Feet On the Ground

There’s something that’s going around on Facebook that makes me extremely angry. This is being posted by teenagers and girls in their early 20s who got knocked up:

“There’s a new group of real live super heroes & they’re popping up everywhere. They can easily do the work of two people all on their own. They’re strong & determined, yet gentle & sensitive. They can kiss away boo boos & scare away the boogie man in a single bound. Millions of kids everywhere look up to them. They’re called single moms.”

HA, I say. HA HA HA.

I was raised by a single mother. A woman who had me at 23, stayed with my grandma for two weeks after I was born because she nearly bled to death, and then moved into her own place and never once went back to live with anyone else. I can’t tell you how many girls I’ve known over the past couple years that had kids and are still living with their parents or living off of welfare and buying themselves sparkly things just because they can. And they’re being celebrated for it.

Rubbish.

I saw my mom not know where money was going to come from and get on her knees to pray for an answer. I saw my mom work her fingers to the bone so that we could get OFF of welfare and even when we qualified for it, she refused to take it as soon as we could survive. We always had cable, our utilities never got turned off, and I wasn’t allowed to get a cell phone or internet before she knew we could afford it. We drove horrible cars that were falling apart. I was made fun of into college for not having nice things. I’m still emotionally scarred from my horrible relationship with my horrible father. My mom has always been the person in the background picking up slack for the prideful, showy, lazy people and asking for no recognition in return.

Being a single mother is not fun. Being the child of a single mother isn’t fun either.

A child is NOT a doll, prop or accessory. It’s not like a small dog you can carry around in your purse. It’s a human being, and a single mother (or father!) is totally responsible for that human’s life. It should be terrifying and it should terrify these girls into action- not into lazing around on Facebook patting each other on the back. A babysitter can kiss booboos and scare the boogieman. Guess what? My mom raised me entirely on her own and never once enlisted the help of a babysitter. My grandparents watched me on very rare occasions. Before I started school, we would sit at home for days because we had to walk everywhere and couldn’t really afford to do anything.

She washed all of my baby clothes in the bathtub and hung them up to dry. She said that moving a mile and a half from our old place into a two bedroom apartment in town when I was a year old was such a blessing that it made her cry. She could finally walk to get groceries rather than ask for a ride.

We had little…but we had traditions and did special things. Every Sunday we went roller skating. When I started piano lessons, we went to Taco Bell and bowling after my lesson. We did what we could and eked out every bit of fun we could. We didn’t have much, but she instilled in me to keep the little that I had in good condition and cared for.

The kind of single mother that deserves to be lauded is too busy to ask for recognition.

Tags: appreciation, controversy, Mom

I like being funny. I like making people laugh. When I write wrote on my novel months ago before I started working at Amazon and my creativity was completely sucked away by pain and misery, I made myself laugh as my hapless character walked the fine line between tragedy and comedy. You wouldn’t know it to read my blog, would you? For some reason, whenever I start writing here, it’s just too blasted honest to be funny.

I’m sorry about that. I really, really wish I could just make you laugh.

The truth is,  I’m moving into my new apartment a week from today and I start law school in less than a month. I’m slightly more than terrified. You know how your mouth kind of waters before you throw up? Yeah. It’s been doing that since I got up today, and it’s just because I started poking around the school’s website and staring at my schedule. Nerves of jelly.

To top it off, my car has been breaking down. We paid $237 for a new alternator and then my car was still dead when I tried to leave my best friend’s house last night. Now it’s apparently the fuse box. Hello? I needed that money for furniture! How am I supposed to eat without a kitchen table OR a coffee table? Eep. I’m stressed and I can’t even drive to Starbucks!

Headdesk.

All I wanted was to write and make people laugh.

Tags: law school

I had a going away party yesterday. I had it a little early because my beloved aunt is going to have surgery this week and she, of course, had to be a part of everything. She’s having her reconstruction surgery after completely defeating cancer. She didn’t even have to have radiation or chemotherapy. She’s so strong and faithful and God is SO awesome. Anyway.

So, if I defined success by the number of people who apparently gave a crap about me moving away to be bothered enough to come to my party, I’d be a big blasted failure.

You know who came? THE PEOPLE I’M GOING TO TALK TO ANYWAY. *headdesk* I’m not kidding…nearly half of the people that came I had seen that week. I invited so many people that I don’t get to see that often and might never see again, thinking that it would be so cool to have everyone in one place. A couple people had legitimate excuses- my bff came for 30 minutes because she had to go, ya know, be a bridesmaid in a wedding…and we totally hung out last night anyway. But some people gave very vague excuses. I don’t consider, “I had stuff to do!” a legitimate reason to not come to my party. You know what the real reason was? I don’t care about your party.

The only people that showed up from church were my band guys and their wives. A couple people that I have met from church were there- but they don’t go anymore and I don’t consider them “church friends” anyway. I consider them “real friends” and it’s sad that there is a difference between the two.

But for the rest of people at church? Their reason? I don’t care.

The party was at the church.

The people there pride themselves on being so perfect. Yet they are so selfish, so awful, and so stuck up their own asses that they can’t even think about honoring someone else. If I’m truly honest with you, and that’s something that I just can’t keep out of my writing…the thing that makes me happiest about moving away is that I won’t have to come up with excuses to myself about why I’m not going to church.

Here’s the reason. Flat out there. Not an excuse, a reason. I can’t stand most of the people at my church.

Now, I have a pastor that I love here, and a choir member there, and the guys in the horn section, and their wives…and a couple of the greeters, and the woman that works the information desk, and some people in the congregation that I wave to on occasion…

…and that’s, honestly, about it.

But those people? Those people are AMAZING beyond belief and I will never forget them. Ever. They are going to have places of the highest honor in heaven because they’re that spectacular.

Yet I find the majority so clueless, so obnoxious, and so flat out rude and lazy that I hate that they’re the picture of Jesus to our community.

How can they coexist in the same organization?

It’s sickening sometimes. The place operates haphazardly and foolishly. Too much responsibility is put on too many people, and that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars being embezzled by the financial adviser. Then after that, someone thought it was a good idea to put the financial operations in the hands of some 20 year olds.

Like that would ever fly in the real world.

I’m so. so. so. tired of stupid Christians.

So what’s success? Right now, I don’t know. I know that the church doesn’t think I’m a success, and I don’t think it’s a success.

I know that this probably sounds like a whole lot of whining. Yeah, it hurt my feelings that not many people came. But I’m so thankful FOR the people that did come that I don’t want to belittle their importance in any way whatsoever. I wouldn’t trade them for a billion fakes. What really makes me frustrated, though, is the picture that this paints. The picture that is so totally unlike Jesus. To love like Jesus is to be a success. But how do we show it? Church is the last place I’d look right now.

Tags: angry, controversy, learning, uncertainty

I’m listening to Joyce Meyer talking about making peace with yourself. My eternal struggle. I think I do well on it and then I realize that I’ve been in a pattern of self doubt for weeks…or longer. To God’s credit, I’m no longer wallowing in self-loathing. But, oh my gosh, do I doubt myself. All the time.

I’m a nerd. Geek. Whatever. But not in a way that I can actually use. I can’t create something super cool, like a web page or video or some sort of graphic that I could like, prove to someone that I can make decent use of my time. I just love knowledge. I love to Google things out of nowhere just to learn about them. I talk on here about loving story. I get caught up in stories of real life people or characters on TV or in books and I love when they’re in situations completely unfamiliar to me. I love to imagine what I would be like in those situations. I’ve been watching the first season of Dexter…and last night I dreamed about solving an extremely complicated crime. Have I ever really done anything useful with my nerd stuff? Nope. I’ve written a couple things that are sitting in Scrivener and have about 20,000 words so far. Each. For me, that’s HUGE. But not nearly enough to be published, and considering that they’re my first real efforts it’s unlikely that they would be published at all even if they were completed.

So I spend time in my on-screen or on-page worlds, treating these characters as people. Thinking about what makes them tick. Thinking about the people in my real life and what makes them the way that they are. Thinking about my story, my setting, and how I could change things but also thinking about how no one would ever listen to me. When I think about my church, I think about how I could change EVERYTHING there and make it so much better. When I worked for Amazon, I saw how everything was so blasted inefficient and it drove me bonkers. When I look at the city of Huntington, I see how stunted it is and how we NEED something better- but no one is doing anything about it. Yet no one listens to me and I barely to go church anymore because I can’t stand it, I quit my job and I’m moving away.

I wish I didn’t run away. I wish I didn’t live in denial. I met a new boy recently, and I warned him- I’m a nerd. He’s super country. We’re like, total opposites. But I said that I’d try to take it easy on him. I hid it away and tried to find common interests for us to discuss. I didn’t want to scare him away. And then, oh gosh. One day, it happened. We were looking stuff up online and I stumbled over some nerdy things and totally. freaking. fangirled. It was one of the most embarrassing displays of excitement I’ve ever exhibited. After a few minutes, I looked up to see him smirking at me. I stopped mid sentence and played it off with a joke. He wasn’t phased. I was.

Thinking about it takes me back to high school, when I was treated with derision because of things like that. When I tried to hang out with the “cool” people at church and told that fiction was stupid and that watching TV meant that I was not a good steward of my time.

I’m so tired of being made to feel like a loser over what makes me unique.

Hearing Joyce talk about this gives me hope, though. She said that she was always embarrassed by her voice. It’s rough, deep, and loud. She’s not one of those sweet, mousy, quiet women that the church likes so much. She is brash. Has presence. In my opinion, she’s a great speaker and I love her manner. But she used to hate her voice, and felt that it was what would stop her from becoming a success.

Look at her now. She has preached the gospel to millions and is doing absolutely amazing missions work all over the world. God has used her tremendously, especially in my life, and I believe that He caused me to find her podcast at the right time to keep me from committing suicide.

To this day, when she talks to people on the phone they think she’s a man.

I hope, so much, that one day my obsession with story will help people and be used for good. But in the meantime, my biggest obstacle is being okay with being me.

Tags: discomfort, peace, trying

Today is Father’s Day.

Usually a day that I spend in bitterness and self pity. For the first time in probably, well, ever, I’m totally thankful for what I have rather than focusing on what I missed. I’ve been realizing lately how much God has restored to me or blessed me with that totally makes up for what I might have lacked in the past. And it has turned out to be a very busy celebration for me, and I said Happy Father’s Day!!!! to all of the following with unaffected gusto and sincere love:

Papaw has been coming to church for the past several weeks and today was no exception. After the praise and worship, I took him to breakfast.

I texted a very dear friend who has played somewhat of a strange father/uncle role in my life for the past year and whose guidance I now find a completely vital part of my life (even though I often ignore it).

Although I hug almost everyone, I don’t have a hugging relationship with the band leader at church. No idea why, it just never happened. I think it’s because he’s too hyper. Anyway, we have joked for the past couple of years that I’m his stepdaughter because I get slightly adopted when we go on choir trips. So I gave him a giant squeeze today when he least expected it.

I called my uncle who has been around though my entire life, stood by me through everything, and showed me no less love than he bestowed on his own daughters.

I took my stepdad to the movies today. Just us. Might seem small to some, but that’s his favorite thing to do and we don’t get out to do stuff alone very often. We had a blast.

But most importantly, I totally rocked out at church this morning and praised harder than I have in months to let my ultimate Father know how much I truly treasure Him.

I. love. my. fathers.

Happy Father’s Day to all of the awesome dads out there who truly love people- even those that aren’t their own children.

Also, an extremely happy birthday to my beautiful state of West Virginia. Yes, it is a state of its own and has been for 147 years. It’s my beloved home. We have country people, DELICIOUS food (Jamie Oliver sucks!), a really cool bridge, beautiful sights, poor towns, curvy roads, snowy peaks, couch burning Satanists, legal snake handling, coal, too many rednecked Democrats, knights and ladies, bad cell service due to mountains, close families and bad grammar. We endure the bad because there’s so much good and know that even though we get horrible media portrayal, we’re diamonds amidst all that coal dust (which keeps your lights on).

Thanks, WV, for treating me well. I’m proud to be a part of you, even though I’m hopping the state line for law school! Couldn’t make myself go to Morganhole. Sry. Wubs?

Tags: father

I try to have faith, to be strong, to believe it will okay, and to keep pressing on even though I’m miserable and terrified.

Sometimes I can’t.

Sometimes I just cry and cry and cry and cry because I have no hope that things will get easier.

Tags: fear, nightmare, pain, uncertainty

Summer TV started tonight. USA has cornered that market and I have been looking forward to new episodes of my shows. Of course, nothing can top my boys from Psych but until they come back I’ll be satisfied with my Michael Westin posse, HankMed and Matthew Bomer’s ridiculously blue eyes.

At times, it could be accurately said that I love TV more than breathing. I can’t seem to get enough of it. I find Michael Ausiello to be the biggest tool of the web but I envy his job SO much. He does nothing but watch TV and write about it. Entertainment Weekly, if you’re looking for someone prettier and far less annoying than Aus, I don’t have to go to law school.

Burn Notice and Royal Pains are a really odd pairing for the same night. I know that USA was trying to boost RP’s Nielsen ratings by using the Burn lead-in, but pairing an awesome show with a pretty good show makes the contrast look even worse. I think it would have worked better to pair Burn and White Collar (to better prepare for the crossover episode that better happen or I will take a page from Fiona’s book and go trigger happy) and then run RP with Covert Affairs or In Plain Sight (which to its credit is stronger this season than ever before) while leaving Psych on Wednesdays. Burn and Psych have pretty rabid fans while RP seems to pick up casual viewers. Ah, well, what do I know? Rather than running a network, I’m not getting paid to blog!

Regardless, tonight was a good night of premieres and I’m excited to see where the seasons go. Burn started off with a bang and several booms right away, which is a good sign in my eyes. I love the action. I loved seeing Michael come in and hug Madeline. I loved how Sam and Fiona just roped him into a little mission right away with no fanfare regarding his return. I loved how Big Ed put the biker jacket on Winston at the end. I love that I wished Michael had shot Vaughn when he had the chance but am also glad that he didn’t. I did not love that a 43 minute episode seemed to last about 3 minutes.

With Royal Pains, I loved seeing Evan’s antics finally return. He doesn’t need to be sad. I loved that Hank punched his dad in the face because I have neither the strength or opportunity to punch my own father. I hated, and I mean HATED Jill’s outfit. I mean, ick. I hated the entitled surgeon. I loved Spencer. I love that Mary Lynn Rajskub is going to be a future patient. I liked that Hank is going to make some headway with Boris. I hated that Evan sold his car because, well, I have epic car lust. I will be infuriated if Divya leaves. I still love Evan, and I still am not very moved by Hank’s character. I don’t know if it’s the actor or the character, but he’s falling flat for me. It’s probably the hair (Shawn Spencer would agree).

Despite my RP criticism, I’m incredibly thrilled that summer TV is starting and filling up my roster. I have eps of several shows that I haven’t seen yet from this spring, but I need to get crackin’ because summer is starting to sizzle.

Tags: Burn Notice, Royal Pains

I have a really bad singing voice. It’s nasally and I can’t carry a tune very well, so I don’t sing…unless I’m playing Glee songs in the car. I have to turn the volume up so that the cast drowns me out.

I get really nervous talking in front of people. I get shaky. My pupils constrict, I turn pale and my voice wobbles like I’m getting ready to cry. My throat tightens. My mouth dries. I see people staring at me with blank expressions and I have to fight the urge to run out the door – and I fight it only because I know my legs wouldn’t carry me that far.

So the only voice I have is through writing.

Problem is, I have a need to be brutally honest when I write. I can’t make it nice and fluffy and lovey unless I’m really feeling that way. I’m sarcastic. My verbal filter is riddled with holes. I say things that most Christians are afraid to even think. I write what I feel, which is usually full of pain and confusion.

And then I read the blogs of some AMAZING women. Lindsey Nobles. Bianca Juarez. Anne Jackson. Sarah Markley. Kristin Billerbeck. Fabulous women. Strong women. My role models from afar. I’ve never met them, but I have talked to them all on Twitter, e-mail, or Facebook chat. They all have many reasons to be bitter and question everything they believe, but they get out of bed and fight. Maybe not everyday. But most days. They write about everything, including their struggles, but usually end with a note of hope.

It’s then, that I hate my writing voice more than my singing voice. For a writer, your voice is your self. They can’t be separated. I realize how bitter, how confused, how hopeless I am. How afraid, how insecure. Faithless. Weak. Incapable.

I also realize why THEY are living a much better story than I am. Stories of redemption and passion and overcoming and perseverance and faith. I have no idea how to get my hands on this kind of life.

Yet somehow, their hope is contagious. I want the type of life they lead. I want strength to choke bitterness, courage to overwhelm fear, and love to blast hatred into oblivion. I honestly don’t know if I can ever change. I want to. I hope I can. And for now, I can muster up the willpower to keep trying.

Tags: change, determination, learning, trying, uncertainty

There are a few things that, as a rule, I can’t stand. Church people and girls are at the top of the list. So girls from church are my personal hell on earth.

I realize that I’m generalizing and stereotyping. But in my experience, most of the girls I’ve had the displeasure of associating with in churchlike settings are vapid, shallow, concerned with appearances and unable to stand on their own. They’re daddies girls who are constantly seeking approval from everyone around them and their main goal is to marry someone who is important or the son of someone important in the church.

I used to want to be one of them. Oh, so badly.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make myself fit in. So I eventually quit. For a while, I quit everything related to church and even stopped playing in the band. When I returned, I didn’t hang out with anyone. I literally had NO friends close by. I went to school, work, and came home. My grades were great and I watched a lot of TV. It was a very quiet time in my life, and my only face-to-face conversations of any importance were with my mom. I spend a lot of time texting and calling my far away friends. And although I’d still see on Facebook all of the comments and pictures of church people hanging out, I had absolutely no desire to join in. I no longer cared.

I worked through a lot of hurt in that time, and after a while got to the point where I could see people that had ostracized me without feeling that old stab of pain. I even struck up conversations with people now and then, but this time I had no expectations.

Then I shocked myself by meeting someone I really liked. She started dating one of my friends and was the sister of someone I had gone to school with for years. We hit it off from our first conversation. She was hard to get ahold of when we weren’t at church, but every time I saw her we chattered away and had a blast. We hung out a few times with our friends and I looked forward to seeing her. I felt as if I didn’t have to be strategic around her- I could just show her who I was. We giggled, a lot, and whispered about things that would earn us shocked faces and frowns from most people around us. I liked her because she had a pretty real view of things that most people in church try to pretend don’t exist.

She was one of those people that, if you could PICK someone to be friends with, it would be her. We both got new jobs around the same time, and then the holidays were crazy, and so many times we said, “When things calm down, we’re going to hang out. Just us.”

Finally, I decided to try to make it happen. But she wasn’t responding to texts or facebook messages for days, or the next time I’d see her she’d apologize. Finally, I got fed up with it and asked her boyfriend if he could see if she was getting my texts. I’d heard stuff about her phone not getting messages before, and was still trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. She texted me later that day and started going on about how she was a loner and didn’t have much time to hang out and well, basically told me to quit trying.

Salt, meet wound.

I was hurt and extremely angry. I ranted and stewed and seasoned my bitterness like a witch’s brew. I wrote her off in my head and made every effort to avoid her. Fortunately, I didn’t see her at church for like, a month. Then, I saw her unexpectedly. She tried talking to me as I was walking outside to get my jacket from my car. I smiled stiffly and responded with as few words as possible and kept going. When I came back inside, I went into the bathroom. She was there. She tried to strike up a conversation. I kept trying to brush her off, but she persisted. Finally, I said, “I’ll come out and sit with you in a minute.” She grinned and said okay and walked out the door.

So, as I’m peeing as angrily as possible and berating myself for telling her I’d come sit with her, because there was no way out now- I heard God speak to my spirit.

“Forgive her.”

Of course, I wasn’t giving in that easily. A dialogue ensued.

“No.”
“Yes.”
“She hurt me!”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to!”
“I don’t care.”

I’m certain that I had a big scowl on my face. I’m also certain that God was lounging on His throne with his arms folded and staring at me with a calm, yet pointed expression. I was having a standoff with someone who knew He was going to win. Soooooooo infuriating.

And, well, let’s just be real. There, in the church’s bathroom, I said, “Damnit!”

At that moment, I TOTALLY felt God smirking at me. My candor and whining didn’t bother Him. My stubbornness amused Him. I felt no censure, and I think it’s because He knew that I was deeply hurt, that I had deeply cared about her, and that I truly wanted to do the right thing.

I washed my hands and stomped over to the door. I took a deep breath and sighed it out forcefully and then, with a small bit of resignation mixed into a whole lot of determination, I said, “Okay.”

I went out there. Forgave. Talked. Hugged. Expressed my hurt. Cleared the air. Made a few jokes. Giggled. Hugged again.

That was a few weeks ago. And since then, I’ve only seen her once and said hi in passing. We haven’t had any other contact.

It still kind of hurts.

I still love her.

And I think God is proud of me.

Tags: awkward, grace, learning, pain, peace, risk

Just gave up on sleep. The lack of shut eye will make me super grouchy tomorrow when I’m working, but I hate my job so much that it won’t really make a difference. I’ll just grouch in a gravelly, tired voice.

I envision some scenes of my life as how they’d appear on film. I’d love for my life to be a dramedy full of excitement and witty banter, like Psych, but the truth is that my life is mostly full of sitcom moments with dashes of horror thrown in (horror being something  involving the upstairs neighbors who play Wii at all hours of the night and a sawed off shotgun- eh, that’s just a fantasy). The sad part is…I don’t even like sitcoms! WAIL. Okay, so Modern Family is HILAR – but that’s just cause, well, it just is.

Anyway.

Like, recently, I met a friend at Starbucks and had an extremely awkward moment before I even got through the door. My car is a tiny two seater, low to the ground and compact in every way – which, incidentally, is useful in preventing your stepdad from driving it. I took my laptop housed in a BookBook, which can be a bit cumbersome but is probably one of the coolest things I own. As I was getting out of my car, I stuck my arm through my purse straps and grabbed the BookBook, which became wedged between my stomach and the steering wheel. I couldn’t lean back, nor could I reach the lever to scoot the seat back. I finally dislodged it and thought I was in the clear. No one saw that awkward moment. Success.

Except that I was wearing jean shorts that are probably a ~smidge~ too small as they’re from, like, high school, but I’ve since been too broke around summer to buy new shorts. I was excited about the warm temperatures and the fact that I COULD wear shorts, so I went with it. When I extracted myself from the car, the shorts rode up and while I didn’t want to be adjusting them on the street, I also didn’t want to be accused of trying to start a new trend while simultaneously giving a new meaning to the term “booty shorts.” So I decided I was going to smoothly pull them down as I turned to shut the car door. Yeah, I’m completely sure I didn’t pull that off…

…because then I noticed the high school aged boys staring at me from beside the bus stop across the street.

Great.

I’m a college graduate preparing to go to law school getting creeped on by kids who can’t grow facial hair. (Which is no better than getting creeped on by men who have lost all of their hair. It all gives me the willies.)

So, I’m trying to look both ways and cross the street without getting smushed by a pickup truck while simultaneously unwinding my purse straps from around the dang BookBook. I already look awkward enough, and I was hanging onto both of them for dear life in a sort of hug. I thought I could let go of one of the purse straps because I had ahold of it with the other hand, but I couldn’t really see what was going on and I also have a bad habit of NOT zipping my purse…so I didn’t want to accidentally turn it upside down and dump everything into the street.

As I’m stumbling and fumbling, one of the aforementioned boys said something like, “Hey hot stuff” (really?) as another random dude driving by on my left slowed down, honked, and whistled through his open passenger window while perfecting his leering, creepy grin.

I wish I could have given them an icy glare or pulled out a tranq gun or thrown down some witty insults. Instead, I gulped, walked faster, and tried to hide behind my hair. My bravado failed me and my snark disappeared.

I want to be refined and clever. I want to demand respect. I want to be the type of person that walks with enough confidence that people know not to mess with her. In real life, I stumble, fumble, run away, and hide.

But once in a while, the script in my head insists that I’m the star of the show- and that I’m totally fabulous.

I really wish I had the power to make that script a reality.

Tags: awkward, discomfort