Quarantine Week 8!!! HOW!!!
It's week 8. I've ridden more miles on a dusty Walmart bike than I've ever ridden in my life and with every mile I become a little more convinced that I'm probably tour-de-France material despite still falling over on every dismount and being lapped by eighty-year-old Monon Trail Riders who indubitably have more arthritis than I have years of life. That was meant to applaud them but it sounded more like an insult, nonetheless, it's crazy what a community has formed on these trails because it is pretty much the only thing we are allowed to do. I've been a regular at the Sugar Creek Trail since I was in the baby carrier that Mom towed behind her bike, along with seven Thanksgiving Day Pie Runs and about a million walks later, you'd think I would know the trail well. But something about this Spring has Lilly and I convinced that the Parks Department is adding some new landmark every night when the gates are closed. Maybe it's because there's less pollution and we can actually see through the trees or maybe we're just taking the time to actually look through the trees for once. Anyway, we smile at the regulars who always happen to be there the same time as us - the family with two roller-blading girls, the man in the black hoodie who trains his dog, the couple with binoculars looking for the eagle, the longboard boys - and we celebrate the chance to see faces outside of our immediate family for what feels like the first time in years.
Zoom Calls have gone from the most convenient means of communication to the most awkward platform for hosting silent classroom calls. It's still the best option and certainly better than nothing, but utterly inevitable that the professor will ask for some response to a reading and the entire class will sit silently, staring at their screens until the professor decides to end the call. Today I checked my finals week schedule and saw that our final exams are actually a week later than I thought they were, which means an entire extra week of silence on the student-end of zoom calls. I felt weirdly tempted to say the f-word after I triple-checked the calendar but I refrained and instead tried to make myself be thankful for the opportunity to learn and stay occupied during these days of nothingness. Still, I'm ready to be done.
Spring at Taylor University is hands-down the absolute best time of year because nature comes to life and students mimic the dissolving of winter's gloom as it is replaced by neon purple buds lining the sidewalk from Sammy to the Dining Commons. I'm mourning not being there; not having the window open and hearing the competitive screams of spikeball games and slackline falls, watching the mosaic of picnic blankets and hanging hammocks form below as I watch the trees bloom from my penthouse (okay, third floor) view of Olson Hall, and laughing with friends as the stress of school slowly fades to sentiments of, "who cares? it'll get done eventually." I am so thankful for family - birthday gatherings in my grandma's garage and walks around the neighborhood with Mom and Dad and sleeping next to Christen and laughing through card games with Cam; and I'm so thankful for bike rides with Lilly and my smoking hot boyfriend who I'll write about soon, and I'm even thankful for my new friends like the arthritis-blasted bikers and all the regulars on the Sugar Creek Trail who smile at me because, like I said, it's good to see people again. But I can't help but be sad; especially late at night when Alex Francis isn't snoring in the bunk above me and I miss the chapel worship songs that shake the ground and Maggie's antics and Audrey's attempts to flirt her way into free guac at Casa Grande. Sometimes I miss Taylor so much that it feels like a death; and knowing that I'll never get to go back and experience it the same way hurts if I let myself think about it.
But Charles Spurgeon once said, "Remember this: had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, Divine Love would have put you there."
Which forces me to accept the fact that if it were better for me to be in Upland, Indiana this spring, I'd be in Upland, Indiana. If God knew it would be better for me to be anywhere else, under any other conditions, I'd be there. He doesn't mess up. This isn't a surprise to God and he is not frantically scrambling in Heaven trying to reposition everyone and I'm not just waiting for him to realize that I'm supposed to be living up my junior year of college in Upland right now.
He knows where I am and he knows where I'm supposed to be. He ordained my days before the beginning of time and what a blessing it is that before the world was even spoken, God knew I'd be biking mile 413 of the week because a global pandemic would keep me from that Taylor University Spring that I loved and treasured so deeply.
This is where I'm supposed to be! That's helping me sleep tonight.
Zoom Calls have gone from the most convenient means of communication to the most awkward platform for hosting silent classroom calls. It's still the best option and certainly better than nothing, but utterly inevitable that the professor will ask for some response to a reading and the entire class will sit silently, staring at their screens until the professor decides to end the call. Today I checked my finals week schedule and saw that our final exams are actually a week later than I thought they were, which means an entire extra week of silence on the student-end of zoom calls. I felt weirdly tempted to say the f-word after I triple-checked the calendar but I refrained and instead tried to make myself be thankful for the opportunity to learn and stay occupied during these days of nothingness. Still, I'm ready to be done.
Spring at Taylor University is hands-down the absolute best time of year because nature comes to life and students mimic the dissolving of winter's gloom as it is replaced by neon purple buds lining the sidewalk from Sammy to the Dining Commons. I'm mourning not being there; not having the window open and hearing the competitive screams of spikeball games and slackline falls, watching the mosaic of picnic blankets and hanging hammocks form below as I watch the trees bloom from my penthouse (okay, third floor) view of Olson Hall, and laughing with friends as the stress of school slowly fades to sentiments of, "who cares? it'll get done eventually." I am so thankful for family - birthday gatherings in my grandma's garage and walks around the neighborhood with Mom and Dad and sleeping next to Christen and laughing through card games with Cam; and I'm so thankful for bike rides with Lilly and my smoking hot boyfriend who I'll write about soon, and I'm even thankful for my new friends like the arthritis-blasted bikers and all the regulars on the Sugar Creek Trail who smile at me because, like I said, it's good to see people again. But I can't help but be sad; especially late at night when Alex Francis isn't snoring in the bunk above me and I miss the chapel worship songs that shake the ground and Maggie's antics and Audrey's attempts to flirt her way into free guac at Casa Grande. Sometimes I miss Taylor so much that it feels like a death; and knowing that I'll never get to go back and experience it the same way hurts if I let myself think about it.
But Charles Spurgeon once said, "Remember this: had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, Divine Love would have put you there."
Which forces me to accept the fact that if it were better for me to be in Upland, Indiana this spring, I'd be in Upland, Indiana. If God knew it would be better for me to be anywhere else, under any other conditions, I'd be there. He doesn't mess up. This isn't a surprise to God and he is not frantically scrambling in Heaven trying to reposition everyone and I'm not just waiting for him to realize that I'm supposed to be living up my junior year of college in Upland right now.
He knows where I am and he knows where I'm supposed to be. He ordained my days before the beginning of time and what a blessing it is that before the world was even spoken, God knew I'd be biking mile 413 of the week because a global pandemic would keep me from that Taylor University Spring that I loved and treasured so deeply.
This is where I'm supposed to be! That's helping me sleep tonight.