Category Archives: Dirty’s Reports

Happy 2013.

17 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by in Dirty's Reports, Human Interest

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

tumblr_m4e8nbQADc1r50vbpo1_400I recently read an article about using identity based habits to stick to goals and have started trying to wrap my brain around using this kind of thinking to stick to and possibly even achieve my goals for 2013.  My goals for 2012 didn’t all pan out, but they did carry through and I would like to keep myself focusing on some of them.  Looking back at them should bring me a little bit of satisfaction in the changes I’ve made in my life, but honestly it is a little discouraging.  I’ve been wrapped up in a cocoon of bad habits in an attempt to numb myself to the tempest of emotions the recent changes in my life have brought about.

These recent changes, consisting of moving from MA to ME to live with my family, getting a job at an oil office and a dear one departing, have come about really quickly and consist of everything that I’ve been trying to not have in my life for the past 2 years.  I didn’t want to come home.  I didn’t want to leave my community, the state I’ve been calling home, the public transportation system.  I wanted to work in a salon, I didn’t want to put effort into getting a cosmetology license so that I wouldn’t use it.  I didn’t want someone I care for to die.

As a consolation, moving home and not working in a salon have become such trivial issues when compared to the death of a loved one.  Anything that can comfort me, like having a place to live and a job, have become parts of my life I can hold on to.  These simple things can remind me that God hasn’t forgotten me, that He is still working on me and with me and that He still picks me up and puts me where He wants me to be.  I try to remember that daily, that He is good and for me, because when I don’t I remember the catastrophe that tipped the scales in favor of this plan.  I remember that someone is missing, and he won’t be coming back.  I catch myself thinking of things to tell him and then I remember that he’s dead.  He will die over and over again for the rest of my life.

I have been rereading The Sky Is Everywhere, by Jandy Nelson, a story about a girl whose older sister dies suddenly.  I can’t read it all the time because it brings up the rift that developed with much expediency over Christmas between me and my sister, as well as the kind of mourning that I’m in denial about going through.  It’s comforting though to see that I’m not the only one who becomes irrational and unhinged after someone dies.  I am not the only one who sees facade or fear and can’t stop from pointing it out.  I have taken stock of my life and decided to make some of my goals synonymous with priorities, and to put them in their proper order.  These goals/priorities have become even more like the ones I had as a child, which could be progression or regression, depending on the day.  One of them is “Don’t be afraid to start from scratch” and it seems to be exactly how I’m starting my year off with in some ways.  I’ve also decided that I will not hesitate to be honest as often as I have in the past.  There is so much that can be resolved, discovered, sorted if people would start saying what they mean and feel instead of what is proper and polite.  Confrontation doesn’t always mean a fight, it can mean a revelation.  It also means being a little more honest with myself about what I want.  Not that it’s helping anything.  My head is a scrambled mess and my heart is a sea shell at the bottom of the ocean.

“Let me just unsubscribe to my own mind already, because I don’t get any of it.”

So while I am trying to become a little more like the kind of person that I want to be I have come across some obstacles.  They are mostly made up of my own habits and decisions, but I refuse to let that stop me.  I also sometimes refuse to try to change, but I have started slowly to build upon habits that will change the kind of person I am.  For instance, I’ve started eating more salads.dirty

Dynamic Life

31 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by in Dirty's Reports, In Memoriam

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,

DEREKIn November my brother Jake and I got to take a drive to Logan airport.  The GPS on his phone sucks, and he didn’t listen to me when I would try to direct him, so we had to turn around a few times.  We just wanted to be at the airport before Derek landed. 

Derek and Jake had been the best kind of friends for 10+ years.  We all met in church, and they ended up going to the same private school before going to the same public high school.  Derek and his family even moved into a house around the corner from us at one point.  Derek and I had always gotten along just fine, and he knew that if there were something rebellious going on who to call.  He seemed to be a fixture in our lives not because he and Jake spent all of their time together, but because they didn’t have to.  They had ups and downs over the years but had finally found their balance by the time Derek joined the Coast Guard.

The weekend before I started Cosmetology school, the last weekend in February, I went home to visit my best friend.  We stayed at my parent’s house, and my brother was on a trip to New York with our former foreign exchange student Larissa.  On the same day that she left to go back to her life I found out that Derek was having a party that my brother was missing, because he was back for some reason I can’t remember.  My father, who was in the Coast Guard, had found out a bunch of information about where he would be going and looked up as much information on it as he could, printed it out and gave it to Derek in a Coast Guard folder.  My dad, who hardly likes anyone, loved this kid.

Luckily I had my “big girl” camera with me so I took pictures during the party and before the party dispersed I took some pictures of Derek with his friends, with my mom, and someone took a few of him with me.  Then we made a plan, Derek and I: to pick up Jake at the airport and pick him up together.  We went our separate ways to finish out our family business, which means he went and spent time with his family and I watched TV and ate something at my house.  When he showed up to our house he was exhausted.  Later, while he was visiting his family for thanksgiving, he explained to me how little he slept at home because he was trying to fit in as much with as many people as he could.  He crashed on our couch for a while, and then I woke him up and we took my dad’s truck to get Jake and Larissa.  On that drive we got to catch up, talking about the past, touching on relationships, what we were reading in the bible, how our families were doing, hobbies, what his experience in the USCG had been like thus far.  I told him I would write him and he was stoked, his love for writing letters coupled with his love for people made it a perfect parting gift.

When we got to the airport we didn’t have to wait long for Jake and Larissa, and I could tell that Jake really liked that Derek was there.  I also knew that he was really not happy about missing Derek’s party earlier in the day. 

When Jake and I were at the airport in November we were picking Derek up so that he could surprise his mother with being home for Thanksgiving.  In return, Jake decided to surprise Derek with my being there to get him at the airport.  In the 10 or so months that he had been gone we had exchanged a handful of letters (his letters absolutely destroyed, and I always got them on a day I needed some extra sunshine), and he made sure to call me every once in a while as well.  I hate talking on the phone, but I always tried to stay on the phone with him as long as possible, to really connect with him so that he wasn’t wasting his minutes, to challenge him to keep in the Word (which he did).  He would tell me about his adventures, about how life was on the boat, how hard it was to find any real believers, about what he was reading in the bible, and about where he was heading next. 

When he came across the baggage area I managed to get a video of him, heading over with his carry-on.  He came straight for me to give me a hug, but I shooed him away so I could get him and Jake on camera.  The video is short, but his smile is so big. 

I put the phone away and gave him a hug, and then we proceeded to get his luggage and to head to the car.  He told me he wanted to show me something, and pulled out from his bag a large throw blanked. 

“Isn’t it cool?  See, it’s got the Coast Guard crest and the name of my boat, USCGC Munro WHEC-724… Isn’t it neat?  Do you like it?  It’s for you!”

He tossed it to me.

“Whaaaaat? No it’s not, what?  You didn’t get this for me.”

He was all smiles. 

“Yeah I did!  Oops…”

He grabbed it back.

“Let me see that for a second…”

He ripped the price tag off.

“Ok, there you go!  Yup, it’s for you!”

They took me back to where I was living, and ended up staying to hang out for about an hour, Derek and I catching up and Jake playing with my computer.  We agreed that while I was home for thanksgiving we would hang out again, which we did.  We made cheeseburgers that were extremely delicious and he let me read some of his poetry and give him some honest opinions on it.  When he left there were hugs.  Jake spent more time with him while he was home. 

I have always hated the military.  I told Derek not to join out of selfish reasons.  I was sure that he would end up going overseas into a troubled area and getting himself shot.  I had heard too many stories; I didn’t want this boy to get into harm’s way.  I realized on his visits home that he wasn’t the same boy I had known before, that he had been growing while he was away.  He wasn’t a kid with a sunny disposition anymore; he was a man with sunshine in his soul. 

I shouldn’t have worried so much.  Derek didn’t get himself shot.  He slipped and fell off a mountain.

On December 22nd Derek went to climb Mount Barometer alone and went missing.  On December 25th Rescuers found his ice ax and skid marks 2,200 feet up the 2,450-foot mountain.  His body was discovered 1,000 feet below that point a few hours later.
It doesn’t matter how well anyone knew Derek.  If you knew him at all, you grieve losing him. 

I have been struggling with two things during the past week.  First, something I have always struggled with when people die, is how much I am allowed to grieve.  There are so many closer to his family, so many who were closer to him.  What I can say is that Derek cared for each person in his life, and that is why so many are mourning.  He loved his family, especially his little sister Mercedes.  He genuinely cared about people and what was going on in their lives, each person he knew.  He was a supremely loyal friend, and even when he couldn’t feel the love from others he was usually giving it to them anyway.  He had a heart that just ebbed and flowed with the best kind of love, the one that is seasoned with mercy and grace. 

The other thing I can’t wrap my head around is why this happened.  I keep asking God but I haven’t gotten a straight answer.  He has, though, reassured me of something.  I will never wonder about how much Derek cared for me, because he made sure to leave tangible evidence of it with me while he could.  I think that he may have been smarter than the rest of us, because he sent as many letters, experienced as many memories, and gave as many gifts as he could to make sure that the people he cared about knew without a doubt that he was intentionally holding them in his heart. 

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.  I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.  I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him.  That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.”  – Ecclesiastes 3:11-15

I don’t understand how to navigate all of this, so I am trying to as gently and as harmlessly as I can.  Most of the time I push it away, but just like the night he gave it to me, every night his blanket keeps me warm.dirty

TV Teaches Me Things part 2

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Dirty's Reports, Human Interest, Things TV Teaches Me

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

Here are the incredibly important life lessons I have learned from watching 4 seasons of The OC multiple times.

  1. Taking things personally is the best way to ruin a relationship. It’s one thing to get upset with your girlfriend when she developed a dangerous drinking problem sophomore year of high school… You just want what is best for her. But when someone makes a mistake and is honest and repentant, that is not the time to dump them like last week’s brown guacamole. If someone says they need a little space and time to sort something out, that is not the time to stop supporting and loving them.  When people have other things going on in their lives it’s incredibly selfish to assume that you should be their priority.
  2. Calling people by their last names shows a level of familiarity that makes the person feel special. It’s also infinitely cool.  Summer calls people by their last names all the time, and we all know she was the coolest character in the entire series.  She was so cool that she went on and got her own show in the south called Hart of Dixie when the OC creator got to start spanking out dramadies for the CW.
  3. Don’t be an idiot about money. If you can’t be trusted with it then let people know. Don’t get credit cards. Don’t buy what you can’t afford.  Jimmy uses his investors money to pay for his family’s way of life in season 1 and legit spends the rest of the show trying to pay everyone back.  For a nice guy he wasn’t too smart.   And don’t have it be the only thing that makes you happy, because you will always be miserable.  Julie Cooper was a money-digging harlot for most of the show, but it was only when she found herself falling for the poor guys that she was really happy and not grasping desperately at everything and everyone in order to feel secure.
  4. Be honest with yourself and others when something is bothering you.
  5. Or get drink and cause a scene in public.  It’s the WASP way of doing things.  Marissa Cooper, Kirsten Cohen, Summer Roberts… all have had times when people around them thought seriously about sending them to rehab because home girls couldn’t face their problems like adults.  In fact, Kiki did go to rehab because she had the adult version of getting drunk at parties: Alcoholism.
  6. Being ones self is what will bring you fulfillment, and pretending to be someone else will lead to unhappiness, guilt, and usually some big “you lied to me?” moment with the people you care about that ruins their ability to trust you.  It happens so often in this show I can’t even pick one person to give an example of.
  7. Have some quality time with your same sex friends.  Seth-Ryan time was a big deal to the boys because they knew it was important to invest in your friendships.  It’s a sign of commitment to a relationship, and it’s a sign of honesty and authenticity to spend time with someone just to spend time with them, and not to get anything out of it. 
  8. If you need people let them know.  There are a lot of cases in life where we want to have other people around for company, need other people for support in hard times, and we just don’t tell anyone because we think it makes us look weak.  Guess what?  No one cares if you are weak.  They care if you’re ok.  Put the pride on the back burner and allow other people to come and walk through things with you.  Ryan Atwood was the stone-hard rock-wall fortress of the show for quite a bit of it, but my favorite episodes were when he would allow Sandy and the rest of the Cohen family to be there for him in rough situations.  He always figured that they would get mad and he would get in trouble, but most of the time they were able to help him wherever he was and get things back onto level ground.  That’s the thing about those who love us, sometimes we have to allow them a chance to support us in order to find out how supportive they really are.

Of Baby Sea Turtles

07 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Dirty's Reports

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

I’ve currently got this very strange and nonsensical picture in my head about the Holy Spirit. 

The other night at bible study there was discussion about how humans have a tendency to subconsciously live as though we are being transformed from the outside in.  We do good works and behave certain ways because we want to be able to peel away the layers of self that are making it hard for the Spirit to change our hearts.  We attempt to break down the walls that are keeping us from experiencing the real love of God.  But that’s not biblical.

 “Hold fast & follow the pattern of wholesome, sound teaching which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.  Guard & keep [with the greatest care] the precious & excellently adapted Truth which has been entrusted to you, by the help of the Holy Spirit Who makes His home in us.”  – 2 Timothy 1:13&14

 We already have this good deposit.  We already have been seen stripped bare, regardless of our walls and layers and ignorance.  We already have been changed in our hearts, made into a new creation and justified through our faith in Christ Jesus (Romans 4&5).  But it is so difficult to allow the Holy Spirit to take the place of our own spirits.  It is hard to remember that we don’t have to do something to acquire it when we feel so unholy. 

For some reason I see this internal struggle of mine very much in this way: the H. Sizzle is a baby sea turtle.

While in an egg, buried under about 2 feet of sand, I feel like I am the sand.  I am what this little creature needs to burrow through so that it can breathe and continue on its journey to maturity.  I feel heavy and dense; I feel that I am the hardest element this little tiny sea turtle will ever have to get past in order to grow up.  But I’m wrong.  Baby sea turtles break out of their eggs, using a small temporary tooth located on their snout called a caruncle. They then remain in the nest for a number of days, absorbing their yolk, which provides them with the energy it will take to get from nest to offshore waters.  God has provided them with the right equipment to burrow out of their nest; the sand is an obstacle that is more easily overcome than the next one.

By the time the baby sea turtle has gotten past the sand I feel much like I did when I was a child watching the discovery channel: anxious.  I want to be able to help the baby sea turtle, to keep it safe, to guard it against predators, to guide it to the ocean.  But if this baby sea turtle is symbolizing the Spirit of God in me, I am not only the sand but also the predators and the environmental hazards, ready to do anything I can to kill the birth of something precious. 

Once near the surface, they will often remain there until the temperature of the sand cools, usually indicating nighttime, when they are less likely to be eaten by predators or overheat. Once the baby turtles emerge from the nest, they use cues to find the water including the slope of the beach, the white crests of the waves, and the natural light of the ocean horizon.  (source) 

Again, God has given the baby sea turtle it’s own set of instincts and the ability to survive without help from me.  I am powerless to help it.  But God is powerful to sustain it.  And in order to grow to be strong and mature the little guy has to do these things.

“…We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, & endurance produces character, & character produces hope, & hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”  – Romans 5:3-5 

Because of His guidance and protection I can rejoice when the tiny creature reaches the waves and swims like crazy to the deeper waters.  Because of His incredible grace I can experience this every day, this journey and struggle in which I attempt to see the Holy Spirit gaining the upper hand in me. 

I’m not sure if all of this can be well understood, it’s not an incredibly accurate metaphor.  But I hope that someone will be able to understand it the way that I do and get out of it what I have: an understanding that I can do nothing but accept that I already have the Spirit, comfort from that understanding and renewed hope that every moment can be different because of it.

What Is My Motivation?

26 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in Dirty Little...

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , ,

One of the most difficult things I wrestle with is impure intention.  I go into things with intentions that are not of God all the time.  I decide to read my bible because I know that when I don’t I get crabby.  I decide to stuff my anxiety down because it’s going to make me miserable, and it’s not being a very good Christian to have anxiety.  I go into Christian settings like church or bible study to see if I am still able to get or give anything to the group, and if I haven’t gotten some affirmation from someone that night I go home defeated. 

My faith seems to have become a word I throw around and don’t internalize.  I have been using it as a bookend, a wall, a refuge, but not in the right way.  I say that I have faith and then I turn around and don’t let myself think about things, give things to God, or pray.  I still walk the same way, wading through the same sins, because I don’t use faith as a reason to hold onto God’s promise of having been credited righteousness, just as a reason to pretend I’m tougher than the problems I am facing.

Stagnancy is gross guys.  It really is.  I’ve managed to let what could be a renewed heart turn into something you don’t want to find in the back of your fridge.  Today I am trying to turn my heart towards the light of God’s mercy, and there’s a little more shame to it than I thought would be.  When did all this mold get here?  What have I been doing with myself?  When did I decide I was too full to continue seeking God’s word?  I was so convinced I was full that I’ve started to starve.

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”

I thought I was going to write something else this morning, since it’s only been a month and a half since my last post.  But I did start this blog with the intention of being honest with myself and others, so perhaps a little honesty is all that is needed in this moment.