Landing gear.

Last night I came home and felt like my head was going to explode.  Hauling home a brain at midnight brimming with information and emotions after falling asleep around 4am the night before wasn't exactly a walk in the park.

But opening the door to a tranquil apartment with serene Christmas lights lit and a gentle Sarah Min wrapped in a blanket offering to make me tea makes the unwinding process so much easier.

As we were talking about life, she asked how I was doing because she had noticed that I've been more stressed out lately - or at least would react more strongly to things than she's ever seen me before.  I nodded because I've been consciously aware of it but hadn't really stopped to think about it because I don't feel overwhelmed or stressed out about anything.  Maybe very frustrated at times, but as I examined my internal realm, there's nothing new and nothing that seems to have shifted in any way.

I told Sarah how over the past four years God has been shaping my relationship with Him, my character and my leadership in such transformative, drastic ways such that my internal changes would permeate into my external changes.  As I said that I wondered if God was preparing me in a way to have a more solid internal realm so that when I encountered all of these changes in my external world, my internal world wouldn't immediately crumble at the first sign of trouble.

What I realized, though, in regards to my recent behavior, was that the plane was landing.  At least, that's how I explained it to Sarah.

Most of the time when you're in an airplane, you know you're headed somewhere and are able to prepare to land.  You're very aware that you're going to be hitting the ground soon, and so the captain tells everyone to sit down, buckle their seat belts, and put away anything that may disrupt the landing process.  You can look out the tiny window pane and actually watch as buildings drift closer and closer.

But even with all the preparation and cautionary steps; even when you've mentally, physically, and (I guess) emotionally prepared yourself for the landing and know you're going to be just fine, there's still something unnerving about the moment the wheels touch the ground.

So I think that's kind of where I am.  I'm not in an actual airplane, so the moment where the wheels touch the ground actually lasts a little longer than a few minutes in life.  But I'm not completely stressed or doubtful about where I am or where I'm going.  I may be just a little extra sensitive or slightly insecure about the decisions I made to take certain flights with unknown destinations.