Be Careful Who We Let Out Of Our Lives

I am currently in the process of starting a new blog. The title is "Grace Redefined." When it's up and running I'll let you know here, and tell you what it's all about. This blog post would work perfectly there... 

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Wishing is not enough; we must do.” 

~ Johann Wolfgang Van Goeth

There is this commercial for some arthritis medication that shows on television stations here, and it’s one that replays in my head. What I get out of it is this, “a body in motion stays in motion.” 

What I get out of that, is that we can’t leave everything to chance. There is God’s will, and then there’s what God wills us to do. I don’t care if you have enough money in the world to buy what you want out of life; you’re not going to get that job if you don’t apply. You won’t win an Olympic Gold Medal if you don’t realize that something athletic is your God-given talent and spent every available moment working to perfect the craft that He gave you. No one said it was going to be easy, but we all know it feels amazingly good when hard work prevails, good overcomes, and success is rewarded. 

The last few posts have been about friendship, and this post applies to friendship again. Kris Allen sings the song “Live Like We are Dying,” and in it he says, “be careful who we left out of our lives.” I hear it as, “be careful who we let fall out of our lives.” ‘

Face it, you won’t talk to every friend or every person in your life every single day. It would be a full-time job to physically and emotionally maintain those relationships. Facebook makes it easy, texting makes it removed, and I’m flabbergasted when I get a phone call. A handwritten note card? Stop the presses! That’s breaking news. 

Through some unexplained reason, I found myself compelled to sit down last weekend and write handwritten note cards and letters. My intention was just to brighten someone’s day, but as I was writing, I could feel the Spirit move within me. Halfway through writing one note, I stopped to get out a file box filled of writings I started more than 10 years ago. Out of possibly 600 different things, I pulled out three to transcribe. The last one just hit me right over the head. 

I won’t share that here now, but what I will say, it’s about telling those you love you love them and why when you know. We can’t wish our friends (or family, or spouse, or lovers, or anyone) to know how much they mean to us, nor can we hope we may ever mean anything to them. We have to actually do something about it, and expect nothing in return. 

A body in motion stays in motion. 

A heart that loves always loves. 

Some of the most profound friendships in my life involve a person who walked in when everyone else walked out; a person who encouraged my strengths when others highlighted faults; a person who felt comfortable enough to confide in me when others might judge; and then there are the people who simply are always on the line. 

“Sometimes our candle goes out, but is blown into flame by an encounter with another human being.” ~ Albert Schweitzer 

A Blank Page Everyday

Seeing how I cannot seem to bring myself to spend the time creating a new blog home, I guess I will continue writing here. That is, at least, for awhile.

Returning now, to where we once were:

The construct (which is a word I like a lot, by the way, after years of it being drilled into my head by literature professors) of the day I revisited my friend wasn’t much different than visits in the past. As in many friendships, I found myself calmly surrendering, moment by moment, so that the reunion could actually happen. Simple as it were, the conditions on how we were to meet up changed at the last minute. Unlike the rigid tendency of lasting relationships and others saturated with disappointment, I politely obliged. The point was, and as it should likely be in any friendship, to spend time  together. It’s hard to catch up on six years in just a couple hours. 

She couldn’t believe it had been six years, she said, as we hopped in the car to visit her eldest child’s school. A treat, I thought to see this girl who, herself, was six years old when I first met her. College is now just around the corner and I grappled with the very thought of that. Then, I had to pause and remember that I was 19 then, and I am certainly not 19 anymore.

“Let me just tell you,” she said as we pulled out of the driveway. That’s how the conversations begin. I listened for a few minutes, and also talked, about my own circumstance and how things had evolved over the past few years. Although, we both only really focused on recent months. The situations were different but the themes were the same: heartache, growth, discovery, and hope. When is it really ever different?

“I am so tired,” she was saying. It sounded so familiar.

Ten, maybe eleven, years earlier I remember driving East on a freeway in very similar, but not so similar, circumstances. We intended to spend time together, but the course of the day changed, and I went along for errands and chores and what not. I went, just so what would normally be a forty-five minute to an hour visit could actually happen. It just took about three hours. 

Yes, I talked too. Just not as much as I used to.

         A blank page looks a lot like what a real friendship is, friendships of all kinds and varying degrees of time spent. 

Years earlier, as I previously discussed, my college roommate and I celebrated in denial of the discovery that we were friends. Yet, just because we had this very honest realization didn’t mean we suddenly understood it. Nor did it mean that it, this friendship (or any, for that matter), would be easy.

These two friendships are entirely different but incredibly parallel. I was discovering one as I was discovering the other, and it hurt the growth of both.

I think I was in denial of that, too.

“You’re never home,” or something to that effect, said my college roommate to me on the cell phone as I was driving home from my other friend’s house. I was never home because I was either at school, like she was, or at work part time, or babysitting. It was true I was hardly ever home. Then, when that phone call was made, I didn’t understand or feel the emotional significance of that statement. Looking back, it has a deep meaning when I recall being the one who used to fetch ice cream for bad days and stay up all night laughing and giggling when things were funny. It is true, I did not have time, nor did I make time, for that anymore. 

There’s no use on wasting time on guilt, nor do I have any regrets. I just thank God I have both these friends today. 

You get a blank page with real friendships. You get a blank page everyday. 

Discovery Begins with Denial

When I started this blog, I didn’t think there would be such long periods of time in-between one post and another. Yet, I certainly didn’t think I would write everyday either.

I’ve thought about writing a few times since the first of the year, but thought I had promised to start over.

 Starting over, it seemed at the time, involves an entirely new creative process. I thought, how can I start over if I don’t have a new blog title, a new purpose, and actually help people? That is the goal, after all.

 Most writers don’t spend time penning something just because they have a story inside them that is burgeoning and begging to be told. They end up writing that story because they believe it will help someone.

            Six years and a lifetime of experience later, I found myself at the doorstep of a home that once represented everything I had hoped for. Before ringing the bell, or knocking, I looked around at a landscape that had mostly stayed the same.

            Calm, and completely composed, I rang the bell. Then, I turned and looked out at the view, remembering years ago telling a friend, “I can see my parents’ house from here.”

            I continued gazing out into the past, as it were, and wondered how many dreams had come true since I last visited; how many dreams shattered.

            When the door opened, I found myself 19 again, but much more confident. I was visiting a former colleague, who at one point had been the person who initiated a catalyst of change in my professional life. It was her husband who answered the door.  In the few moments we stood there talking, filling years of time with quips about the business and personal goals, this long-awaited reunion felt nothing like what happens in the movies. Perhaps the most significant marker of time passing was in the age of their children, and the great height one of them now stood. Where was that little girl I used to baby-sit, I wondered.

            My friend came downstairs and in a moment, what felt like six years felt like six minutes and a lifetime in the same moment. Unlike some of my closest friendships (and even the ones you know you are supposed to keep up), we didn’t pick up right where we left off, but we did.  

            “It hasn’t been six years,” she exclaimed. I confirmed, with proper memory and data to back it up. “No way!”  

            Denial seems to be the first indication that two people were ever friends to begin with.

            I remember, years earlier, around the time I first met my friend, I was having dinner with my college roommate and her mother. I think it was Mother’s Day weekend of freshman year. That second semester, she and I had every single class – but one, together. I don’t remember what we were eating, or where we went to eat, but I do remember what I was wearing. I remember, because we took a picture that night upon a moment of discovery (or, at least I think we did).

            My college roommate’s mom said, “Oh, you guys are friends.” The two of us looked at each other, shrugged, kind of in shock, and denied it. I remember the awareness of that fact, and not the circumstances surrounding it, like it was yesterday.

            Discovery begins with denial.

            There.

            I’m going to let that stew for a bit.

Traditions: Of Love & Christmas (12/21)

December 21st

Tradition: What are your traditions of Christmas? Or Hanukkah, if that’s what you celebrate. Is there one thing that spans generations or your family or just in your life? 

This will be the fifth Christmas since my Grandma passed away and the sixth since we had Christmas with her last. So many of my Christmases and traditions involved her, but that was another time.

There are a few traditions that have followed my life.

One, my Dad has a little blue nightlight that he will plug in my bedroom and turn the light on Christmas eve. The theory was, if the light was off when I woke up in the morning it meant Santa Claus had come. The light was always off in the morning, even the last time I spent Christmas at home, when I was 29. 

Second, when I was a lot younger, my Dad started buying little house ornaments from Hallmark. They were on of the "collections." Each year, from about 1985, I'd get a new house for Christmas. When I was about 12 or 13, and I only had a few, I used them to be the "neighbors" for my gigantic dollhouse. Suddenly, when I was about 26 or 27, there were enough ornaments for my Mom to decorate the Christmas tree with only the houses. That's what she did this year, she said. [photo to come when I see it!] 

Now, as I look at these two, these are the only two traditions that continue to this day. But, there are others. 

There is the tradition that lasted for several years of my hometown Church holding a midnight service and we would sing Silent Night outside in front of the sanctuary. 

Then, there is the tradition when we would have Christmases with some family friends to watch a movie. 

For a long time, just after Thanksgiving, a package would arrive in the mail. It was a three foot piece of green felt with three golden rings tied to it, cascading in rows to the bottom. The dates were cut out in red felt. Each day, I'd have something new to open: a pencil, a dollar bill, a pair of socks, or maybe a piece of candy. 

Even still, another memory involves my Grandma taking me out onto the front porch to see if I could hear Santa Claus. She would bend slightly over with her arms around me, holding me close to keep me warm. Then, faintly, I'd hear, "Ho! Ho! Ho!" off in the distance. It wasn't until I was about 16... that I figured out how close Santa Claus was to my backyard. 

These are all memories that I'll be able to carry on into my own family, and one I'm already planning on passing along to my pseudo-nephew. Every child and every family needs a Christmas tradition that spans time, whether the people who helped make them happen aren't around anymore, or not. Sometimes, when we stop experiencing the tradition ourselves, it's time to pass it on to someone else. 

Miracle: Rediscovering Grace in the Restoration of Faith

December 4th

Miracle: Do you feel you experienced or witnessed miracle this year? How so?

It might depend on how you describe a miracle. Some people describe seeing them in the moonlight, or in the sunshine, or in how the rays of sun glisten through clouds.

Miracles, for me, come through receiving grace. It seems that it often takes feeling a hurt deeper than you ever have felt before and sensing that your friendships, or your job, or your sanity will come crashing down. The sense of feeling as if you don’t do something and quickly you’ll never recover is what I call grace and a defining moment. 

A long-term relationship ended just shy of one year ago. It pained me and yet I so desperately wanted to prove that I was going to be fine and that I could move on, I pushed myself to move on and be alright without ever actually confronting why it hurt so bad to begin with. Several months passed before I realized that this "thing" I wasn't dealing with could destroy every other relationship I had: feelings of doubt, feelings of mistrust, and a general feeling of abandonment. 

I was exhausted - emotionally, hurting and fearing that the people I love and who I believe cared about me and sustained me during the initial difficult time would back away. 

Tired, feeling very much alone, and with nowhere to go, I went to a Church. It wasn’t like any Church I’d ever been to... a satellite campus and broadcasted at  a high school auditorium. Yet, I walked without resistance into the quad of the campus to see a sign that said, “A Place Where It’s OK to Not Be OK.” I immediately felt tears streaming down my face. 

I was undoubtedly torn. At one point, I didn't know who I could trust nor did I know why I wondered and doubted that. This Church I had just walked into announced they were starting a series called, "Torn: Trusting God When Life Leaves You in Pieces." 

The Pastor, Jud Wilhite, said at the beginning, "Maybe you don't know why that relationship ended, or maybe you don't know why it hurts." The tears at this point poured down my face. 

I thought, and somewhat still believe that the people I wanted to confide in, or had already vented to, may have considered me too emotional, or presumed I would have already moved on. I felt as though also these people I loved had their own concerns that I didn’t want to bother them. My ears heard the words, "It's not about you." 

My heart ached. Of course it wasn't, it was about all of them. I wanted to be there for my friends and for my family but knew I couldn't because the hurt I felt inside was greater than any love - at that moment - that I could receive or offer. 

Drug addicts.

Domestic violence victims.

Assault survivors.

Foreclosures.

Job loss. 

And so on... 

Many of us often rationalize that our hurts, a simple breakup, or the natural end-of-life death of a loved one, are not significant enough in either the eyes of God or our peers because our neighbors may be dealing with something that much "worse" or difficult.

In discovering grace, it becomes known that it doesn't matter what it is because you're the only one who is experiencing it. Only you know what it feels like to lose the job, to be abused, to have lost your house or try to quit... something. The one common theme is that each of us can be torn by that one issue only one of us knows about. That's where we can come together. 

So, when I realized my life had left me emotionally in pieces, I chose to seek my faith. It was the beginning of the return back to feeling at peace with myself, at the risk of losing loved ones and friends in the process.

Whether fortune or unfortunately, I had to work at rebuilding my faith, then myself, before I could tackle anything else. It's now all an evolving process. 

Torn: Lyric Video from Central Online on Vimeo.
My prayer for the end of this year, is that through the restoration of faith and self-worth, may also my relationships with family and friends be restored too. That also, one day, if a friend is hurting and feeling like they need to climb out of darkness, I can either have the awareness or the invitation to offer a hand in that climb.

Join the Journey. Answer the Prompts & Tweet Your Link using #resonate11 & #reverb11

If I Die Young... (Part 1)

Kimberly Perry is somewhat in a state of contentment. The song she wrote, that her band (The Band Perry) sings and has won awards for is all about knowing all is well.

con·tent·ment/kənˈtentmənt/

Noun:

A state of happiness and satisfaction.

Synonyms:

satisfaction - gratification - complacency - complacence

Just in case you were wondering.

In my last post I wrote about writing something down, making it happen, writing it into life. Writing, for me, is a way of putting something out into the world. Then, let whatever the world wants to do with it - have at it. Right?

“If I die young...” It’s a contemplative phrase. 

Life is short, so my question is what can each one of us do to ensure that however short, or long, our lives are that we can say the following:

“I’ve had just enough time.”

This isn’t a message about giving up. This is a message about living on without any hurried pursuit of anything. Just be you, the great you that you were meant to be. 

If you’re thinking about suicide, there is help:

In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

I Want to Sparkle

It’s September. 

Of course, you already knew that. 

I’m not sure, though, when, or how, this year became to be three-quarters of its way through. Really, I look at the calendar and I’m certain that the pages just turned to June. By the time I recognized it was June, I think it was August. That may explain that.

Time flies when you’re having fun, moving on, learning new things, or growing up. That’s all happened in the last nine months. What have you learned this year?

This year, I learned that I love to be spontaneous, so long as everything else is planned. It’s important to me to know where I’ll sleep, or how I’ll get somewhere, but the rest -- I can go with the flow.

Also, I learned that I’m content with being alone. In fact, much to my dismay, I actually enjoy it. That being said, I do love companionship and hope one day that I can have a relationship where there’s an honest blend of mutual interests and individual interests.

What I learned most about myself and my experiences of this year is what I don’t want, and how to help those who may not want it either. I don’t want to be stifled. 

I want to sparkle.

Getting the frump out of your rump is a permanent process; it is a constant cycle and the recognition of what does deserve and what one does not; and getting it out allows your sparkle to shine through. 

I have something big coming. It’s still in development and it is coming. As soon as I can tell you, I will. I hope you’re as excited about it as I am. 

Staring Out Into Possibility

Written En Route San Diego to Las Vegas

Now that a year in my life has come and gone, even while in the midst of the current year, I find myself staring out into a valley of possibility. 

I could use the imagery of mountains to climb or hills to scale, but the entire concept of pushing something up a hill never to arrive is not one that I wish to pursue.

The Myth of Sisyphus is one of never attaining the goal, but always be engaged in the climb.

I, for one, am not certain that the climb itself is all that it’s cracked up to be. The journey, however, that’s an entirely different story. 

When people enter a dark moment of their life I never hear them talk about “the climb.” Instead, they’ll refer to it as “darkness” or “a rut” or a “battle.” Never, that I can recall, does anyone mention some pursuit upwards.

That is not to say that there is no pursuit in going up, it’s just that I’m not certain anyone cognitively feels that they are “moving” into a higher capacity while carrying weight in the process.

Leading up to this new series of 365 days, or 525,600 minutes, my vision is not one of standing in the same place, moving, but going nowhere. Instead, it’s almost a series of ballet movements across grains of sand and onto something.

Then, though, that begs the question: Is moving upwards as or more difficult than the grain of sand on previously uncalloused feet? I suppose that answer would be best told by the person engaged in the journey.

Bookends, Measuring the Year in a Life

“525,600 minutes how you measure the year in a life?” begs and so tries to answer the theme song of the musical Rent.

When I think about the “year in a life” right now, I think of the word bookends. It’s the marking of both the beginning and the end of something, and the story that’s told between those markers is how you measure that year in a life. 

Bookends are like the sunrise and sunset of the day. 

At the sunset of one year and the dawn into another I made myself a promise. 

“In 2011, I’m going to like myself more,” I said. I wrote it down. I published it on this blog so that anyone could see and hold me accountable should I have any doubt that I could do it. 

A post called “Floating on the Wings of Earthly Angels” told the story of how very real people turned up in my life in previously unimaginable ways. Emotionally, spiritually, and some days, physically, I was floating on angels. Now, I am again, and this time no one had to say anything. I already knew. 

Anyway, days grew into weeks and weeks grew into months and somehow I found myself standing seven months after that post without a single question or doubt that everything had in fact happened for a reason. 

Tomorrow will mark one year since something quite specific in my life. It will also be what would have been my Grandma’s ninety-second birthday. When I look at where I will be tomorrow and where I was exactly 365 days earlier and then all that has happened in between, I can’t imagine it only being 525,600 minutes. 

I started July 22, 2010 in tears of emotional hope. 

I ended July 21, 2011 with a smile that could not be wiped from my face that could only be described as ethereal joy. No hope necessary, it just is.  

The story that’s told in the middle of these bookends is a year in a life. 

It’s told simply: in small and big prayers, in some very big cups of coffee, quite a few bottles of wine, moments of uncontrollable laughter, the making of some wonderful new friends (some old one’s too) and memories, as well as the shedding of a former self that all built up to an overflowing of gratitude. 

Bookends. 

        Oh, and I totally like myself more. 

On Coming and Going

11:14 PM Nashville, TN time, July 4, 2011

Preface:

It's been a long time since I wrote. Not because I didn't have anything to say, but because I was busy living. Not thinking about it or worrying about it, but just living. 

Coming and going.

There's been a lot of that in my life the last several weeks. I graduated (but didn't travel) from Boston University with a Master's Degree. I shut down my computer for everything but work and social media and lived and laughed up life.

I went to Palm Springs and soaked up the sun and made a lot of new memories... Stories I will tell my children one day.

Mom and Dad came to visit and bought all my "new" friends their drinks. My Mom even did a shot.  In this visit my parents became my friends.

My two best friends came to visit and a friend from my Palm Springs days did too and we all partied together.

Then, I went. I packed for what would be three full days and three nights of a weekend that could only be described as life-changing. I went to Nashville, TN to be picked up from the airport by one of my most favorite people so I could meet his beautiful and awesomely wonderful wife. Then we, my same friend who visited just two weeks ago, another friend, too, all piled in a car to drive to Chattanooga. Another friend was getting married.

I hadn't slept in 36 hours and couldn't have been happier. I had three of my favorite people - two of my favorite men - sandwiched in a car for two hours.

I couldn't even begin to tell you the rest of the weekend. We went to a comedy murder mystery theater and laughed. I shared a room with a friend that made us laugh so much we couldn't believe our friendship brought us across the country.

There is more. I went to this wedding and was so blessed to have it as a tool or a reason to see one of my best friends. My heart felt torn for the four years I had let (yes...  let) go by. I cried inside and we immediately started planning my return. What a beautiful friendship to meet someone's wife and start a friendship as if we had been friends for years. To meet his Mom and feel as though I was talking to my own. Yes, I cried a little upon coming, but going was the hardest part.

Somehow, the universe might have known and flight delays kept me on the East coast for all of the 4th of July.

It's Independence Day. Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing, let the whole world know that this is a day of reckoning.

This day meant so much to me, and I spent five hours of it in an airport. I came off a weekend of creating new memories and new friendships and different relationships. I am, was, spent. I sat next to a woman at the airport bar.

Airport Mom said to me (I will paraphrase) "Karma is about things happening for a reason, it is not payback." 

It's a statement, even as a woman of Christian faith, that I enveloped my emotional heart around. I wondered, when you feel you left a piece of your heart somewhere or with someone, do you get that back? How? Is it by returning? Is it by faithful or divine intervention? Is going really going? Is it just the beginning of something you never anticipated beginning? Is missing someone the unexpected indication that you love them more than you thought?

Airport Mom's husband passed away in May. She had just returned from seeing her first husband on her getaway trip. She said she loved her second husband. Their time was so short, and she believed she served a purpose in his life, and he hers. Somehow, their path was the road that may lead her back to her first husband. The true love of her life.

If a chance meeting at an airport bar provides a lifetime of wisdom; imagine what a chance encounter at a wedding can do? Or a split decision amongst friends to share a hotel room? Or to eat Twizzlers? 

We are all coming and going to somewhere - where the heart is, where we hope the grass is greener, to where we believe we really belong. 

It's in that coming and going that we really live. It's not in that destination. This weekend I lived possibly more than I have in years. I lived in the in-between of coming and going, knowing it was not a short-lived reunion. It was just a passage of time leading to several lifetime friendships.

I hate goodbyes, but there are no goodbyes in coming and going.

"I'll see you soon."

To my friends referred to here, I love you more than I can articulate.

To my Airport Mom, I am in awe of your optimism and honest contemplation of your life's path, and the reminder to relish in the journey. Now, I really do understand that everything does happen for a reason.

That is the richest lesson, however full of heartache, one could ever stand to learn.

I Need Coffee. Did that Make Sense?

If you’re a regular reader, or sometimes just pass through, I apologize for my weeklong absence. 

I took time away from this journey to work on another journey. This involves some work on your part. Don’t worry, it’s not like homework. It’s very simple. 

If you’ve ever read this blog, why do you read it? What are you looking for? Is there something missing from your life, or is there something you’ve found?

Here’s the thing:

I believe many of us spend our entire lives trying to figure out the secret of life. But, as Faith Hill sings, “The secret of life is nothing at all.” 

There is also a question about “happiness.” That is almost a buzz word these days. What makes you happy? Who makes you happy? Why do they make you happy? 

Can’t we just be happy when we wake up in the morning?

Alright, so here’s the thing. When someone tells you something that you don’t really want to hear but you know to be true, how do you react?

Ok, because once someone told me, “You don’t write well. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

It drove me nuts because my teachers had all selected me for writing awards growing up. I didn’t understand how my educators could respect my writing but my peers and colleagues could not. 

In college it proved to be a real problem. Fortunately, I had a professor who listened to me in class and recognized my thought process. 

Professor Lisa Smith was her name. I remember because she always sat on the desk at the front of the classroom and I sat in the front row. I mistakenly always wanted to call her Lilith. You know, like Frasier’s wife (ex-wife) from “Cheers” and “Frasier”? 

Anyway, she finally said to me, “Annie, you need to write your papers like you’re writing a letter.”

I said, “What?” I mean, what happened to the bing, bang, bongo format?  I seem to remember learning that in fifth grade. Introduction, three main parts, and then a conclusion. Bing. Bang. Bongo.

“You need to just start writing and don’t stop until you’re done,” Professor Smith said. “Don’t even start a new paragraph. Don’t edit it. Just write it and submit it.” 

I later found out that I wrote, thought, and spoke just like Lorelai Gilmore on “Gilmore Girls.” My thoughts hop-scotched, to me, naturally from one spot to another. If I tried to formalize the thoughts in some sort of restricted and legitimized writing format, it didn’t make sense. Oh, and I also like coffee just as much as she does. 

“What?” I said.  

“Just write it like you were talking, without a filter.”

“Wow,” I think I said, or I thought I said.

Anyway, I was a sophomore, I think, and for the first time in my life, someone with the power to decide my success decided with me, and not against me. She recognized that I had something to say, and to let me say it, even if it meant allowing me to choose my delivery. 

Lesson learned then is a lesson learned now and every day that I think many of us struggle.

Happiness isn’t about changing who we are or becoming who someone else wants us to be, it’s about being able to be exactly who we are, when we want to, and how we want to.  No disguise. No disappointments. 

So, a few years later when a news anchor said, “I don’t understand what this says,” I knew she was wrong.

I said, “let me see that.” I grabbed the script from her hands and I read it aloud.

“Oh,” she said. 

There were no more words.

I finally made sense. 

____

Question: What makes you happy? When do you feel most understood? Have you ever tried to change who you are to make sense to other people? Did it work? Let me know!

I'm Asking You: What Do You Look Forward To?

Let’s make this one brief.

The other week I wrote about looking forward by looking into my rearview mirror. You know, seeing my future through my past? Or, looking at my past as I’m moving forward.

Right now, I’m looking at one month from today, or by the time this is posted, yesterday.

May 2, 2011 will mark a new beginning for me. I’ll be seeing the world with new eyes. It’s significant on many levels, but mundane on many. I’ll have seen people I enjoy and really am counting moments to have just a moment or two with them. I’ll also have finished my Master’s program at Boston University. Then, on May 3, 2011, I’ll be “free.” I think anyway.

Then of course I know I'll have to do my laundry more often and keep my house more clean, but that OK. I'll have the cat do it. (Insert smile here.) 

Here’s a question:

What do you look forward to? What do you want to be “free” of? And who do you just want to sit down and have a moment or two with? What will you do? 

All the Other Kids Grow Up Too

How many homes does one have in their life? Not just a house, but a home, a place where there is a sense of family or community?

I just had to come back one last time, sings Miranda Lambert in “The House That Built Me.” 

In 1994, I went to high school with my direction facing the rear view mirror. I thought if I could just return to middle school every now and then I’d remember what I was afraid I’d forget. 

Del Dios Middle School became so much like a second home to me, I spent afternoons in the teachers lounge. I copied papers and put spiral bound backs in student print out documents. Mostly, I chatted. 

“So, I have this teacher who....” 

“I want to be President someday, still, but....” 

Honestly, I don’t think I ever had anything interesting to say, but I didn’t want to leave. 

Just as much as I didn't want to leave, I was in love with my Grandma. When she passed away in 2006, I could't believe I hadn't returned to her home, where so much love could be found, in so long. So, in 2008, I made the journey. I thought, finally, coming home. But, Grandma's house wasn't Grandma's house anymore. I looked for any evidence that it was, and immediately, outside I spotted what was once my swing, worn, tattered, used, and rusted, yet waiting as if just to say "hello." 

My "Swing" Outside Grandma's House (2008)

You leave home, you move on, and you do the best you can, I got lost in this whole world and forgot who I am. 

In 2002, I left my first job at what was then a Fox affiliate in San Diego. While working there I described it as a playground.

“Anne Marie, how can you run around barefoot!” someone would yell from the sports office.

“Because I can!” 

People would be tickled by the copiers, mini breaks were taken upstairs to make hot chocolate, and no matter what we all always went out for drinks afterwards. 

I remember this one time we convinced one of the main anchors and a weather anchor to come out to karaoke, something the rest of us did every week. Somewhere, on video, they are singing “I’ve Got You Babe.” 

When the men would sing, the girls and I would toss panties, yes panties, to them and scream like we were 17. The hostess of the karaoke night also worked at a strip club. She came with props. 

We had some really, really, fun times. Really. 

In 2009, I went back to that first job for a job interview. It was just happenstance, but someone who worked there when I did still remained and said to come on by. 

She took me inside the building, the same building that I had dreamt about getting lost in, and finding myself in, for the previous seven years. I had never left it. 

“Rust,” I said to her as I looked at the stairwell that had once been so clean and white. “Smudge,” I said again as I noticed dirt on the walls. I cringed inside a little because it wasn’t anything like coming home. 

Then, just as I felt a tinge of tears lulling me out of joy, I heard someone say, “Anne Marie.” 

Two years later, almost to the day, I returned to my latest home, hoping to take more than just a memory. For the first time, the place looked the same, some of the faces were still familiar, and the feeling inside was just right. I had come home.

Yet, I recognize there is always some nostalgia in “coming home.” Eventually, all the other kids on the street grow up and move away, too. It’s always fun when you come back to visit and there’s at least a few you can talk to at the mailbox, or catch up with during a morning run. Yet, they all leave too and we’re out looking for a new place to call home. 

They say home is where the heart is, and depending on who is in your heart, and what makes it beat, and has your chest rise and fall; it’s one place, or no place, or many places at the same time. 

I’ve found home in the teacher’s lounge at a middle school, in the studio of a TV station, on the stage at a bar on karaoke night, and in a little desert town where some people think you only retire, and ultimately, wherever the people I love happen to be. 

Love Comes in Any Size & For Many

Love can come in any size or shape or package. All that matters is that it comes and we recognize it when it does. Romantic love, friendly love, and just because I am human I love you as a human, too, love.

I get the funny thing, I do. Some people say I'm too analytical. Sometimes, that is true and other times it is not. Most of all I really just would rather dangle a spoon from my nose than care as much as I do or you think that I do.

If there is a lesson in not caring... This isn't it.

All week, I wanted to write about the anticipation of something...

For the last three weeks, I don't know why, I have rushed to the mailbox expecting "something." Good mail. But, no. Mostly bills.

I then got this urge to bake. I wanted to make cookies and for anyone who would eat them. Then, I realized I was anticipating mail like I was expecting cookies from Grandma.

When I was about 5, my Grandma shipped Valentine's cookies to our house. I remember it because I answered the door.

I was having a playdate with a friend and my Mom was on the phone.

This week I wrote on his Facebook wall (lame, I know) something to the effect of, "Remember when we were like 5 and my Grandma mailed heart shaped cookies and we ate almost all of them by the time mom got off the phone?"

Love me some cookies. Love me some cookie memories.

Love can come in any package, yet that is one I'll never forget.

So, I made cookies this week and thought as I mail them off to those who kindly wanted some, "With Love, from Grandma."

This whole baking for friends or "Operation Cookie" as I call it puts a whole new meaning to "That's the way the cookie crumbles."

My mom said, "Who doesn't like cookies?"

I laughed. Then, I thought if love comes in box of cookies, I'd spend my whole life making and shipping them so that others can rush out... Hoping for some good mail.

I can't do that.

So, I decided I would bring back cards, you know, because they're better than bills. So, I sent out approximately 12 Valentine's type cards to people whether they were my best friends or just what I now call "vacationers" ( you know, people you drop in on and pick up where you left off.)

I told a friend that by bringing back good mail I was going to single-handedly save the postal service. Then, I discovered that also meant saving Hallmark.

Despite the cost and the time spent baking and writing notes with an actual pen and the time it takes, I love it.

So here is the return to Happy Wednesday's and Just Because days, and cookies because I know you love them surprises.

Love comes in any size, for many. It might just be in your mailbox. Notice, I didn't say email.

When Doing Nothing is Absolutely Something

"There are no words." 

When I was younger, my Dad used to chronicle my day for me in these little red day keeper diary books. You can see what it looks like in the “About Me” tab up above. 

Anyway, sometimes he would ask, “Annie, how did your day go today?” Or, he would ask, “What did you do today?”

I’m not exactly sure what would happen next, because many times I was only 3, 4, or 5 years old. Just by looking at the pages of the years between 1982 and 1994 (when I started keeping my own journal and keeping my own stories), I often said a lot. 

Yet, every now and then you open up a page and it simply says, in his handwriting, “There are no words.” 

Today, which will actually be yesterday by the time you read this, I pretty much went about doing nothing. I had a checklist with about 15 items on it and only crossed one thing off. That doesn’t look great for my productivity, but for the self-continuity of being me, it’s great. 

I stopped what I was doing. I stopped chasing the agenda for just a moment, and went to a local resort for spa services. I’ve never been so relaxed while getting a massage before. I mean, when I awoke from my last service I wasn’t even sure which country I was in, let alone the city, or which year it was or where I was going next. Now that’s a good massage.

Leaving afterwards, my mind was completely blank. There was only one resounding voice in the back of my head. It came from a Carrie Underwood song. “Change.”

The smallest thing can make all the difference

Love is alive

don’t listen to them when they say

You’re just a fool, you’re just a fool

to believe you can change the world.

I’m not necessarily seeking to change the world, but I do believe wholeheartedly that sometimes by doing nothing in one moment, you can wake up to a nugget of knowledge in how to do something. Yet, for just a few more hours, the thought of doing something just stewed, while I sat and did nothing. The difference between the momentary lapse of action and the ongoing of nothingness is that the thought process makes me want to leap off the couch of nothingness into absolute action.

A lesson many of us experience now, or at some point of our lives, is that our eyes are closed when we miss the “why” of our negative experiences. It’s when they’re open that we see what’s happened. Then, when we close them again, and reflect, we gain wisdom. 

I believe now, more than I did before, that if an experience can be lived through, one must surrender to it. I must not be so quick to observe my own experience, but sit right in it, allow it to sink in. If I don’t, just like Friedrich Nietzsche writes, instead of wisdom, I’d end up with indigestion. 

in that journey to wisdom, there is nothing, until one arrives... at something.