we did it! We are officially all moved in to our new home, and I feel so settled. After fifteen years of renting, owning a house is such a sigh of relief for the soul. That’s not what I want to talk about today, thought. I want to talk about purse dogs, naturally.

The other day I was thinking about the era of the purse dog, do you remember it? I think it was the early 2000’s. Seeing a small dog, usually a chihuahua, tucked into a designer bag was the epitome of gilded celebrity at the time. I hadn’t thought about this for years, probably because it means literally nothing to my life currently (or even really, in the past), but for some reason the purse-dog came to mind and I thought, “Huh. When did that stop?” Unbeknownst to me, the era of the purse dog had come and gone and I had been none the wiser. It wasn’t a new way of life, it was a fad. Fads come and go. Predictably, this made me reflect on other times and people that have come and passed in my life, boyfriends, best friends, houses, even. Something I can bet on is that times will end, especially and most importantly, the times of bleakness, those times when even brushing my teeth or getting out of bed have felt like triumphs.

I think what I’m getting at, maybe clumsily, is that time passes and that’s just the end of it. I remember a particular therapy session during a bout of clinical depression in my early twenties where I was expressing frustration at the depth of suffering I felt, like being held underwater in a place I hadn’t chosen to be. My therapist wisely asked my what would happen if I held an ice cube tightly. “It…would be cold? I would drop it because it would feel uncomfortable” I said, confused. “What if you couldn’t drop it. What if you had to keep holding it?” she asked. “I guess it would eventually melt.” I said. She nodded and gently enabled me to hold my metaphorical ice cubes until they melted. It’s not fun to be going through suffering. But it always eventually ends. If not in this lifetime, certainly in an eternity with love personified when we get to be with God forever.

If I were a motivational speaker, I would ask you, “What ice cubes are you holding on to today and what goals can you outline to speed along the melting process?” But, since I’m a blogger, and more than that, a mama, I’ll leave you with this: The ice will melt. Time will pass. God is always with you, should you choose Him.