here's to another year of exactly this

I haven't been blogging a lot lately. I've been busy, that's true. Plus now it's April which is the best because around the middle comes the day of the year on which I usually can convince anyone to sing any karaoke duet I want. Anyway, lots going on. I thought about doing a super braggy post about all the cool stuff I've been up to, and posting a bunch of pictures with cool hipster filters on them to depict for you how busy and important [and also cool] I have been being lately. Sure, I planned on doing that.

So last night, after I watched Sleepless in Seattle and ate a lime popsicle because it's my birthday week and I do what I want, I went to scroll through the photos on my sparkly little iPhone to find some cool stuff to braggily post up in here to shove all my cool happenings in your face.

What I found was a reality check.

I've been real busy, you guys. Reeeeeal busy indeed. This is one of my prouder achievements, really.

All lush-itude aside, I think back on each of those little punches to the people who came to my tiny doll-sized apartment to sit around and chat and wine [never whine] with me, drinking champagne and getting facials with the zombie statues who live in my backyard, Netflix nights, spending time with my cute dater, episodes of the Bachelor made that much better, singing 90's sitcom themes, laughing and laughing and dancing and singing and celebrating and coping. My growing cork collection and full punch card makes me feel like the luckiest girl in the world, to be walking through life with you truly wonderful human beings. And also walking, together, from my doll-house to the Wine Seller.

With that free bottle - whatever it may be - I will toast to each of you. To another year of exactly this.

reflections on a holy week

I love my church because I'm consistently doing things that
1. are awesome but
2. make me wildly uncomfortable

Case in point: Maundy Thursday.

I didn't actually know what that service entailed until about this time last year when I got there and learned that we, as a congregation, would be washing one another's feet. I was sitting with a friend, so there was no stranger danger [you know, when you're in danger of having to touch a stranger's foot], but still I was sweating it a little. It wasn't that I didn't want to touch her feet, because I felt confident her foot hygiene was fine, and I didn't think she'd judge my washing techniques. What made me nervous was letting another person hold my feet in their hands. I wasn't prepared. I hadn't had a pedicure in months, but unless I made a run for it, this was going to happen despite my chipped nail polish and calloused heels. The thing about our feet is that give away where we've been. In order to get anywhere our feet have to take us, so at the end of a day, our feet have on them all the mess of a day we lived and sinned in. And that's a scary thing to put in the hands of another person.

I tried to put myself in the position of the disciples on that night when Jesus knelt before them and took their feet in his hands. I tried to imagine the panic that the disciples must have felt when they prepared to have their dirtiest part examined, up close and personal, by their leader, their savior, their mentor. I imagine their thoughts were similar to mine. Suddenly I get why Simon Peter flipped out a little, tried to refuse. He wasn't ready. He hadn't prepared. Had he known Jesus would be washing his feet that night, maybe he would have walked more carefully on his way over. Maybe he would have avoided that one place where things tend to get especially messy. I thought of how I approach Jesus all the time - prepared, prettied, primped. Ready to go. Looking my Sunday best. Hoping maybe he won't pick up on the real, true, hot mess that is me.

But regardless of their lack of preparation, Jesus took their feet and washed them of the mess of the day. And in so doing, I think he sent a very clear message to the disciples (and by extension, to me): I know. I know the very messiest parts of your mess. I know where you've been. And I know what I'm doing. Then he instructed them to do the same for each other. It was a symbol of humility, of service, yes. But I think it's also a call for vulnerability in community.

At our Good Friday service the following day, we were given the opportunity to write down any sins we felt convicted of and nail it onto a giant wooden cross near the altar. [Revisit the above checklist for my feelings on this.] I thought up the parts of myself of which I'm most ashamed, and I scribbled them quickly, carefully, onto the paper. I approached the cross, praying no one would see what I'd written, and I remember thinking, my sin is too great. My list is too long. There's no way Jesus can cover this much. And there's no way, if Jesus had known what I would be doing, how I would betray and deny and doubt him, he would have done this for me. The previous day's thoughts began circling in my head as I put together the pieces.

I wonder if it's not exactly what he was saying when he washed the disciples' feet. Jesus knew full well how awful you and I would be. He knew he would be betrayed and denied by the very men whose actual feet he washed. And God sacrificed Christ that we might be saved in spite of it. Jesus saw their feet. He held them in his hands. He knew their messiest, dirtiest, most shameful places. He knew, and he gave his life anyway.

For the season of Lent, we purposefully omit my favorite part of the liturgy of my church [which, for the record, 1. is awesome and 2. no longer makes me uncomfortable]. At the end of service every Sunday, we mimic the action of throwing stuff at the cross. It's the best. Our pastor says the "all of our..." part, and then all together we say the rest, while I nearly throw my shoulder out sending them in the direction of the cross:

All of our problems - we send to the cross of Christ
All of our sins - we send to the cross of Christ
All the devil's works - we send to the cross of Christ
And all of our hopes - we set on the risen Christ

Sunday, finally, we will throw things again. Sunday is Easter and Easter is my favorite because it means that we are saved. We are free. We are loved. We have a place to throw our junk and a place to set our hopes. We have a Savior who loves to wash us clean and we have a community of believers to be our messy selves in. We get grace and mercy and all kinds of wonderful gifts we didn't earn and don't deserve.

Every year around this time, I get this song stuck in my head for days and days:

To make a wretch his treasure.
Me. A wretch. His treasure.

[hallelujah]

original: here

an open letter of apology on behalf of adolescent girls everywhere

Dear Mom,

Hello, hi. It's not been long since last we talked, but I just want to take a moment to say some things to you. If I may. It's about the times we rarely speak of - when I was... well, adolescent. 

See, I was in Target just the other day, minding my own business, browsing through the clothing, when I happened upon this mother and daughter, shopping together. The daughter, on the low end of her teens, was shopping for bras; certainly a sensitive venture in and of itself, but they seemed to be faring alright. They were bantering a little about brands, basically, what the girl wanted vs. what mom was willing to spend. Nothing too spectacular. I smiled a little as I listened to them go back and forth, even thought fondly about shopping with you, way back when, bickering at Kohls about how I'd rather be at Abercrombie. I walked into the dressing room to try on my items and promptly forgot about them, stepping back into my own little daze.

Oh but see, they followed me, back there to those dressing rooms. I recognized their voices and I noticed their presence, still focused more on my own current tastes than anything they were doing. I tried on a dress, pretty cute, a little long. I tried on one of those peplum shirts I always think I'm going to like and never do, remembered I don't like them, took it off. It was around this time, however, that their presence in my midst became relatively impossible to ignore.

For the love of all that is good and holy, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mom, for ever being that age, for ever using that tone, for ever screaming at you in a dressing room, because I know I did. Initially I was irritated - I wished they would take their brawl elsewhere so I could enjoy the serenity of the Target fitting rooms in peace. Then I was amused, for about a hot second, before my amusement was quickly replaced with something alarming and utterly distressing - like a ton of bricks it hit me - I was that girl. Like a PTSD flashback, all of a sudden it wasn't Arielle who was yelling, but me. I cringed, nearly fell to the ground in a dramatic heap of shame, certainly as red as the walls around me.

As a full-on therapist nowadays, I know that girl is (as I was) ridden with angst and body image issues and embarrassment and a whole gamut of things that, as a counselor, as a woman, I have empathy for. I possess that awareness, now. She (and adolescent me, by extension), on the other hand, did not. She just yelled and screamed and "UGH WHATEVER MOM YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME 'd" until she was, I can only imagine, blue in the face; and even that didn't stop her from continuing to be the actual most horrible.

While normally in these types of situations I find assurance - yknow, certain job security for my whole life long (God help me) - what I felt in this particular moment was an uncontrollable urge to apologize to you. And to my other family members, parents specifically, certainly you were not spared from my reign of terror, not clear from my path of destruction - though not necessarily dressing-room specific - to you I extend heartfelt apologies as well. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for any family vacations I may have ruined, any trips to the mall or the movies or a restaurant I may have taken a proverbial crap on with my hormones, angst, and changing-body anxiety. On behalf of teenage girls everywhere, to everyone, in fact: I'm sorry. I will work my whole life to repent for the atrocity of my behavior at fifteen. I will be a freaking delight for the remainder of my years and even then my debt may not be paid. But I'll die trying.

This may seem like sarcasm, but having been privy to Arielle's Target meltdown, I can assure you, it is genuine [and maybe just slightly hyperbolized for the sake of entertainment, but who's counting]. There may be no degree of apology, in reality, to repair the trauma of being close to an adolescent girl. But that's why I wrote you this letter, so you could feel affirmed and validated in a public forum. Much like the ones I used to yell at you in. See what I did there?

So in closing, I'm sorry for all the dressing rooms in which I am certain you were mortified as unsuspecting bystanders in their late 20's stood by in horror while I screamed at you.

But also? I still don't really see why we couldn't have just gone to Abercrombie.

Love,

Me

For those of you reading at home who are not my mother/other parents, this is me in the very beginning of my adolescent years. I know what you're thinking - how could a girl in such stylin' short-alls be such a pain in the a-money-money? I'm as confused as you are. Seriously. Look how hard I rocked those short-alls.

romance, where I am

Last weekend I rode a train.

I've ridden a train once or twice in my lifetime, I think, but it certainly isn't my typical mode of transport. I didn't even so much realize trains were still a thing, except I was pretty sure I'd heard my brother talk about taking them sometimes when he lived in Chicago. But when my plans to drive to the mountains last Saturday were seemingly foiled by a snow storm [which really didn't end up being all that storm-y, but whatever], I booked myself a seat on the Amtrak. I set off that Saturday morning in the snow, unsure of pretty much everything about train-travel, filled with as much nervous excitement as I could muster before 8 am.

I will enjoy almost anything that makes me feel like I'm a character in a novel, and this was exactly that feeling. I was given a ticket at the station [on which my assigned car was written by hand!], located my designated seat on the aforementioned car, and sat down. The conductor, a jokey old man wearing the hat and everything, came by to check my ticket and wish me a nice ride. I heard: Breakfast is being served in the Dining Car, just three cars back before the Sleeping Car! as it was announced over a tinny loudspeaker and I about thought I'd died and gone to heaven. As the train pulled away from the station, whistling just like in the movies [Taffeta, darling...], leaving Denver behind us and heading off into the snowy tundra, it felt as though somehow I'd managed to step back in time. I knew when I arrived at my stop there would still be iBooks and iMessage and eTrade and all that other stuff that makes the world go 'round, but for those delightful couple hours, I was somewhere else entirely. In a glamorous version of my very own life, I was taking a train into the mountains.

It is well known among my contemporaries that I am a lover of old things. I could listen to Dean Martin all day long. I could watch only black and white movies and be satisfied. I prefer handwritten correspondence and real-life books to e-mails and e-books and whatever other e-things are replacing paper nowadays. This is not to say I don't appreciate my iPhone [etc.], because I do. I am as in touch with modern technology as the next person, but there is just something so inextricably romantic about these old things, the classics, the vintage, the antiques, I can't help but hold on to them. This struck me on my train ride; I more or less live knee-deep in romanticism. Where I spent years believing I am not some sappy romantic, avoiding the word wherever possible - it's exactly what I am. Turns out one can't simply avoid it. Sometimes romance finds you right where you are.

Now, this is not to say I've harbored some aversion to romance all these years; I just didn't understand it properly. Because the thing about romance I think goes unnoticed is it's not just the stuff of those icky Harlequin novels you find in the awkward book aisle at King Soopers. It's not only candlelit dinners and walks on the beach and whatever other stereotypes you'd like to call in, though it certainly can be - I don't mean to pigeon-hole the term to either end. But romance is also a sort of a mysteriousness, a  strange kind of beauty, adventurous and fascinating. It's watching a spectacular fireworks display. It's sitting in the back of a quiet house-turned-cafe, sipping a glass of wine. It's sitting on the top of a car way out on the dirt part of Andover Road, drinking limeade and looking up at an endless, starlit sky. It's going off on a jet ski all alone on a particularly quiet day with nothing but the sound of the wind whipping in your ears, an occasional splash of water in your face.

It's riding on a train through the snow up a mountain. And if there happens to be a cute boy to meet you at the station, I mean, it certainly doesn't hurt. Oh, and if there happens to be an unexpected actual fireworks display that evening? [!] As I waited at the tracks to board the train home the next day, writing the whole thing in my head, I felt thankful. Amused, almost, to be standing at these tracks, writing about romance like it was just another word I could throw around, now.

But like I said. Sometimes it just finds you where you are.

look, I made a valentine

I mean, that's kind of the dream, right*? Love me on the good days, sure, when I'm all dolled up and well-mannered and wearing pink because it's the holiday of love and all that. Love me then, sure. But also, love my junk. Love my crap. Be crazy about the stuff that isn't pretty or clean or tied up in a neat little bow. Don't tolerate it, or accept it reluctantly, or cross your fingers I will change with proper training. Valentine's Day is nice because it celebrates love, but it's tricky because everyone works so hard to make it good-looking, at least for today. And it's nice to feel good-looking, to get all dolled up for a minute, maybe many minutes; maybe on more days than it doesn't, your love looks really good. But if you can't hang with it when it's not good-looking, well, I can't hang with it when it is. Because that's what real love is. Love of any kind, really. It is without condition.

Just as strong and crazy and can't-keep-your-hands-off-y on laundry day as it is on Valentine's Day.

*Right.

The Well

[I wrote this a while back about the food pantry where I spend my Sundays. I have been feeling especially thankful for this place, of late, and it felt like a good time to post this little ditty bragging on the community I call mine. Come see us.]

It was a sweaty Sunday a few Augusts ago when I walked down into the basement of Wellspring Church to The Well food pantry to volunteer for the first time. I probably could’ve counted on one hand the number of homeless people I’d interacted with in my life up to that point. But through a strange chain of events that I can only attribute to our funny God, there I was, about to sit down and pray about I had no idea what with someone I’d never laid eyes on before and who similarly had never laid eyes on me. I didn’t know what I was doing, what to say, or how to be. I didn’t know what it was like to be hungry or homeless or really even in need. But like I said – there I was. I took a deep breath, pretended I knew what I was doing, and prayed one day I would.

I came down the stairs that first time because I thought I could help. Oh Jesus, you are bigger than even our very best intentions. I will never not be thankful for that.

And since that first day, I have seen wonderful things. There was one woman in particular I prayed with regularly for a long time. I will never forget, after weeks of praying for his heart to soften, the day she came in beaming to tell me that she’d just sat in church for the first time with her husband. Or the day a man who couldn’t get a job to save his life came in practically giddy to tell me he finally had an interview. Or the day a woman who only a year ago was living in an abusive home, desperately miserable, came back after several months and said, her prayers answered, “I’m so happy.” 

As an “interviewer,” I get to do what I like to do the very best: talk to people. Talk and listen and pray. It’s a little counter-intuitive for me, though, because I like to have answers. I like for there to be a neat little bow tied at the end of everything, but I quickly found I wouldn’t get that here. The ugly truth of the matter is that some days, it feels like too much. Some days I am speechless because a 9-year old girl is here by herself getting groceries for her family. Or a man my dad’s age is holding my hands and weeping because he hasn’t spoken to his children in years. Or I meet with 13 people in a row who can’t find jobs and aren’t sure where they’ll sleep tonight. Some days the world is so overwhelmingly not good that things can start to feel hopeless, and I don’t have a bow to tie on that. And yet even on those days, even then, I am continually amazed by the faith and strength and even joy of the people sitting across from me. Because the world may not always be good, but God is. In the direst of circumstances, that truth remains a promise.

The Well is a food pantry. But it doesn’t stop at just meeting people’s physical need to eat food – it’s about transformation. Prayer isn’t just about answers – although often we see them, and it’s amazing – it’s about the changing of hearts. Recovery, over time. And sometimes, yes, it’s about sitting still in heartache and addiction and suffering and holding hands with grown men while they cry. It’s about hope when things feel hopeless because while the world isn’t good, Jesus is. In the messiest story, the dirtiest past, the saddest circumstance, there is hope. Fixing problems and tying bows may be quick and pretty, but it’s nothing compared to messy, beautiful, new life in Christ.

The Well taught me that. And I will probably never be the same because of it.

ain't nobody got time for that

You all know by now that I like - nay, love - Zumba.  It is the self care-iest thing I do for myself; as good for my soul as it is for my quads. At the end of my favorite class each week, we stretch it out to that Baz Luhrmann song about wearing sunscreen. I remember when that song came out - I was probably fourteen and I thought it was just about the most profound thing I had ever heard. Probably in reality that was only because I thought the class of '99 was hella cool and I wanted to be a part of things, but whatever. When I first heard the song come on in this class, I'll admit to you that my eyes rolled a little bit. It was involuntary. But dang it if that song hasn't stuck itself into my brain and I kind of don't hate it. Maybe it's that by the end of class I'm so exhausted I'm partly delirious, but each week I catch myself listening to the words and as I stretch, letting each part sink in as I need it to on that particular day. 

Recently, though, there has been one part that makes me feel a little more in my feelers than the others.

Baz says: "don't be reckless with other people's hearts -
don't put up with people who are reckless with yours."

 I harp a lot on a lot of things, and one of those things is relationships and how they are risky and hard. I write a lot about how I think it's worth it to take the risk - I think to talk myself into it more than anyone, because engaging with people is, yknow, hard. I made the above card with this very thing in my mind. I remember standing in a store looking at this photo and thinking what a perfect picture of relationship it is. In loving each other, we are all at once at risk of both squishing and being squished. In a good way, for sure, but in a risky one nonetheless. CS Lewis said, "Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken... to love at all is to be vulnerable." I have to remind myself continually that it's worth it, to make myself keep doing it - because the alternative is quite a lonely reality. I don't think I'd last long there.

Here's the trick about it though - and thank you Baz Luhrmann for reminding me of this - we can't be flippant about this business. We aren't responsible for one another, per say, because that can get a little codependent. But we are absolutely responsible to one another; especially to those who put their tender little hearts in our hands, and ours in theirs. It's a great honor and a big deal to enter into relationship with another person. It happens all the time, every day, every hour even [if you're an extrovert like myself], and as such, I think it can be easy to take for granted it's big-deal-ness.

My point is, we have to be careful with each other. Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't do that. It's a big deal for someone to put their heart on the line and I want to urge you to think about it before you let them. We will have reckless days, days we will be selfish and forget to be careful for a minute. We'll screw it up sometimes and I pray for us the chance to make our amends when we do. But here's maybe the even trickier part, for me anyway - don't put up with people who are reckless with your heart. Don't do it. I struggle with it, honestly, but I promise you from experience it's not worth it. It's not good for you or for them to let it happen, and I urge you to put the kibosh on it when it does. Our hearts are valuable. Worthy of care. So don't even for one hot second put it in the hands of someone who won't.

It's a lesson I needed to learn. I wasn't open to it for a long while because it meant I had to put some kiboshes on, and I'm really not good at that. But thanks to a combination of Zumba exhaustion [thanks, Portie], a tug at my pre-teen heartstrings [thanks, Baz], and a warning I'd heard a thousand times before [thanks, Clive] - I think I see it now. I will not be reckless with other people's hearts; I will acknowledge the risk they take to be close to me. And I will not put up with people who are reckless with mine.

Life is short, sure, but you're far too important to be reckless about it. Let's try our hardest to quit squishing each other. Because to quote Sweet Brown, a poet for the ages - ain't nobody got time for that!

what does she see?

I recently spent some time in the homeland, and one day while I was there my niece Shelbie and I had some quality time together while her mom, my sister, was still at work. Shelbs was in the bathtub and we were playing a rousing game of drive-thru bank teller with the sliding shower doors when she stopped and she asked me a question.

What does my mom see?
As I am with many of this girl's questions, initially, because she is so stinking profound for a 5 year old, I was confused. What do you mean? I asked her.
She tried to explain. What does she see? Right now?
Still unsure if I was answering her question or not, I said that her mom probably saw her office, her computer, that kind of thing. And that sweet little angel face bank teller held her hands in the shape of a heart, sighed, and said, I wish she could see my heart instead.

We texted her a picture right then and there, thanks to the miracle of modern technology, so her mom did get to see her heart instead. But you guys. If that isn't a lesson in basic human empathy, I don't know what is. I don't sit often around wondering what people are seeing at a given moment. I don't think I have ever asked or heard of someone asking that question before. But isn't it a good one?

I take for granted that we are complex people with many senses, all of which we use to encounter the world. As a counselor, I ask all kinds of questions all the time about feelings and thoughts, about motivations and beliefs and experiences, but I rarely think about what someone simply sees, and what that means for them. Just the fact that Shelbie stopped in her tracks, assessed what she saw, thought about her mom seeing something different, and then wondered what that was is sort of amazing to me. And then she even went so far as to wish that she could make a difference in what her mom saw. I learn all the time about empathy from these little chickadees; it is one of their more powerful skills, I think. Whenever I spend time with them, it makes me want to be better at it myself.

I can get pretty caught up in my own self, in my own proverbial bath time and bank teller games, as it were. But that we would have these moments, however brief, where we stopped what we were doing for the simple purpose of wondering what another person is seeing at that same moment. Maybe even thought about a way we might help them see something better.

family, simply defined

lyrical inspiration cred: Mumford & Sons, "Timshel"

you are not alone in this
and you are not alone in this
as brothers we will stand
and we'll hold your hand
hold your hand

when pigs fly

Something you may or may not be aware of is that I make cards.

If we're being honest, I seem to have developed a sort of need to constantly caption things. I see a picture and I caption it, even if only in my brain. I started making cards because it also met the desire I have to cut and glue and craft things on a regular basis. See, one can only make so many crafts before they start to take up lots of space in one's home. Making cards, then, is a compact way to scratch my decoupage itch. While simultaneously captioning things. It's really a perfect combination.

Anyway. I give them to people sometimes, but sometimes I just make them for the sake of making them, so I thought, why not post a few occasionally? I especially like this one for the beginning of a new year. I think it's hopeful, in a weird sort of way. 2013. Full of possibility.

new year, new you

I don't love transitions. Any of them. Even the good ones cause me lots of stress and worry and bother. I don't love beginnings either, for that matter. I'd pick being comfortable and established over being new any day because I hate not knowing what I'm doing and it seems beginnings are always full of that. But for someone who is against transitions and beginnings as much as I am, there is something I really love about new starts and clean slates. I suppose it's an exception to my rule about hating all change. So as you maybe can imagine, I've always had kind of a love-hate thing with New Years. It makes me all kinds of anxious, but there's something nice about waking up January 1 feeling all shiny and new.

About 4 months ago, not for any particular reason really, I started making some relatively significant changes in my life. I don't know why September happened to be the time, but it was, and here we are. Whenever we've talked about it over the past few months my friend Kim has exclaimed, supportively, "new year, new you!" I just love that. I feel a little thrill every time she says it, and in approaching the actual New Years event, I have been thinking both about glitter and champagne type things and also about how exciting it is to have a whole new year ahead and to be going into it with a whole new me.

The past few New Yearses I have written about wanting to be more free, then feeling more free than the year before, and wanting to be even more so, still. But this year for the first time I accepted freedom - as a sort of gift I'd already been given - and decided to stop looking for it so much as just living in it. I even got the "freedom tat" I said I would get someday, and though I know that really only means something inside my own head, still, it means something. More so than in years past, I look over the year behind me and standing here today, I feel different in a lot of good ways. That's a nice feeling. Even so, when I look ahead, I don't see a whole hell of a lot with any kind of definition or certainty. Which I suppose is normal, given I'm not a psychic, but normal or not, it's not a great feeling, right? Not the kind of thing that's super reassuring when you've no choice but to keep moving and you have no idea where you're headed or how you'll get there.

When it comes right down to it, I can think of about a hundred things to worry about. I'm anxious as I write this, in fact, about quite a few things. I don't know if my September self-renovations will continue to go smoothly, but I'll keep at it right on through next September, if I have to, because this is my life and it matters. I will work on taking deep breaths through the tricky stuff, I will do the next right thing even when it seems like there isn't one. I'll keep learning how to treat people more kindly, make amends to myself when I owe them, I'll keep trying to figure out where the Lord is in all of it even when that part is really confusing. I'll keep taking risks and loving people and letting them love me and probably getting my feelings hurt more than occasionally; but if it happens, it will be because I decided someone is worth risking that for. And I feel ok about that.

If I were making resolutions for 2013, which I try not to do because I can get real weird real fast about putting parameters like that on life-change, I suppose it would be just to keep living. Not like as opposed to dying, but to keep doing all that life stuff I mentioned before. I'd like to live so that at the end of a day I know I've done what I could. To love myself and people and Jesus, to get what and where I want to get and go with my life. I will do what I can. Some days I won't, and that will be hard. Some days I will and that will be hard too, though. So.

"New year, new you" happens when it happens. Either way, come January 1, it's still exciting [if also slightly terrifying] to ring in another new year full of equal parts possibility and uncertainty. But any way you slice it, kiddos, life is happening. So do with that what you will.

santa is a party clown

Being Aunt Meggie is one of the very most prized roles in my life up to this point. I love when I get to spend time with the little preshy-pies, and also I love quoting things they say and writing blog posts about them. I quote them a lot because regardless of our significant age difference, they are for sure smarter than me. I'm sure of it because they are constantly saying things that make my internal dialogue go something like this: I knew that. Right? I did, didn't I? Surely... I must have... They say things that are so funny and profound all at once that it's hard to fully wrap my mind around it. Given their track record, I wasn't that surprised last year when Timmy [age 7, then] said to Amie, about Christmas, the following:

So, is Santa like a clown for Jesus' birthday?

I mean, really. These kids. They're like  tiny theologians.

I feel sure there have been days during this very season where I spent more time trying to come up with a Christmas list than thinking about Jesus. I'm embarrassed about it, but it's the truth. And that's what my tender-hearted, brilliant little nephew was getting at when he said that to my sister. 

Jesus is what's important, right? 
Santa is fun but Jesus is the big deal, right? 
Isn't this party is really for Jesus?

Whether he knew it or not, with that little question, Timmy hit a pretty hard theological nerve, at least for me. Because I think no matter how good we are, no matter how much we love Jesus and how well we evangelize and how many seminary degrees we have - yes, even for us - there may come a moment where we're so caught up with the clown that we forget about the real reason for the party. There are moments when things that are not the point take the spotlight over the real reason we're celebrating. When our focus goes to gifts that are shiny and tangible over the ones that actually mean something.

Clowns aren't bad. They can be fun, I guess,  if you're into that kind of thing, and so long as they're not starring in a horror movie. But if you're at a birthday party, you don't fawn over the entertainment, do you? You don't tell the clown how much you love it, right, how glad you are it was born? Unless of course it's a clown's birthday; but let's forget that as an option or my whole analogy is shot. My point is this: Christmas is fun. So much fun. I love it, and I intend to continue enjoying the many perks of the yuletide season. But instead of spending the holiday season focused on frivolous entertainment - on Santa Claus and Christmas lists, the plethora of ABC Family Christmas movies available on Netflix, Skinny Peppermint Mochas, and the Mariah Carey Christmas album - I hope that we can all [myself perhaps the very most] heed Timmy's warning and not lose sight of what we're celebrating.

Because this party is really for Jesus.

for just in case you get nervous

Today I went to see a guy I know. He's an older guy, and something you should know about him is he's a giver. He loves to give people things. He doesn't have a lot, not much at all - but what he has, he gives. I've seen him give away anything from wristwatches to cigarettes to an entire platter of chicken, once. One thing he particularly likes to try to give me is VHS tapes. He's got a plethora, apparently, and I can't tell you the number of times he's tried to convince me to go buy a VCR so that he can give me videos. He'd very much like to be my own personal Blockbuster. Videos for days.

Today I did something for him, something that he could not do for himself, and afterwards he wanted to thank me. After going through the whole VCR debate once more for good measure, he hoisted himself up from where he was perched on his walker and went to a drawer under the the shelf where the infamous videos are haphazardly stored. From the drawer he pulled out a small plastic bag of what I know to be his favorite candy, and from that he drew a generous handful and motioned for me to hold out my hands. Here, he said. I resisted, said no thanks, said I'd rather he keep them, tried all my usual refusal tricks, but he would not take no for an answer, not this time. After some back-and-forth about how no, I was not refusing because I thought he was trying to poison me, he said:  just put 'em in your pocket. For just in case you get nervous. What that even means, I'm not sure. I suppose there'd be no way of knowing. Either way, what choice did I have?

I filled my pocket with Root Beer Barrels.
For just in case I get nervous.

I don't have a really significant reason for telling this story, other than I wanted to tell it - it was just one of those nice moments we get to enjoy sometimes, if we're paying close enough attention. I was presented with a sacrificial kind of generosity, one of the rarer kinds, and one I wouldn't have expected to experience in the form of a Root Beer Barrel, if we're being honest. It was only a handful of candy, yes, but it was his handful of candy. It was all he had to give, and he was so, so happy to have given it. I think that's kind of a beautiful thing.

Maybe it sounds like a strange thing to take note of, and maybe it is, a little. All I know is, today was a good day, and whether I wanted them or not, I've got a pocket full of Root Beer Barrels to prove it. And for whatever reason, I just think that's great.

fine or not fine, here goes nothing

The other day I was sitting at my desk with my office door open and one of my coworkers walked by. I heard him, noticed him, I think I even turned around and maybe even waved. Once he passed by the door, though, he almost immediately turned back - he came in, sat down across from me, and looked at me with what appeared to be extreme concern.

Ok, he said, what's wrong? 
I said, confused, nothing's wrong. I'm fine. I was. Why do you ask?
Dead serious, he said, when I started down the hall I was singing a song and you didn't pick it up when I walked by your office. I was worried. 

Being in a profession with so many intuitive people is annoying sometimes, I won't lie to you, because hiding is essentially impossible. It's not far from the truth to say that he knew something was wrong before I did. After all, he was right. I hadn't even noticed he was singing - and that really isn't like me. So I thought about it. I thought I was fine, but was I fine? If not, then why? Why am I all of a sudden not doing things that I love and are important to me?

On a completely separate and unrelated note, you may or may not have noticed that it has been over a month since I wrote anything at all. So. 

It wasn't a choice I made, really, to not write - I guess I just didn't feel like it. Even now, sitting here, it's kind of hard. I wish I knew why. I wish it wasn't hard. I wish I was picking up on songs being sung in my hallway, but I'm not. I wish I felt like sitting down to write, but I just don't. 

A few days after my friend said that about the singing, I was in the car listening to Christmas music. One of my favorite Mariah jams came on and about halfway through it I drew my awareness to the fact that not only was I not singing, I had my jaw clenched so tight I had to make a conscious, physical effort to unclench it. What happened next was this: I started the song over, unclenched my jaw, and I made myself sing. It was incredible. Despite my best efforts to remain cranky, and despite the fact that I did not in any way feel like singing, I just felt so much better. 

Tonight, similarly, I am sitting in a coffee shop, drinking chai tea, listening to good songs, and writing a blog post. It's not the best one I've ever written, but it doesn't have to be. Much like the Mariah phenomenon, just being here is the point. Unclenching my proverbial jaw, so to speak, and putting something on paper. I still don't feel like it. But thankfully I know that feelings aren't facts, so I don't have to listen to them always. So tonight, for a change of pace from the recent past, I'm not.

There are probably a few reasons I feel less-than-fine. I should probably unpack that a little more at some point, but not tonight. For now, tonight, this is enough. Fine or not fine, I'm going to do the things I love to do but currently don't so much feel like doing until maybe soon I feel like doing them again.

Not to mention, we are currently within the confines of the one month a year it is socially appropriate for me to listen to Mariah Carey's Christmas album all day every day, and I don't intend to waste one more day of that precious allotment with any more cranky.

So Happy December, everyone. Here's to Mariah Carey, Christmastime, and feeling finer every day.

the right kind of home

Today I am going to San Antonio. Today I also realized it's been a couple of weeks since I wrote anything. In light of those two realities, I was brought back to this post I wrote the last time I went to San Antonio, and now I am reposting it because it rings true even still. In so many ways. So here you go.

New is exciting, and fun, and healthy, and necessary. Change can be good.

But I have to be honest, I like familiarity. And I think it gets a bad rap sometimes, like it's lazy or we're settling or getting "too familiar" - which means it's time for something else to take the place of said familiar. And in some instances, like I said, good. Great. It's not good to get bored or to settle or to be lazy. But sometimes I just like feeling familiar.

So I like it that I listen to The Cranberries Greatest Hits and instantly I'm transported to my senior year of high school and I'm in my '94 Ford Explorer and I'm late to softball practice. I like that I know my house will smell like pumpkin for almost the entirety of Autumn. I like the ease and comfort of sitting over coffee with someone who knows me, and who I know back. And I like it that when I step off the plane in San Antonio and feel the nasty humidity blow through the jetway, it sends me right back to the years I spent here. I take a deep breath of wet air and I am walking home from the Kappa house on a Friday night. I am heading to the Murch study lounge to write a paper on the role of the femme fatale in Hitchcock films (best paper ever) and laugh with my friends all night long. I am walking to Marble Slab on the Riverwalk with a bunch of high school kids. I am at the Taco C drive through with The Power Six at midnight, drinking Bella Sera in a papasan couch, cheering for the Spurs, and getting thrown into the Trinity fountain on my birthday.


Let me be clear: I genuinely hate the weather here. I hate that I walked across the street this morning to get a cup of coffee and I got sweatier than I do in Zumba class. I hate that when I'm here my hair becomes akin to a lion's mane the minute I step outside. This isn't one of those situations where I'm exaggerating for dramatic effect, either. Had I considered - for even a moment - the climate of San Antonio in my college choosing process, I probably never would have made it to Trinity University.

But I loved the four years I spent here. I love that wet air and lion hair and general sweatiness makes me feel, in a weird and sort of unpleasant way, like home.

I remember reading a study in my Social Psych class about familiarity and attractiveness. It showed [long story short] that over time, when a person became familiar, they were rated as more attractive than they were initially, when they were unfamiliar. Their appearance hadn't necessarily changed, but [psychologically speaking] knowing their face made the subject perceive them as better looking, somehow. I remember thinking that's kind of beautiful. Knowing a person makes them more attractive to us. Intimacy breeds desirability. Familiarity has an effect on us.

I don't think it's a trick our brains are playing on us. I think it's not that we're settling or getting too comfortable or being lazy. I think it's because we were designed for knowing and being known, so the connection between knowing and liking is in our wiring. I think it's because familiarity makes us feel at home. I didn't mean to love San Antonio, but San Antonio became home. I can't not love that.

New is exciting, and fun, and healthy, and necessary. Good.
But I think a case can be made that the right kind of home is all of those things too. And then some.