August is a weird month.  As a child it was a pensive place between the lollygagging of summer and the newness of another year in school.  Reflective yet forward thinking; carefree yet planning.  Today as I drove home from the first day our students returned to work in our office for another year, I was behind a car with a large Transformers logo. It caught me off guard.  It didn’t bother me that it was there, but what caused me to almost steer into it was that it looked quite sad. The lines that stream down its face show longing and it looks as if it’s about to cry. I began to ponder why it looks so sad when as a robot in disguise, you’re more than meets the eye? Why look so lonely when you can kick major butt and transform into these massive heroic figures (or enemies).

It is a feeling of always being in transition that I believe paints the logo in that light for me personally.  You’re never at home in a place because you’re always warping and changing to meet demands and be who the world wants you to be.  As August is half over, I am in the middle of a few transitions in my life career wise and working in a University system of it being a “new” year once again.  It’s a weird place. It’s not bad or good.  It’s just weird.  The pull is to look forward to what I can be, where I can go, and what to pursue, but I feel drawn backwards right now.  I want tolollygag some more.  I feel like the kid who is sitting in the car not wanting to go into the new 3^rdgrade classroom or the high schooler who hits the snooze button just one more time. 

I’m not sure what it’s all about, but as I thought about the Transformer I realized that I am alone and I’m not alone all in the same moment.  And at times that does make me feel like crying.  I’m secure enough in myself right now to open my hands to God and say, “What theheck?” And God smiles and says, “Finally.” But that doesn’t mean there is an answer to the weirdness. I just know God is there.  I am, however, alone in being me.  No one else can do that and I’m tired of transforming from one thing to the next for the sake of the crowd.  I’ve never really been good at that anyway.  For better or worse people either love me or dislike me.  I don’t aim for people to dislike me, I’m just not good at fitting into cliques or following a certain way of life prescribed to me. 

So I sit here in August just feeling weird.  I want to move forward but I don’t know how.  There is part of me that wants to transform, but I don’t know into what.  And I think that is okay right now.  I will sit in that for these next couple weeks reflecting and pondering and God is sitting right next to me and that’s all that is required of me.  Just feeling honest today...