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."