A short collection of things I have found to be true

Anecdotes, directives, lessons (some deep, some not) and the like that I have found on life’s journey. It could also be called “A rip-off of some (only some) of my best FB stuff, repackaged on my blog.”

Every family is comprised of the members you introduce and the ones you “explain.”
 

If someone means something to you, tell them. Don’t give yourself the regret of never having said it, or deprive them the joy of hearing it. 

When choosing a fitness class, look for the instructor that is ripped... And preferably one that is x-military. Otherwise you might have someone who pulls out dusty moves such as the grapevine. If you want to change your life, you want the instructor who will make you beg for said life. Unless you don’t want to sweat. Or have your makeup run. In which case you need to go to MY bootcamp. (Say it with me...the gym is sacred ground. Don’t come unless you are serious.)
 
Don’t ask someone “Notice anything?” after finishing a project. Odds are good they will find five things you were not asking about while missing the issue of concern entirely. This is especially unwise if you, like me, belong to the perfectionist club.

Be advised that when someone asks you for spiritual accountability ultimately they are asking you if you are willing to sacrifice the friendship to deliver the truth. Because people want accountability until they don’t. It is always this moment where accountability is most needed and most critical.

There exists soiled diapers for which there is no strategy.

When you know someone really well, you can find yourself being mad at them for what you know for a fact they are thinking even when they haven’t said or done anything. One of life’s beauties. 

The middle lanes on the freeway are the suicide lanes. If something tragic happens, you have nowhere to go except into traffic. Best to stay far left or far right. ;) I am morbid enough to mull this fact over every time I find myself driving the middle.

Unless you are a gourmet cook or at least someone who loves cooking, it is best to limit your new recipe searches to those recipes that are a page or less. Anything more and you will want to use those kitchen utensils for purposes they were not intended.

If you’re not laughing, you’re crying. Okay, that one is my dad’s. Truest thing. Laughter has been our balm through some of the roughest times. You must also realize that being someone who believes this means you will often wear the mantle of irreverence. Welcome.

Even the most minor of damage to a car will not be cheap. You can not spit on a car for less than $100. If you don’t know this fact, God bless you, you lucky soul. (Better to read it in a stranger’s blog than live it.)

It is one thing to get something out of your life. The real work is getting it out of your head.

Age steadies instinct.

God did not give man the intelligence to invent cell phones so that you could talk on the phone while simultaneously being on the toilet. That is just messed up. ‘Nuff said.

 

to be continued...

Here’s to 2010

To God

Who holds me,

Keeps me,

Loves me,

And gives me a seat at His table

To old friends who stay true

And new ones who “salt” the earth

To lives just beginning :)

And to ones lost

To those who give more than they ever have to

(...humbled)

And those who bring laughter in the middle of pain

To the ride called life 

And every day given

Happy New Year to you and yours!

Exits and Restoration

          Photo Credit: © Tomeda (http://www.ephotozine.com/u77691)

Once upon a time I had a friend. We were young. And stupid. And dramatic (at least I was). If there had been a video collage of our friendship, it would have played like a movie snippet. From baking with flour all over the kitchen and our faces while happily singing along to some lame song that was a hit at the time (You know the song, it’s the one you hear many years later and you can’t figure out why you ever thought it was so amazing...except for the fact it takes you back to that precise moment.), to crying over whatever angst high school dished out.

We had songs we loved to ham up together. She always took the rap parts. (Which you would appreciate the ridiculousness of, if you knew her~ she was as Wonder Bread as they came. Sweet. Saccharin almost. With the voice of an angel.) I took the singing parts.

Sometimes she would play songs for me with sexual lyrics, telling me to ignore the lyrics and listen to how wonderful the harmonies were. She had a thing for that...harmonies, not sexual lyrics. Only person I have ever known that could find a beautiful harmony in those kinds of songs.

She was a morning person. I was not. (That has changed for me somewhat.) You know the type; she would just as soon paint the house as get out of bed in the morning. Never have I known someone so happy at the advent of morning. {And we were 18, mind you. What 18 year old likes mornings?! :) }  The thing I always loved though was that she had the space to be as chipper as she was (and you have never seen chipper quite like this~ literally fluttering around, singing~ nauseatingly cheerful) while I had the space to be as cranky as I was. (And believe me, I was cranky yin to her chipper yang.)

When the boy I loved in high school broke my heart in a way I would never let anyone break again, she was the one that came and stayed with me in the middle of the night. In the moment of that heartache, while my mother screamed and told me it was my fault and made it about her own pain, my friend was the one that prayed with me. Sang to me. Hugged me. Crawled inside the dirty corners of my life with me.

After I had wasted months of time deluding myself that he would come back, she was the one with the courage, honesty, and love to look me straight in the eye and say, “P, he is not coming back.” If I close my eyes, I am still there. On her couch. Looking at her. Feeling like the most loved person on earth. (Who does that at 18?)

This was not your standard issue high school friendship- personality driven, fickle. It was real. And it mattered a great deal to me.
 

Several years later in college, it was my turn to be honest. It did not go so well. My friend that I adored, that I was sure would be my friend for life, forced me to pack her up into my mental suitcase sooner than I was ever ready.  I mourned this for years. Tossed it over in my head, looked at it from every angle, regretted it. The high school me who was sure judgment was my calling (Yep, I was...) was long gone by this point and what I had said was truly only out of love, but I sure was wishing I had left it alone.

My husband (the writer) brilliantly wrote in one of his fiction pieces, “In a way, looking back on a relationship was like looking back into a room just outside the exit. Everything you had seen and known inside was now framed by the way in which you had left it.”

A couple months ago, I got an unexpected email from my friend, offering an olive branch. Years ago I waited for this. Needed it. But I think in order to heal, God always has us swim out to the deep end, past our need, to where the truth is. So today, she truly never needed to say anything at all. Because I long ago realized that when God gives you a fountain in your desert (she was there for me in the worst years with my mother), you dump all the other stuff. And maybe with age you realize that often the things we do to each other that sting are really due to the pain orbiting our own lives and don’t really have a whole lot to do with the other person at all.  It is here that, instead of framing the relationship by the exit, you realize that “all that is good and true between us, this will remain the same.” (Amy Grant, “After the Fire”) So you fold up the memories in gratitude and store them lovingly in the mental scrapbook of your life. 

The email was gravy...

Friend in the rearview mirror

To the casual observer the sign says 

"For Sale,"

but it taunts me with it's true meaning~

"It's now official, 

your friend is leaving,” 

and “Yep, this really is happening.”

The sign can be found at the intersection of things you pray for someone else and things you selfishly don't want to happen...

Truth be told, I saw God putting up His own signs from the beginning... When the conversations about applying for jobs out of state started, I knew... knew in my heart that God was going to give this family a much needed new start... knew that He was about to launch an awesome season of blessing on them, because when God moves on a situation, it is always best for all those involved. God is awesome that way, loves all His children equally. {Although, for the record, this does not work out best for me :))}

I have always thought that goodbyes season life. They force things to their crisis and remind you how important the things you get used to having really are. So now in the coming weeks I will have to say goodbye to my friend...

Blog Genesis

So here goes my first blog...

I must start with a confession: I have been far more interested in making it pretty than in actually writing something. (The writing part admittedly has seemed daunting.) I have quite literally created 12 different headers (in various color palettes, of course!), and was prepared to put off the writing even longer while I came up with a name for myself and created a graphic signature (which I still don't have...). But anyway, here I am.

I have been inspired to blog by Ruby Red Slippers, a friend from high school I have recently reconnected with, and her beautiful blog, www.lionstigersandboysohmy.blogspot.com/

Which is actually the segway into the topic of this, my first blog.

RRS recently had a book giveaway on her blog. Two Emily Giffin books, "Something Borrowed," and "Something Blue." A pairing of books detailing the splintering of a friendship, with each book representing one friend's perspective. I lost the giveaway, but was intrigued by the concept of the books.

Certainly in life friendships change, sometimes by geography or sometimes because our lives shoot off in different directions. Then there are others that are simply (or quite complicatedly) lost. In my life I have "lost" two friends. One I grieved for quite some time. To this day, I still consider this friendship to be one of great impact in my life. I would gladly welcome her back into my life at any time. The other loss turned out to be an immensely freeing blessing in disguise. A loss God used to finger something in my life that needed some work. The loss of these friendships is what prompted my interest in these books.

So, after losing the giveaway, I headed to Borders in Birmingham (my favorite bookstore) to read a few chapters of the books to see if I liked them. I COULDN'T PUT THEM DOWN. So I bought them and then headed to Godiva to make the night complete.

Oh, yeah, did I mention that while heading in to buy dangerously caloric chocolate, I saw my trainer walking in the mall outside the Godiva entrance? Did I ALSO mention that I was simultaneously dropping and picking up coins while heading into the place of my iniquity? NO WAY he could miss me. EGAD!

Anyway, I'm off to a perfect night of reading, a spot of English Tea, and fabulous chocolate!