preoccupied

I have disappeared from blog land for quite some time now. I have been occupied. Preoccupied. Funny how life just kind of happens to you sometimes. You flit along, minding your own business, busying about with various plans and then, suddenly, plans change.
The things that have occupied me lately fit into a few categories, some relatively mundane and some, well, not so much.
In the more mundane variety, you could fit the category of weather. This is something that tends to end up being a bigger deal for me than it seems to be for most people, and I have, for the most part, made my peace with that fact. But when we do have a string of really cold, and really rainy, weather, like we just had, it still manages to catch me off guard with the intensity of its effect on my mood. All that to say, I have ended up somewhat preoccupied with the effort required to stay warm and dry, and to continue functioning properly in my work as I do so.
In another potentially mundane—but not mundane so far as I’m concerned—category falls my work. Added into the usual mix lately has been a small accumulation of kind of cool un-usuals: coaching has been a fun extra for some time already, and it remains a happy time consumer for me. But I have also been recently readying for my first experience performing with the students in a musical. It’s kind of like a delayed fulfillment of a dream for me, really. In my adult life it has not really occurred to me much but when I was a child and teenager, I had dreams of singing and dancing for performances. The singing I managed to do, but dancing was always just a quiet love of mine. So it’s caught me off guard a bit to be suddenly the Disney singing/dancing character I always secretly dreamed of being [though I would never have admitted to such a girly interest, I suspect ☺] We have now come to the day of the performance. Here’s hoping for a good one: may we all break a leg!
One other occupying life category is not really mundane at all: this particular preoccupation may be written more about in the future . . .
There have been days lately when it’s just been too much of a good thing, and I’ve ended up completely at the end of my rope. As I snagged a 10-minute walk with a friend before a rehearsal the other day, I lamented the fact that I had just ended the workday feeling completely overextended and altogether flustered. I looked up as we talked to see a kite flying overhead. It reminded me of all the times I noticed kites in the last place I lived. I share a bit about the reason I was taking a picture of this one as we walked and, as I did so, I was humbled. There was a time in my life when I was intensely aware of the fact that, like a kite, I was buffeted about by the wind but held fast by a string firmly secured in the hand of my Maker. It was a time of very real danger then and it serves me well to remember now where I have been in the past, where He has brought me to now, and what blessedness He holds for my future . . .