Feet On the Ground

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

I didn’t know what the “terrible twos” were until I met Heidi. She hit two and the cute little girl turned into a nightmare. She would throw tantrums for no reason, hit people, throw things, lie, stomp, whine and complain. It was such a stark contrast to her surroundings- living in a family who explodes with love, would take on the world for her and parents who spoiled her with anything she could ever want. Not getting her way was usually nothing more than getting the wrong flavor of popsicle.

I was SO excited when that little girl was born. But when she hit that pattern of behavior, I stopped trying to play with her. Usually never even talked to her because she would say something nasty. If she ever came up to say hi or give me a hug, it was like the earth stood still for a moment awaiting the four horsemen. I still loved her, but it was from a distance.

And then, somehow, I ended up playing basketball (badly) outside with my cousins. It was warm (as in, not freezing) and we were excited to be able to run around outdoors. A couple of them left and a couple went inside, including Bella, Heidi’s older sister. Thinking Heidi would want to go in as well to watch a movie with Bella, I prepared to follow them in. But the stubborn little stinker refused. When she was told that everyone was going inside, she pointed to me and said, “I want to stay out and play with Kay Kay.”

Erm, srsly? I warily agreed.

As things usually happen, it was the best time I have ever spent playing with her.

I held her up to dunk the ball. I chased her around. We kicked the ball back and forth and then threw it to one another. She demanded that I put down the second ball because she wanted us to share. She said hilarious things that had me in stitches. She wanted to see my car and climbed in the seat and honked the horn. She told me funny stories. She went inside to use the bathroom and dragged me back out to play again in the dark. She talked to the neighbors. She held my hand. When we were finished she told everyone what a great time we had, and when she left a little while later, she thanked me for playing with her and told me she loved me.

Just like that, the terrible twos were erased. She became a beautiful, lovable, loving little girl. It was there all along, but we just had to wait for her sweetness to come back and love her in the meantime

I’m so thankful that God never gives up on me. He greets me with such love even just after I throw a fit over silly little things. He knows that a sweet girl is there, deep down inside, and patiently draws her out. He loves me when I’m unlovable.

Tags: determination, grace, learning, love

I. love. hugs.

I know that I’ve totally freaked people out with it before. But I come from a family that loves all over one another. I’ve grown up with a mother who might say, at 10 AM, “What’s wrong with you?! You haven’t hugged your mom today!” All of the children in the family are taught from the time they could walk to give hugs and kisses around the room to everyone before they leave. Soon, it becomes second nature.

I’m good at drawing it out of people, too. I’ve seen people who are not affectionate whatsoever start seeking me out or initiating hugs. I’ve had friends who told me that I taught them how to give a good hug. I’ve had friends who live hundreds of miles away say that they wish they could see me for even a moment because they needed a hug. Not just any hug- MINE.

How freakin’ cool is that?

An embrace is powerful. I don’t like side hugs and will demand, “BOTH ARMS!” if someone is giving me a lackadaisical squeeze. I love, for just one moment, making someone feel secure in my arms (which are, ironically, not extremely strong). My hug obsession started out with wanting to receive that feeling of security, but it quickly grew into wanting to give it, as well. If I’ve seen you a few times, I’ll hug you when I first see you and I’ll give you an extra squeeze goodbye. If we’re around each other for a considerable length of time (you know, a couple hours) I will probably throw an extra one in there for good measure. If we’ve really got a good thing going, I’ll probably drop a kiss on your cheek.

Some people probably think it’s weird that I have some friends that I greet with a kiss. It’s not weird. It’s a mark of how special you are to me and what a wonderful, comfortable friendship we have.

The best feeling in the world, to me, is when someone else practically pounces on me for a hug and kiss. I’m usually the one initiating, so knowing that someone else is that excited to see me makes me feel so incredibly and completely loved.

Do you hug? If you don’t, start. Sometimes just being pressed against another person for one second reminds you (and them!) that you aren’t alone.

Tags: love