is a mercy to not know what’s going to happen. Otherwise, who would sign up for half of this stuff?
A sticker on my water bottle from the 2023 We Go On tour reminds me: “Tragedy doesn’t ruin us; hopelessness does.” I believe those words are true, and I deeply value John Onwuchekwa’s work on the topic of grief. He understands it’s tough staying hopeful. If you hear me laughing at the time to come like Proverbs 31 suggests, it might be genuine, or it may sound more sardonic depending on the day. Sometimes it feels like the valley of the shadow of death likes to stretch into adjoining valleys (rude), and I wonder if I missed the exit ramp. You know that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Marion is down in the cave screaming “Indy! The torch is going out!” That’s what I look like yelling, “Jesus! My hope is wearing thin!”
God always brings light to the darkness. And never once in the way I imagined. Help comes in an encouraging text, something that makes me laugh, or a familiar Scripture that hits different. Small but reassuring things, even if just for the moment. One thing is sure, life will not be free of disappointment (thank you for instruction, Westley).
Yet just as surely, hoping in God has never disappointed me. Writing that down begs the question, “What does hoping in God look like, though?” It’s choosing to believe I actually have access to my Creator because of what Jesus did, and that means the hardships and suffering in this life matter to God, are meaningful, and even productive.
He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Romans 4:25-5:5, CSB
To date, the pattern of affliction producing endurance, endurance producing character, and character producing hope is a cyclical experience, like subheadings of my story.
Throwback playlist
Re-reading an old journal prompted me to find songs I listened to during a particularly tumultuous year — 2006. I made a playlist to give me a soundtrack for this trip down memory lane and I’d love to share it with you. I also hope you’ll enjoy the extras below: what I’m reading, a recipe for a dish I made recently, and a picture of a moment from this past week.
The tunes
The books
Top to bottom: re-reading my journal from spring of 2005 to January 2008, a memoir by J. Dana Trent, gifted from a friend - Between Two Trailers, and a novel by a D.C. author, Alex Finlay - The Night Shift.
The menu
Pasta al Limone — which is just a fancy way to say “lemon pasta.” This is a light dish despite the cream sauce, and the bright lemon flavor is perfect for summertime. I like using linguini or bucatini noodles because both hold the sauce well. In my opinion, fettuccini is too big, angel hair is too small, and spaghetti is just boring.
The moment
After tidying The Pink Room — my Louisville living quarters — I started a diffuser to make it feel more like home, drank my coffee, read for a while, and spent some time writing.
Last one …
Be well, friends.
LOVE the Princess Bride references! Very fitting. Thanks for the memories and the challenge!
So good!