all big girl all the time

some days are just hard.
and it's ok to cry
like a baby.

when i lived with my fun roommates in the era post-college and pre-marriage, we always talked about being big girl.

big girl as in grown up home decor (somehow a votive holder i bought was big girl), grown up conversations (the ones you don't want to have but that you need to), grown up schedules (like having a regular grown up job and going to sleep at a reasonable hour and waking up early for aforementioned grown up job), grown up relationships (which led us to get new roommates, also known as husbands.)

big girl was full of possibility. it embraced the season that was post-college and big girl meant super cute and super fun. or something like that.

but at some point in our mid-twenties and stretching into our mid-thirties, big girl also meant grown up problems in our lives and our friends lives. like losing a parent, or a job, or a friend, or getting divorced, or not getting into a grad school, or having a miscarriage, or not being able to have kids, or getting cancer, or not getting a really amazing job or fellowship, or having a child with special needs. somewhere along the way big girl became synonymous with hard.

i feel like i've had a lot of big girl conversations lately, where life isn't going exactly the way someone hoped or expected. it's the nature of being human and of living in a world that is imperfect, and i suppose that as we grow older we experience it more and more often. sometimes these circumstances make us better, more whole and empathetic people, and sometimes rough circumstances just make us more weary and impatient with a world that doesn't look the way we want it to. lately as i see so many of those who are dear to me having to work through really hard stuff, i am over big girl problems and ready to go back to the days where a cute candleholder signified adulthood. the days when big girl meant the world was stretched out with opportunities and potential.

the last few weeks i've had (shocking) a very old u2 song stuck in my head (i always figure out a way to work u2 in, don't i!) the lyrics are about coming home or finding rest. i can't get it out of my head, so i'll close with a snippet:
And you know it's time to go
Through the sleet and driving snow
Across the fields of mourning to a light that's in the distance.
And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, 'desire' time...

Dislocated, suffocated
The land grows weary of it's own...

And your heart beats so slow
Through the rain and fallen snow
Across the fields of mourning to a light that's in the distance.
Oh, don't sorrow, no don't weep
For tonight at last I am coming home.

here's to rest for the weary, and patience in the meantime.