All I could never imagine.

I met my past yesterday.

I've always been the biggest Annie Leibovitz fan, and my family and I were able to see her exhibition at our local art museum.

But even more amazing than that was seeing Joan face-to-face. Annie had snagged two photos of her with her husband, John. Black-clad with a giant pair of sunglasses on her face. A casual glimpse at someone God has gifted.

I am not a Joan of Play it As it Lays fan. I am a Joan of The Year of Magical Thinking fan, the book she wrote after her husband and daughter passed away.

Yeah. I am that person.

Like with Carson McCullers's The Heart is A Lonely Hunter, The Year of Magical Thinking always left me in the same place–a depth of hurt for others and no door to exit.

I lived a long life without that door.

But now, I go back and look at some of the photos I've shot myself.

The dogs are all gone. My daughter is nearly fully grown and bigger than me.

And I try to find that place where I once was when I shot their inquisitive looks and wet-eyed wonder, like feeling the wall for a knob that's not there.

But then there it is, the soft-cold feel of metal and a hope that plagues my heart.

And I walk through into all I could never imagine.

"However, as it is written: 'What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived'— the things God has prepared for those who love him..." (1 Corinthians 2:9)