Christmas in Retail

This is the first year I've been at my job from the start of the holiday season (which began about two hours after Halloween ended) to the end. I worked on and off at a grocery store all through college, with the intention of getting a job worthy of my degree upon graduation. But graduation came and went last December, and here I am a year later, still stuck at a job for which I'm way too smart and viciously overqualified, ready on a daily basis to do battle with hateful customers as they vow one by one never to return to the store our manager seems determined to run into the ground.

And it's worse at Christmas. Dear God, it's terrible at Christmas.

See, that schmaltz about "good will toward men" is checked at the door when you work in retail. Of course, there are the rare gems: the German ladies admittedly a little disgruntled that you don't have the white chocolate she's looking for but realizes that it's that time of year when everybody wants white chocolate and it's not your fault you're out; the little old men who still say "Merry Christmas" from their motorized scooters even though it's not politically correct anymore; those saints who stand outside and ring the Salvation Army bells and say "hello" to you even though you've walked past them six times on your way in and out from the smoke hut; the ladies looking for turkey basters because their husband needs one for getting oil out of a machine at work and they're cool with the cheap-o kind because all the good ones have been snatched up by last-minute Thanksgiving shoppers and the shitty kind is the only kind we get in on a regular basis during the holiday season. They're not bad. Some are even downright pleasant.

And then there are the horror stories. We've all heard them. Some of you may have actually been them. In which case, shame on you. We're doing the best we can.

We cannot, for instance, order something for you that we normally don't stock, just because you bought it in Georgia and can't find it here. We cannot produce the kind of Keurig K-Cup you're looking for out of thin air just because someone "always manages to find them in the back" for you when you demand the brand-name kind and nothing else. We cannot scrounge through a tractor trailer full of boxes haphazardly thrown in because oh my God, it's freezing out here and I don't have enough feeling in my fingers to stack each box neatly on top of another for the single nutcracker you need. And dear Lord, if I have one more middle-aged man trying to sweet-talk me into letting him look through the eighteen four-foot-tall boxes of Hot Wheels backstock on a shelf ten feet in the air just so he can find the one collectible car he must have, I swear I'll take a shit on somebody's windshield.

You learn to pick and choose who you ask "can I help you find something". There's just that look that all difficult customers have. Normally it's a scrunched-up face as they stalk back and forth in front of the same four-foot section of shelving. Maybe venting to a total stranger about how "this store doesn't carry anything I want anymore." I know I shouldn't, but these are the people I normally direct to Walmart. After all, they probably don't have a manager who's an asshole and doesn't like to spend money on certain things (on, say, turning the damn heat on) because it comes out of his end-of-the-year bonus. I'm sure you'll find whatever you need there.

The absolute worst - and I mean, the absolute worst - department to work in during Christmastime is...well, every department. Nobody's exempt. If it's not a shortage of baking supplies that have the customers' panties in a bind, it's a lack of the Christmas lights that "I must have or my whole Christmas will be ruined and I'll personally blame you, lowly shelf-stocker who has no control over what is whipped every week and what isn't." Or it's this type of "Frozen" doll that "my child will literally die without." And don't even get me started on the assholes who scream in the back room (or, even better, march through the doors that say "employees only" and start looking themselves), "DO YOU NOT HAVE ANY MORE MILK?!??!?"

Perhaps you should not have come at 8.30 on a Saturday night - notoriously the busiest grocery-shopping day of the week - to buy that one product that nearly every household thrives on. I fail to see how this is my fault.

If I didn't value my meager paycheck, I would have told so many customers by not that no one is forcing them to shop at our store: if they're dissatisfied with the products we do or do not carry, go the hell somewhere else.

But I'm not allowed to say that. I get paid minimum wage to stand there smiling like an idiot and take abuse from inflexible assholes who think it's my personal responsibility to have their favorite product on hand at all times.

"I just stock the shelves, ma'am. Write to our manager. Though he just got transferred to another store and doesn't really give a shit either, so you might be better off to just keep griping about it while you continue to shop here."

At this time of year I am truly grateful to have a job. I look around and see so many other people who don't, and it's especially evident at Christmastime. But my time at this job has run its course, and while my job hunting has been put on hold as planning a wedding, buying a house, the recent bombshell with my parents, car troubles, working two jobs, and now the Christmas season have taken most of my attention, come the first of the year I'll start hunting again. But for now, I stock the shelves, build the displays, and handle the customers in whom the Christmas season brings out the worst.

A plea, dear friends: don't be "that customer." Retail workers are people too. We're doing the best we can in the busiest season of the year.

Merry Christmas, dear friends. 

The Tallest Man on Earth

A letter to the tallest man on earth:

You talk about living hell like we don't know what that is. You say you're stressed, you think it's hopeless, your heart is in pain.

How quaint, to suggest that you're suffering through any of this.

Living hell is when you hold your mom up while she bawls over a broken heart. Living hell is having the life ripped out from under you and the one who did it is standing there with it dangling from his hands, talking like you're the one to blame. Living hell is when the man who you thought could do no wrong, the one with all the answers, the tallest man on earth who taught you everything about money and God and cars and beer and work and travel and people and life is a liar and a fraud and a manipulative greedy spiteful son of a bitch.

Living hell is having to scrounge up an answer for your mother when she asks you at 1:30 in the morning why we weren't good enough for him.

I've asked myself the same question so many times.

You always pop up - never announced, never fanfare-ed, just 'pops up.' Like nothing has happened. Because to him nothing has happened. Everything's the same: we talk about the same things in the same clothes we wore before to the same jobs in the same places and we come home again to the same house with the same people and the same song-and-dance about love and devotion that doesn't mean jack fucking shit. Nothing's changed. Except it's like that iPhone 7 commercial: every goddamn thing has changed. In the house that was a home we have to calculate what we say like we interpret what we hear because what we don't immediate anticipate to be lies will be turned into an untruth to ease the pain of the man who started it all. Nothing simply said, nothing simply heard. Complications. What did you say? 'Semantics.'

You say we're having meatloaf, I get my spoon in preparation for chili.

You told me that a wise man said she's not my problem. My role is not to hold her together by the fraying seams, it's not my responsibility to pick up her pieces. Unluckily for you I read what that wise man really said, and it sounds a lot more like, 'it's between mom and dad and God.' He said nothing about being there for the one who's falling apart and so far that person hasn't been you. You seem incapable of change - the one who told me to constantly reevaluate myself to ensure constant growth. And so for now my relationship with you remains at the stalemate you've seen for the past month. I hope it's what you're ready for.

Then again I don't really give a fuck what you're ready for. We certainly weren't ready for the bombshell you got to launch from a comfortable million miles away.

You've been in Florida for a few days and it's been so nice knowing you won't 'pop in'. I'm actually dreading Thanksgiving this year and the thought that we might have to sit around a table together and pretend that everything's fine when we'd all rather being doing something - or in your case, someone - else. How will we handle Christmas because I don't know about the rest of them but I won't have gotten you anything. Maybe the empty cigarette packs that she's smokes over you. One for every time she's asked me why she wasn't enough for you.

Do not come home for Thanksgiving - this isn't a home anymore. You can pull that whole 'I'm here because my name is on the mortgage' card. Maybe the one about 'a man's home is his castle' again, that was a gem. No one in your kingdom wants to see you. And if you're the honorable 'king' you think you are, you'll honor your subjects' wishes.

I doubt you will, though. You'll do what you want. You always do. Why should this time be any different?

I hope you're getting the rest you were seeking in Florida. You certainly must be exhausted from your half-baked piss-poor attempts to make progress. Don't forget your sunscreen.

R.E.M.

Another end-of-the-world prediction is upon us. Supposedly a 2.5-mile-wide comet will smash into the earth in the next few weeks, thus marking "the beginning of the end." Don't worry: I've got my Spam hoard ready.

With all the recent baloney going on in the world these days - Syrian refugees, cops versus blacks, gay marriage, and the subsequent inability to have a public opinion unless it's the same as the majority - people all over my Facebook are begging God to come soon. (Since, you know, God doesn't take requests and professions of faith seriously unless they show up on His News Feed.) You would think by the time my generation came along that we'd be past all of these shenanigans of intolerance and petty argument. But with each new generation comes old wounds, passed down from parents, ready to be rehashed fresh again.

Old debates, new debaters. The same damn result.

I don't buy into the idea that "the end is near": I'm pretty sure we're closer than we've ever been, but I'm inclined to agree with the words of God Almighty that nobody can know the exact date. And while we're taking Biblical hints and turning them into predictions of worldwide destruction, let's flip to the end of the book and look at what is explicitly said. We have the "man of sin" to look forward to (and no, I do not think it's Obama. I don't like him but I'm not about to turn him into the Antichrist. Some people think it's the Pope but I don't have the authority or the energy to say one way or the other), and I'm particularly interested in the mass animal deaths (polar bears and honeybees, anyone?). The point of all this, though, is not for followers of Christ to panic and hole up in bunkers with crackers and Tang. A woman asked my mom the other day if her pastor was doing his part to prepare his congregation for the end times.

Be aware, sure; but fear isn't the right response to something like this.

If we're supposed to be different - and that is the essence of true Christianity: to be different from our natural tendencies and the world around us - then the proper reaction is not to throw our closed-minded, dogmatic opinions into the chaos, only to have it lost in the social media battle that's more focused on who has it loudest than who has it right. We should be doing what we can to ease the worries of those focused on the perils of the unknown. Talk is cheap, and at this stage in our history, talk is expendable: the more there is, the less potent it is. Try doing something instead. Quit panicking about the end of days and try using that energy instead to love people while we still have time. That "repent, the end is near" schmaltz doesn't work. It never has. So how about we try a new tactic and make the way we believe a little more appealing by focusing on the love part that was so emphasized by our God on earth and leave the spreading of fear and gloom to those who hold man's religion in higher esteem than genuine faith?

It's a novel concept, but it might fucking work.

Foosball

Dear friends, if you work best to music, you should check out Jason Isbell. A lot of his songs have the same style, but it's that calm, methodical rhythm that makes it easy to listen to music and write or do homework at the same time. The quality of his voice is country but his songs are folk-y, and you can tell that autotune hasn't been turned loose to ruin his authenticity. I've been listening to him for two days straight and I love it.

Saw a school bus trundle down my road this morning. Which is major throwing me off because it feels like Saturday and in my early-morning stupor I thought, "Why the hell is there a school bus on Saturday, there can't be that many kids for detention already." When I signed on to my computer I realized that "Getting Started" weekend at my college begins today. And it suddenly hit me that, for the first time in nearly twenty years, I won't be going back to school this fall. I haven't been scoping out what color notebook I'll pick in the back-to-school aisle at work. I haven't packed up the shit I've packed for the past four years and loaded it in the back of my mom's Yukon to pile into half a dorm room. While this summer has just felt like a normal summer, today it is coming clear: I am officially a graduate.

Though I have found that I like working much better than I do being at school. Which is comforting because I was only a student for a limited amount of years, I'll be working until I die and I might as well like it.

I've been having epiphanies left and right in the past few days. I'm starting to view this period that I'm in as merely a pause, a redirection of my focus while I'm sitting still between decisions. And trust me, much is going on during this pause - you know that saying "still waters run deep"? But I've been putting all of my focus on my employment status. And really, I'm ahead of the ball game compared to a lot of people. I have a job. Whether I like it or not doesn't matter when I look at the fact that I'm becoming financially independent and bringing a little less than half of an income to the household Joe and I are about to start. (246 days, but who's counting?) It's certainly not what I had in mind after graduation - if I had gone with that game plan I'd be hating my life in a classroom right now and would probably be even more depressed than I am right now. Then again I didn't plan on planning a wedding and buying a house after graduation either, and look where we are.

My dad encouraged me to read a devotional book called The Disciplines of Life by V. Raymond Edman. (I've attached the link to an online copy below.) It's broken up into different sections on disappointment, declining days, discontentment, discernment, disease, delight, delay - altogether about 30 different "disciplines" (that all conveniently begin with the letter "d") that grow and develop us into the followers of Christ we are called to be. Most of the time I don't have a specific issue in mind when I randomly choose what chapter to read, but last night when I picked "the discipline of detail" I realized about halfway down the first page that it was exactly what I needed to read.

The chapter presented the structure of our lives much like the structure of a sentence. (How fitting for an English major.) Some are complex, some are simple; but all have a specific subject and specific reason. Edman likened the punctuation of a sentence to the direction of our God - commas being additions, parentheses being those unexpected moments of trial and difficulty that we could all do without, and periods being the finality at life's end, hopefully as a declarative statement rather than a question. By putting ourselves as the subject of the sentence, our purpose in life becomes very shallow and unsatisfying; whereas putting our God and His calling as the subject makes our existence as part of something much bigger than ourselves.

In essence, what we see is not all there is.

What I am at right now is a semi-colon - a pause in events, a turn of the head as I shift from one God-directed path to another. Edman offers the biblical example of Paul and Silas being called to Macedonia, only to be tossed in prison once they got there. There is no mention of them messing up along the way and so being imprisoned as punishment; it's just a hiccup that they encountered on their journey to do as they were compelled by God. Edman writes, "God's semicolon...means that He wants to change rather radically the course [of your life]...that He desires to enlarge its content, and not at all that He has cut you off from or forgotten to be gracious...The Lord is changing the direction of your life, not to close it, nor to constrain its significance within narrow horizons; on the contrary, He wants to make it broader, deeper, richer; and therefore He puts a semicolon after a given line of thought that you would have desired to have continued" (131-2).

This is no crisis at all. I'm not missing the point, and I'm not going astray. It's just a change of direction. This pause is teaching me to be patient, which I struggle with almost on a daily basis. And so I will wait. I say it with such conviction but I really don't have a choice. In the past I've waited as a matter of pausing until I heard my God's approval, but now it's simply out of...well, lack of choices. Which I guess is sort of the same thing: I'm holding off until my God fires up the spotlight and says, "Here, do this thing." Supposedly the journey is more important than the destination, and it's a good thing because right now all we are is journey, I see no tangible destination. So at this point I'll turn off the car, grab a cold Coke, and kick back until the GPS gets its shit together and gets me back on the road.

You know a little earlier when I said I was depressed? I'm actually not. I tell you right now, I have never been happier than I am right here in this moment. I am physically able to go to a job every day and provide for my future, even if it's not as much as I'd like it to be or doing what I want to do. I have made it a point to use my passion for writing as much as I can, refreshing my soul every single day. I am making the most of the time I have left living in my parents' house, where I have deep breakfast talks with my brother and share coffee with my dad in the living room and cook dinner with my mom and talk to my sister across the hallway while we're getting ready in our rooms. I get to see the love of my life every day and I am counting down to the day when I become his wife and start a life with my best friend. And while I've had my fair share of griping over my current situation, I know that this pause is merely preparation for something else. This is the training ground where my patience and my trust in a bigger plan are growing leaps and bounds day by day. And that, dear friends, gives this whole phase a much bigger spin.

If you're interested in reading Edman's book (which I would highly recommend), you can find it here: http://www.ccel.us/disciplines.toc.html

Game

This morning I stood on my back porch, preparing to write the biggest check I've ever seen, let alone penned myself. Joe and I are buying a house. Which requires lots of money. We've been smart with our finances so far and we have more than enough for the down payment, but still the worrier in me (which is basically all of me) sinks under the covers and wonders, "What if something comes up? What about hidden costs? What about my students loans? What if my car takes a shit again?"

All these "what if's" that threaten to make me back out of this house that we want so badly. It's exactly what we're looking for. It's perfect for us. And yet the fear inside of me grips that four-figure check and says, "Hang on to it for as long as you can."

While I was standing there in the morning summer sunshine, a cardinal landed on the tree just off our porch. Everybody knows that God takes care of birds, so how much more will He provide for you, but I've mentioned in a few previous posts that cardinals are a different signal for me: from sophomore year of college when I was angry at everything to the week before I started student teaching, the red birds have whispered to me, "You'll be OK." This morning, though, something in my heart started singing:

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father...

The minute we walked into the house, we knew that this was the one. Homeowners say they understand that feeling, and now we do as well. It goes even further back to last summer when I knew that Joey Gaut was the one, and that I wanted to be with him, and it didn't matter where. And for maybe the second or third time in the chaos that has been the last six months, I felt peace - delicious, unmistakable, wash-over-you-like-a-wave peace that this big adventure is falling into place in exactly the right way. We aren't acting on our own here. We are being guided and molded even as I write, and we are balancing being smart with being reliant on our God's promises.

If all goes well, we should move Joey into the house by mid-August. We both appreciate your prayers through this crazy process.

Happy Monday, dear friends.

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father.
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not:
As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning, new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided -
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.

Earth

You know it’ll be a good day when you roll out of bed with a rant in your heart.

As you know, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that gay marriage is constitutional in all fifty states. Which immediately sparked a good amount of contradiction on my Facebook newsfeed from people on both sides. I’ve seen unmistakable joy: “we’re finally able to practice our freedom to love and marry who we choose.” And I’ve seen disgust. I’ve seen flat-out anger.

And of course I’ve seen the threats to move to Canada.

But the best one – oh my Lord, this is better than I could have imagined – was when a lady put up an article on Facebook about how homosexuality is considered different from other sins (in that it is more accepted by society than others) and someone commented, “Here’s the thing, though: it doesn’t affect you. So why does it matter?”

Um, what?

Number one: perhaps if you had read the article, sir, you may have seen that it was an article written to Christ-followers on how to approach homosexuality in a world that accepts this sin that is still considered in the realm of God to be just that: sin. Just as lying and adultery and theft and hate are sins. And there’s nothing in the Bible to say to detest one sin more than the other; but as followers of Christ, we are expected to lean away from those things that have been, are now, and forever will be detested by our God. But that article wasn’t written by someone trying to sway the homosexual community away from sin: it was written by a Christ-follower to Christ-followers as a guideline for how to approach homosexuality when we and our ideals are slowly becoming the vast minority in our nation. Just as homosexuals were shunned for so long, Christ-like morals and beliefs are slowly being elbowed out of sight, and comments like this gentleman’s are forcing us into silence about the foundational beliefs that we cling to.

You know what, the ruling doesn’t directly affect me. I am a straight woman with heterosexual inclinations, and I don’t know what it’s like to be told that I can’t marry in the way that I feel drawn. And honestly, I don’t care. Marry who you like, be with who makes you happy – I don’t give a rat’s ass. But it kills me when the motivation behind all this is equality, and while you can start planning your two-tux wedding, I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut when I think that it’s flat-out wrong (in the unbiblical sense) for fear of being called “small-minded” or “prejudiced.”

Oh, so you’re allowed to take part in that equality by the way you live and throw that in my face, but when I try to present my perspective or (God-forbid) reveal that my opinion is different than yours, I’m the one expected to change my mentality or keep my mouth shut.

What the hell is equal about that?

And this doesn’t just stop at homosexuality, it’s everywhere. The minute you open your mouth supporting a belief that has been traditionally upheld in this great nation, you’re suddenly twisted into the closed-minded, needs-to-be-shown-the-light bigot who has no tolerance for anybody else and their beliefs.

Is that not the same thing you’re doing to me?

This post is not a cry against homosexuality. I’m against it, I think it’s wrong, but that’s not the point of this post. Because my job is not to sway people on what they believe, just as I don’t want to be criticized on what I believe. But I am sick and tired of watching others arguing about “well, you shouldn’t think like that” and “well, maybe you should take a different perspective” and – like my new favorite comment – “it doesn’t affect you, so why does it matter?” Why state an opinion on something that doesn’t influence you directly?

The hell it doesn’t affect me. This decision does affect me, thank you very much. It affects me because now I have to figure out how to say what I think without “being offensive.” In the country that says “In God We Trust” and historically puts so much faith in God when the shit hits the fan, now His followers are having to curb their opinions and hold their tongues when the foundational things that they believe are wrong are not only being upheld by that country’s highest court, but also being thrown in their faces as “right.” And I tell you what, it matters because of comments like yours, sir. I could totally stay in the dark and keep my mouth shut on matters that won’t directly influence me.

But is that not how your landmark decision was passed yesterday? Did it not start with people tired of staying quiet in their closets for decades?

Or are only the supposedly-innovative thinkers allowed to have their say anymore?

While you’re looking at old documents trying to figure out what’s constitutional, why don’t you run on over to the Bill of Rights – the tip-damn-top of that little text – and check out that “freedom of speech” amendment.

It’s constitutional for me to say what I think, and you don’t have to like it. Just like it’s constitutional for you to marry who you like, and I don’t have to pretend that I support it.

Son

The other day a coworker asked me if I am "burned out."

I'll be twenty-three in less than two weeks. My college degree is barely six months old. Everybody tells me that I "have my whole life ahead of me." I am about to marry the love of my life in a little over nine months. I had to explain to a loan officer recently that my grown-up life has only just begun in January, that's why I don't have any credit built it.

And yet people are already asking me if I'm "burned out."

I am too young to be this tired, this achy, this weary of body and soul. And yet I fall asleep on the couch at nine o'clock at night and dread getting up to go to work the next morning.

Am I ungrateful? No - I am blessed to have a job where I'm inside out of the rain and the summer heat, and I don't have to pick heads of lettuce or strawberries for my step-above-minimum-wage paycheck. But you know how you get tired of eating Raisin Bran if you eat Raisin Bran for four years straight? It doesn't mean you're not grateful for the breakfast all those boxes of Raisin Bran afforded you, but you're just ready for a change.

Yeah. It's kinda like that.

My problem these days is that I'm starting to care too much about what goes on between time clock punches. For a while I was able to see this as "just a job" - something I could leave at work and not take home ulcers at the end of the day. But I'm starting to care a little too much these days. I spend my shifts cleaning up after people who don't care to do things the right way and who don't mind that I'm following behind them to correct what they just did, and when I leave at the end of the day, all I see is what I could have done. Or, even more depressing, what still needs to be done. And while we focus on the little details and create new departments that are a sure-fire way to gather more business and more money, the basics are going by the wayside and the old departments are falling apart.

Some of our leads are working six and seven days a week because we won't hire new help, but let's go ahead and create another department where the employees sit around for 80% of their shifts.

The name of this game is not to take it too seriously. And that's what I've been told since I first started. I've had fluxes of frustration with this place before, and I've gotten over them because there's always been a light at the end of that tunnel. But not this time. Not as I near the end of the tunnel and the light is bigger and blinding and I still have no idea what to do instead. And the urge to care more and try my best to fix things and do my job 140% because that's how I was trained and I can't help that, is overwhelming my underlying thoughts of "almost done, almost done." My countdown is less than 300 days, and yet I still leave home four out of my five shifts frustrated because I feel like I didn't do anything to help further our department for the past eight hours - I was merely fixing what someone else spent their shift destroying.

I can't stay. My mom asked me why I wouldn't continue to move higher in the company, and I said I couldn't justify doing that. I wouldn't be someone who operated out of pettiness and spite to get ahead, but I've seen how "honest" workers survive. 

Or, should I say, don't.

The original game plan was for me to wait until after the wedding to find another job, but dear friends, I don't think I'll make it. I'm on the verge of opening my mouth when I should be biding my time, and I cannot justify going back to the blind following of orders now that I've seen what's wrong. I need something else - anything else. At this point I don't care what it is.

I'm too young to be this tired. And I'm too young to be stuck.

If anyone has leads on anyone who's hiring, please let me know. I would really appreciate it.

Mug

The idea of writing a book about me and my life and what I’ve learned and what I’ve done seems a little…arrogant? Narcissistic? Self-righteous? All of the above, really, because I’ve done nothing worth writing a whole book about. Only people who live differently are allowed to write about themselves. You go into any bookstore and look at the memoir section and I guarantee you won’t see Betty Housewife’s How I Life: A Day in the Life of a Normal Person. Not only is this offensive in this day and age (welcome to the post-feminist era), but it’s also flat-out, nuts-and-bolts, get-right-down-to-it boring. No one – and I mean NO ONE – gives a rat’s ass about how you carried out your routine, day in and day out, for weeks and months and years on end until you meet that end that we all – normal or otherwise – must meet.

“Nobody gives a damn about the uniforms, they just want to hear about touchdowns and injuries.”

Let me be up-front with you: I am fairly normal. One might dare to say “average.” I was an average student in high school – thirty-fifth out of ninety-two – which got me into an average university, which got me a decent education for a shit-ton of money. I have traveled extensively but not exotically (I’ve never been anywhere near an elephant), and the stories I brought back with me never got more adventurous than “we were locked in a train station for ten minutes.”

I have spent the night on the floor of a French train station, but that was only because our leader of that particular “mission trip” (used very loosely and almost laughably) didn’t see the gap between our 1 a.m. arrival and our 6 a.m. departure.

By all accounts I have no reason to write a memoir that people will want to read. And that, I think, is where the wind is let loose from my sails. I don’t think so much in regard to what I want to write so much as what people will want to read. You can’t sell a book without readers, and you’re an idiot to think about only yourself as the writer when you write a book.

Unless, of course, you don’t mind being the only one to read it, in which case you should probably just write a diary instead.

Do people really care? Are people interested enough in what I’m presenting to drop $12.99 at a Barnes and Noble and sit down for an afternoon to read what I have to say? What I am writing is terribly important to me: my journals over the last few years are the chronicles of a girl who has no idea what the hell she wants while revealing exactly what she wants to do. In my words I see the transformation of a child of wild imagination and wishful thinking into a woman with thoughts and ideals and dreams that are well within her grasp. I am proud of the person I am, I am beyond excited at the path my life is carving out, and I am thankful to the many experiences I’ve already had at almost-twenty-three years old that have shaped the person who stands before you.

But does it matter to anyone else?

While I’m not sure of that, I am positive that nobody will care one way or the other until I sit down and crank out a few hundred pages. After all, you can’t test a hypothetical question until you take out the “hypothetical” and make it a reality.

And so, dear friends, I begin.

I am going to write a book.

I’ve been journaling/blogging for the past few months about the “quarter-life crisis,” described as the feeling of doubt about what being an “adult” entails. For me, I thought that by this point I would have a teaching job and probably an apartment and most likely not a boyfriend. Instead, I’m planning a wedding while working at a grocery store with no desire whatsoever to teach. And the realization of that, combined with the epiphany that “if you don’t teach, you have to do something – anything – else,” has been bumpy.

Correction: rocky.

Correction: frustrating beyond belief.

After doing some research, I’m finding that I’m not alone in this ballgame: if I were the only one, there wouldn’t be a name for it. And while at the moment that story doesn’t have a resolution, I want to share the journey that I’ve been on so far. I love to hear the stories of others who have gone through such an experience and come out on the other side wiser but unbroken. And the goal here is not to write a bestseller and chill in those comfy chairs on “Ellen.” The goal is to be read by one college grad, one twenty-something who feels that their plans and dreams are garbage. It is to enlighten, to entertain, and to encourage.

I have something to say that I would have liked to hear. And so, regardless of who hears, I will say it.

Gardener

I have mastered the art of being by myself. Sometimes I'm a little too good at it: I remember one night in college I chose to stay in my room and read a book instead of going to a basketball game with some friends. I often opt to remain in my solitude (nine times out of ten, in my pajamas and out of my bra) rather than to go out because I identify as an introvert.

Aahg-waitaminute--don't..-stop:shh.

I know what you're going to say. And if I were with you, I'd gently lay my finger on your nose and say, "Pause for just a second."

This does not mean "anti-social." I hear so many people (one in particular springs to mind but that's not my business to tell) who use the label "introvert" as an excuse to sit in their dorm room by themselves and watch "Sherlock" for weeks on end.

Repeat after me: that is NOT what an introvert is.

I love to be with my friends. The nature of my job means going out of my way to ask people how they're doing and if they need my help. I am paid to be "on" whether it's 7am or 10pm. I love to make people smile and hear them laugh. One of my favorite things to do is ask people questions and hear them tell their stories. But just as laying in bed reading a book doesn't make me antisocial, being sociable and out-going (as needed) doesn't make me an extrovert.

Whether your vert leans more toward intro and extro depends solely on where your energy comes from. In my case, I am emotionally and physically drained the longer I'm with people. When I come home from work and sit in my room for an hour by myself, it doesn't necessarily mean that I've had a bad day. (Although everybody in my house knows that if I come home and go straight to the piano, it's been a bad day and I need at least an hour before I'll talk about it.) The need to be alone first thing in the morning or when I get home from extended time away is my way of "recharging." My mom said that it's a bit of an oxymoron to think I gain energy from unwinding, but it's true: I am emotionally rejuvenated after spending extended time doing the things that nourish my soul - specifically reading a book or journaling. Today I walked in the door after an eight-hour shift, changed into my comfy clothes, and went straight out to my porch with a book. I smiled at my mom and said "hello" to let her know that today wasn't a bad day - I simply had a lot of human interaction and needed some time to not be "on."

And also because I still can't get over the beautiful weather we're having and I just want to be outside as much as possible after being inside for an eight-hour shift.

The opposite is true of extroverts (though I'm not one and don't claim to be an expert on the subject): their energy comes from being around other people. While I the introvert prefer to just go home after a day at work, extroverts are totally fine with hitting the ground running after a full day of whatever and going out to a club or bar to be social. The label doesn't come from a tendency to be happy and energetic around people, though that's how it's often interpreted. It is, dear friends, all about the energy source.

And that's all I'll say on the extrovert front since, as I said, I'm not expert.

While we're on the thread of debunking assumptions, let me say right here, right now that I'm not naturally a miserable person. I tend to be a little melancholy and "brooding" if left alone by myself for too long, which makes me assess how long I've been alone and plan social interaction accordingly. But you'll rarely find me going out with friends after I work all day: I'm not one of those who clocks out of work and goes out on the town. And if I have something going on after work - whether it's with friends or my family or a colleague - I use the drive to and from as a minute to myself to "recharge," even if it's just for a minute. So while it seems like I'm just writing on my porch listening to country music, I'm actually using this time to get my battery back up after a day of answering questions and helping lost customers and being positive even when I really, really feel like griping. I love doing it, but it's a little exhausting after a while.

And so ends another narcissistic blog where I just talk about myself and you all think that I'm faking being happy - I promise that I'm usually happy these days, and I reassure you that I hate talking about myself and would much rather listen to you talk about yourselves. I hope you're enjoying your Wednesday, dear friend. And if you're not...I mean, the weekend's almost here, that's happy. :-)

Jut

I've grown up in the same neighborhood for almost eighteen years. We moved here the summer before Austin turned two and, until my dad retires and trades the house for an RV and travels the country with my mom and his dogs, I think this is where I'll be able to return for barbecues and Christmas. It's right between the two busy main streets of our town - the cute downtown shopping district and the car dealership drag - but it doesn't feel like we live "in the city." We're right in front of city-owned woods with a farmer and his field beyond that, so at least on our side of the street there's no chance of us ever having backyard neighbors.

Neighbors come and go, as people often do, but for the most part the subdivision has stayed the same. It's one of those places that's great for young families - lots of space on a quiet street - and even in this age of video games and "indoor entertainment," kids still play outside here and run wild in their front yards until the sun goes down. There were several summers that my siblings and I would stay out until dark, going back and forth on our bikes between the Barnetts' and the Wuennemanns' and the Noctins'. We were still at the age of "pretending" then. The woods were a fort. The sprinkler was a time machine. The street hockey sticks were rifles as we shot each other from the backs of sawhorses.

It's so strange to think that soon I won't live here anymore. Every night I crawl into my little twin bed in my little green room and think, "You'll be a guest room again in less than a year." Of course I'll be over for the pool and to cook burgers with my family but it won't be "home" anymore. When I leave work at night to go "home" it won't be to the house where our first dog is buried under the front tree, where my dad and I rebuilt the mailbox after our drunk neighbor dragged it halfway down the street under her car. It will always be my home in that I'll always be welcome. But as with so many things, it will be a "was," not an "is."

"This was where I lived."

German

The really cool thing about human beings is that there is such a variety within one group. The big discussion now, as it has been for so many years, is the separation between races, classes, regions, religions; and I don't mean to praise those - the empty classifications that are specifically geared to divide. I mean to take the human race as a whole and look beyond just the physical and see what a distinct group we really are. Look at stories, experiences, tastes, whether we put apples or cinnamon on our oatmeal, whether we eat oatmeal at all, what image leaps to mind at the mention of a word or a name. Naturally this includes opinions but consider preferences as well - those unspoken familiarities that we don't feel the need to explain. There is such a wide range of everything within the human race that no two people can truly be alike: somewhere along the way you'll have a disconnect.

Since you are trapped within your own preferences and your neighbor is cocooned in his, it's no wonder we don't often see eye-to-eye without explanation. And even then you run the risk of finding no solution, but rather must be satisfied with a draw. I went in to a discussion the other day with the understanding that we may not reach a right or wrong - we might leave this meeting "agreeing to disagree."

I didn't think that was an option. I thought someone always caved.

This is difficult for those of us who like for the advice we bestow to be heeded. But it makes sense. The advice we give comes from experiences we had, but what would have been perfect for what we were going through at the time may not be what someone else needs (or wants) to hear. But still we give it and risk a relationship for the sake of our self-dubbed "wisdom" to be heard.

Which is better: to say what you think and feel the echo of "I told you so" in an hour of collapse, or keep silent and bear the brunt of "why didn't you tell me"?

What if your silence is driven by past hurt and a calloused heart rather than the feeling of the other person? Does that make you terribly selfish?

Drank

Whenever people ask me how I'm doing these day, my initial response is "busy - very, very busy." Not only am I working 40 hours a week at the K-roger, but I've picked up several cleaning/yardwork/office job, I'm looking for a house, and I'm getting ready to move my fiance to Ohio. Oh, and I'm planning a wedding.

Very, very busy.

It's a different kind of busy than ending a semester of school. At school you run around stressed and caffeinated as you panic about how you'll get papers and projects done on time. On top of that you're saying goodbye to friends - some of whom you'll never see again - and professors - some of whom you never want to see again - and the place that's been your everything for the last year. It all means "end." And "end" is sometimes a terrifying prospect.

This "busy" is much more regular - one thing plodding toward one date instead of six projects due on a single day. In eighteen days Joe will be here. Hopefully soon after that we'll find a house. In eleven months and eight days, we'll be married. And until then it's all about chipping away at the giant in careful, methodical chips. When I start to get frustrated my mom asks, "What's the best way to eat an elephant?"

The answer she expects is "one bite at a time."

I was explaining yesterday to a woman at work about why I look like I'm about to fall over after a week of working 40+ hours and gearing up to start another week - which looks very much the same - next week. And while most people shake their heads and say, "How are you not drinking right now?", she smiled and said, "Very busy. But all very happy things."

Yes. All very happy things.

For the first time in my life I am not dreading something. I have many milestones coming up, but for the first time since I was about five years old I am not looking at any of them with fear and loathing. I am beyond excited. In a little over a month my best friend will be here, and I won't have to say goodbye to him and wonder when I'll see him next - we won't have to wait for months on end between visits. Soon after that we'll have a house that will be ours (his first, then mine after we get married). In a little over a year I get to say "I do" to the man of my dreams and the love of my life. And sometimes I do get frustrated. Most of the time I am tired. And my "to-do" list grows faster than I can check things off. But I am happy. I am so unbelievably content. And I am so excited. :)

Wind

I meet my God on the back porch on Sunday mornings when I don't have to work. Once a week I am able to leave my "can I help you" attitude in a drawer and come out to a quiet place to restore my pacing soul. I put down my phone, turn off my noise, and listen to the creatures who rely on God and God alone and remind me to do likewise.

Listen to the birdies, you worrier.

Yesterday I was watching a robin in the front flowerbed as she hunted for food. I doubt she recognizes God the Father as her provider but at no point did she wail to the heavens, "Wherever will my sustenance come from?!" Maybe we give birds too much credit and attribute more faith to them than they really have: I don't necessarily believe that every sound a bird makes is meant in literal praise of their Creator. But you must agree that "panic" does not seem to factor either. Certainly if their nest was on fire or a cat was eating their babies, but that's an appropriate use of such an emotion. Fret and worry don't register in such a routine act as searching for food.

"I find food every day. It may take some work, but every day the earth provides for me."

The buzzword of the past year or so for me has been "worry." But when I step back and look at the situation objectively, I don't really see the necessity for worry when almost every situation I fretted about has been completed with an answer. The provision of my God can be traced not only throughout my story, but in the story of my parents, my friends, their parents - through every story that's even been told, whether it's acknowledged like by us or second-nature like to birds. The trick is to get to the point where a reliance on His answers is second-nature, even if the circumstances are less than routine. But that automatic turning to God's provision should be accompanied by an equally-immediate thanking of His intervention. As my dad always says, this is living with an "attitude of gratitude." This dispels those all-too-familiar feelings of worry as well as entitlement, seeing God's hand as a blessing rather than a thing deserved.

Quite a lesson to learn from something as small as a bird.

See

Harry Potter bugs me.

No, not Harry Potter - note the italics. The books overall are, in my opinion, brilliant. How the author developed the most intricate plot structure I've ever read over a series of seven books that started as a note on a napkin blows my mind and makes me feel inadequate as an author. My membership to the Potter fandom is eternal. But Harry Potter - the man, the character, the scarhead - bugs the shit out of me.

Last summer I had a very intense conversation with one of my bosses about how Harry Potter is actually one of the least active characters in the whole twisted, delicious story. Let's think about how he gained his "chosen" status, shall we? He was zapped. By a wand. Of a powerful wizard. And somehow the zap of that wand of that powerful wizard bounced off his mostly-ordinary-but-somehow-secretly-magical head and destroyed, at the time, the second-greatest wizard who ever lived. And he became "the chosen one" - "The Boy Who Lived." It's as if it were a great battle between a child and the most evil wizard known to the wizarding world, and he somehow defeated him with Chuck-Norris-though-baby-shaped powers.

No.

No, dear friends.

He was an infant. And sat in his crib. And the power that destroyed Lord Voldemort happened to him.

Through the rest of the story he proceeds to acquire more and more followers as Lord Voldemort grows more and more powerful and Harry grows more and more angry. As each of the movies becomes visibly darker (if they had made any more movies they would need Luna to run around shining everybody with a flashlight), Harry becomes more bitter about the position into which he was thrust, frustrated that people are sacrificing everything to support his cause. If you total the people who were massacred because they were Team Harry - and not just the ones who made you cry (>cough<  Fred Weasley) but also the ones who perished behind the scenes even before Harry talked to the snake at the zoo - the number is staggering. And Harry's super grateful and thanks everyone for their undying dedication even in the face of peril, right?

Wrong. Let's turn our attention to how many scenes detail Harry yelling at his closest friends because they're asking him for the answers that he always seems to have.

Oh, and let's also examine those fun interchanges where Harry's yelling at someone (again) because he didn't ask to be the Chosen One. Well....that's very nice, Harry, but the person you're yelling at didn't pick you. There's very little reason to direct your rage at, oh I don't know, Ron Weasley - the most loyal friend in the history of fiction since Lassie, the man who shared his only sandwich on the Hogwarts Express with you.

His sandwich, you ungrateful shit.

Like I said, I love the Harry Potter stories. But I would like to submit that Harry Potter is not a hero like his brethren in fiction portray him to be. The characters who worship him and turn to him for all the answers, rather, are the heroes. Sirius Black, who lays down his life for the cause that he's believed in for as long as his godson has lived, even though he only knew him for two years. Remus Lupin, my personal favorite character, and his young wife Nymphadora Tonks and her pink hair, who were taken from their own young son to protect their friends' child. His parents, whose love (mostly Lily's) saved him and actually made him "chosen." It's the idea of believing in a something rather than a someone, and sticking with that person even when they're a turd.

And that, my friends, is the mark of a hero.

Oh, and I submit that the story should have a tagline: And Also Neville Longbottom, The Underdog Who Actually Kicked Voldemort's Ass.

Wait

The moment has come when I collapse in my bedroom floor and utter the helpless words, “My God, I don’t know what to do.”

This is really frustrating for someone who likes to know the answers. The last few months have been an exercise in patience and I feel like I’ve been failing it miserably. We don’t have a choice but to deal with what’s in front of us, and I’ve been cool with that. I decided not to fall into the career of my degree, and I dealt with it. I have a full-time job, and right now the fact that I’m working full-time anywhere is a bonus. I looked for an avenue for my writing to be read, and lo and behold, I was published in a book out of the blue. Joe and I have been working with a long-distance relationship for the past almost-two years and in just a few months that distance is about to become a whole lot shorter.

And now, when it looked like we had an answer to our housing prayer, it looks like it might have fallen through. The owner of the house we were planning on renting just called me and said that someone made an offer on it. It might fall through, he says, but I know what “might” means. So we’re back in the game of house-hunting, when I have no credit and we can’t get pre-approved for a loan until Joe gets his first paycheck, which won’t come until June. And now, in a place that we’ve been so sure…now nothing is certain.

I was looking in the back of my Bible for the “trust” category so I could read yet another verse about how important it is to trust in Jesus, just to trust Him at His word. Instead I followed the lead that said “WAIT” to Jeremiah 42.5-7:

“Then they said to Jeremiah, ‘May the Lord your God be a faithful witness against us if we refuse to obey whatever He tells us to do! Whether we like it or not, we will obey the Lord our God to whom we are sending you with our plea. For if we obey Him, everything will turn out well for us.’ Ten days later the Lord gave His reply to Jeremiah.”

Ten days. Ten days. I haven’t waited ten days on a decision in months. I’ve been so focused on finding an answer that I haven’t bothered to ask God for His answer in His timing. And now that the only door that seemed open to us appears to have shut in our faces, and we’re standing in the dark with no apparent answer, I have literally no plan except to sit in my bedroom floor and pray with every ounce of silent being in me for His answer.

But not only for His answer. For an extra measure of patience and strength to wait on His answer that will come in His perfect timing.

My God operates on a different plane than I do, observes from a different vantage point. And credit and paychecks are no obstacle to Him. I put my trust in my God. I trust that He has a perfect answer waiting for us. I trust that this is a learning opportunity that will grow both of our faiths as we turn to Him for a response rather than trying to come up with one on our own.

We are called to wait on the Lord. This does not mean to wait for the Lord. While I’m sitting in my bedroom floor begging for answers, this doesn’t mean I will stay here and wait for a phone call from someone offering us a house. But my trust shifts from my own work and my own power to find an option and rather trusts that my God has not only an option, but a perfect option.

I am spent. I am emotionally and physically beat. And so I turn to my God for patience I don’t have and strength I can’t muster. I trust that He has an answer that I cannot provide for myself.

And I will wait.

WebMD

I'm a woman. Which means that once a month my body goes through the super-fun obligation of preparing for a baby. But every month I have to sit down with it and explain (again) that a baby doesn't exactly fit in with my plans right now, so thanks for the decorating but it's a little premature. So my body gets grumpy about taking down the asexually-yellow-until-a-gender-has-been-determined wallpaper and crib that can be turned into a double bed when the baby turns four.

We're adults. We know what that entails.

However, my body gets really grumpy about it and decides not only to tear down the aforementioned wallpaper with her fingernails and dismantle the bed with a hydrogen bomb, but also to light the remains of the "baby things" on fire. With a flamethrower. And explosives. And while most women have the cramps that guys think are nothing but are actually enough to keep us on the couch for days on end (I'll remember that next time you have kidney stones), I have this sensation of someone ripping my body in half that's enough to have me doubled over the back of a chair at work and frying under a heating pad at home.

Fun fun.

I mentioned it to a lady at work today and she breathed that horrible word that women worldwide cringe at: endometriosis. (For those of you who don't know, this is when the tissue that normally grows inside a woman's uterus starts growing outside of it. It's very painful and has been linked to infertility and ovarian cancer.) So immediately I started to panic and research specialists on the internet on my lunch break.

I figured I should look online first before I made any appointments. So I ventured onto that most reliable (ha) of medical websites: WebMD.

If I wanted to be comforted, I should not have started here.

On that handiest of websites, there's a section where you can "check your symptoms." You enter the discomfort you're feeling - anywhere from a runny nose to a snapped bone - and they'll diagnose you as either allergic to ragweed or dying of the plague.

To say that WebMD exaggerates is a gross understatement.

So I entered my age and gender, and when the little woman avatar popped up I clicked "pelvis." A whole list of "general symptoms" appears, and you add which particular ones you're feeling. I scrolled down to "body aches or pains." And oh happy day, another little bar popped up: "refine your symptoms."

Yes, I would call my pain severe.

No, they haven't been brought on or made worse by swimming in infested waters. I for one take great precautions when I swim in filth.

No, I haven't been near anyone with a "possible infectious illness." And I've had my malaria shot.

No, I haven't been outside the continental U.S. I went to Alaska last summer but who the hell swims in water - infested or not - in Alaska?

Done with the symptom refinement.

After I scrolled through the other list of general symptoms and decided that no, I couldn't say that binge eating, craving for dirt, excessive sweating (which I almost clicked when I thought it said "swearing"), impaired social skills, short stature, or fear were among the noted issues, I begged the Great All-Knowing Site to diagnose me!

I was comforted to see that endometriosis was not on the list of twenty-one possible conditions. The top choice was a viral syndrome, but "body aches or pains" was only one of the five characteristics. However, I am doing my research on the possibility of lupus, Lyme disease, Gaucher disease (but only the late-onset kind), cat-scratch disease (I did play with that cat a few weeks ago), dengue fever (though I don't remember the last time I saw an Aedes mosquito and apparently that's the only kind you can get it from), Coxsackie virus infection (though I'm not a child under the age of ten), and West Nile Virus.

I joke about it, but in all honesty I am going to have it checked out at some point. Which, if you know me, you'll understand how big of a deal this is. I hate going to the doctor. I mean, HATE IT. I had a chunk fall out of one of my fillings a while back and I waited for a month before I went to have it fixed because I despise the idea of going to the doctor. But while I doubt it's West Nile or Gaucher disease (late-onset or otherwise), I do want a definite "this is what it is." Because that's what doctors are there for, right?

So goodnight, dear friends. According to tonight's venture, I may be dead by morning. Keep your fingers crossed.

Stealth

Planning a wedding is a lot of work.

And I mean, a lot of work.

When you first get engaged, you're overcome by this flood of emotions. My particular inner monologue sounded something like, "Oh my word...I've found him. The man that I've wondered about, prayed for, dreamed of for years is on one knee in front of me with a gorgeous ring and the biggest smile on his face. And he is better than any man I could have ever imagined. He is my best friend, my sweetheart, my partner-in-crime, the constant challenge for me to be better, the man who put his love for God ahead of his love for me. And I can NOT wait to be his wife."

So you spend the next three days smiling like an idiot every time you look at your left hand. You're ecstatic.

And then. You have to get busy.

We've still got over a year before we say "I do" and already we've got the church, the pastor, the reception venue, the dress, the bridesmaids' dresses, an idea for the groomsmen's clothes, rough sketches of decorations, a practice bouquet, and maybe possibly a place to live. I hear all the time about how ahead of the ballgame we are, and while I tend to stress about these things, I know that, when next spring comes and we're mere weeks away from that big day, I'll be happy that we rushed around the year before.

But I still only handle about an hour of "wedding talk" at a time.

I'm finding that I was not the typical little girl. I did not put on pretend wedding ceremonies with my teddy bears or practice putting my last name with the boy who sat across from me in sixth grade. While I was climbing the pear trees along our street and pretending to be a cowgirl on the sawhorses that sat outside our house for the longest time, I forgot to imagine the big sparkly dress that would make me feel like a princess for one day. I see all the time on "Say Yes to the Dress" the brides who have had every second of their wedding day planned out since they were four. And I simply wasn't one of those.

So now when it comes time to pick what color the guys' socks will be or whether there should be a runner down the aisle, I can genuinely say that those details don't interest me. Sometimes I have the tendency to say "OK" to things because I'm tired of hearing about them, but in most of these instances, it sincerely doesn't matter. I keep reminding my mom, "I'm not being a pleaser - I really just don't care."

I've turned my mom loose on much of the planning, and she and my sister have been so helpful with the whole endeavor. We've come up with an awesome system: they come up with ideas and say, "What about this?" and I say "yes" or "hell no." Planning isn't necessarily my thing, but the three of us make an excellent team, and we've made the whole process smooth and painless. And while I'm definitely looking forward to what is supposed to be "the happiest day of my life," I'm really looking forward to the part that comes next, when I stand next to the man of my dreams and start a life beside him as his wife.

That's the key. That's what remains important. At the end of the day, I tell myself, it will not matter. It won't matter who performs the ceremony or what we wore or who was there or what they ate. It won't matter if my bouquet was wrapped in green ribbon on top of black or black ribbon on top of green. At the end of that day, at the end of all this planning, we will be married. We will be starting a journey together that will be exciting, bumpy, exhilarating, and downright frustrating at times.

And we are excited.

This part is the formality. The good part starts next.

Passenger

And so the snows of winter are finally melting, and spring - though still shrouded in fog and chill - is on her way. We were in Florida a few weekends ago, and I said that if I had to live there, I would miss the seasons: the quiet bowing-out of the winter that seemed like it would last forever as the blooms of the spring slowly make their debut, the cooling of harsh summer as autumn erupts in gold and red. Our constant example of change, the sureness of those transitions. The reminder that change is a good thing.

It was about this time last year that I was anticipating a visit from an unexpected friend - a tall boy with red hair that I had met the summer before but had only chatted with, texted, written, and Skyped in the eight months that followed. Without laying eyes on actual him in eight months, I had started to feel a pull in my heart toward him, a feeling that I had never felt for anyone before. He was different: he was funny, intelligent, talented, creative, and kind. And in the months of exchanging off-the-wall questions, music, and clips of comedians' routines, we became closer and closer - he was slowly becoming my best friend - while only being in the same room for no more than a few hours last summer.

He came out to visit me at school the following April, nearly a year after we met at a wedding where he was a groomsmen and I was the pianist. We hadn't talked much then: we were both there with friends we hadn't seen in forever and were more interested in catching up with old friends than making new ones. But I remember noticing his laugh, his quirky sense of humor, when he and I were the only ones who saw a little girl face-plant in her pretty dress across the room during the father-daughter dance. And I knew even then that he was different.

When he visited it wasn't awkward, like I expected it to be. Our first outing - you could call it a "date" - was to the Wright Patterson Air Force Museum, where we spent five hours looking at the old airplanes. He's a mechanic for an airline company, so he knew what he was looking at while I thought, "Wow, that one's big," and "Wow, that one's a pretty color." And while there was never any talk on that first visit of what our relationship was or where we would go from there, I knew that he was one of my closest friends, and I couldn't wait to see him again.

He's told me since that he knew, even on that first visit, he was hooked.

In May we decided to drop the facade and admit, "Hey, I like you, you like me," but it wasn't until July that we officially became a couple. He took me to a waterfall near his parents' house and turned around the symbol on my claddagh ring. For those of you who aren't up to date on your Celtic symbology, the claddagh is a heart held by two hands with a crown on top, representing love, brotherhood, and loyalty. If the ring is worn on your right hand with the point of the heart facing away from your body, it means you're single; he took it off my finger and replaced it with the heart facing toward me, meaning I was taken, that I was his.

Our situation has been certainly unorthodox: for our entire relationship we've commuted, either to his parents' house in Pennsylvania or to mine in Ohio. But that has made us purposeful in our communication and our short visits. We started Skyping three months after we met (I told him I liked face-to-face communication, and though he didn't have a webcam, he went out and bought one so we could Skype) and have made it a nearly-weekly thing since; I tried to count up how many hours, and I lost count around 80. I have a box in my room full of the letters he's written me. He has the tree-shaped air freshener that I decorated for him when he told me he didn't have a Christmas tree. I wear the heart-shaped necklace he gave me for Christmas nearly every day. He still has the letter I gave to him when we became official at the waterfall last summer.

In February he told me he wanted to go back to that waterfall: in the winter it's frozen over, and while you can't hike down to it without risking a broken neck, it's still spectacular from the overlook. And it was there that he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. It was there that I said yes. It was there that we each had our first kiss. And it was there that he slid another ring onto my left hand - the one with the diamond from his grandmother's wedding ring that was designed to look like my great-great-grandmother's.

For two hopeless romantic, such a love story couldn't be more perfect. We're still a year out from a wedding, but every day we're one step closer to living closer together and having a "normal" relationship, where we're not separated by an eleven-hour drive and it won't seem so out-of-the-ordinary to go to dinner or a movie. And even though our set-up has been a little difficult at times, I wouldn't have had it any other way: we got to know each other as people and develop a friendship before there was any talk of physical attraction. It has made us purposeful, intentional, in getting to know each other first. And while it's certainly not the typical situation, I wouldn't have traded it for a "normal" one.

We get to have our "happily ever after." I am in love with the man of my dreams. And I cannot wait to be his wife.

Baffle

People.

People.

The human race is one of the most complex groups on the planet. Where else can you find a species whose members go out of their way to cause such extreme emotions in their fellow members? Joy, pain, guilt, rage, happiness, wonder - all at the hands of each other. For what? For pleasure. For amusement. For selfish joy.

I am not drawn to people. I am drawn to the stories they tell, but I am not naturally bent toward camaraderie with human beings. The nature of my personality is such that I am drained by most human interactions, and I need time by myself to re-charge that energy, just in time to have it sucked out again by a conversation, a party, a family dinner. We were in Florida last weekend to visit relatives and when my feet hit the threshold of our house, I went straight up to my room, shut the door, and laid in my bed watching "Sherlock" for the rest of the night, reassuring my family that I wasn't mad at them or being "antisocial" - I simply needed to be alone to rest my soul.

Scientists say that humans are no more than an advanced form of primates, but if we are inherently animals, we are treated drastically different. The latest trend is pit bulls: if a pit bull exhibits a mostly-docile nature and suddenly turns on its owner - say, a child - it's impounded and most likely destroyed. But when a trusted co-worker suddenly stabs you in the back and muddies your name with vicious gossip, they're pegged as "untrustworthy" and avoided. And how inhumane it would be to say, "Put her to sleep for her two-facedness."

Humans baffle me. Of all the mysteries on earth, I think human nature is the deepest, and because the ones studying human nature are inflicted with that same condition, I don't think we'll ever figure it out. In Peter Pan J.M. Barrie the Author described his fairies as being so small that they can only exhibit one emotion at a time. At least they throw their whole energy into being either bombastically angry or sugary sweet, and you never doubt which emotion that fairy is showing at one time or another. Humans, on the other hand, can play so many emotion cards at any given moment that it boggles the mind to think how they keep them straight: "I'm mad at her but I smile at her anyway, I secretly want him but I'll give him the cold shoulder until he notices."

It's no wonder we don't trust each other: we've given so much reason to doubt. How can you possibly trust a race that is capable - and in many cases, willing - to talk behind your back and lie to your face?

I've wished for years that people were honest with each other - that they played their emotional hand not as a matter of strategy or what they can get out of it, but simply because they have no reason to be false with their behavior. Be viciously angry. Sing when your heart is happy. Mutter that you're not "fine" even if you don't want to talk about it. But for God's sake, do not continue to put up the farce for your own gain or for the sake of another's feelings or in an effort to be consistent with the persona you've built for yourself. If we cannot be honest with our own emotions - the colors of our existence and the shade of our own spirit - how can we hope to be honest in any other area?

River

It's the beginning of March and I'm sitting on my uncle Kevin's front porch in a tank top and shorts. I think we hit 80 degrees today. The older I get the more I love summer, and this right here - writing with my bare legs in the sunshine - is nothing short of perfection.

It's weird being here again. I haven't been back since my grandma died in '08 (seven years in a couple weeks), and it doesn't feel the same with her gone. When we were growing up it was always the thing to do to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house; aunts came and went, uncles moved, but the white house on Orange Valley Circle was always home base. Wake up in the room with the Samantha American Girl doll, go to the dining room for cereal and orange juice made from the oranges picked across the street, swim in Miss Edith and Miss Hazel's pool next door until the afternoon Florida rain chased us home. We'd watch TV, play with the train set on the glassed-in back porch, go bowling, play mini golf, and get our fill of sunshine until the next time we visited.

Everyone else is still here. Nothing else has really changed. But it's not the same. My uncle has some of my grandma's old furniture: the green chair and desk - the one with the Churchmouse books - I think her end tables, the swivel recliner, maybe her quilts. Her masterpieces of cloth strips and patterned stitches are the common link we have to her. We were at my grandpa's house yesterday and I wondered if the quilt on his chair was hers, but I doubt it.

I doubt his new wife lets any of Nancy's things in her house.

It's probably just as well. The quilts on my bed back home don't smell like her anymore; I doubt the ones here have kept her scent either.

Spumoni

So if you haven't seen my latest freak-out on Facebook (other than the one where I freaked out because I'M ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), you won't know that I'm being published! I submit short essays to a website, and one of them was selected to be published in the site's upcoming book! For pay - I get 1% of the overall profits! It comes out in April, so I'll post details on Facebook and here when I learn them!

I'M AN AUTHOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My ultimate goal is to write a book, but that's harder than it actually sounds. You would think that, as a writer, I have plenty of ideas floating around in my head just waiting to be jotted down in consecutive and make-sense-ical order whenever I find the free time, but it's much more difficult than that. I found a graphic on Pinterest that sums up what writing a book really looks like. I've attached it below:

The hardest part about saying "I want to write a book" is coming up with an idea that you actually want to write a whole book about. People say, "Write what you know," but I know lots of things. I know that putting up Christmas decorations always lasts longer than taking them down, but it's so much more fun to put them up. I know that a Chevy Silverado doesn't fit into places as easily as a Dodge Nitro (I still have a chunk of that curly-haired kid's taillight after I crunched it off with the bumper of my Chevy pickup). I know that regular Coke tastes better than Diet Coke, but the diet lemon-lime generic soda they have in the break room at work tastes exactly the same as the regular kind. I know that Corelle dishes won't break until you say "Look, they don't break" and Frisbee one across the room.

See? I know lots of things.

But how do you turn all of those insignificant gobbets into a book? And that's not the only problem: how do you turn shit like that into a book that people will actually read?

I've overthought the idea of writing a book since I was little, when I was eight years old and typed out a short story in Microsoft WordPad about a little mushroom named Mort who was kidnapped by evil eggs. (Or maybe they were pickles. I don't remember.) To me, before you start writing, you need to have a clear idea of where you're going. It's like going on a road trip: hardly anyone starts out on a journey without a map and a clear destination.

Unless you're a hipster trying to "find yourself." And have unlimited gas money.

The other thing about writing is that I constantly keep my audience in mind. Rare are the moments when I type something just for me. I've kept a handwritten journal since I was in high school, and it's between those leather (faux leather - calm down) covers that the true "me" can be found. I don't live in fear, like I did when I was little, that someone would come in and read my journal. I know, even if I leave it out on the kitchen table (to my mother's chagrin), nobody will sneak it into the bathroom and skim over my inked-out ramblings. But when I sit down at my computer and start typing, it's usually for an email or a blog or something that requires me to remember who I'm writing to and why I'm writing it. And when I start typing, I censor myself and say, "Nope, can't write that because ____ is going to read it."

Hence why you'll rarely find swear words in my blogs. My journal is full of "fucks" and "shits," but because I'm friends with pastors and all manner of sensitive people, I keep those out of my online posts.

The best writing I do is found in my journals where I know no one else will see what's there. And the idea of putting that writing - the most unadulterated version of myself - out for the world to read is daunting. To throw those most delicate areas of my mind before the masses for inquiry and critique terrifies me - not because I am afraid to hear what people say about my work, but because for once I will be laid out bluntly before them. For once I will be seen for who I really am, not as I present myself.

Now that you're wondering if I'm a psychopath or worse, I promise that's not it: I don't know how voodoo dolls work, and I don't have anything dead boarded up in my walls. But I've been told that I see the world differently. And for years I've harbored a secret dread of being found "odd" - that complex courtesy of the brat from Girl Scouts who creeps into my mind when I let myself be me and calls me "weird."

Maybe that's the next part about writing. I read a quote by Sarah Jio that says, "Write what scares you. Everyone tells you to write what you know. It's the tried-and-true advice every writer hears at some point in her career. But to take my writing to a deeper level, I've found that a better practice is to simply write what frightens you, haunts you, even...I now keep a sign on the bulletin board in my office that reads: 'Write What Scares You.' I've learned that tapping into the hard stuff - whether it's the fear of loss or a boogeyman lurking in childhood memories - is what ultimately gives a story the power to leap off the page and grab you by the collar."

I'm terrified to let people into the mind in which I live.

So...welcome.

Love

What is love?

The boys in my German class said it was a plea to "don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more." "Sweet Home Alabama" taught me that it meant that "I can kiss you any time I want." Pinterest says it's "friendship set on fire."

The man who has my heart wrote in a letter that it is agapé: affection, goodwill, benevolence, brotherly love. For the longest time he was the one I felt those words most for but had only heard whispered and returned once, and he set aside the Greek word to put in a letter to the one he swore he'd marry one of these days. We reserved the words "I love you" until the day he asked me to marry him, which was this past Wednesday. And they are made so much more special for that reason.

I wonder if the writer of the "love is" section meant the "is" to mean "means." (Confused yet?) The way they have it set up makes it sound like these things are characteristics of love. What if it's actually supposed to be, "Love MEANS TO BE kind, love MEANS TO BE patient. Love doesn't keep track of who didn't empty the dishwasher or who forgot the other's birthday. Love means not being focused on what you can get, but being more interested in what you can give. Love doesn't begrudge a hug to the hurting, keeps its head up even when the chips are down, isn't afraid to stand strong under pressure, doesn't fight to make itself look better." When you give it this twist, it makes it much less limited in the relationships that can be defined by "love;" it's not just the person you could marry. I love only one man in the sense that Pinterest means it, and I am so happy that now I can finally say it to him. But I extend the actions of what love MEANS not only to him but to others on a daily basis without interest in romance or reciprocity.

Valentine's Day gets a nasty reputation in single communities because of the romantic overtones it has been associated with. But it doesn't have to be reserved for soul mates and lovers. Give it a new twist. Make today a chance for you to show what love MEANS rather than what love IS.

Falls

I'm probably supposed to say something about the Super Bowl, but I can't say much more than "I didn't watch it." Sorry.

This past week Joe came for his weekend, and it was a blast. I forget when I'm away from him for so long how much fun I have with him when we're together. We didn't do anything spectacular: we watched movies and went to breakfast with a friend of mine from work and walked around an antique's mall and went to a show with my family. But we laughed a lot, talked a lot, and, for a few days, got to have the "normal dating relationship" that we miss out on most of the time since we live so far apart.

He was supposed to fly in on Wednesday morning, and, being an employee of the airline, he gets to fly for free if he flies stand-by. Basically he gets whatever seat is left over on a flight, if there's a seat to be had. Otherwise he gets bumped back to the next flight if they have a seat available. It's all very up-in-the-air. No pun intended. :) Well, if you were paying attention to the news early last week, you'll remember the hubbub that was made over "White Death" that would knock out civilization as we knew it all along the Eastern US. The National Guard was called in to keep the looters at bay when New York City was expecting seventy-four feet of snow, whole states went into "emergency mode," and the rest of the country waited in nail-biting silence to see what was left after the storm wreaked its havoc.

I exaggerate, but hey, so did the weathermen.

While the devastation wasn't nearly as bad as the news made it out to be, the precautions at the airport where Joe works - and was supposed to leave from on Wednesday - meant cancelling flights and bumping Tuesday flights back to Wednesday, potentially filling all the available seats that he could use. I woke up on Tuesday to a text from him that said he wasn't saying he wouldn't make it, but he was saying it wasn't likely. But we both agreed to ask for God's will in this situation, as we had every other time he flew on stand-by.

I could say that I was the "gallant girlfriend" and was strong for my guy, putting on the stiff upper lip and saying through a genuine smile, "God will take care of this in His time and way." I was encouraging in my texts to him; I didn't want him to feel bad, and I certainly didn't want him to think I was disappointed in him. Because I wasn't - what's reliable where the weather is concerned? But when I got to work that afternoon, I was explaining the situation to a friend of mine, and she wrapped me in a hug because she could tell I was disappointed. I hadn't seen him in two months, and I had been so excited to be with him again, and the thought of putting off seeing him for another two weeks sucked. Granted, nothing was set in stone at that point: he said that he would know for sure some time that evening. But I am a champion worrier. We could go as far as to say I am a pessimist. And I take "expecting the worst" to a whole new level as I act like the worst has already happened. But after I moped around for a little while, I remembered that our God had made our visits happen up to that point. The last time his flights were delayed so long that we were driving to the airport at midnight to pick him up. But they happened. And we believed that, if God wanted us to happen, He would make it happen.

Long story short, the flights did work out, and he actually made it to Dayton a few hours earlier than we had originally expected. And we praised our God that His will had worked out in our favor.

His journey home turned into a seventeen-hour commute after he wasn't able to get on one flight, flew to a different airport than he originally expected, had to sit around an airport for four hours, took a two-hour shuttle ride, and drove half an hour until he was finally home - all the while both of us praying for God's will to be done. And, though I think we both secretly hoped that His will would play out in Joe's favor, God's will was done. And at the end of it, we were both reminded of His power, the reliability of His plan - regardless of weather and desires and game plans.

We've been talking a lot about logistics of our relationship, specifically with "we can't keep living eleven hours apart if we want to take this any further." And while we talk through the different options and create hypothetical scenarios and say, "Well, this would be the best plan," we forget that there already is a plan. I don't necessarily believe that God orders every single thing that happens to us, like what you'll have for lunch or if you'll take your umbrella on what turns out to be the rainiest day of the year. But I believe that everything works out in a way that ultimately wraps into the story that God is telling about and through the human experience. Everything that happens to us, I think, is an opportunity for us to learn about the way our God works, and how, even in a world riddled by disaster and evil and disappointment, He is showing His power to us in a way that turns our praise and our attention back to Him.

Shit happens. Weather complicates things. People frustrate us. But things work out. And when they do, it's our responsibility to see them not as our own victories, but our God's foresight and ordering.