I wish I had pictures to post from this weekend's amazing dance party.
Picture about 40 people crammed into a tiny vintage apartment in the south loop, the city lights coming in through the windows, the Christmas lights still hung on the walls, and the music beating in our ears. The glow on everyone's faces, the hands up in the air, then down again.
God, I love my life.
We danced to things we loved when we were young, and now things we love when we are old. We ate fake red velvet cake until our bellies hurt, and we stayed up late.
The apartment is packed with all those things your parents wouldn't let you put up in their house, paintings you made, street signs you found, pictures your friends took. And these people haven't gotten too old and stuffy to hang up those things. The great divide between adulthood and childhood. We found it at this house.
And we danced into the night.
I love knowing that God saw me many years ago while I was lost and misplaced in Miami, and gave me a desire: for a life lived in the high rises of a city I could not picture or imagine, with people who were REALLY alive, who really knew what it meant to be free, who could really taste the true side of things. He saw my desire for art, for music, for vulnerability in a community, for friendships that go deeper than last night's beer, and for love.
Real love.
He set me in the one place where I could have those things, in the place where I could walk down my street and say hi to my friends (who are also my neighbors). In the midst of buildings and parks, I live my life, I walk my walk, according to the author of freedom.
And I could dance on Saturday night knowing that he was smiling at us.
He gave it all. He gave us the places, the people, the moments. That one night, the culmination of everything I have ever dreamed my life would be, came true.
I'm here, I thought, it really happened.
He wanted me to have it just as much as I did.