Tag Archives: Human Interest

Sticks & Stones

27 Tuesday Mar 2012

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According to the Jersey Shore nick name generator my nick name is The Incident. Very few people understand how extremely true to the bone that nick name is until they date me. I understand that I’m not always an easy person to deal with. I have ups and downs, good days and bad days, and I love people and I hate people and I repent and try to love people again. Without God I’d be straight up depressive trouble most days, and an addicted mess on the other days. Hence my deep gratitude for grace.

“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced; for you will forget the shame of your youth”  – Isaiah 54:4

With every drop of blood that was shed at the cross another chance for life was given to us, and not because we deserve it in any way. The legalistic, moralistic ways of the world like to do their best to pervert the truth, which is that there are some people that you don’t like that will get saved and we’re called to love them.  I like the way the woman who writes for Grace is for Sinners puts it:

“God’s grace is sufficient. You don’t get to pick your terms and sometimes this journey feels backward and forward at the same time. When you have to rely on grace, it’s a hard walk of faith to travel the territories run by a force working against you. But who can be against you when God is for you? People will look at your journey and wonder why you’re traveling there, why you’re keeping company with the other side. They’ll discredit you, slander you, and try to stop you all the while thinking they’re doing God a favor.”  (Grace is for Sinners)

Sometimes I see this happening in real life, where people believe that they have the ability to pick and chose who would be a good follower of Christ based on their standards or opinions.  I pray that I don’t do that.  I pray that I am able to follow Jesus without stopping to turn around and judge fellow Christians as if I have a right to.  As if I have been so redeemed that I can set some sort of standard for holiness.  No matter what is going on in my life, no matter where I am or what I’m dealing with, I can only hold tightly to the truth: that I am the worst of all sinners but He loves me anyway.

My Do Nothing to Do Anything Productive Ratio is Sad.

02 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Dirty's Reports, Human Interest

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I’ve been putting off posting since Monday because dearest Tink got engaged but made those who knew promise not to tell until she announced it officially (via Facebook, of course).  I’m so happy for her, and not surprised, and really glad to be a part of all the joy.

Another reason I couldn’t write or post this week is because I let myself be absolutely miserable the entire day on Tuesday and it took a few days to kick back into gear.  I just mourned the parts of my life that are going away, and the absences they accentuate.  Not only is one of my dearest friends getting married but I won’t be able to spend as much time with her to help plan, and I just moved and I had a great weekend with my BFF and now we’re separated again and school is starting on Monday and I’ll have to wake up soooooooo early and I’m single.  I was so pathetic.  I didn’t think of killing myself, but I did consider my funeral and what it’d be like if I died soon.  Dramatic, I know.  It’s really difficult to think clearly when in a haze of strong and deadly emotions.  Being lonely is the worst!

I realized that I’ve reached a new low.  It’s not just because I walked around boston in the cold rain so much that I may have pulled my hip muscle, and it’s not because I have been comparing and relating my life to the lives of lead characters from romantic comedies.  It’s not even the fact that I was deciding if my life was 27 Dresses or The Wedding Planner… It’s that The Wedding Planner won.

Both movies are soft core porn for women’s hearts, with similar stories and outcomes.  But the little things, the details of the women’s lives… that’s where I would say I’m more JLO than Heigl.  For instance, Heigl has a snarky BFF she works with who is always a little hung over and going for every guy in the room.  JLO has her dad’s friends that she grew up playing scrabble with who are all over the age of 60 and a work friend that she only sees at work (played, incidentally, by the same girl who is Heigl’s snarky BFF).

I firmly believe, were I in her position, I would be the 30-something who goes home to an empty house to watch Antiques Road Show, especially if my ex-fiancé had left me for his high school girlfriend who had thrown me a bridal shower.  That is way too much of a betrayal to trust other women over.

JLO says in The Wedding Planner “You know those who can’t do, teach?  Those who can’t wed…plan.”  I like that this is self-depreciating yet still says that she knows her shit, and well enough to make a good living from it.  Heigl?  She just loves weddings.  She wants to be a part of all the moments, and I think it’s selfish of her to do that, especially since she doesn’t seem to have friendships with women outside of the period of time in which they are engaged.  At least JLO is smart enough to let the people who have real relationships get their moments without her butting in with her epic curves.  She just creates the prettiness and takes home a paycheck, knowing she helped their day be unforgettable in the best way.  I consider myself a little more like a behind-the-scenes helper as well, not a bridesmaid who hogs the spotlight by always helping.

Another thing I like about JLO’s character is that she is willing to do the right thing even when it’s obviously the wrong thing for her.  She was willing to marry the guy her dad tried to set her up with because she was unwilling to be a home wrecker, no matter what could have happened without his girlfriend knowing.  She doesn’t get the guy in trouble, because she knows that he’s right when he calls her out on being bitter.  Heigl refuses to listen to everyone who calls her wedding obsession a little bonkers, and consequently puts herself into stressful situations where she ends up doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, like busting up her little sister’s engagement because she has feelings for the guy.  Some would call these character flaws relatable, but I call them an excuse for women to try doing mean and catty things while still ending up with a fairy tale ending.

But one of the biggest issues I have with myself getting so carried away into this comparison, not that it stopped me from writing it up, is that I’m not ever going to be these women.  And that’s because I have God.  I don’t need to idolize a moment of happiness, turn it into a career.  I can be free to live in the moments of joy through the closeness and love I have with Christ.

I continually go back to Psalm 131 these days to remind myself that I don’t want to think about things too big for me, like who I’ll spend the rest of my life with.  I can quiet my soul and dwell on the hope I have in the Lord.  I like how the amplified text says “Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me [ceased from fretting].” I think that my tendencies to worry about these things are absolutely a sign of immaturity, and my clinging to romantic stories is like a child clinging to its mother.

I’d like to see the Christian romantic comedy, where’s THAT one?  You know, the one where the guy is the girl’s friend’s ex-boyfriend so she won’t give him a chance.  The one where being in a physical relationship can be understood as playing with fire, but told in a relatable and funny way, because it is funny sometimes!  The story where the boy meets the girl at a mission’s retreat and instead of asking her out they fast and pray together to seek God’s will for their relationship.  Or I’d love to see the story that shows how a promising relationship doesn’t work out, but the girl has a knight in shining armor protecting her heart the entire time because she trusts that Christ has a good plan for her.  One where the Bible is presented as the ultimate romance novel, and the girl sees from a perspective that saves her from wallowing in self pity (most of the time) because she honestly loves God more than her own idea of a husband.

I think Focus Features will call me about this one.  They did the new Pride and Prejudice.  Or Summit Entertainment.  They did Twilight, I know they love this kind of thing.

Why I Like Travelling, or How To Make A Positive Out Of A Stressful Situation

24 Friday Feb 2012

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I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this before in multiple places on my blog (that no one reads or else they’d all comment, obviously), but I love travelling and I love travelling alone.  I find few others who enjoy it the same way that I do, most people enjoy travelling with others and a some enjoy travelling alone but I can never figure out why they do because it’s usually a convoluted, modern, flakey-gypsy girl reason.  “I enjoy getting to visit places I’ve never been to and see what the earth is made of in a new perspective” or “I get to watch people and pretend that I’m someone else, it feels so glamorous” usually end up in the explanations as to why travelling alone is so much fun.  I, on the other hand, have entirely different reasons that seem to be particularly true only to me.

  1. I take public transportation a lot, and in order to do so successfully I must be at certain places on time in order to get on certain things, like the bus or the train.  And that journey in and of itself is an adventure!  No matter how early I am to get on the vehicle I am always convinced that I am late, therefore adding a strong dose of anxiety to my stride and a strange reaction to anything and everyone I cross paths with.  Strangers must think I’m crazy because my reactions to anyone within 3 feet of me is a strange surprise and twitch.  Inevitably I am on time, although the times I’ve been late have usually been the days that I feel overly confident that I will be on time and have to run to the station, thereby reinstating the fact that I’m out of shape.  Every time I curse myself for not always having a liter of water on hand.
  2. I like trains and airplanes for two reasons: I can’t react strongly to the traffic around me like in a car while freaking out about how fast we’re going or if we’re  going to be late.  Also, I am able to read.  I get carsick reading in the car or on the bus, but on the train or the plane I finish entire book series!  It’s excellent.
  3.  The reason I’m able to read, aside from not dealing with nausea, is because for some reason trains and planes put me into a super subdued version of stress.  For some reason it’s incredibly relaxing to me.  I pick a seat or get a seat assigned, I sit in it, and that is where I will stay for the rest of my life.  I will crumble into a corpse in this spot and so I will make the best of the spot that it is.  I will curl up or stretch out, I will kink my neck inevitably from reading hunched over, I will designate spots for my drinks and keep my phone on vibrate under one thigh.  And I will never, ever nap.  Because I can’t nap.  But that’s another story.
  4. I talk to strangers like it’s my job EXCEPT when I’m travelling.  And I like it like that.  I might have a 20 minute conversation with one person while travelling all day.  This is Me Time, honestly.  It’s when I get to read because I finally have no excuse not to.  It’s when I get to think about what I want to write, people in my life, God, things that are sad, things that are happy, things that I will experience and things I have experienced, prices of things in different states, and the like.  I also get to pray, and sometimes write, and of course I usually write poetry when travelling because anything else would be pretentious.
  5. I like to wear and pack my favorite clothes for trips.  I will choose the style I want to be perceived as having, make sure all those clothes are clean days in advance, and then become that person for however long the trip is.  I don’t expect people to think I’m cooler, for people to look at me and think “What a cool little bohemian-gypsy-girl with hips that won’t quit!”  I literally only do it for me, because when I feel like I’m a cool little bohemian-gypsy- girl with hips that won’t quit I feel confident and secure.  Even if I look like a lunatic with my henley-layered, sweater-topped, dirty hair and smokey-eyed ensemble at 9:30 am I still FEEL like a weathered, jaded traveler who is so used to this that she just wants to enjoy a novel during the ride.
  6. I also like the food situations that I find myself in.  When I’m able to prepare a snack or lunch before hand, I find that it’s a great way to save money and be bored to death while looking like a genius for not paying $7 for a fast food sandwich.  But usually I end up forgetting and getting really thirsty and a little hungry, so I stop and get a snack.  This usually makes me feel like a 5-year-old because I want things I like, and also like an adult because I make myself get something healthy and pay for it myself.  For instance, I will make sure I get a protein bar because it’s “good for me” and a bottle of water, but I will make sure to grab junior mints or m&m’s too because I want to snack on something while I read.  I even go through the emotions of both ages, simultaneously wanting a treat so bad but not being able to decide which one and forcing myself to grab something with sustenance while being disgusted at the pricing of everything I just purchased.
  7. I think the only unfortunate part is that I do end up feeling exhausted by the time I get to the place I’m going, but I’m consistently amazed at finding out how long a day can go when I spend “sooooo much time” getting from point A to point B and still having the entire rest of the afternoon/evening to do things like fight with my parents, call the doctor, and make dinner.  And don’t get me started on going into different time zones, which I like to refer to as Travelling Through Time.  Not time travelling, that’s just a science fiction concept.  I’m definitely the asshole who tries to call other people when I’m two hours ahead of them and tell them the future.  Because in the future, I’m having dinner in a few hours but you’re going to have to wait like all day.

Valentine Prayer

14 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Holidays, Human Interest

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Oh Lord, thank you for making Man.  I’m not talking about all of us in a “mankind-is-a-joy-in-all-it’s-ways”, I’m talking about the Men, the males, the opposite sex.  You did some great work.  Thank you for making them with strong arms and big hearts.  Thank you for giving them different wiring and desires.  They are reflections of a side of you I am not, and it can be difficult and comforting to learn from them. 

God, thank you for each of the boys, guys, men that you’ve put in my life.  Thank you for my dad, for the uncles that are and aren’t related, for the brothers and cousins and sweethearts.  You’ve given each of them a purpose and sometimes I get to be a part of it and sometimes I just get to watch their journeys.  I pray, Lord, that your will would be done in their lives, that your purposes for them would be revealed and that you would guide and encourage them.  I pray that those who don’t know you yet will see your grace that brings salvation, and that your heart will draw them to the knowledge of your justice and the price Christ has paid.  Lord, use things that happen in their lives to reveal you in ways that are unexpected and tender.  And I pray that you would continue, as the ever present help in times of need, and as the king whose court we serve, that you would keep those who already know you close to you.  Let them see where they belong, what your purposes are, and who you desire to have in their lives.  So often, God, I really think that I know what’s best for the guys in my life and I know that’s not true.  I don’t know them like you do, and I don’t know their stories like you do.  Thank you for always being able to put them where they need to be, and help me to remember not to trouble my heart over what is not my concern. 

Lord, it’s entirely possible that you’ve got someone picked out for me to marry.  I know that what I want isn’t always what you’ve got planned, and Lord, I will not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.  I will wait on what you’ve got planned and continue to calm and quiet my soul.  But while I’m waiting to see where you bring me, while I pray that you’re preparing my heart for someone, please be preparing his.  You’ve written our names on the palm of your hand, and you’ve collected every tear we’ve cried in a special stellar bottle.  While I spend my life waiting on you I pray that he is a man who waits on you as well, and that he will be safe in the protection of your grace and mercy.  I pray that he will be a reflection of your heart, and that I will be able to love him best in the ways that you have planned.

Thank you for being enough.  Thank you for being enough for me to not need what I don’t have right now.  Thank you for promising to be better than everything I’ll ever have here on earth, and for life.  You’re the steward of my heart, mind and body.  You’re the love of my life.

Procrastination Station!

11 Saturday Feb 2012

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I am procrastinating very well these days, thank you for asking. I seem to go through swings of being above everything in my room and absolutely unafraid of barreling forward and throwing things away! Packing things! Folding laundry! Cleaning! And then I swing back down low and cower at my desk or on my bed because I don’t want to touch anything. Ever. Again. I have found some pretty cool ways to not do anything productive though, including reading the bible, procrastinating writing on my blog, writing recipes on index cards, looking through magazines for recipes, scrolling through tumblr, playing with my hair and make-up, wearing interesting (that means a little more effort goes into them) outfits, drinking, watching Gossip Girl, watching Veronica Mars, learning how to do a Rubik’s Cube, making bracelets, and playing my guitar.

I’m not sure why I’m being so lazy, but I do know that it’s become a classic Tina Fey move of turning good news into anxiety. I look at everything I have to do and start to think about why I have to do it and start to think about what my life will be in less than a month and I start feeling that clutching claw of stress on my chest and I stop thinking about folding my laundry to make it go away.

In order to do something “productive” I decided to start reading what we’ll be diving into at church, Colossians. I read chapter one while I couldn’t sleep, because with anxiety comes insomnia, and a certain passage really caught my attention.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. – Colossians 1:15-17

I was so tired and I was so sad and I was so overwhelmed and I felt every part of the emotions that would give me the confirmation that I cannot do this, I cannot get my shit together and I cannot even pretend to be a grown up and I cannot wake up early and I cannot go to school and I cannot do this. And I read this, and that in him all things hold together. And I took a breath, and I bent my will and I gave up trying to do everything I cannot. I told God the truth, that if HE doesn’t hold me together I will fall apart, and that I need HIM to be holding me together now, and that now will continue for the rest of my life.