Happy Belated Birthday, Stephen!

Hey there, big bro. It's belated I know, but I'm still in your birth month, so I hope you forgive my tardiness. I've never missed a birthday post, and I'm not about to start now.

In less than five weeks, I'll be finished with grad school. The conversation de jour among the second years has shifted to post grad travel plans. "Where are you going?" "Starting in Japan, Australia, then Italy and Germany, back to Indonesia, over to Cape Town, then up to Iceland. I'm trying to get to 30 countries. I might squeeze in Istanbul, but I'm not sure if that's practical." "Yea, that totally makes sense. I mean, we're young and are about to be going to jobs that give us plenty of disposable income, but we're never going to get another opportunity to travel." "Are you going to be in Tokyo?... O really, us too, we should definitely meet up." "For sure. We'll be working at the same company, but we'll probably never see each other after this." "I have a six hour layover in Hong Kong. What should I do?" You should sleep, ya idiot. It's only six hours. Don't get me wrong, I'm traveling, too. Japan, Thailand for the third time in three years which seems excessive, New Zealand to meet our sweet baby niece, and Australia. The pure absurdity of it all, however, does not escape me.

Speaking of absurdity, let me tell you about my week. I have class for an hour and a half Monday and Wednesday, and class for two hours Tuesday and Thursday. I don't need them, but I need a reason to get out of bed in the morning, and the Marketing Engineering professor is just the cutest, self-deprecating nerd with a dry sense of humor, so I couldn't drop the class. What do I do with the rest of my time? Monday was Columbian movie night, Tuesday I had to choose between game night and broomball league, but my loyalty to my undefeated team obliged me to choose the latter, Wednesday was Mario Cart and a friend's birthday. And last night, we took a party bus to watch the Redwings game, passing all the suckers with full time jobs on our way. I also experimented with rock climbing.

I was a bit productive. Despite my deep disdain for logistics, I have my move to Seattle in order. I'm going to move in June, and I'll be staying with an old friend until I find a place. Old friends are the best. Now, I just have to find a place to live. I also looked into getting extra pages for my passport. That hasn't been allowed since 2016 which I find silly. I have to get a whole new passport, which seems like a lot of work, so we're going to assume any subsequent stamps will fit on one page. Hopefully the Japanese stamp isn't obscenely large.

I've been working through some stuff, too. I know, I know. My life is unrealistically easy, so what could I possibly have to work through? Turns out, more than I realized. Remember when I started working at VividCortex? I was at startup, we were going to raise a Series A, I was going to grow with the company. I was excited. Then, without warning, we failed to raise the Series A, and my boss left. My stability was shaken.

This year, after unexpectedly getting a job first quarter, I was excited. I was going to cruise through second year, spending Wednesdays at Alley Bar, experimenting with various new forms of fitness, finally catching up with pop culture and watching Game of Thrones.* Then, without warning, my stability was shaken.

What do you do when your stability's shaken? Who do you look to? In both cases, at first, I stubbornly looked to myself. I told myself I could push through it. I could figure it out. I went to the Big Guy on occasion, but not really. If I'm totally honest, I was mad at Him. I was mad that He interrupted my life. That I had to go through something hard. And that I had to do it alone. Again. For the love of God, could I just have a partner with me one time?

The first couple months after my boss left were really hard. Then I gave the situation to God, recognizing that my way of handling it was clearly ineffective. He worked it out in a way I could not have written better myself. I mean, it's a Friday, and I've already had brunch with one friend, coffee with another, and am killing time before happy hour. I'm at the *now number 7* MBA program in the country and beginning my world takeover in July.

So, why, when I was shaken this fall, did I not look immediately to God? Why do I find it so difficult to trust Him with absolutely every aspect of my life? It's partly pride. It's partly fear of what He may require of me. It's definitely selfishness. So I"m working on trusting Him, resting in Him, and letting go of the things I cannot control. Sometimes I get annoyed with my lack of progress and the fact that I find myself making the same mistakes time and time again. Then I remember that it is a continual refining process that won't be complete until we meet face to face.

I also realize that while sometimes I think that because I'm single, I'm alone, that's simply not the case. Throughout the last five months, there have been so many people that have made me laugh, reached out to offer comfort, and built friendships that will last far beyond this sweet little grad school bubble. And for all the mocking, it really is crazy that you can build such strong bonds over such a short amount of time. I can only imagine the amazing people you've met up there, but, Stephen, there's some pretty amazing people down here, too.

Lovely catching up, as always, and if you could tell the Big Guy that Ann Arbor is more than ready for spring to come, we'd all greatly appreciate it.