Filed under: Adulthood, Christianity, Full House, Life, Society, Uncle Jesse
I’m completely serious when I say that some days, I can’t believe I’m a ”grownup.”
It’s not because I can still spend hours lip synching to 80s music, or because sometimes, I still watch Nickelodeon. It’s not my uncanny inability to keep my room tidy, or my undying appreciation for trampolines.
Really, it’s because I could swear that yesterday, I was wearing clip-on earrings, pink plastic high heels and a candy necklace, blowing out seven candles on a pink and white cake that was covered in flowers and filled with vanilla ice cream and those crunchy chocolate things.
I’ve been trying to discern; hoping for blatantly obvious divine intervention when it’s time to decide what comes next. And in the midst of this “quarter life crisis” and its early onset, I can’t help but think about how cool it was to be a kid. Slip-n-slides were a given every summer, and my greatest goal was getting a Barbie Dream House. Simple things, like watching Full House over a plate of cookies with milk, always made my day.
And speaking of Full House, there’s one episode that still sticks out in my mind today. (Fans of Nick @ Nite or ABC Family probably caught it recently.) Michelle Tanner, tiny though she was, was completely bummed out when Becky’s visiting nephew Howie had to head back to his hometown. It seemed like for the first time ever, Uncle Jesse noticed Michelle wasn’t completely content. So, he did what anyone named Uncle Jesse would do: picked up his guitar and played Michelle a song that he’d written for her presumably when she was a baby.
Michelle’s at home
The cats are purring
She doesn’t know what worry is
She’s safe and warm and she’s not sorry
She doesn’t know what sorry isAnd Michelle’s smiling…
Michelle’s smiling…Michelle’s smiling…The news is on, and Michelle’s laughing
Can’t make sense of what the picture shows…
She knows no fear, she keeps on laughing
If we could only know what Michelle knows…And Michelle’s smiling…
Michelle’s smiling…
Michelle’s smiling…
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: life is a series of mountains and valleys. Sometimes, practicing balance and trust in God is easier said than done. But as a Christian human being, I should make it my goal to be balanced and to trust God, even when [insert whomever's name here] is sick or dying, loses his or her job, has an accident, disappoints me. Even when I’m tempted to be anxious, or when I fail to follow through with plans, or, simply fail. Because sometimes, in the midst of what goes on in the tiny world that I know, I’ll turn on the news to see that somewhere, terror attacked, or a bridge collapsed.
Any one of us could argue that in Uncle Jesse’s song, Michelle’s laughing because she can’t, in fact, make sense of what the picture shows (partially because she’s 2, and partially because she’s a fictional character). But I think Uncle Jesses makes a pretty cool observation regardless. There is something like what Uncle Jesse sings about in lots of kids. Despite tragedies that touch the world, and mini-tragedies that briefly bring kids to tears (i.e. “He stole my playdoh!), the younger the child, the less inclined he or she seems to be toward worrying. It’s the epitome of the “live in the moment” lifestyle I’m still working on.
Ok, so back to today. All of a sudden, here I am, five months from my college graduation and four months from my 22nd birthday, perfectly aware that the world I know is a heck of a lot smaller than the real world. There are no more candy necklaces, no more dreams of the Barbie Dream House, and I’ll be honest: not that big-a-fan of milk and cookies anymore. Now, I’m trying to choose a grad school and trying to launch a career. I’m learning balance, and learning not to worry.
Of course, there’s no way I can claim to be worry free (and if you know me, you can vouch for that.), though I can claim to worry a lot less now than I used to. But I think it’s my goal – and it should be a goal for all Christian people – despite all the negative in the world, to be for society what Michelle was to Uncle Jesse.
She knows no fear, she keeps on laughing
If we could only know what Michelle knows…
YouTube it. (with tissues, maybe. Hey, it gets me every time! lol.)
It’s the season of love, everybody! Putcha hands togetha, now, and celebrate the heart shaped boxes, too much chocolate, dozens of dozens of roses, candlelight dinners…I’ll tell ya…Valentine’s Day is a real winner – especially for the single, and even moreso for the bitter. I know tomorrow morning, I won’t be donning new jewlery, or eating apple fritters and scrambled eggs on one of those folding bed-in-breakfast trays. A year ago, I wouldn’t have been ok with that. A year ago, I’d probably be tempted to spend Valentine’s Day lip synching “Love Stinks” and “Shot Through the Heart” into a hair brush microphone in front of a mirror (and I know I’m not the only one who’s seen that side of the fence). But Valentine’s Day stirs up more than sadness in those who are “alone,” and more than emotion between those who have someone and the ones who they have. In me, it stirs up something different.
I have this desire, you see, to love everyone like my parents used to remind me to do when I was little; to love everyone like my God loves everyone. “Love is, above all else, the gift of oneself.” I revel in that quote every time I read it; my sentiments exactly. I tremble at the thought of love; at the thought of selflessly, sacrificially putting someone else ahead of myself. Love isn’t skipped heartbeats or warm and fuzzy feelings. Love isn’t long hugs, holding hands or having sex. “Love is, above all else, the gift of oneself.”
a note from the writer: Be sure to read the comments on this entry. It will totally add to your blog experience. 
Thanks!
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The jury’s deliberation has ended. What’s the verdict? Apparently, as was alluded by two people during two separate conversations this week, I am “guilty on all counts of approaching life pessimistically.” But, am I really? Well, you be the judge.
At work this week, somebody copped a ‘tude, was downright rude to a colleague and ended the brief war by walking out. Nothin’ like a little office drama to spark some good conversation, right?
“I expect to be respected by everybody,” one co-worker said.
“Look at the society we’re living in,” I replied. “I don’t expect much from anyone.”
WEEE-OOOO, WEEE-OOOO, WEEE-OOOO! I could almost hear the sirens. Somebody called the pessimist police. And with disappointed sighs and downtrodden eyes, she gently scolded me. But I’ve gotta tell ya…I don’t believe that in this realm, I’m approaching life pessimistically. I do believe I’m approaching it realistically, and in my opinion, that’s the way to go. Especially as a college student, I am bombarded almost daily with a flood of philosophies alternative to the ones I embrace. Even without such a prevalent example, I’d still be able to see that not everyone’s lives revolve around the same principles mine does. And that’s why I don’t expect much. If I approached life under the assumption that everyone I encounter embraces what I embrace (i.e. the importance of respect for others, in this case), I’d be setting myself up for shock. In truth, I will be disrespected multiple times (and when it happens, I won’t be too caught off guard to handle the situation appropriately).
Take romantic relationships, for another example. Am I pessimistically passing up potential opportunities because I won’t date a guy if I already see a reason I wouldn’t want to be in a long term relationship with him; because I won’t enter a relationship with a guy if I already see a reason I wouldn’t be able to marry him? I don’t think I am, no. I’m realistically recognizing that some romantic relationships aren’t reasonable. If I refused to accept that some shouldn’t move past the hypothetical stage (tempting though they may be) , I’d be setting myself up for heartache.
Accepting these things realistically is not the same as expecting them pessimistically. And making a realistic effort to at least minimize the shock or heartache you’ll have to experience from time to time is not the same as running from the inevitable. Without a doubt, if you’re a human on Earth, you already know you will be bummed from time to time due to circumstances beyond your control. That’s life. But it’s a little absurd, if you ask me, to set yourself up for even more of it.
I think (and I’m speaking generally, here) that a lot of us are disillusioned. There is a fine line, which once crossed, can convert one’s optimism into one’s rejection of reality. Best start believin’ in the real world – you’re in it.
Filed under: Crocodile Hunter, Life, Our Purpose, Steve Irwin, Terri Irwin, free hugs
On a news website, I recently read a bit of what would be Barbara Walters’ “exclusive” interview with Terri Irwin. And that’s the interview that I just finished watching. I wandered from the living room to my parents’ room, and back, where the TV in each told the story of Steve Irwin and how his wife will carry on his legacy, and some might say, his purpose.
Gosh, I thought to myself as Terri fought with the tears that tumbled recklessly down her rosy cheeks. How will she go on?
“I’m Mrs. Steve Irwin,” she said to Barbara. “I’ve got a lot to live up to.”
I turned off the TV, moved by what I’d seen, but not showing it. That’s when I got the email: a YouTube video from Sarah featuring Juan Mann giving free hugs on a city street to the tune of All the Same by a band called Sick Puppies. And that’s when the floodgates opened. And good gosh, it felt great.
Look at Steve Irwin, I thought as I cried and watched Juan Mann hug strangers on the street. And I thought about what Terri said: that Steve didn’t sweat the little things; he saw the big picture. He had fun. He cared about something other than himself and he changed the world, according to many. Look at Juan Mann, I thought as more strangers got and gave hugs on the video. He cared about something other than himself.
Now, giving hugs and consorting with crocs aren’t the same, or even comparable ways to serve someone other than self. But I think both Steve and Juan would agree that life is short, and everyone’s serves a purpose. I guess I’ve always sort of known that my purpose probably has to do with caring about something other than myself. Terri mentioned that Steve was never interested in “five-year business plans,” or in making plans to carry out later. If something needed to be done, or if there was something he knew he should do, he did it; no hesitation.
And I find that incredibly inspiring.
Girls are, in a word, insane. And as one of them, I am free to expose the deepest of the secrets (and not-so-secrets) we tend to keep. I can tell you both from experience and word-of-mouth that we generally love to be wholeheartedly pursued by human beings of the male persuasion.
When the pursuit begins (which, in this day and age, might start with a virtual poke, wink, wave or friend request), e-mails become like our favorite books (you know, the kind we can read over and over); text messages make our hearts skip beats; we master not sounding nervous over the phone and we smile more than usual.
But has anyone noticed that while we love to be pursued, we only love it if we’re already interested? In theory, I always imagined that if a random guy fell from the sky and into my lap (hypothetically speaking), talked with me once and began to wholeheartedly pursue me, I would be flattered. I also imagined I’d be inclined to go for it because it’s not often that I’m wholeheartedly pursued.
It seems like if there isn’t any pre-pursuit eye contact, or if I feel nothing for him before I know he feels anything for me, his emails are like textbooks (the kind with no bold print words); we make scary crying faces when our phones buzz or beep with his texts and we master not sounding interested over the phone (but never quite enough for a hint to be gotten, apparently). And to be quite frank, I am ok with all of that.
I would, though, still like to know whether it’s possible to fall for someone in whom no interest exists for you. Is it possible for a guy to pursue a disinterested girl wholeheartedly enough to win her affection? Does, in the realm of “romance” or what have you, a successful pursuit of what isn’t seen exist? Or is every successful pursuit that which began when the “he” could tell that “she” was already interested?
Tonight, I had a Dasani with someone in whom I’ve got no romantic interest. Intuition and past conversations can’t say the same for him. The good news? Free water, and possibly the birth of a friendship. Some call me a player, and some call me crazy.
Just don’t call me for a date if you know I’m not interested.
For a brief while, I’ve been unable to remember why I’d deleted my MySpace account, which is really somewhat senseless.
What am I doing? I think to myself, quite often, while I browse the MySpace profiles of the people with whom I used to be MySpace friends. Lately, when darkness falls on weeknights, I am wide awake and left with a dilemma: do something boring (i.e. balance my checkbook, do some laundry, etc), or waste time. Oh, how sweet it is, when I waste time; when I dance to 80s music, when I watch Nick @ Nite, when I blog. But there’s nothing sweeter than wasting time with some secret MySpace action.
When I dumped the online social network to embrace reality, I didn’t think I’d ever look back. Ever. But every night, around 9p.m., something would knock at my brain. MySpace, that something would whisper. You need MySpace. And in front of my computer, I’d sit, and I’d think about MySpace. I’d think about all the 9p.m.’s I’d spent sitting before the site. And for months, I could step away from the computer.
But, eventually, I did the unthinkable. Like a recovering alcoholic parking “the wagon” in front of a bar and staring at its front door, I typed the once-forbidden letters and watched MySpace.com load. Familiarity, I sighed and probably smiled. And then, like a recovering alcoholic walking into the bar and looking around, I began to search for my friends.
Oh, the lure: the comments, the bulletins, the friend requests…and the top eight. Oh, the envied top eight! But after my ranting, my raving and my pretty public denunciation of MySpace on lifeteen.com, I knew creating a new account would be an act of preposterous hypocrisy. And that’s why when a friend offered to create, operate and maintain a MySpace in memory of my MySpace, I jumped on it. A few senseless weeks have passed. And during most of this time, I’ve failed to recollect why I ever left the network.
“Any new friend requests?” I asked Kerri. “And while you’re at it, check my profile views!”
“One request, and 64 views.”
“Sixty-four? That’s it? What a rip off!”
Why on earth haven’t more people looked at my profile? At me?
And there you have it. There, I had it, actually. And, if I might, I’d like to quote myself with the words I used in my story on lifeteen.com: “But the longer I used (MySpace), the more it fostered a sickening obsession with myself…”
No, after allowing someone to essentially operate a MySpace in my name, I’m not obsessed with myself – well, with my hair, maybe, which is irrelevant. But then what, you might ask, keeps me craving MySpace? It’s the lure. And I’m not just talking about the pointless fun found in bulletin surveys, or the curious excitement found in brand new friend requests. The lure comes from years – and I mean years – of having relied too heavily upon Internet communication. Like the lifeblood that keeps us living, computer mediated communication keeps the cravings some of us have for connection satiated. And if anyone has developed an ability to “connect” with others via ICQ, until I found AIM and via AIM, until I found MySpace, it’s probably me.
And my heart would pound, and the room would seem to grow cold: New Messages. Please be from him, please be from him. Yes! And I’d open the message, and there I’d see it: “Haha, that’s funny! Talk to you later.” He laughed, I made him laugh, and we share so many interests, is it love? NO.
It’s the false sense of intimacy that’s going to take so much away from our abilities to “commune” face to face, if it hasn’t already.
Today, I came to my senses.
Disclaimer: The above scenario during which “I” contemplated having fallen in love by way of MySpace was, in fact, a fabricated scenario. I was never that bad. lol.
Filed under: Life
Almost three years ago, I sat in a rundown movie theater between Laurel and Kyle. Elf played, we laughed, it ended and then, we met Ben at Pizza Hut. A simple 18th birthday, yes – but one of my best. So when a friend dropped me an email last week the day after her 18th birthday, bearing regrets and a picture of the spur-of-the-moment tattoo she wished she hadn’t gotten, I couldn’t entirely relate.
But that’s only because I’ve never gotten a tattoo.
I have, however, said and done a few things that – thanks to nobody but me – stick around sort of like the ink in Kerri’s tattoo. There’s no point in wallowing over the things we can’t erase, figuratively and sometimes literally speaking. To wallow over the tattoos we wish we hadn’t gotten, the times we stuck our feet in our mouths, the birthdays we forgot and the sins we committed is like shifting the car into drive and hitting the gas, but straining our necks and looking behind us instead of straight ahead. If we tried driving our cars forward without looking anywhere but behind, we’d crash in a matter of minutes.
Same with life.
Jack Black is probably smarter than he sounds. During a recent CNN interview, a reporter asked him about the inhibitions he must have experienced while filming Nacho Libre. Like any other fat slob would, he admitted being uncomfortable prancing around topless wearing Spandex tights in front of hundreds of people. I can only imagine the “what will they think of me?” thoughts that must’ve crossed his mind, and the unavoidable shame he probably felt in doing something he’d really rather not have to do.
“But then, I do a little meditation,” he said. “And I find the inner ‘who cares?’, and then I go.”
Brilliant, that Jack Black.
I’ve always been a people pleaser: one of those quick-to-RSVP, promise making, yes-saying people pleasers who cares entirely too much and has over-booked and double-booked herself more times than she’s willing to admit. And people pleasers, like I, find it excrutiating to say “no” or “I can’t,” risking disappointed remarks from let-down friends (and sometimes strangers).
I realized this morning that a lot of adulthood will require finding my “inner who cares.” It’s not selfish, it’s self preserving. I’m not Wonder Woman (I know, shocking!), and I can’t do it all. Some events will be skipped, some phone calls will be left unanswered, some spelling errors will remain incorrect especially if my friends don’t have the chops to correct my blunders without remaining anonymous as if they assume I’ll take offense to their constructive criticism, some friends might feel neglected (I’ll be back, don’t worry) and some TV shows will be missed.
I need to be more like Jack Black. For me, saying no is a lot like being fat and dancing around in Spandex. I don’t want to do it; but sometimes, like in Jack Black’s case, it needs to be done. When you’ve got more on your plate than you could possibly ever consume in one sitting, some food – no matter how tempting - has to be tossed. And that’s when being able to find the ”inner ‘who cares?’” will come in handy.
Filed under: Life
Some of the pains in my neck yesterday afternoon, like the literal ones after a couple of roller coaster rides at a nearby theme park, and the carful of waving and wide eyed entirely-too-young-to-be-out-without-a-parental-guardian boys traveling beside us, didn’t bother me at all.
The bothersome pains, the buildings crowding either side of the narrow street like way too many peas packed into a really tiny pod and the crosswalks teeming with tourists who couldn’t care less that the exhaust fumes of countless cars breathed down the necks of their swim-suited bodies, disgusted me.
Westbound and lost on International Drive in Orlando, for some reason, is a state of being that can give my friend and me the motive to dive directly into the deep end of philosophical conversation. So while we stopped and went to the rhythm of the traffic lights down International Drive in its entirety, we agreed that such a crowded and fake stretch of land makes us feel empty. And while we pondered what it might be like to embellish the back yards we’ve yet to aquire with our own roller coasters (so that we don’t have to risk getting stuck on International Drive any more for that sort of thrill), we agreed that we’ve been duped.
“Life is good.” We mocked the phrase because we hear it all the time. And it isn’t true, just so you know. Before you pop a gasket or drop an outraged comment, allow me to add that life isn’t good because it isn’t supposed to be good. Life is supposed to be an unpredictable array of mountains and vallies. It’s supposed to be an unprecedented series of learning experiences. It’s supposed to piss us off, make us happy, prove us wrong and prove us right. But it’s hard to accept the downs with the ups when things like TV, movies and International Drive have tried for 20 years to get us believing that we can achieve the unachievable perfect life, and we can reach the non-existent point at which “this is it” and life is good from here on out, and there’s no reason or need to continue trying.
“Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on,” once said Samuel Butler. It’s TV, movies and International Drive that dupe us into thinking that one of these days, we’ll be sudden virtuosi. So in the meantime, we sit back, relax and wait for beautiful, painless music to flow out from within us. But Butler said it. This ”violin” of life is an instrument we’re learning to play as we go along. We’re supposed to learn to play as we go along because no one is born a virtuoso.
Just like it’s a pain in the neck to find yourself stuck in a place that’s crowded, fake and uncomfortable (where it’s easier to pull over and take a nap rather than backtrack until you find your way home, or easier to pretend you aren’t lost) it’s a pain in the neck to find yourself breaking strings or making mistakes right in the middle of a performance. It’s easier to slip your violin into a protective case and call it broken than it is to restring or to start the song over.
We’re not supposed to be practicing so that we won’t need to practice anymore. And we’re not practicing in order to eventually give grand and flawless performances. The life of practice is the performance. And sometimes, the show will stink. But with the vallies and the mountains, the show will get worse and better again when we stop pretending that we’re masters and learn from our mistakes.
Two and a half hours ’til my next takeoff. I’m sitting in the Atlanta Airport thinking about my flight from Tampa.
Five minutes into my earlier flight, we had an hour left until our scheduled landing. Planet earth is pretty spectacular from that altitude, or Tampa at least. Beneath me, what looked like a still life photograph became smaller and separate from the plane by a thin layer of motionless clouds. And then, I saw it: a bridge, traveled by thousands of ant-sized cars. The lifeless world below me suddenly seemed lifelike, and real and wonderful. “Are those parking lots?” I thought to myself. “No, those are neighborhoods.”
What a fabulous reminder that this earth is much bigger than the world I know.
