absolutely

When I need to feel comforted, I pretty much always find myself in Lamentations 3. Sometimes I don't even believe what I'm reading, but still, I go there. I read the words. Without my permission, I am comforted.

I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.

My friend prayed tonight that God would bring order. She said, "you are a God of order, and this is chaos."

Chaos: I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to not be sad. I don't know how to comfort and I don't know how to be comforted. I don't understand. I don't know and I don't see and I don't get it. There is no explanation. There is pain I can't fix. There are problems I can't solve. There are things that no matter my education or experience or training, I can't handle. There is brokenness I can't mend. There is so little I can do. And if I'm being honest that is just skimming the surface. Of just this moment.

Yet this I call to mind...

I believe in a God who is absolute. In the midst of chaos, there is a promise. We are not consumed, because his compassions never fail. Like, not ever. Not once accidentally. Not even on the days when I think my head will explode from the chaos. There is no condition, no limit to God's great love. It is perfect, unchangeable, unlimited, unbounded, pure and unadulterated. Nothing is too broken. No one is too much or too messy. What I want to know when it comes down to it is that I will not be consumed. Because some days, I feel like I might be. And then I remember that I believe in a God of absolutes.

And therefore I have hope.

directionally challenged [doesn't begin to describe it]

When I turned sixteen, I was so excited. I couldn't wait to drive to the mall and meet my friends at the Orange Julius and buy crappy earrings at Claire's. I couldn't wait to get in the car and drive by myself to school, to roll up to Wichita Collegiate in my sweet '94 Ford Explorer, windows down, Cranberries blasting on the CD player. The world [or Wichita, at least] was mine for the taking. Because I could go everywhere.

So imagine my surprise when I get in the car that bright morning, the sun shining, the world fresh and new with possibilities - and I realized, suddenly, devastated - I didn't know how to get anywhere.

I probably could have guessed that I was bad at directions, but I didn't know for sure until that moment. And what a sad, pitiful moment it was. All I wanted to do was get to Towne East Mall. I'd been there two zillion times. Yet there I was, paralyzed; I didn't even know where to begin. But like, literally. It's quite possible I wasn't even sure which direction to turn out of my driveway.

Realizing what I had to do, I collected myself, I turned off the car, and dragged my Doc Marten sandals into the house. [literally, dragged, do you remember how heavy those things were?] I averted my parents [unprepared to face the mockery that awaited me if I told them the truth]. I slunk quietly into my little brother's room and asked him ashamedly if he would mind terribly shutting off his gameboy for just a quick sec... and teach me how to get to the mall? And to Kelly's? And to Ali's? And to... everywhere else I'll need to go pretty much ever? I'm pretty sure he started drawing a map. And I'm pretty sure I surrendered what little pride remained to ask him if he could please just tell me rights and lefts, because I was pretty sure I couldn't read maps either.

That pattern continued essentially until I moved away from home. But leaving home didn't really change much about much. Once in college [in Texas] I called my brother [in Kansas] and [I'm not kidding] said something like, QUICK, I need to get back to Trinity, which way should I go on 410!? And he told me. And he was right. And I died a little inside.

I got cocky though, when I moved to Colorado. Sure, the first week I lived here I cried for a solid hour because I couldn't find Target, but that's neither here nor there. Somehow, slowly, I kind of figured out where I was going. You see, in Wichita, my entire life took place in a 1-block radius. At Trinity, I barely ventured off campus and when I did it was pretty much just to one place. When I moved off campus, I moved to that one place. So Colorado was a new thing for me - I lived in downtown Denver, went to school in Littleton, nannied in Lakewood - and I did it! All of it! All by myself [mostly]! Up until a week or two ago, I was feeling pretty freaking great about my ability to get effortlessly from point A to point B.

My family still makes fun of me for the events mentioned above, and I have been fighting it recently, insisting that I have recovered from the directional challenges of my youth. I was rehabilitated, see, I can even get to and from my friends' houses without Google Maps. But a hard truth became abundantly clear to me today as I drove aimlessly around Denver trying to find places I've never been before. Less than two weeks as a case manager [where a great deal of my job is, apparently, to do just that] and I feel I need to confess the truth to you:

I am [still] bad at directions.

I haven't called any out-of-town family members yet, but hey - there's always tomorrow.

[whatever the mess you are]

For as disheveled and discombobulated as I can tend to be, I really hate when things are counterproductive. I hate when I can visibly see that there is a goal and everything that's happening seems to be happening as though the goal doesn't exist. If I have to go to Kansas from Colorado, I don't want to have a layover in Florida, you know?

I have a [probably over-simplified and emotion-fueled] theory about authenticity: I think everybody wants it but everybody's scared of it so nobody does it. Counterproductivity in it's ugliest, most hate-able form.

We all want to fit in, to be accepted, to look and sound and feel right. I think no one [and I do mean no one] is excluded from this category, I don't care how self-assured or well-adjusted or popular or good-looking a person might be. So we're all out for this belonging business, at certain points [read: middle school] willing to get it at any cost. The thing is, no one really knows what they're doing, in general. So they fake it. I see that Veronica is doing so great, so I think that if she has it figured out, I better follow suit and at least make it look like I do too. So I fake it. Then Genevieve and Cynthia and all my other fictional friends who sound like they were named after American Girl dolls see that I have it all together, and they start faking it too. We're faking it to prove something to someone who's just faking it to prove something to someone else. 

Everyone is faking it. And honestly, I don't blame us.

Authenticity is messy, highly unpredictable, and not always pretty; and that makes people very nervous. As such, [I've said it before and I'll say it again] there is a great deal of risk involved in being authentic. We fake it for a reason. Being authentic rocks the boat. People don't really like it when you rock the boat because it threatens the safety of their boat, and everybody wants to have control over their boat. Including me. 

The logical part of me [which to be fair is a very small part of me] just thinks it's kind of simple. If we’re all sort of faking it, let’s just all sort of stop. If we embraced authenticity, if we recognized the beauty in being genuine, we'd be ok. Yes, we'd all be quirky and screwy and more than likely super awkward but we'd all be in it together. We fear rejection because it's a reality, it's a thing that can happen if we're not careful. We spend so much time being careful, though, that life can get exhausting and lonely and maybe we're not even having any fun most of the time. 

I don’t know what your story looks like, but don’t you for one-half second believe the lie that it makes you any less lovable. Because exactly the opposite is true: people love people for their stories. If you don't tell it, I truly believe you are depriving yourself of one of the best things I have ever experienced: being you, and being loved for it. Authenticity opens you up to a level of intimacy that isn’t attainable any other way. Faking might feel safe. But being content with safe is just silly when you consider what's possible.

Brokenness is a reality, but exhaustion and loneliness and rejection don't have to be. This is a thing that can change. So be authentic. For every middle school girl and middle aged man in this world for whom faking it feels like the only option, and for the consequent exhaustion and loneliness they think is unique to themselves --

Embrace your mess so you can embrace theirs.

no matter how many years go by

i carry your heart with me[i carry it in my heart]

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
[here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide]
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart[i carry it in my heart]

------------------------------
we carry her in our hearts

I can tell that we are gonna be friends

So sorry my blogging has been sporadic. That may be the case for a while because I am busy being busy and important at my job that's full time and important and keeping me so busy. And important. Am I bragging? Maybe. I'll stop soon I'm sure.

So far, so good -- at least in that I completed day 3 and I'm planning on going back tomorrow. I'm just in that awkward new-kid stage where everything is new, and I hate that. I like not being new. I like knowing things and knowing people and having answers instead of infinity questions and I like having friends and not feeling like I need to be cool and fun always and wear pink on Wednesdays so I can get in with the popular crowd. [In my head, work is a lot like the lunch room in Mean Girls.]

The thing that's annoying is that I can tell I'm going to like this job, a lot. I can tell I might even be good at it when I learn how to be and what to say and do and pretty much everything else I don't already know. I can also tell - and I pray wholeheartedly that none of them read this until we are friends - that we are gonna be friends. I only have a few skills I'm willing to brag about [including but not limited to: the Target Lady impression, great handwriting, funfetti baking] but one of them is that I can usually tell pretty quickly if I'm going to click with people or not. It's only Wednesday of my first week, sure -  but I'm pretty sure my coworkers are great. I like them and I think when I stop being gawky and awkward they might like me too. Both of those things are great and hopeful - but I'm ready to get there. I sort of want to just stand up at lunch tomorrow and be like, "Look, everybody. We're gonna be friends. Can we just skip the part where we pretend we're not sure about that yet? Give me a nickname and let's go to happy hour or something that people who work and are also friends do with each other."

More than likely I will exercise some restraint; I will lay low for a while and ask my infinity questions and try not to drive anyone crazy while I do. I'm not terribly patient, though, never have been. If we're not all besties by Friday at 5, I can't promise I won't try to win them over with funfetti. Nothing brings people together quite like funfetti.

I am not just me

I have complained so much about being unemployed. Not just occasional whining, not just "I have nothing better to say" complaints but genuine, heartfelt, deeply rooted complaint. So as this transitional part of my life wraps up, it came as quite a shock to learn that I was actually going to miss some of these things I've been whining about. I'm going to miss the baby, even though some days he can be tyrannical in ways I did not know babies could be. I'm going to miss the Hedge Fund even though I still don't really know what it is and I hate loading printer paper and my hands are always paper cut from filing.

So I get that I sound utterly ridiculous. I am very excited to have a job. For real. And to the people who have fallen victim to my whining, I apologize in advance for the M. Night Shyamalan plot twist I am about to throw at you.

Even though I've been dying to move on, as it turns out, I'm sad about moving on.

Here is a fact about what it is like to be me: I am an attacher. I get attached. I pride myself in not being a stage-five-clinger [generally speaking] but I do, after prolonged periods of time with other humans, find myself often inexplicably attached to them. It doesn't matter if they are tiny and refuse to take naps or if they are brusk money-handling types. It doesn't matter if they are normal or exciting or crazy or wah-wah debbie downers.

When it comes time to leave them, I'm going to have to give myself a second to grieve it.

The annoying part is that I always forget this about me. At each transition, then, I find myself confused and startled at my emotions. Usually someone [my mom, mostly] will say, "oh yes, I expected this." And then I'm all, "Well why didn't you tell ME!??!?" because I am almost always caught off guard by it. When I got sad last week about leaving the babe, I wondered to myself if this attachy way of being was really good, in the end. Should I work on it? Maybe transitions don't have to be this hard every time. Maybe I can fix this about me.

But the thing of it is, wrong or right, I like this about me. I like that I get attached. I like that I feel the absence of people when they're not around anymore because it means they meant something to me when they were here. I like that when I say goodbye [even if it's not a real goodbye but just an I-won't-see-you-all-the-time-anymore goodbye], my heart feels a pinch that stays for a while. There comes a time to move on, and I usually can. But the person I am right now in this moment, the person who interviewed and was offered and accepted a big girl job wasn't just me as I am right now today.

It was Suzie's mentor. Bodie, Andrew, Gabe & Sara, Christina, Micah, Lucy [the kid who liked to rescue stray cats after school], and even Luke's nanny. The HF's trusty paper stacker. The most paranoid part-marker Weaver Manufacturing ever saw [I kept having dreams that planes crashed because parts were mismarked. It was traumatizing]. It was my childhood best friend and the bully from middle school art class and a bunch of roommates and the kid I taught how to fist bump at First Pres. It was the old lady who wanted me to help her decide [for hourssssssss] if she should buy Matchstick or Bootcut corduroy pants. It was everyone I've ever gotten attached to and it was a bunch of jobs I maybe didn't love with a bunch of people I definitely did. My point is, I did not grow up in a vacuum, but surrounded by people [for better or worse] who meant something.

I am not just me. Or at least, I didn't get to be me all by myself.

And I don't think I want to change anything about that.

it's all downhill from here

I have a lot of hair. It's not atypical for my half-pony to be the same thickness as other people's regular size pony. And right now it's really long too, so there is an especially large lot of it. After I take showers, if I put my hair in a ponytail, I swear to you it will stay wet for DAYS. Days. My hair's water retention is impressive. So when I was in high school, I realized that if I flipped my hair back and forth like 15 times it would shake some of the water out of it and make it easier to dry. I did it every morning.

If this song isn't already in your head from reading that, it should be:

Sorry I did that to you. But not that sorry.

Anyway, I haven't whipped my hair in I don't know how long. I don't know why I stopped, really, or why yesterday morning when my hair's water retention was at an all time high, I decided I should try it again. I'm going to call it sleep deprivation paired with I'm-running-late-what-will-make-this-process-go-faster desperation. So I flipped my head upside down - so far so good - flipped it back up, and promptly fell to the ground in a heap of crippling pain. I don't know if it's whiplash or I pulled a muscle or what but it was awful. All day I moved around with stiff neck. In church I had to do the whole body swivel during greeting time since every time I turned my neck it hurt so bad I thought I might throw up. I felt like Joan Cusack in Sixteen Candles trying to function with that awkward neck brace.

She may very well be my favorite character in that movie. When she tries to use the drinking fountain and then wipes her mouth with the applique skirt on her sweatshirt, I DIE.

Apparently for me, 26 is the year of becoming old. Suddenly I can't do things I used to be able to do and I'm inflicting serious bodily harm by trying to do them. That's never happened to me before. I hate it.

Since I've been 26 I've also acquired [I don't know if you heard] a REAL GROWN UP JOB. Which I'm so excited about - but also I realize that my days of prolonged adolescence are coming to a rapid halt. Sure, no more cover letters, no more babies [at least not til I have my own], no more Hedge Funding, no more folding khakis... but also, no more sitting in coffee shops, no more going out on Monday nights just because I can, no more watching Mad Men while the baby sleeps, no more sleeping in, no more fun. I'm hoping it's not that extreme, but I really wouldn't know, I've never had one of these before. 

I guess I'm just flustered because no one told me it would happen so fast. One day I'm footloose and fancy free, flipping my hair and galavanting about, and the next thing I know I'm whole body swiveling and going to bed at 9 PM and I'm talking about my 401K. Or 403B. Or 402X. Or something. I have 2 weeks before I start my job in which to learn how to be a grownup. Or learn how to make it look like I am one. I don't think my new employer will appreciate it very much if they ask me a question and I ask to call my parents or yell in a panic, "I NEED AN ADULT!" If anyone feels they are especially proficient at adulthood, feel free to help a sista out.

Either way, I think my neck debacle has made one thing perfectly clear: it's all downhill from here.

something & Everything

One of the most comforting things I have ever heard came to me in a time where very little was comforting at all. I got this little email from a friend telling me this: that she had no idea what to say or do but, she told me, I didn't have to carry my sadness alone. She told me that there were people who loved me who would carry it with me. Words are my favorite for a lot of reasons. Where comfort is concerned, I think words almost always fall short. For once though, they sort of didn't.

In the book of Numbers, Moses is at the end of his rope because the Israelites need too much from him. He says to God, "I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you're going to treat me, put me to death right now - if I have found favor in your eyes - and do not let me face my own ruin."

[Moses just asked to die rather than deal. Can I just say I love that this is God's response:]

The Lord said to Moses: "Bring me seventy of Israel's elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the Tent of Meeting, that they may stand there with you. I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the Spirit that is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you carry the burden of the people so that you will not have to carry it alone." 

There is a lot of burden. I got a whole degree in counseling for that very reason and I still don't know how to handle it most days. But I read that and I think, yes. Let's bear one another's burdens. Not in a way that makes us all codependent messes with terrible boundaries, but in a way that's the way community should be. Not because I want something from you or because I want to control you or because I want to fix you, but because I love you. Because I have room right now for a little of your junk, so let me carry some for you. We won't ever do it perfectly, but that doesn't mean it's not something.

I think we are called to bear one another's burdens. When I stop to really think about that, when I remember and reflect on my friend's words, I am moved almost to tears at how beautiful that really is. But that verse in Galatians continues: "and in this way fulfill the law of Christ." Today is Good Friday. That passage in Numbers is not insignificant, I think, and Galatians either; in community, we emulate Jesus. But today we reflect and remember and weep because Jesus took all of our sin and suffering and burden to the cross. Not like us - not just a little. Not just when he remembered. Not just what he could handle. Not just for the people he liked best. It was hard and it hurt and it cost something. 

We don't have words extravagant enough to describe that. It's Everything.

getting the pause back

I have been babysitting ever since I was old enough to take the Babysitters Club Class at school. A real dream come true, then, after all the BSC books I'd read - it seemed the coolest thing to be at the age of 12 was a babysitter. At the present time [why yes, 14 years later, I am still at it] while I'm good with toddlers and pre-teens, it would seem that my specialty is babies. Word has apparently spread that there is a 26-year-old Seminary Grad with baby experience [magical words] who will still babysit. I would rather be pretty much anything other than a 26-year-old with a Masters degree who is still babysitting - so I'm not bragging - but I am in high demand. A hot commodity. What do you know.

At present, I nanny for this little tater tot who's about 11 months old. He can crawl at warp speed, he can pull himself up on just about anything, but now - I can see it in his eyes - he wants more than anything to  walk. Over and over, each time hoping for a different result, he pulls himself up to standing, precariously lets go of whatever it is he's pulled himself up on [9/10 times it's some apendage of mine] and stands. Foooooor about 2 seconds. Then he falls squarely onto his little diapered butt.

And a funny thing happens at this point: he looks to me. There is a small window of time - just a couple seconds - in which to decide if he is upset about this fall or not; if he's going to pitch a little fit or if he's going to move along as though nothing happened. I have a lot of power here, as his reaction will be likely be a direct response to my reaction. If I rush over and act like I'm going to call an ambulance, he will probably cry. If I laugh and make a funny face, he will likely shoot me a little two-tooth smile and keep on keepin' on. It would seem we were born with the pause. Without fail, with the majority of babies I know [unless they are legitimately hurt, which is another story entirely, before you go calling CPS on me] there is an event [in this case, the fall], there is a pause, and then there is a reaction.

Somewhere along the line, though, I think the process starts moving a lot faster, and the pause is lost. Now we are adults and it goes like this: we fall, we react. Simple. That little window of time where our moms or nannies are constantly watching us is over. So one day we pause, look up, and realize we have to decide on our own how to react. It's up to me. Am I fine? Am I hurt? Am I upset? Am I going to cry, scream, laugh, yell, throw my toys around in a fit of rage?

Most of the time, I don't pause anymore. Maybe some days are better than others, maybe my reactions on a good day are calm and peaceful and holy. Emphasis on the word maybe. Regardless, something bad happens and I react to it immediately, on instinct. So many times I catch myself, twenty minutes, three hours, four days later, finally pausing to reflect on my actions. And what good is the pause to me then?

This whole train of thought took me to Paul in Romans 7: "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, and what I hate I do... For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out." Even though I have the desire to do what is good, and most days I do, my inclinations aren't always right. My habits are not always healthy. And as such, my reactions are not always fruitful or productive. I will always be a dirty sinner, as it were, so praying for the erasure of sin and the arrival of perfection seems a little silly. But in watching the munchkin process his little life, I've come to realize that what I can pray for is a pause - a moment to process. A moment to look up for guidance.

Chances are I won't ever get it perfectly right.
Getting the pause back might be a step in the right direction, though.

your real thank you note is in the mail

I don't need to tell you [again] how much I love birthdays. It goes without saying that birthday week is one of my favorite times of the year. This year was no exception. I am having a great birthday week.

Another thing I love about my life at present is that I am known. I am known to the very depths and core of my being and that, that is a simultaneously terrifying and beautiful thing. I believed for a while the lie that if people knew me, they wouldn't like what they saw. They would reject and point and laugh and leave. But this week as people I love loved me in birthday ways, I realized that that scary fear is no longer a fear. It's a reality. A lovely one, at that.

The proof is in the pudding, as they say:

a surprise over breakfast tacos; a pink & purple cake with cream cheese frosting; a statue of a hand making the rock out sign; going to see my favorite band with favorite people; handcrafted cards and other handcrafted items; a ticket to a high school musical; my favorite book, fancily bound; a [big-ass] book of crafts; an art-capade; the perfect StoryPeople print; relief for the dire straights that are my finances; a movie about Unicorns; THIS; words of affirmation all over my Facebook; and quality time with so many people I love so much.

Some of those things are basic, perhaps, but others of them are not necessarily what you would call normal. I don't know that all of you would like a statue of a hand for your home or a movie about Unicorns or to go see a high school play. Which is why I call that list - perfectly crafted to somehow meet my every need and desire - perfectly delicious proof of how I am known and loved.

I don't mean to sound braggy, but honestly, I feel a little braggy.

And to those of you who know me, who know my crazy and my ugly and my broken and who have stuck around to love me, you should know that you are by far my most prized gift. Even better than that video of the Unicorn puppet singing Michael Bolton. Which is saying something.

the right kind of home

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 a lazy thing or it's about settling or we're 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 the weird mural on the walls of the basement stairway of Wellspring makes me feel a surge of safety and community and welcome as soon as I turn the corner. I like that I know my house will smell like pumpkin for almost the entirety of autumn. And I like it that when I stepped off the plane last night in San Antonio and felt the nasty humidity blow through the jetway, it sent me right back to the years I spent here. I took a deep breath of wet air and I was walking home from the Kappa house on a Friday night. I was heading to the Murch study lounge to write a paper on the role of the femme fatale in Hitchcock films (best paper ever) and also laugh with my friends all night long. I was walking to Marble Slab on the Riverwalk with a bunch of high school kids. I was at the Taco C drive through with The Power Six at midnight, I was cheering for the Spurs [without fear of persecution, I might add], and I was getting thrown into the Trinity fountain on my birthday.

Let me be clear: I pretty much 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 did in Zumba class on Wednesday night. 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 when a person became familiar, they were rated as more attractive than they were initially, when they were unfamiliar. Their appearance hadn't changed, but [psychologically speaking] knowing their face made the subject perceive them as better looking, somehow. I remember thinking that that's kind of beautiful: that knowing a person makes them more attractive to us. Intimacy breeds desirability. Familiarity - for better or worse - has an effect on us.

I don't think it's a trick that our brains are playing on us. I think it's not about settling or getting too comfortable or being lazy. I think it's because we were designed for knowing and for being known, so the connection between knowing and liking is in our wiring. I think it's because familiarity makes us feel 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.

running errands [things that are my favorite]

I am not a particularly organized human when it comes to my personal life. I can do jobs and be successful and graduate from schools most of the time, but I can't find a correct pairing of socks on a daily basis to save my life. I do however, against the grain of my own personality, LOVE a good to-do List. I covet that wonderful feeling of scratching things off, of getting stuff done. Sometimes [if I'm honest] I feel a little put out that more people aren't applauding me for the major accomplishments that I am accomplishing. But it's ok, because at the end of the day, I know what I did. And I know I deserve a trophy. Whether or not you're willing to acknowledge it.

I do admit to occasionally doing that thing where I put things on my to do list that I've already done just so I can cross it off. But it's not cheating because it COUNTS. Just because you made the list as an afterthought to that particular accomplishment doesn't mean you didn't accomplish it. Get the credit. Write it on the list. I also write really inconsequential things on there so that at the end of the day I feel like I got more done than I actually did. "Check email" or "get dressed" probably don't merit a whole line on the List, but the longer the List, the better I feel when it's done. And don't judge me, because I'd be willing to bet you do it too.

Running errands then, you can imagine, is like the end-all-be-all of cross-it-off-the-list productivity for me. I love to spend a day running errands (which, if you think about it, is a highly ambiguous term that can mean actually anything I want). Yesterday was blissfully full of Errands, and today I was applauding myself in my head for all that I achieved. I gave myself a big huge pat on the back for getting my phone fixed. Why did my phone need fixing? I broke it. So was it an entirely counterproductive activity, a time-suck if you will, when I really thought about it? Yes. But did that stop me from feeling on top of the world leaving the Apple Store? It sure as hell did not. It's like how I feel when I purchase something and then return it. I feel great after the return, but could I have saved the time by not buying the non-essential in the first place? Quit raining on my parade, please.

Essentially what I'm saying is that I want to get special praise and acclaim for doing what all other grown ups do every day of their lives. I may never get used to being a responsible adult; I will always expect that someone should high-five me for paying my water bill, face-kiss me for returning the shoes I don't like to DSW, fist-bump me for filling my car up with gas. Is that too much to ask? I think it's really not.

you're not fooling anyone

what are you afraid of? she said &
I said, nothing & then I said
what are you afraid of? &
she said, people like you & 
it was such a relief to know I wouldn't be able to fool her for long
[via storypeople]

I think when it comes right down to it, none of us really want to fool anybody
but I also notice that we go to GREAT LENGTHS to try and fool everybody

[I don't know about you,] but I'm pretty sure all I really want is to find somebody I can't fool

the moral of the story is this
we certainly are a counterproductive breed

are we not?

oh, and by the by...

check me out - I made it on The Well Blog!

 {thanks Julie!}

one topic guy [categories of awkward]

I first noticed this category of awkward in the seventh grade.
It's the guy who only knows how to talk to you about one thing. The one topic guy.

I give you exhibit A: James.

A seventh grader named James. For the entirety of the time we were in school together, which was like 6 years, I'd say we talked a fair amount. But we rarely [try never] deviated from the subject of Latin homework.

I feel like it's not a stretch to say that we could have been involved in some kind of gas station hold up together over the weekend and Monday morning he would still walk by my locker and ask me if we had any Latin homework. Or if I had done the Latin homework. Or if I could believe we had so much Latin homework. Or if I thought the Latin homework was hard. Sometimes I think he would just say, "Latin homework," chuckle to himself, and continue his trek to Ms. Kehoe's class to get new conversation ammo for our next encounter.

There have been others since high school, and I have continually been blown away by their consistency and persistence in talking to me about only one thing. A guy I work with switches topics every few weeks, but for those few weeks he is unrelenting. [I see what you're doing, guy. Switch all you want, but I know who you are under this facade.] Maybe the first time I met you we had a conversation about how I love jukeboxes, and now my love for the jukebox has stuck with you as my only definitive characteristic. Maybe once it rained when we were together and so now the go-to convo starter is always, "HEY! Been in any rainstorms lately?!" So very clever, friend. Now let's dance around the topic of rain for 3-7 minutes until one of us can come up with a reason we have to leave.

The issue is super prevalent among dads of kids I nanny for. They are maybe the most awkward demographic of people I have ever come into contact with in my entire life. Once in college I was babysitting and the dad got home before the mom [which I think, to be fair, he wasn't expecting]. He fumbled for his wallet, shoved some money in my hand, barked a quick "BYE" and abruptly left the room. I skedaddle out of the house so as not to drown in my discomfort, walk outside, and realize that he has no idea how long I've been there or how much I get paid, and he has just paid me about $40/hour. I mean I'm not complaining, that's for sure, but when your awkwardness is costing you actual money, I think it may be time to assess it as a legitimate issue.

There is also the kind of dad who talks to you EXCLUSIVELY about his child. That's it. We will broach no other topics. Try to divert the convo and watch him squirm as he tries to bring it back around to the kid. Then there is the kind who, like Latin homework guy, will pick one or two topics [weather & traffic, almost always] and run with them until the end of time. Which gets really awkward if you nanny for them a lot. There is only so much that can be said about the traffic on I-25, you know? I'm not sure how we manage to talk about it three times a week.

But really, you just have to love one topic guy. They're making an effort, they're just sort of debilitated by their awkward ways. I recognize now that James just wanted to talk to me in the hallway, so what if he couldn't think of anything thrilling to say when he walked by? And if we on the receiving end are equally persistent, I have hope that maybe one fine day we can break the chains of the one topic and talk about something crazy. Like, I don't know, the traffic on I-70. Or biology homework. Or other kinds of storms. Who knows what scintillating conversation lies ahead.

There are very few constants in this world, so in the meantime I will find comfort in the stability of this dependably awkward demographic. They are almost as consistent as that Bruno Mars song, Grenade. I don't listen to the radio very often, but I swear that song plays perpetually. I think it ends on one station and auto-starts on another. Anyway, constants are great.

That's not one, but TWO constants in a world of crazy. You're welcome. We can all rest easy tonight.