I discovered VisualDNA over at Spilt Milk. I tried it out and was quite impressed with ithe accuracy of the personality descriptions it gave me. Who knew that a few pictures could offer so much insight? Give it a shot.
*I click on the Ft. Lauderdale beach cam on the left side of this page quite often during the work week. My office has no windows, and even if it did the view would not be so sweet. Work to live, don't live to work.
*This week, the journal featuring my first published book review arrived on my desk. It's weird to see my name in print inside a professional publication. It's like I'm actually a professional or something!
*I officially signed up to participate in a triathlon in August. It's part of my effort to appreciate my body for what it can do rather than what it looks like. It's also a step way out of my comfort zone.
*I went to the dentist yesterday and found out I have a cracked filling. In less than two weeks I have to go back to get it fixed. I'm already mentally preparing myself for having a needle stuck into my gum.
*I still feel 22, but I'm turning 29 later this month. I know 29 is not old, but it sounds a lot older than 22 and it means that in another year I will no longer be able to say I'm in my 20's.
*You may not guess it, but I'm actually pretty technologically-challenged compared to most people my age. Even when I have problems with this site, I have to run to Allison to get them fixed.
*I brought cookies to our staff meeting this morning because if I hadn't, I would have eaten them all myself.
In contemplating friendship, I cannot help but think about my best friend growing up. My family had moved to a new area, and I was painfully shy. She reached out to me and made me feel welcome and important. As we progressed into the self-conscious adolescent years, she taught me that it was OK to pubically acknowledge my faith. She encouraged me to read the Bible, and she prayed for me without ceasing. She is the first person I prayed with in a public place (the food court at the mall!) and the first person to introduce me to contemporary Christian music. In high school, we were inseparable. We had most of our classes together, we participated in many of the same extracurricular activities, and we ate lunch together every day. Each night, we spent hours on the phone gossiping, sharing secrets, and swooning over Joey McIntyre from the New Kids on the Block. We were always together for social activities on the weekend, never going to a party without the other in tow. At school, we passed notes about our latest crushes and spinned down the halls bent over in laughter from our many inside jokes. As I later learned, even most of our teachers thought we would be best friends forever (BFF).
Then came college.
She went off to school in Boston, and I stayed in Maryland to further my education. We sporadically kept in touch over email, but with each passing month, the space between us grew. We were living separate lives, and neither of us had room for the other. I do not know how the distance between two hearts that had once beat so closely together impacted her because I never asked. I know that it hurt me. I heard from her a few days after my father passed away. She was living in New York City and would not be able to come be with me during the funeral, but she sent beautiful flowers and a prayerful card. Six years before she, would have flown from anywhere in the world to be by my side. Now our friendship was reduced to a sympathy card. If my heart had not already been broken by my father's sudden death, I would have felt the sting of her absence in my life much more deeply.
I never heard from her again. Not even a Christmas card or an engagement announcement. I never tried to contact her either. Our lives had taken separate paths, and neither of us saw the point in forcing a connection that did not occur naturally anymore. When I got the announcement about our ten-year high school reunion this year, I wondered if she would come and whether or not I would go. Part of me would rather remember us as we were without the inevitable awkwardness that I'm sure we would feel now after years apart. Another part of me still loves her and wants to see how she is and who she is today. Even though we don't know each other anymore, I still feel connected to her by the mere fact that she played such an integral role in my life during my formative teenage years. I would not be who I am today without so much of her positive influence. She is not my hero because heroes are idealistic images of people who never disappear. She is, however, my former BFF who knows all of the dreams I once held and all of the boys who once made me giddy. If she still remembers, she knows who I was, and who I still am at my core, before life carried us away.
Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me. --Psalm 41:9
One of the most important lessons I've learned since college has nothing to do with a career skill or financial tip. The lesson that has probably most impacted my life since college is that friends should be chosen wisely. There are some people who are fun to hang out with, but I've found that they aren't always the ones I should open up my heart to because they may not be able to handle it when I do. In college and before, I had many people who I called friends who came and went through my life. Since then, I've learned that friends are not the ones who turn their backs on me when life gets tough, they aren't the ones who love to party with me but shy away from real conversations, nor are they the ones who call only when they need something from me. Certainly value can be found in having fun acquaintances to enjoy the company of, but I've learned to distinguish them from the people who walk with me through the valleys and pray for me when I cry. Real friends don't just send flowers, they come to hold my hand when my life is filled with pain, and they encourage me with truth when all I hear is lies. Real friends are hard to come by in a world of users and takers and false smilers. I've learned to recognize them because they are the ones still standing by me years after they first entered my life. They are the ones who remember and celebrate with me the important events in my life. I know my friends by the way they go out of their way for me without a second thought about the inconvenience to themselves, and they know me by the same. I know them as well as I do close family members, and I can say without reserve who they are that deserve the title of "friend" in my life. I've learned by being hurt and betrayed that I must be careful not to freely bestow the title of friend on just anyone whose path crosses mine. Some people do not understand friendship and are not skilled at handling the honor. Others embrace the role of friend as a calling which they handle with grace, love, and care.
I am beginning to suspect that my new gym is some type of cult. It has all the signs--perky people trying desperately to recruit new members, brainwashing techniques that make you feel worthless so that you become desperate for the hope they promise, and obstacles at the door if you try to leave once they've sucked you in. John and I joined this new gym because of the nice facility, state of the art equipment, and abundance of natural light (my reason more than John's, I think). On our first day, they gave us fitness assessments to scare us into spending more money to improve our body compositions and fitness levels. We, of course, fell for their ploy hook, line, and sinker, but as our first week went on, we noticed that this gym seems to have a strong focus on selling products and services that are probably unnecessary for the average Jane and Joe (like us) who doesn't plan on competing in an Olympic event. And what makes matters worse is that in spite of how unnecessary this stuff is, the staff at my gym go about selling the products by essentially saying that without the product, no one will acheive the results you want. Logically, this is not the case. People have acheived results for years before this technology was even available. To me, this pushiness with a smile reminds me of a cult, not a gym. No gym that I have gone to before has been so forceful in trying to get everyone to fit the same mold and do the same things. And while most gym staff is laid back, these people are as sickeningly perky as they are unabashedly pushy in their brainwashing tactics. And once you pay for one thing, they think you're a true sucker and they try to convince you to pay for something else. For example, John and I bought heart rate monitors, but then we were told that to most accurately determine how hard we should be working, we need to pay $90 each for another assessment. I'm quite happy with the approximation I made up in my head for free. I will have to learn to turn my headphones on as soon as I walk out of the locker room so that I can enjoy my workout in peace without being told that the only way I'll ever be good enough is to buy into a philosophy and practice that my wallet simply cannot afford.
I spin into chaos
floating and lost
without control
life falls around me
in confetti-like chunks
unattainable
indiscernable
colors--bright and dull--
blurred memories
blunted moments
felted fingertips
once uniquely ridged
in distant time
on former body
of former life-breath
left silently behind
death remembers
what existence forgot
when eyelids blinking
became a burden
and heart beating
became a strain
and when both were ended
without apology
or sad explanation
She sat in a field of crab grass and buttercups. Six years old but as wise as a girl three times her age. She put her head down between her scraped knees and stared at the little yellow flowers underneath her legs. Pale yellow reflections on her pale white skin, shadowed by her bruised cheek and unwashed brown hair. Tears no longer came, even when she wished they would. They would be a welcome release to the weight inside of her. On her left side, a Raggedy Ann doll, stained and worn with grass blades framing her body. This doll that shared her name was her most prized possession. In fact, it's her only possession to speak of. The last and only gift she received from her grandmother before the old woman passed away; the last and only gift she received before her father left and her mother started drinking too much. She missed her friend Jesse. His mother won't let him come out and play anymore. They used to go in the woods and pretend it was their kingdom. She was the queen and he was the king. They had charge over all the plants and insects and birds and squirrels and even over the elusive chipmunks that ran in the underbrush between the trees and rocks. But then her mommy said some words that little girls and boys shouldn't hear, and his mommy wouldn't let him around anyone in that brown house next door anymore. She plucked a buttercup and twirled it by her knee. Her eyes squinted as she raised her head towards the sun. She turned her head slighty and saw her house in the periphery. An ominous cloud seemed to always hover there, even when the sky was clear blue. She sighed, put the buttercup down, and laid back in the grass next to Raggedy Ann. She picked up her doll and looked into her expressionless eyes. Sometimes she wished she was Raggedy Ann. Quiet and aloof. Unable to be hurt or lonely or left empty-handed by life. She pulled the doll close to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. The earth cooled her back and absorbed her sighs. She wished it would observe her breath. She could not yet see all that she was going to be and all the lives she would touch. She could only see the darkness that lurked even in the windows of her house. She slowly pushed herself up and walked towards her back door, Raggedy Ann dangling by an arm at her side. She would spend some more time in the fire before she was strong enough to find her own way out.
The book I just finished reading has got me thinking about the ways people change and redefine themselves. As someone who has personally attempted to redefine myself, and as someone who has watched up close while others have tried to redefine themselves, I have become cynical about our ability to simply will ourselves to be different. We try every year with our New Year's resolutions, but statistics show that most of those resolutions have failed by springtime, if not before. Like the cliched leopard, we cannot change our spots.
This is not to say that I don't belive that people can change. Certainly, people can and do change every day, but I do not believe that lasting changes are a matter of will because our human wills are weak. So, if we do not change ourselves, then it must be life that changes us. People we meet, things that happen to us, mistakes we make, consequences we pay, events that are beyond our control. Life changes us, we do not change life. Life may not "will" us to change, but life often leaves us with no choice but change if we are to survive.
Yes, the rumors are true--I'm back!!! Allison worked her magic and resurrected my site from its moldy grave! I've missed posting, but I've been too busy the past two months with a new job, a new husband, and a new evening activity, coaching JV field hockey at the school where I work. It almost didn't matter that my site was not working, because I couldn't find the time to post anyway! Quick life update: The job is draining, but exciting with a new adolescent crisis brought to my desk every day. The new husband is still an adjustment; I love him dearly, but we have gone to bed (and woken up) angry more than a few times since the big day. Coaching is fun--we're 3 and 1 so far with a big game coming up on Saturday. Lessons learned: Jobs tend to appeal to me more on paper than in actuality; I'd rather win the Maryland Mega Millions lottery and move on to a stage in my life that does not include work. Marriage takes work, but the good times are worth the bad. I like being outside with coaching, but my allergies are tortorous! In fact, I just sneezed again. How this all effects you, my faithful readers: With my new work schedule, I'm going to have to find a new time to post, which could result in few, but less hurried, posts from me. With my new marriage, expect the occasional emotional and therefore nonsensical rant that I will most likely completely retract the next day. With my new coaching job, well, not much of that effects you other than that it limits my time to post even more. But we have less than a month to go in the season, so that last trend will be short-lived.