August is here. The month in which I leave America indefinitely has arrived. Will it be forever is the question in my head. Will it be a short reprieve or the end of an affair. What do you do when your great love is a state and your love in unrequited? Do the normal fixes work? Time, alcohol, shopping, chocolate, new hair style? I don’t know but I know I will need help.
Today I was mostly blissfully unaware that it was my last day in LA, a god style mercy because he knows my penchant for the nostalgic and melodramatic and the whole day would have been a lot worse if I had looked at everything “for the last time”. But I discovered in telling Angie (who I spent the afternoon innocuously running errands around IKEA and Lowes) that I was leaving Thursday and she told me that ‘that’s tomorrow’. I realised I’M LEAVING TOMORROW!!! My thoughts flashed to my host family and the puppies and that I want more time with them. I thought of the special moments I’ve wanted to repeat and thought I would have a chance to.
Something rather wonderful happened on my return home. I realised I had Athalia’s rug in my car and I wanted to return it to her so I pulled over and found out where she was and drove to meet her in east Hollywood. The Basilea girls where there and they prayed for me. Athalia nailed it, praying that I would feel the father’s presense and love for me. That I wouldn’t have a broken heart or broken dreams, but that I would know that this is not a full stop or the end of the story but just a part of a continued story of God making His promises happen in my life – so to wrestle with Him and embrace the journey.
I cried. They hugged. I knew it was true and I needed to let go. So there we stood in front of a bar on Hollywood Blvd with my heart breaking and my dreams fragile in my hand. Weeping, I knew the truth in her words – this all comes back to trusting Papa. Trusting him with my greatest love – the USA and my greatest dream – Hollywood. What is my choice when it looks like I have no choice? What is my belief when it all looks over? When I am forced to leave this place and this dream – Hollywood – what do I think? Will I believe that a comeback is possible or will I believe that it’s over before it started.
What a prayer with such friends, in the place of my dreams.
I said my goodbyes and got back in my trusted stead and just started to cry again as I drove through the bright lights of Hollywood Blvd, back ‘home’ for the last night. It was good to just release the complex emotions that had been circulating somewhere inside of me for a week or two. Wailing is good, when Papa is right there with you.
I suddenly felt like putting the radio on and this song came on: Dreams by Van Halen. I’d never heard it before.
This is what I heard:
Standin' on broken dreams Never losin' sight, ah Well just spread your wings We'll get higher and higher Straight up we'll climb We'll get higher and higher Leave it all behind So baby dry your eyes Save all the tears you've cried Oh, that's what dreams are made of 'Cause we belong in a world that must be strong Oh, that's what dreams are made of.
I knew I was entering a new season. I am about to grow up and start putting a little fight in for my dreams. This is not the time to sit back anymore and let what will be will be. It is a season to take what I learned about rest and trust and being a little girl and melding it into the kind of personality that has backbone and strength and tenacity. The kind of woman that I was born to be, the kind of woman who can not just work in Hollywood, but rock it.
