The Big Chill

There's this song by the Eurythmics that's been playing on heavy rotation in my brain this past week. "You Have Placed a Chill in my Heart." I suppose it's fitting, because over the past seven days I've given more thought to northern climes than I have since my mother, brother, and foster brother set off for a two-month excursion to Canada and Alaska, leaving my sister and me behind to entertain ourselves in our old Kentucky home when I was around 9 or 10.

But I digress....

It's fitting that the weather is changing here in the South, from the muggy, oppressive blanket of summer to the crisp, silvery chill of fall. The weather has taken this turn just in the past week or so, which is fitting as well. Because it is within the past seven days that my sweet (and slightly impulsive) Mr. G., whilst perusing the Internet for jobs in Texas, randomly came upon a link to job opportunities in Alaska. Specifically, a small town called Bethel.

In this brief time, he has broken his lease, canceled his phone, Internet, and utility accounts, quit his job, applied for an Alaskan nursing license, gotten fingerprinted and background-checked, interviewed via telephone, sold his washer and dryer, and made arrangements to sell his car. He'll be gone inside a couple of weeks, I believe.

I've told him several times before, in different contexts, that I can't decide whether he is breathtakingly brave or just plain crazy. I think that even he would admit that he's running away rather than toward something. And, in most cases, I'd say that wasn't healthy.

Even when you're running helter-skelter from yourself, toward something you think will solve all your problems, any objective person watches and thinks, "Nothing good can come from this." But life is funny. Sometimes the runnings brings you exactly where you wanted, but it doesn't provide the solutions you were looking for. Nevertheless, in God's endless grace and seemingly random logic, He brings you answers anyway....just not from where you expected.

Mr. G. and I discussed this very topic tonight. I told him that when we met, I felt he was looking to me to be the magic pill to solve his problems, which freaked me out all along because there's no way I (or anyone else) could ever live up to those expectations. But he said to me, "I think you are an answer, just not in the way I expected." And I think he's right. There's a reason our lives intersected. And I think his life is richer for it. As for me...well, the richness is more subtle, and I'm still trying to find it. After all, I can't say I'm that happy with my life right now or where it's going.

I suppose none of this really matters. At least as it pertains to me. Before I know it, the ride will end. And I'll be here. And he'll be there. Could be two months. Could be two years. Could be for the rest of our lives. We are both entering the Frozen North of the Great Unknown. But I guess we've always been there. There's just a wicked windchill involved now.