Big.

I just keep thinking about this line, in the new Superman movie.  It keeps on replaying over and over and over in my head.

"The world's too big, mom."

That's what today feels like, lovers.  The world feels too big.  No amount of mountainous drives lined with evergreen trees and back-splashed with golden fields will make it any smaller.

 I spent my day giving my time to other people- people who really needed my time much, much more than I did.  This time looked like wrapping dishes and glasses in newspaper and putting them into boxes and placing the taped, marked boxes in neat piles by the door, waiting to be loaded onto a large U-Haul truck.  This time looked like delivering food for those familial few who were there to help as we were. This time looked like smiling and hugging beautiful little children, whose lives and rooms were currently being shifted and rearranged and packed up into more neat and tidy boxed piles while they giggled and spun in many noisy, glittering directions.

This time looked like getting strikingly lost with Nat as we made an hour-long coffee-and-packing-tape run to Fred Meyers in the middle of the afternoon,  in a small town at the base of a very large mountain which neither of us were any good at navigating. (That specific time involved a lot of exhausted-by-the-weight-of-life sighs and frustrated expletives, often followed by a short outburst of overwhelmed, hysterical laughter.) This time looked like sun-dusted crop-fields, very old farmhouses, and very windy roads.  It looked quiet.  My eyes swept over the wild countryside, and I silently wondered to myself how best to take care of my friend who's so busy with the important task of tending to her own priceless loved ones in a time of unforeseen need.  For once, I didn't have any words.

Clark Kent is right.  Sometimes the world is just too big.

On the hour-long drive home, I thought a lot about that line.

Do you know what I used to do whenever the world felt too big?  I had a coping mechanism for days like these, once.

I used to park my car on a knoll right above the ocean, roll down all the windows and open my sunroof.  I would lean forward in my seat, fold my arms in front of me and rest my chin on my steering wheel.  Watching the pelicans and the surf scoters flying, diving, floating on the restless waves, and the harbor seals cresting with their faces on the surface of the water didn't make the world seem smaller and myself seem larger, though.

Sitting by the ocean is never going to make you feel big.

But it made the world seem less impending under the mighty force of the waves.  I felt like whatever the world had to throw at me couldn't be matched by the vast power of the seas. It made the ocean feel bigger than the world, and that was comforting.

There is no ocean here, lovers.

There are mountains like the one I traveled today, and there are valleys like the one I currently dwell in.

There are rivers, like the one half-a-mile from my house- and there are fields, like the ones I drive past everyday on my way to work.

All of them are stunning in their own right.  The heron's nest on the top of the telephone pole in the field a block past my backyard.  The waning light cast onto the mountain by the setting sun turns it a purplish sort of pale pink.  The scent of the surrounding hay fields on a balmy Summer night, while I ride my penny board down the streets of my neighborhood.

Though they are beautiful, they only make the world seem bigger.  My eyes can't rest on one thing- -and they move from sight to sight at an increasingly rapid pace until the patterns of contrasting light and color make my head hurt. I feel puny.  Insignificant, tiny, helpless, waif-like and weak.

I have no ocean here- and I began to grow anxious without the scent of the sea constantly on the air.

Softly, I whispered to myself this afternoon as I traveled homeward to my valley and my maple trees and my wide neighborhood streets, desperately toying with the idea of instead driving all the way to the beach for the 3rd weekend in a row, just to get my fix- just to feel healed one more time- Hannah, this has got to stop. 

Suddenly the world felt like it was breaking in two. I took a long, shaky breath- and on the exhale I shot up one equally shaky prayer,  God, forgive me. 

I no longer have the ocean- and I must learn to be okay with that.

I have to stop needing the ocean at some point.  It's been almost one year since I moved home- and I need to move forward with my life.

The ocean can't fix my problems- it can't fix me the way I want it to.

The world is too big, lovers.

Maybe instead of trying to make it small again, I should just let it be big.

Maybe instead of making the ocean bigger than the world, I should just stop trying to alter sizes and implications altogether.

Maybe I should just remember that I'm not the one who's in control, here. And maybe I should remember how blessed I feel by the opportunity to help others like I did today- and maybe God can teach me how to help other people more often, because otherwise I grow selfish and anxious and reliant on an earthly element which cannot heal me no matter how desperately I want it to.

So the world is too big for me.  God is much bigger than the world. 

Sometimes, we can't keep our hearts from hurting, but maybe what we don't understand is that our hearts were made for hurting.  Our compassion makes us strong- our sorrows change our direction. Our Savior breaks our hearts for what breaks His heart- and that makes us precious to the Great Creator who sent His one son to die in order to save the world because He loves us. Oh, how He loves us.