a musing

Wishing I could hurry up and get wise.

Well, you're looking particularly fine today--what are you waiting for?

I should sort out my sock basket. When's the last time I bought fun socks? Would my feet look better in stripes, or polka dots?

I've decided that good women aren't hard to find--we're just hard to keep. Meaning that it actually requires some effort.

I think people need a certain amount of adversity to flourish. Nowadays we're well-fed, soft, comfortable--amid floundering in painful, messy ways. Let's get more good clean dirt on our hands and drop-kick all those purse-sized bottles of hand-sani.

Can't you open your eyes and see that I, in all my backwardness, am actually ahead of them all? Ok, some. Ahead of some. I still got work to do. Who doesn't?

If it doesn't require effort, is it worth anything?

And tupperware. I need to sort my tupperware, too. Get rid of those lidless misfits.

My left shoulder pops funny when I roll it. Why is that?

Repeating the same behavior and expecting different results?
That's crazy talk.

for Jeff

It's Friday, so I'm wearing jeans.
I decided not to go to Jeff's funeral service today, because I went to the visitation yesterday. I paid my respects, I said my prayers. I cried a little. I said goodbye.

But it's surprisingly hard, today. Everytime I see someone dressed in their funeral best, it's like a slap in the face, telling me "That's right. Death happened here. Don't forget." And lots of people are going, carpooling from the office, right about...now, in fact. I hear them gather, putting on their coats. The office gets quieter.
I'm going to keep working, going to keep moving, going to keep on doing what needs to be done. Because I don't know what else to do.

But it's hard, with this funny little ache that comes and goes, catching me just when I've started to relax.

Logically, I know what to do. Don't stuff your grief, but don't dwell. Do express yourself, but don't try to drum up exaggerated emotion. Do pray for mercy on the family. Don't say anything stupid. Do be glad that Jeff's in heaven. Don't for a moment kid yourself that you don't still want him here.
Don't don't don't. Do do do.  

You know what I regret the most? That I didn't know him better. Perhaps I shouldn't feel that way--after all, if I'd known him better I'd be grieving harder now, right? Logic. But logic has little place here, today. Logic can go stuff it.

Where am I going with this? I don't really know.

I suppose this is the part where I roll out some beautiful rumination on life and death, something profound, or a statement of faith. But I'd have to go shallower in my heart to make that happen, and I don't think Jeff deserves that.

He deserves me at a loss for words.

the yardstick

Ladies and gentlemen (and all you other people), I have a serious confession to make:

I scamper.

I do. I scamper. And on a fairly regular basis, too. I scampered to my car this morning, partially to keep the snow from overwhelming my shoes, but also just because I felt like it. I scamper a lot around the house. The hardwood floors make it easy. I jive, baby, sliding into rooms and around corners. I also tend to dance around when I'm in the kitchen, but that's another story. (I need to get curtains in my kitchen, too, but that's also a tangent.) Today, we focus on the scamper. It's not mature, stately, sedate, poised, or any of those important grown-up adjectives. And that got me thinking--what was wrong with me? I'm twenty-eight, for cripes' sake (which is quite different than for crepes' sake, which is much tastier and more French). Who was I to be acting so juvenile?

And then I realized I was falling into the same old trap again: measuring myself by someone else's yardstick.

Who I am is who I am, and the details of that are between me and God, not me and the world. God made me special. (And "special," too, depending on the day.) I've always done things at my own speed. That speed may be "slower" than some other people, but I'm the only one walking on my road. I've got my own speed limit, baby, and no one can tell me my road isn't as good as anyone else's. I'll scamper until I no longer feel like scampering, no matter how "old" and "mature" I get. Maybe I'll never stop.

I hope I don't stop. I hope I can keep remembering that the Bible never tells me to be suave or polished. I don't need to be sophisticated--which, to me, usually just feels worldly. Wait--I have read something in the Bible about being worldly...what was it again? Oh, yeah: DON'T.

Maybe I'm gauche and naive. Maybe I run around like I'm still in a ten-year-old's body. So what? I don't want to hide behind a facade. My mind and my heart are not childish. They still need work, no doubt, but we'll never stop growing. Isn't that awesome? We're all growing up, together. In our own way, in our own time.

And yes, I did just reference myself in the plural. Suck it up, cupcake.