Happy Easter! Messages about bunnies and Jesus and chocolate have probably been choking your Facebook and Twitter feed for the last day or so. But, as happens when everyone weighs in on one particular topic, the meaning may have been lost in all the words.

I could try to convince you of one thing or another, or I could just tell you why this Easter matters to me.

This week has not been good for me. There have been wonderful things, like my younger sister’s birthday, which was a joy to celebrate. As a whole, though, it’s been a week of struggle.

A couple of days ago, I made a very foolish and very selfish choice, and this choice wound up deeply hurting people I care for very much. It was the kind of decision that happens in a moment of what we call weakness, and a decision that made me instantly say, “God, what have I done?”

And God, as He does, answered. It was not the answer I was looking for. But it was an answer, and an unmistakable one.

Easter is coming…Easter is coming.

Not, It’s ok, Heather. It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it. 

Not, Well, just forget about it, and everything will be fine. 

No, not those.

Easter is coming…Easter is coming.

Indeed, Easter is coming, and thank God, Easter is here! Because Easter is not a day on the calendar… we only use dates and calendars to make something as unfathomable as eternity appear manageable. No, Easter is a fact. A state of being. A truth.

The same God who created me, loves me, and designed me to love others made Himself like me enough to die in my place, and yet remained holier than I can ever be, so that His death takes the place of mine. Easter means life.

Easter means that I don’t have to shoulder my burdens alone.

Easter means that though I make mistakes, and hurt the ones I love, I am loved, and I am never cast out.

Easter means there is forgiveness.

Easter means there is joy.

Easter means there is hope, no matter the fact that I get in my own way regularly.

I don’t know what happens next. I have asked forgiveness from those I have hurt. I am grieved by my foolish, selfish choice. That fact may not change.

But I do not have to despair, I do not have to feel rejected or abandoned. I know I am not a lost cause.

I have a future. I have joy. I have hope. I am loved.

Because of Easter. Hallelujah.

I talk about life in stories in songs. Like these:

The Head and the Heart – Down in the Valley

Jack White – Love Interruption

Janelle Monae – Tightrope

Florence and the Machine – Shake it Out

Kimbra – Settle Down

That kind of sums things up. Hope you click them all for a minute or two. Hope you’re well.

I just happened upon the video in the link below on Twitter (via @congbo) and it sort of blew my mind. It’s about the creative process for the logo of the Paralympic Games (video).

And this is just a random thought, but I feel like it’s a worthy one. What would happen if more of our symbols were like the one above? Calling it multi-sensory is one thing. But the feel of it, even in just seeing the video, is that it’s alive. It’s not just moving. It’s dancing, and pulsating with life, with color, with sound, with vibrancy.

If that was true of the rest of our symbols (take your pick of which, really), I wonder what it would spark. If we could show through our symbols that not only, here is a thing representative of a different thing, but here is an experience. Go ahead and touch it, and it will respond.

Obviously, no symbol can correctly relate a full truth, a complete experience. I don’t know what it feels like to be a paralympian. But when the girl cried in the video, so did I. And that’s worth something.

I may wonder on this just for a day or two, or I may wonder on it a while. Show the video to your friends. Think about it. Bring things to life.

I originally typed the title of this post as “3023″, which is funny, in a not-particularly-funny way. It’s the future! But it’s past, already. If I were still 12, I would ponder the depth of that concept a long time.

I don’t think I have ever come into a January, or finished a December, with the thought, “Wow, that was the best year ever.” I would love to, someday, and who knows. 2012 is only 23 hours old–maybe this will be it.

I have woken up on many January 1s hoping that the coming year would be better than the one behind, and I have to say, 2011 is looking like another of those.

It hasn’t been all bad. There have been brilliant days, for sure, beautiful people, and moments I wanted to save in a jar and keep.

And there’s the obvious bad stuff–getting laid off is no fun. Seeing relationships splinter apart is awful. Everyone says these things happen in order to make you available for something else, something better. I certainly hope that’s true.

I feel like things are going to be different this year, but I don’t know what that means. Whether the difference comes in small ways or big ones isn’t clear, but things can’t stay the same.

Before you ask, yes, I see that I am being vague. If I had a solid answer for you, I would offer it.

I don’t make new year’s resolutions. To me, it seems like you have set the deadline at midnight January 1st, and you’re immediately behind. I might make a February resolution. Or a June one. I am thinking about leaving town for my birthday, or maybe going for another solo coast visit soon.

I am realizing again and again that I don’t have any control over anyone but myself. I can’t fix anyone’s moods or emotions, and I can’t tell anyone who to be. Some boundaries are going to be redrawn this year, I think, and some new doors will be knocked upon (I hope).

Basically, I don’t know what’s around the corner until I walk down the street.

I am going to try to consistently tap into my creativity–even if I have to make myself do it (like tonight’s blog). That might mean more posts here, it might mean more music or more jokes. Maybe I will start to paint.

Is that a resolution? It kind of sounds like one. It’s my hope. If there’s a day that I don’t get to do something wildly creative, that’s ok, it’s not a failure. But I also don’t want to spend more time fighting the square peg-round hole battle.

So, we’ll see. In the meantime, I hope your 2012 is full of joy and mystery.

So, it’s been quiet here. It’s been an odd six weeks or so–there have been great, beautiful moments, and there has been a lot of not beautiful. My sleep schedule is a mess. It’s a depressive phase I guess, and I would like very much to be out of it. But I know that I am doing what’s in my power to turn things around, and I’ll have to be ok with that.

My Pandora station is playing old REM, “Time After Time”, if you’re curious. It’s perfect early REM, that slightly downer, very familiar sound they did so well, especially in the first few albums.

In addition to trying to get my life in some kind of order, I will be starting a stand-up comedy class this Sunday. With my pastor.

Yeah.

I’m pretty terrified. But I am almost certain that it will make for some really fantastic blog content.

We’ll see what happens next.

First, a disclaimer:

I fully support the American Red Cross, and believe donating blood is important, if you are able to do it. I will continue to donate blood whenever I can.

However…

I won’t be donating blood any longer at the Red Cross center at Legacy Emmanuel in North Portland. This is the second time I have gone there and had a negative experience. Not only did I leave this visit and wake up the next morning with a bruise that was tri-colored and three inches in diameter, I was repeatedly told by the staff that my veins were impossible to find. That’s (in my opinion) evidence of poor training, and it’s just terrible bedside manner.

I have really pale skin. My veins aren’t visible, it’s true. But this isn’t something I did on purpose to mess with the Red Cross. I was told, repeatedly and coldly, “I can’t find your veins at all.” All the while, my skin was being tapped, poked, prodded and manhandled. And then they said, You may have a bruise tomorrow.” I wonder why.

Again, I will continue to donate blood, and I will continue to encourage anyone who is able to do so. I have donated a number of times successfully, without pain or aggravation. I will just, from now on, be making my donations elsewhere.

Be gentle with each other, folks.

Hi.

Yes, I neglected to post last night. I apologize to anyone who was awaiting a word with baited breath, but I sincerely doubt that person exists.

I met up this evening with two friends from college–we are, respectively, 29, 30 and 31. We talked about the people we knew in common, and at some point the conversation turned, only for a moment, to how much of college we had actually forgotten. Forgotten may not be the right word–the memories may be there, tucked away, and the recall might simply be slow, fighting dust and boxes and years of papers.

The whole way home, though, I couldn’t shake this idea of forgetting sections of my life. It’s not that I blacked out through college (I honestly wasn’t the type)–it’s just that there is so much more to remember, so many other experiences fighting for their place in my psyche. And this is good–the more experiences, the richer the life, I think, and I have been remarkably blessed so far.

I guess what surprises me most is how little I seem to remember of the girl from ten years ago, showing up at a small liberal arts college not knowing a soul. I thought I would take on the world anyway, and sometimes I still do, but Heather ten years ago is largely foreign to me.

It’s not that I regret anything–given the chance to return to college and do something over, I know I would decline. But I guess, in getting from 2001 to 2011, there are multiple changes that took place that I can’t put my finger on. People change a great deal in ten years, that’s a given. And your twenties, everyone says, is the time of the most monumental change. But Heather in Dublin in 2004, hanging out with the neighborhood kids in Spencer Dock, is still someone I know. Heather 2001, 2002, is more of a mystery.

This is hardly a big deal. It’s not a crisis, it’s more of a curiosity. I do believe that I have always been myself, my core values haven’t changed. But that girl, wandering around Linfield’s campus….she’s someone else. Was she more shy? Less self-confident? Maybe. I remember going back home my first spring break, and one of my California friends called another and said, “Come see Heather–she moved to Oregon and went crazy.”

I’ll be going back to California shortly, to visit some family and hopefully some friends. My two best friends growing up are both married and have kid(s). I’m still single, currently unemployed, and ponderous about the future. Who will I be to them, compared with who I was? I still wouldn’t go back if I could, and wouldn’t change the major things. There are situations where I wish I had been wiser, or bolder, or had kept my mouth shut. But are those the times that change you, or is it all the milder days in between?

I hope I am still writing in ten years, and maybe I can revisit this when I am halfway through forty, when I say, that girl, blogging, languishing in thought….who was she, anyway?