Running

You know that feeling when you get a text or a call or a message from someone you've been waiting to hear from? It's this jump in your stomach that oscillates between dread and excitement. This could either be something really good or something really terrible. You put off answering or reading for as long as possible, because your stomach can't tell you how it's going to be.

Well, the same thing happened to me when I went to go read this post by Don Miller, What Happens When You Stop Running? I read Blue Like Jazz by this author and I follow him on Twitter, though with trepidation, because a different person read Blue Like Jazz and I'm just not sure if the two of us agree anymore. But that post really hit home, and maybe not really because I've made a mess out of someone else's life, but because I can't sit still with myself, so I've been running, too.

And you know, people don't avoid reflecting like they avoid the dishes, like it's some chore that has to be done so you can have an orderly lifestyle. They don't avoid it like taking out the recycling or organizing your bookshelf or cleaning off your desk. You avoiding reflecting the same way you avoid going to the gym or going to the doctor about that lump that you found or that pain that you've been having: you're afraid you're going to find out something bad about yourself, some weakness or illness that has to be corrected. Other people are going to have to know your problems too.

The thing that's tearing me up on the inside is that I know what I'm doing wrong. Oh, there are some things that I've been doing wrong that I'm doing my best to fix, but that's because those are things I can romanticize, things I can agonize over with a relatively clean conscience, things that give the dullness of my mental landscape some color. Vices to add to the depth of my character, if you will. But the acid that eats away at me is the idea that there is wrong in the world and I am doing nothing to fix it. There are people without jobs, people without homes, people without food, and I'm not even doing the bare minimum by donating to an organization that will help them out. Almost 4 million people a year die from water-related diseases, but I'm not helping out organizations that help them either. The fact is, it's extraordinarily simple to take some of the numbers that appear in my bank account every two weeks and send them to places that use them to help the world out, and I don't do it. No excuses, just truth.

That's not to mention the time I spend doing things that don't matter (honestly, do I need to beat Zelda: A Link to the Past or check my Twitter that often?). In high school and in college, I was always busy doing something, even if it wasn't directly helping people, because I excel in organizations. I can be thankful for all the things I learned doing all the things I did, but I don't have any of that anymore. I'm not sure where to invest my time and so I don't invest it at all. Sure, the video games and the guitar/piano playing are ways to destress, and I appreciate that, but there are enough extra hours of trying to relax that I end up stressing out about it. I'm lazy, and I need some kind of impetus to make me want to change that. (As a former physics major, I have a little difficulty using inertia in the metaphorical sense.)

That's why I run. Because instead of hearing, "When I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink," I'll hear, "When I was thirsty, you bought two new shirts." Instead of being blessed for being meek or being a peace-maker, I know I'll be thrown out for burying my talent or wearing the wrong clothes to the wedding or not having oil in my lamp, because I'm certainly not risking anything, I'm not even trying, and I'm certainly not waiting expectantly for a great good to come. Beyond that, I can't face the fact that I'm not what people expect me to be. I can't stand that I've let people down because of these faults that I've cultivated. I'm not even honestly trying to be good anymore, because I was sick of people thinking I thought I was better than everybody else.

And I guess I thought I was, since now I feel the same as everybody else. I've got something to cover up, some secrets to keep inside, closets, skeletons to shove inside. Nothing noteworthy, though. Just your typical bad habits. Just your normal human being, too afraid to face what's inside me because I know, then, that I'll have to change. I don't want to try to be anything special, because then I'd have to do something.

Science Talk

I'm currently working on a keynote address (this sucker is going on my resume) for a conference for middle school girls, aimed at getting them interested in science, math and engineering. I don't want to be boring so I plan on lighting a few things on fire, maybe using a leaf blower and possibly adding in volcanoes somehow. And stars. I think there's going to be a couple of pictures of stars.

But I'm having trouble thinking of how to start out the thing, or where to go. I figured it might not be a terrible idea to talk about how I got interested in science, though I'm pretty sure it's a happenstance journey of odd complexity. I know that I got interested in the idea of space-time and the ways we could theoretically travel through it when I read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle (who, by the way, is a liberal Christian and put some themes from her faith into her works, making me feel like my whole life is a set up). I love the idea of a tesseract as a method of transportation, though it's not a correct use of the word by any means (though they are really fun to watch as transformations). I had to google it to check and be sure, though, and I came across the wikipedia page for a wormhole and it just made me want to shut down. Seriously. Go look at it. My favorite mental cringe-inducing statement is:

Wormholes which could actually be crossed, known as traversable wormholes, would only be possible if exotic matter with negative energy density could be used to stabilize them. (Many physicists such as Stephen Hawking, Kip Thorne, and others believe that the Casimir effect is evidence that negative energy densities are possible in nature.)

At this point, I started to sputter and the words, "What even" came to mind. I quickly restored my mental state by playing a couple of levels of Super Mario Brothers (on my Super Nintendo, because I'm that awesome) and then thought about what I had been thinking about. I'm actually interested in this kind of stuff? The answer is, of course, yes, I do, for the challenge of understanding them and for the wonderful possibilities that come out of these ideas. But I definitely can't talk to a group of middle school girls about an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. So how do I talk about how interesting science is when the understanding of it is so complex? And how can I respect myself as an educator if all I do is blow stuff up?

Of course I wouldn't do that and of course I'll find a good balance between content and exciting things and it's only 20 minutes out of these girls' lives, but think about it. What if these 20 minutes could actually get one, maybe two of these girls honestly thinking about science and engineering? What if it actually made a difference in one of their lives and they went on to make a difference in someone else's life or many people's lives? I don't just want to disregard it. I mean, I can't dream their dreams for them, but maybe I can give them a reason to dream.

Or, you know, maybe I shouldn't stress this much over it. I mean, it's not like every second of every day is an opportunity to change the world or anything.

Change and Flaws

I'm a prideful person.

It's just a fact about myself that I know, like an artist knows his medium or a scientist knows his field. I am prideful and for a long time it's simply been the background to the rest of my life. I recently had lunch and a good walk with a friend and we were talking about the future and plans and calls and somehow I came to say that I was prideful. And my friend said, "But at least you know that about yourself. And, knowing you like I think I do, I know that you've worked to try to correct that." And I said, "Of course," but that's a bit of a lie.

I treat my pride like a sickness with no known cure: I self-medicate with large doses depreciatory remarks. I number my faults, I forget my virtues,  I remember that I lie and I envy and I covet what's not mine and I fail to keep my thoughts pure. I stand in front of the mirror and stare and know that I'm plain and think that has something to do with anything. I stay away from my real faults, like my apathy, my faithlessness, my hypocrisy, because then I might actually be forced to change something, out of disgust or frustration.

I like to complain to my friends that God isn't speaking to me anymore. I like to say that when we're talking about what we're going to do with our lives. I like to stick my chin in the air and look off into the distance, saying that I listened for years and yet I still feel lost now. I feel like it gives me depth as a person. I recently found a list of quotes from another friend from what must have been high school, and one of them was something about us writing the story of our lives and either we're the author or God's the author and if we're unhappy with the way it's turning out, we're unhappy with the author. It's a true thing, as trite as it seemed at the time. I've been writing the story of my life as long as I've been living it, looking for little ways I can make the character of myself seem more exciting. I want my life to turn out like a story. I want there to be some kind of conflict and resolution. Something exciting has to happen before I can pass years in an ellipsis of happiness. After all, I'm important enough to deserve epic events and I want to have all my tragic flaws in place when that does happen.

Plus, a person with these tragic flaws, a real character in a real story, they don't have that simple faith like my friends have, that pure faith. They take the world as it is, see all its flaws and struggle with that for as long as they can, doubting that there can be a good God when there's so much pain in the world, that He could have a plan for them in the midst of the things that are happening to them.  Or if these characters do have a strong simple faith, it's because they know, they are convicted, they are sure that God has a plan for them and that it is to do these wonderful and amazing and necessary things. They're leaders or movers or changers of things in the world around them and that faith has to be solidly there, in the face of everything, in spite of everything, otherwise the good could not be accomplished.

And I think that's where my problem is. I think that I'm above the kind of faith that reads the Bible every day and says prayers every night and listens and looks for God in people and in the world around them. I think I have to be spoken directly to by God and I have to tease the meaning out of all sorts of other things, because life isn't that simple, you know. You can't just limit yourself to praise and worship music and learning about yourself from your friends or from people you trust.

And you can't. Or at least, I can't, because I see good and beauty in things that don't claim God's ownership, and I know that there are other ways I've learned about myself. But I've forgotten the beauty in all those simple faithful things like a good hymn or an easy song or a verse that gives encouragement. And I know there's more out there and there's more to look for, but I need better heart to go looking. I need a heart that's going to be seeking God and not some way to tell its own prideful story more dramatically. But I also need something to change that heart, some reason to be something better than what I've been because even in my pride I can admit that I can't change my heart just because I'm supposed to. I have to want to.

I've been saving up yellow light wishes, another one of those character traits I've added on over time to make me more interesting. And I know that before I was wishing for all the wrong things, in the way that young girls are wont to do. But maybe something will come along that I'll want to wish for. Maybe something will come around that I'll want to change for. 

Unspokens

I've been telling myself to grow up lately, usually with expletives involved, but I do try my best to keep the expletives inside of my head instead of out in the world where they could do some real damage. And it's not all the time, before you get worried about my mental state, just those times when you turn a corner or walk into an empty room and take a second to collapse under the pressure of thoughts you'd rather not be thinking.

Because adults can do that, right? They can just stop thinking about something they don't want to be thinking about and it doesn't bother them anymore, yeah? Much better than Barney's "just be awesome instead" idea. That's clearly why I need to grow up: so I can get that skill of selectively forgetting. It has to come in handy.

I definitely know kids can't do it. Kids and teenagers and college kids, we all are held sway by the things in our heads, the ideas we like to focus on and the ideas that don't leave us alone. You ever promise a kid ice cream or cotton candy and forget about it? They sure didn't, and they will remind you every second of every day until you drive over to the State Fair and buy them a package of that blue and pink sugary goodness. Speaking as a writer who has a tendency to border on the emo Myspace side of melodramatic, I can tell you for a fact that any of the billion problems accosting the regular teenager can get stuck in their head and run a little racetrack rut in their brains until every creative and bland method of expression has exhausted it. Ideas, thoughts, they're out to get us, really.

Of course, thoughts and ideas lead to actions. I remember listening to the other girls giving prayer requests at my Bible study in high school and they all had these unspoken prayer concerns. It was a codeword that meant that there was something going on about which they either couldn't or didn't want to talk in front of the adults (or the other rather puritan girls in the room who would definitely, for sure, no chance of it happening any other way, judge them for whatever it was that was bothering them). but for which they knew they needed prayer. I head those unspokens and I never thought it could mean anything serious. The unspokens of a high school girl must be something as frivolous as being upset over a guy who didn't like her back, not getting enough attention, being worried that she's too vain, or something.

But now I'm on the other side of that, where I have a rather large unspoken taking up a lot of my thought time and I would dearly love a prayer group to take that need to and have it lifted up. I mean, I don't know what prayer does, but it comforts me to think that something's being done and to see that proof of caring in a group.   Then again, maybe I'm just hanging onto an idea so I can shoulder this burden and get some attention by having an unspoken. God, it's so easy to be cynical about myself. Add that to the list of things at which I excel.

You never know. Maybe this unspoken will teach me a better way to deal with other's unspokens. Maybe that's what adults actually do- they just learn to deal with it and there's no magic trick involved. Ugh, why is it that half the inspirational posters lie to you and the other half try to make up for that first half by presenting what has now become cliche bits of counter-intuitive knowledge?

Sorry for all the posts about growing up and not being an adult and thinking about what adults do. It's just that I thought I'd have it all figured out by now, not being in the oft-mentioned position of finding out that no one's got it figured out just yet. Sometimes I wish someone would sit me down, give me and affirmation that high school me was good and college me was good and post college me has a lot of potential to prove how much good she can bring to the world. And then someone needs to sit down high school me and tell her not to judge post-college me because she's not that bad of a person besides the fact that she washed her sheets yesterday and has been too lazy to make up her bed and has been sleeping under extra blankets on top of her comforter while trying not to kick the pile of clean sheets off her mattress and onto the floor. Because I think high school me would judge me for that, among other things.

That's not my unspoken, by the way.

Our Stars

You know what I'm really good at? Running over acorns with my car. They're tiny and they're everywhere and I can hear them crunch when I back out as I'm leaving my apartment. I basically do half the squirrels' job for them. Really, I should get a medal. Win one for the humpbacked squirrel who has difficulty eating with no one to break his acorns for him!  

I'm also pretty good at pointing out stars, knowing which planets are up, explaining some astronomy topics. It's kinda my job right now. I was working an observing session at a wedding, sometimes manning the scopes but mostly doing star tours and answering questions. After one rather lengthy session with plenty of good questions and conversation, one of the ladies there suggested that I read Steve Job's commencement speech at Stanford because it was all about finding what you love and making that your job, and, clearly, I had found what I loved. I had heard a similar thing from a couple visiting the planetarium earlier that day, who came by after the show to ask a question and tell me how good they thought I was at giving shows. So, with all that, I guess I have found what I'm meant to have been doing all along. 

Then again, someone wrote in to complain that my show didn't fit his expectations and that neither he nor his grandchildren gained anything from the show. So maybe I'm not as good at this as I thought and maybe I'm not in the right place after all. On the other side of the seesaw, though, you can't make everybody happy all of the time. You just gotta think these things through. 

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I mostly just retweet other people's stuff, things that I find interesting or things that I think need attention from the masses. In the alternate universe where I'm well-known and important, what I retweet would make a difference, but right now, it's just a collection of articles I'd like to peruse later. Like this one, about dropouts and failures fueling the US economy. Now, I don't intend to start a new business but I do intend to fail. Well, not really intend, I just know that it's inevitable. I like the idea of being comfortable with failure, mostly because I'm not and I want to be. The idea of doing something badly, or just having the odds against you, and learning to pick yourself back up is really appealing to me, which is impressive considering how overdone it is in inspirational montages and the like. 

Because I tend not to fail. My life basically works out for me. And that bothers me, especially when so many other people's lives don't work out for them. I didn't do anything to deserve the good luck and veritable blessings I've gotten over the course of my life. I tend to pick things I can do and then do them well. Setting out on a journey that might end in failure isn't something I've ever done. I want to change that. I mean, I'm certainly not asking for hard times. There's enough of that going around. If you could grow by vicarious pain, we would have the best generation of people and leaders in the history of humankind. But I think it's time that I stopped waiting for my real life to begin and started making it happen. 

I'm just not quite sure how to do that. 

And as far as having found my passion, I went to hear John Green speak last Thursday and seriously considered writing as a profession. Part of the talk was about his new book, The Fault in Our Stars, for which I am beyond excited and which I shamelessly link to on Amazon here, and part of it was about the ideas that are in the book and the struggle that ensues when you look at the world and see how much pain there is, and how much of it gets doled out to the innocent. And I swear, I was hanging on every word, feeling like I was jerked back to reality when my friend said something to me or the high school girls in front of me shouted out something. I didn't leave the talk with questions answered. In fact, I left feeling unsettled, but that might just be because it was John Green speaking. My best friend, when recommending Paper Towns to me, said that you shouldn't read his books if you're already in a funny mood, because they make you think. But I love the way his books make me think and the way he uses stories to talk about bigger things, bigger themes. And there's always hope, and I like that. I want to do that in my life. I want to make something, give something to the world that makes everyone who sees it or hears it or reads it think and hope. 

Have you ever heard an organist say that they're really meant to be an organist because they need to hear the sermon twice? I've heard at least two church musicians say it, so it must be a thing. Well, I think that, for right now, I'm meant to work in a planetarium because every day, I'm reminded of how tiny and insignificant our planet is and might be in the grand scheme of the universe. I need that dose of thoughtful humility so I remember that the simple shower of leaves outside my window wasn't shaken down for me. It's just the way the universe works and the universe is a big place and I am so small. But I can change my corner of the universe, and make it better and that has to count for something. 

So maybe that's my passion. Eh, maybe not. It's a pretty vague passion. 

Maybe I'll just stick to naming our stars. 

Single

I have in my general acquaintance several men of the thirty to forty age range who are really good guys. They all have a family or are starting one, are great with kids, good at what they do for a living and seem to be very kind and caring human individuals. One of them in particular I love watching interact with his wife because they always seem like they're happy to be together. I look at them and think, "I want that."

I've also been thinking a little bit about the idea of extended adolescence since that's what people seem to be calling the phase of life in which most of my friends and I exist. We're not adults and we're not viewed that way by society. I don't really know how I feel about it, having this opportunity to pursue my dreams without any expectations of a family weighing me down, wondering about how I'm contributing to society while still feeling like I'm living on God's good graces. It's a privileged burden and I feel terrible that I have such choice and freedom in my world. I can do anything but I feel like I pick a job and settle down.

Having had no classes or formal education of any kind in gender studies, it didn't really strike me to think about the different effects extended adolescence has on men versus women, but I found this article about it to be fascinating, true and explanatory. It also gave me a sense of relief. See! There's a complex sociological reason why I'm single!

That was really how I was going to phrase this whole idea that I've been rolling around. It was going to be a vaguely angry fake letter to the guys around me, imploring them to grow up and get some of the characteristics of the good men I see around me so I can find someone and stop spending so much time alone. For a while I felt vindicated by the article. It's not my fault that I'm picky- guys really are different now from my grandparents' generation, from my parents' generation. In the world of college graduates, they're stuck with over-achieving women who don't need them and who are competing for the same jobs for which they're applying. It's different. It means a new understanding of the families we'll have, if we have them at all.

Because I want it all, but not right now. I want a career, though it might take me a while to get to the career stage, and I also want a family. And I want someone beside me the whole time who's figuring out what he's going to do with his life and who's going to be happy bringing other lives into this world with me to ponder their own complex social structures. Really, what I want in my life is one of those men who have their lives figured out, who are starting their families and enjoying the comfortable middle road of their lives after the tumultuous path they took to get there because I want my life to be that settled. Or as settled as life gets, anyway.

Then again, I potentially have several more years to watch Star Wars, make s'mores in my microwave and seriously discuss the merits of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. And apparently there are guys out there who are in the exact same boat. Really, there are worse ways to spend the time it's going to take the world to figure us out.

And as long as the world gives me the chance to bring my kids to the quad to play, it can take its sweet time figuring us out.

Changing

I couldn't find an appropriate place to link to it, but I think you should have a chortle at the premise for this movie entitled Leaves of Grass. Basically, you're welcome. Now, onto my real point(s).

At the beginning of the summer, I bought Leaves of Grass (and Paper Towns and An Abundance of Katherines) in preparation for Europe because through a combination of 31 Jokes for Nerds and the Anglerfish Song, I ended up watching a lot of Vlogbrothers videos in one go and fell in love with John Green's ideas, enough to, you know, go read a book or something. Leaves of Grass was a little bit of an impulse buy- I didn't know it'd be such a big part of Paper Towns, but two of my good friends had mentioned it and I wanted to broaden my horizons, so I picked it up (and besides, Whitman was a solid quote machine). It was a pocket-sized version (if you habitually wear trench coats) and it fit quite easily in the mesh side pocket of my little brother's purple extra camping backpack that wandered around nine countries with me all summer.

It also stayed in that pocket pretty much the whole summer.

I'm not really sure how the conversation got started but I distinctly remember walking up the steps to the train station in Venice in the rain, talking to Christine about how I wanted to read Leaves of Grass and enjoy poetry more and she said, "But isn't that just changing yourself for other people?" And I think I stammered and hand waved and ended up agreeing with her, partially because I didn't have a good counter argument, partially because I think the people in front of us spoke English and were listening to the conversation and partially because I've spent so much of my life changing myself for other people that it's a bit of a foreign concept to change simply because I want to change.

I'm only about halfway through Song of Myself and that's even after some intense attempts at poetry reading while I've been back. I get distracted by the imagery, I get distracted by words, I can't focus for long enough, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I really must have only wanted to change so that people I like will like me more and we'll have more in common, otherwise I would have read the whole poem and have thought deep thoughts about it. I dunno, I'm just not that into poetry and try though I might, I am actually and truly more interested in my particle physics textbook than Walt Whitman. Sometimes I think this earns me judgmental looks from my humanities major friends.

I had a similar problem when considering the things I do. Throughout college, I didn't really go out to bars or to parties, nor did I drink or smoke. I didn't date, much less hook up with anyone. I stayed up late to finish papers and problems sets. I was involved in organizations because that's what I do well- I'm more comfortable in a committee meeting than I am shooting the breeze with friends. It's an unfortunate antisocial fact of my life. In a committee meeting I know who's in charge, I know what's supposed to be happening and I know what the goals are. Social settings are more complex and I'm much more likely to make nerdy jokes or inappropriate puns that lead to awkward silences while everyone around me tries to calculate the exact amount of time they can let pass before starting an entirely different topic of conversation. You've been there. You know what it's like.

But I think everyone expected me to go a little crazy while I was in Europe. I really think that there was an honest expectation of me finding a boy over there or at least coming back with good stories about the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam (apparently it's like the paintings come to life- definitely worth a try, from all accounts). Guys, I saw a bunch of churches. There's not much else besides that.

When I was in Edinburgh, I went to church on Sunday morning. The Fringe Festival was in full swing, so many people were already awake when I was leaving, filling the common room with the smell of tea and coffee. I waved and told everyone where I was going and I got a look from a couple of people at the table. The owner glanced up from her computer and said, "Oh, is it Sunday? I hardly even noticed." And as I was leaving, I thought about reverse judgement. I'm sure no one in that room changed the way they thought about me because of the fact that I went to church, but it's impossible not to imagine their interactions with me changing. Oh, can't talk about this around her. She goes to church. Oh, probably shouldn't mention that to her-it's a bit awkward since she goes to church. Do you think she'll think badly of me if I tell that story? She does go to church.

So lately I've been wanting to go out more. I mean, I don't really have a reason not to- yes, I work, but most mornings I don't have to be in until 9:30 or 10 and that's much better than the 8 AM classes I had the majority of my collegiate career. Yes, I'm tired at night, but I'm not so tired that I couldn't go to a bar and have a few drinks. And yes, my budget is tight, but I just got a credit card (which signaled my initiation into the adult world). I could flirt more, buy clothes that fit me differently (though I've gained back most of the weight I lost carrying around the weight of a small child on my back all summer), make an actual effort with my appearance. I could go out and get some stories and tell them as the true events they'd be. I wouldn't need jokes to fill my time in conversations. Plus, if I do all these things, people will see that I'm not judging them for their actions. Look, I'm doing it too. How can I be judging you if I'm doing it too? Can't you see I'm just like you?

But then, aren't I changing myself for other people?

And I know the youth group, high school, Above the Influence commercial response to this. Just be yourself and that will be enough. You are a wonderful person, you just need to find the other people like you. Don't change what's good about you. Who cares what other people think? It's their problem.

Being an adult, though, is realizing that things are complex, that there's more than one side to every issue and that even though the well-meaning, self-bolstering slogans contain grains of truth, living with people requires compromise. At my core, there's still this kid that really just wants to read her Bible and pray every night until the world's problems are solved. But that kid has a terrible time making conversation.

And I do so want to have conversations.

October

I love October.

I love the weather, I love the leaves, I love the smell of the air, I love jackets and football and potentially the fair and the feel of the end of the year when we leave the discomforting heat of the summer for the quiet peaceful cold of the autumn and winter.

I love the wind that blows in when October comes. It makes the dark magic of Halloween plausible, it stirs up the mind and makes the heart race as it rips through jackets and steals the comforting warmth of normality, it stirs up the world around us to make us believe in ghosts and fairies and wishes. I love being lost in the memories of far away places where dreaming such dreams doesn't seem so delusional.

October makes me want to write. It makes me want to pull out my quilt and curl up in a chair on my porch, watching the leaves change and fall while my pen races across another page. I could almost stay out there all day and into the night, warming my hands with coffee as ideas pour out of my mind, the paper filled with ghouls that remove my stories far enough from reality to be recognized.

Or I could, you know, sit at my computer all day watching Youtube videos and catching up on TV (I'm halfway through season 6 of How I Met Your Mother! Don't tell me what happens at the beginning of this season!). I could spend my evening hours worrying about when I'm going to get things done and whether I'm doing a good enough job and what I'm going to do next year (next year? next year? I have a job 'til August, let's not rush into things here). I could drag every hour down with the general guilt of laziness and apathy, which is surprisingly easy to do. Or I could just play the one song I know on the piano over and over again while glancing over at my guitar and wondering if I'm ever going to learn to play something on it.

It's a choice we have to make everyday, the choice to live perfectly acceptable lives of normalcy and productivity, or the choice to allow ourselves to live a little of the magic that our minds are capable of imparting to the world in which we live, to smile that sardonic smile at the banal beauty of everyday life and know that behind our eyes, we are seeing something more. And I don't think there's a wrong answer.

I just think there's a normal one.

Peace

"Peace is hard, but we know that it is possible. So, together, let us be resolved to see that it is defined by our hopes and not by our fears. Together, let us make peace, but a peace, most importantly, that will last."


I'm pretty used to quoting people who are long gone or no longer in a position to be heard. I love reading through old speeches from presidents and leaders and Nobel Laureates and innovators. A well-phrased truth makes me listen, helps me to better appreciate the successes and challenges of any given situation.


The above quote is the ending paragraph of President Obama's speech to the United Nations General Assembly today. I actually sat down and read the whole thing and I invite you to do the same. No matter what you think about the man or how he's fared in office, this document is full of good quotes. 


"The men and women who built this institution understood that peace is more than just the absence of war. A lasting peace -- for nations and for individuals -- depends on a sense of justice and opportunity, of dignity and freedom. It depends on struggle and sacrifice, on compromise, and on a sense of common humanity. "


""But let us remember: Peace is hard. Peace is hard. Progress can be reversed. Prosperity comes slowly. Societies can split apart. The measure of our success must be whether people can live in sustained freedom, dignity, and security. And the United Nations and its member states must do their part to support those basic aspirations. And we have more work to do. "


"Ultimately, peace depends upon compromise among people who must live together long after our speeches are over, long after our votes have been tallied. "


"True peace depends on creating the opportunity that makes life worth living. And to do that, we must confront the common enemies of humanity: nuclear weapons and poverty, ignorance and disease. These forces corrode the possibility of lasting peace and together we're called upon to confront them."


I pray that words and thoughts like these, that talk peace to everyone, don't end up being left out of history books because they were ignored and become obsolete in the conflicts of our future. 

Fireworks

I feel like I've been everywhere.

I just went back to my good friend, my google calendar. We had been separated for most of the summer and I think it might have gotten lonely in those long months with hardly a date to remember. But, ever faithful with unfailing memory, it tells me that I attended graduation on May 8th and proceeded to say Screw You to commitments, other than Jennifer's Wedding, which was lovely. I know I went down to Charleston the week after graduation because I drove back up just before the wedding. I know I spent some of the week after that in Chapel Hill because I gave a planetarium show before I flew out on the 22nd. And then I know my summer was a crazy blur of cities and countries and accents and people, which I blogged about here.

Then I flew back on August 11th, cut my hair, couch surfed in Chapel Hill for a week while I worked and surprised Pam for her birthday and finally moved into my apartment in August 20th. I then spent a surprising 14 days sleeping in the same bed. That's the longest time, need I remind you, I've had the same space to lay me down every night since I moved out in May. On September 3rd, I drove up to Ohio with some friends to see Rachel get married. On September 5th, we drove back. On September 6th, I rode up to Baltimore to attend a workshop at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and today, September 9th, I drove back to Chapel Hill/ Carrboro and then back to Granite Falls because I still have so much stuff at home.

And I'm not complaining, really. Everywhere I've been has been part of the amazing opportunity that being a semi-adult with no unforgiving ties to a place is. There have been astounding circumstances that have worked out in my favor to allow me to end up where I am. All the places that I am. But I have to admit that I'm tired. Starting a new job while going through reverse culture shock while trying to move into a new place while having nothing to contribute to said new place other than an unwavering desire for a hammock while feeling a nigh unstoppable urge to hop in my car and drive somewhere insane like Sacramento wears on a person a little bit. Still, I'm having the time of my life.

That last sentence was brought to you by the responsible adults of the world. Of course she's having the time of her life, the responsible adults think. She's got to take advantage of this time before her real life starts.

I'M REAL NOW, RESPONSIBLE ADULTS.

I exist now. I live and breathe and take up space and contribute to the economy now. And I'm not the same person I was four years ago- I just spent two weeks listening to freshmen talk and try to impress and I know that I don't know anything and that's all the difference. I think now. I'm humble(r) now. And I can't reclaim the person I was and I don't need to and I don't need to imagine the person I will be because I am a living, breathing, thinking, loving person now. Don't patronize me. Life does enough of that already.

 It's just that I'm so ready to be taken seriously, as a thinking person whose opinion doesn't need to be edited with caveats and addendums. I guess I haven't earned my stripes. I haven't worked for years at different jobs scraping to pay my bills. I haven't formed and lost relationships. I found a wrinkle on my face the other day (I think it's from laughing or smiling ironically). Will you stop doubting me then, when my face is covered with life's declaration of the dying resiliency of your skin?

I know I'm just starting out. But it feels like I've been starting out for a long time now.

As I drove back today, I sang until I was hoarse, I prayed as only one can do when the windows of your car have been down for two hours and the sound of the wind washes away your yelling, and I sped on with that inexhaustible sense of freedom that comes with seventy miles an hour on an interstate. I slowed down when I got into Hickory because the speed limit's changed in places and because every stop light caught me. I looked around for a sputtering motorcycle behind me at one light as I was worried about the constant backfiring coming from his bike, but couldn't find one. Then the colors lit up the sky on my left and I almost missed the green light watching the fireworks.

I sped up the hill to the stadium and pulled into the megachurch parking lot right beside the field. There were four or five other cars already up there, having caught most of the show from this momentary vantage point. I parked and turned off my car and sat with Holy Ghost Tent Revival playing through the cracks and booms of the pyrotechnics. Sitting, curled up in my driver's seat, feeling the greens and reds and blues and whites reflect off my face.

Then, right on cue, after the last barrage had faded from the sulfur-ridden air, the five or six of us who had pulled in off the road started our cars and turned around from our terrible parking jobs and drove out of the lot. It was odd and wonderful, flitting into and out of the lives of these people who I never met, all of us drawn like kids to a cotton candy booth to what I'm sure was a bright remembrance of our childhoods, lighting up a night already dominated by a moon that cast my shadow onto my passenger's seat.

I raced the cloud of firework smoke across the river. It only seemed right, for a person just beginning.

Summer Blog

Why hello there.

If you're looking for your regularly scheduled blog, you're in the wrong place... for right now at least. My European travels this summer are chronicled at Churches or Something, which is not updated as often as it should be, but it should be getting better. Thanks for checking in- it may be that I end up back here in the fall, with all the wonders that post-grad life can afford.

Best wishes!

My Last Letter to the Boy

Dear Boy,

I was thinking back over my blog posts, because, you know, I'm starting a new blog for Europe and I don't really know if this is something I want to continue post-college, and if I do, it'll probably be much more intentional and focused, or something like that, and I was thinking about how I have all these little bits of writing that are Letters to A Boy. I've decided for sure that this is my last Letter to A Boy because I'm done doing passive things like this. I'm done being the kind of person who sits back and pines after someone but never does anything about it. I've seen the kind of person that makes me and I don't like it.

Listen, I want you in my life in some manner. I know we're in different places with all these different plans and I know where your passions lie and I can't pretend mine are in exactly the same place, but I also know that I really like the person you make me be. You've said things that still make me see the best in me and now, even when I feel really convicted by something you say, you still remind me of the person I'm meant to be, so it's still a good thing. I mean, I know it's never about me but sometimes I think that we're not in such different places after all.


Ugh, but I don't know because I never see you and I never get to talk to you and I would dearly love to talk to you and figure out what you're thinking not only because I get so much inspiration from your drive and your purpose and your clear calling but also because we're friends, you know, we've been friends in the past, and I'm a pack rat- I hate giving up anything that could even remotely still have some kind of value. And I think you're valuable. I think you're a worthy person and I'm tired of letting worthy people walk out of my life. You know, this entire month, this semester, all of my friends have been saying good-bye to things. I think that's why I might be ending my blog, so I can have some closure, some good-bye to something. But I'm not going anywhere next year- I'm still around and so good-byes don't seem appropriate. Though maybe I have been saying some and I just didn't realize it because I cried so much during Michael's last episode on The Office. I mean, really, if Jim is allowed to cry, I'm allowed to bawl. Anyway, off topic. My point was, I don't think I have to say my last good-bye to you yet, and I don't really want to.

Then again, maybe we're not friends. Maybe I'm just making that up. Friends tell each other things, right? Keep each other updated on their lives? Like, a friend of mine just told me that he and his wife are having a baby and I am so extraordinarily excited for them. My world just lit up from vicarious happiness, all from the good news of a friend. And friends tell each other bad news as well. Like, I've been telling all of my friends the story of my subletting woes, and even though things like this are exorbidantly trivial, my friends pretend to be interested and for this I am superbly grateful. Yeah, it's actually probably a smart decision on your part to not be friends with me, what with all the complaining and the whining and the inaction. Or maybe it's not, maybe I am actually a worthwhile person as well, I just haven't been acting like it recently. It's so hard to tell.

Sorry, sorry, all of these things are not to the point. You know, I don't really even know what the point is anymore. I can't say that I love you. What a funny phrase. I meant that kinda idiomatically, something along the lines of, "I can't say that I'd ever want a zombie unicorn, because they just seem to be an ineffective combination of two very different imaginary beings," as opposed to the literal meaning, that I can't physically say that I love you, which is also true. One of the things that I've learned about myself is that I find it difficult to verbally express affection. I will do your dishes because I love you, I will listen to you talk for hours because I love you, I will cease to judge all of the insane yet adorable things you do because I love you, but I will hardly ever use those three words. And I can't say that I love you, not only because love is a creepy obsessive kind of thing that's only healthy when both parties are in on the game, but also because maybe I don't. Maybe I don't and maybe I've been lying to myself for a long time to limit all of the negative potentials that are available to me in a world where I don't, in fact, love you.

So I don't love you but I kinda want you to be around in my future life (isn't Facebook a wonderfully convenient way to keep people in your life and yet at that great safe distance where you never actually have to care how they're doing?) because I respect you as a human being. Yup, this is a winner of a letter. But I think I wanted you to see how far I've come, even though, looking back, I think I envy the faith of the person that walked into an empty dorm room freshman year to nervously check her email more than the tired doubt of the exhausted soul that moved out of her apartment four years later. We learn so much, you know, we see so much. And I just wish I knew how to keep the practice and the promise and the hope of the person I used to be and put that into the person I am, 'cause I feel like she could use it. Do you have that problem? At all? I just, you know, I just think you're perfect. And I know that's not fair, but, hey, maybe it's just the boost you needed, maybe you needed to hear that today. Goodness, I hope you never need to hear that, but, for my sake, I hope that you did.

OK, two more things, even though I know you stopped reading like three paragraphs ago. One, I really want you to listen to The Avett Brothers because I feel like your life would be a better place because of them because, even though there's no name dropping with Jesus or God or anything, there's this wonderful beauty in the things they say, and I think you can find God there too. And two, poetry, because I hear English majors like that kind of thing and also because I'm trying to turn into a person with a soul and I hear poetry is helpful with that (even though I stole this from my best friend's wall, no lie):

In men whom men condemn as ill
I find so much of goodness still,
In men whom men pronounce divine
I find so much of sin and blot,
I do not dare to draw a line
Between the two, where God has not.

-Joaquin Miller

So there, that's the best I have to offer, a recommendation to people braver than me and words that were written by someone more inspired than me. No, I know it's not. I know I have such wonderful potential, like we all do. It's hard to feel it sometimes, you know?

Especially after you've written a letter to the love of your life telling him that you don't love him.

It's just that I'm going away for two months without any hope of seeing you and I had to say something because part of me is crazy and that part of me thinks with a nameless hope that our future will be gloriously different from what we make of it. Whatever we make of it.

Anyway.

Much love,
Addie Jo

Hammocks and Porches

I want a hammock. It's going on my list of things that must be in my home, along with a wooden porch and potentially fireplaces.

I was going to wrap all of this up in symbolism and be vaguely mysterious yet angsty about all of this, but I'm lazy, so I'll just tell you that the hammock is a symbol of freedom and awesomeness for me. A person with a hammock plans on having enough free time to enjoy it, time spent reading or napping or listening to music or pondering the existential questions of life for all I care, but time that is not scheduled, time that is not intended for any specific purpose. And I want that in my life. So I will have a hammock.

I will have a wooden porch because I am tired of living in institutionalized places. I am tired of concrete and cookie cutter rooms with taupe walls and beige carpet, with no history beyond that moment when someone decided they could make a killing off of another mid-class apartment complex. I want a porch that I can sit on and watch lives walk by, a porch that I can shoot the breeze on, a porch that I can keep a close eye on whatever children may also be occupying the house as they play various games of sundry origins in my attempt to stop their brains from rotting. A porch gives a house the kind of character I want my house to have. I have no desire to live in a place that has no need of a porch.

I would love to live in a house that has enjoyed life long enough to have had previous need of fireplaces. I feel like these could come in handy in case of an apocalypse of some kind, but I also like the aesthetic appeal of a fireplace in a room. I'm not sold on it, though. I like modern conveniences, probably more than I should, and modern conveniences were more than likely gerry-rigged into a house with a fireplace and so maybe it's more trouble than it's worth. Who knows. I'm not going to buy a house for the fireplaces, but they could play a deciding factor.

I like thinking about what my future home will be like, because I get to choose. That is possibly the one positive about this whole growing up and having to be a real person thing. As deathly afraid of having to make these choices as I am, with all the responsibilities that come with them, there is this wonderful freedom in knowing that I get to make these choices. This is my life now. Holy goodness.

See, and that's what I've missed for so long, that sense of the wonderful adventure that you can make your existence. I grew up, so long ago, idealizing these heroes and heroines in books that dreamed of doing something more, being something bigger, traveling to somewhere, anywhere that wasn't the place they already knew. I loved them for this spirit they all shared that sent them places to do things. Maybe they didn't all go seeking adventure, but they all at least did something when adventure happened in their lives.
Somewhere along the way, I let that leave. I let that burning desire to go do something behind. I don't know that it's a bad thing- remember that Sam loved the Shire and came back to it at the end of it all. I started being happy where I was, which is something that people in books who go do things don't really seem to grasp, being happy where you are. But there's always the danger of forgetting that push to be more when you're happy where you are. Life loses some of its magic and you have to replace that somehow, otherwise you're stuck waiting for things to happen to you and wondering why everything feels so mundane.

I am so excited to be doing something new, to be free of previous obligations and moving on to things that are almost incomprehensibly exciting. I'm backpacking through Europe. What? What? How wonderfully unexpected my life turned out to be. As a friend of mine said, When did I become the kind of person that lives my dreams instead of just dreaming them? (I mean, I know precisely when- when a generous donor decided that money that could be spent feeding the hungry would actually be of better use to us poor privileged college students who want to travel the world, see new things and inspire a sense of great potential in other people; it's not like I made this happen on my own. [end reality-induced aside]) And even though my plans for the fall and the following year are still in the safe-zone of Chapel Hill, I'm not confining my possibilities for life after that. Like I've been.

If there is one thing that four years of perspective has taught me, it's that you never need to limit your possibilities. When something comes your way, by all means, take it. And if you have found that thing, that idea, organization or community that embodies everything you're passionate about in life, pursue it and don't let it leave you. But by all means, don't leave the world behind. There's so much potential in our lives.

I'd hate to see it flounder in a place without hammocks and porches.

In Which I List Things and Say Too Much

It's that time of year when I'm far too distracted to string a coherent sentence together, but when I should like to share with you deep and soul-searching facts about myself and my life as a Carolina student, which is quickly drawing to a semi-end. I apologize, dear blog-faithful followers, for letting student teaching and life in general get the best of me and depriving you of my oh-so-eloquent ramblings on the beauty that is our existence, and I regret to inform you that come May 20th, I'll move on to a different blog, at least for the summer, so that others can enjoy the chronicles of epic adventure that can only be my escapades in Europe, but I fully intend to churn out ten more posts between now and then, to reach the good and even number of 200. So even though, at this moment, I can't really tell you everything I want to in the way I want to, know that our time has not yet come, friends, which is sincere statement of truth number one.

2. My tiny laptop has seven hours of battery life. SEVEN. HOURS. What?
3. I have to take the PRAXIS in the morning, meaning I have to be in Durham at 7:30 AM. Isn't it amazing how daily hardships become tragedies when they are only inflicted once instead of perpetually?
4. I used the word "verbose" in my planetarium show. I can't telling if this is a win or a loss.
5. I now can't use the words epic fail because of this STW: http://survivingtheworld.net/Lesson938.html
6. I laughed so hard at these 31 jokes for nerds, and enjoyed them even more because my students told me about them first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrnd63DAH8o
7. My students painted a tree and put their thumbprints on it as the leaves and signed it and gave me a card and gave me food and I almost think that I could teach if I knew for a fact that I would get this kind of reward every time because that painting is currently vying for the position of my favorite thing, along with my class ring.
8. Is everytime a word? When is anytime appropriate? These are grammatical problems I must overcome!
9. I love the white rose sitting on my desk. I love my sisters. Any further expression of the good and beautiful thing that SAI has been in my life would require me to cry on my tiny laptop and I just don't think I can do that today.
9a. I am so happy for the person that you all think that I am and I hope that, most of the time, I'm really that person.
10. I love the notebook and pottery bowl that I got from Wesley Senior Banquet. Even though I could never make it a priority in my life, I have always felt ridicuously welcomed at Wesley and love that I am part of the love and all the good that they do by all the means they can, in all the ways they can, in all the places they can, at all the times they can, to all the people they can, as long as they can.
11. I had the awesome honor of being a member of a choir called Heels to Heaven this year and even though I had no time to devote to it, I have definitely seen grace and love every time I've come to a rehearsal, to a performance or to a gathering of these wonderful people. You've blessed me in so many ways and it's been a while since I've had anything require me to use those words.
12. I'm going to my first and last spring band banquet tomorrow. What?
13. I went out on Franklin Street for the first and last time a Thursday ago and maintain that I would have sung along to Piano Man that loudly anyway.
14. I sing along to The Avett Brothers in public without shame.
15. I want someone to show me how to (or give me a reason to) do that with life.
16. I appreciate and understand the difficult things in life. I'm not even sure I could handle the good things.
17. Freshman year me was pretty perceptive. I've got to stop bashing her, idealistic fool that she was.
18. I would definitely be a princess, given the opportunity.
19. I would definitely be an astronaut given the opportunity.
20. I don't think that it's weird that both of those statements are facets of my character.
21. I am excited beyond belief that I don't have to leave here next year.
22. I am extraordinarily nervous that I'm making plans for the next year that the person who comes back from Europe will find juvenile and useless but will nevertheless be stuck with.

So there you go. Twenty two things from a person who has lived twenty two years who is fully aware of her insignificance, much more so than her significance, who travels around this place under the guard of the amazing love that never seems to fail her, much to her confusion and misunderstanding. Goodness, it's so good to be saying things again. Promise, the text from the next post will seem less like an excerpt from V for Vendetta, though I can't promise that the subject matter will be any less self-absorbed. I need something in this world to care about things simply because I care about them, which is insincere statement of possible falsehood number one.

Me and God

It's been a while since I wholesale posted Avett Brothers Lyrics. Enjoy. It's off of Carolina Jubilee, if you're curious.

Me and God

Well I know a preacher he's a real good man
He speaks from The Good Book in his hand
And helps all people when he can
But me and God don't need a middle man

Well I found God in a soft woman's hair
A long days work and a good sittin' chair
The ups and downs of the treble clef lines
And five miles ago on an interstate sign
My God, my God and I don't need a middle man
My God, my God and I don't need a middle man

Now I don't doubt that The Good Book is true
What's right for me may not be right for you
To church on Sunday I'll stand beside
All the hurtin' people with the fear in their eyes
And I thank the Lord for the country land
Just like pa I thank him for my hands
And I don't know if my soul is safe
Sometimes I use curse words when I pray
My God, my God and I don't need a middle man
My God, my God and I don't need a middle man
My God, my God and I don't need a middle man
My God, my God and I don't need a middle man

Guards

The palace guards have arrived. Can I get a magic lamp now?

'Cause, you know, I know that I've been wrong. But I also know that I had to make a mistake, otherwise I wouldn't have known what was right. People do this all the time- they plan careers and set their futures down the paths they think are right only to realize they were wrong. They come back to the places they've been and smile, knowing that despite their misstep, they're back to where they're meant to be. The only problem is, I can't pass the next three weeks of my life in a TV montage. And I know it's just three weeks, but how do people live with regret for even that short amount of time? This is something new to me, and I want a magical out.

I've been mostly apathetic, I guess, towards my life. All choices were equally good, so the task at hand was to pick a path and walk it. Take whatever factors into account that you'd like, but I picked my path and set off. I watched it change and I changed my mind, but I wasn't sure. You know, you need to be sure for these things. So I picked a back up and took a new road and I was wrong. And now I know it.

Now I know that I want things. There are things that I can do without in the world and there are things that I need desperately. I feel quite the adult- I've worked in a job I don't like with people who have occasionally frustrated me, I have been mistaken, I have misspoken, I have been reprimanded, I have been ashamed, I have stumbled in places I thought were solid and I have fallen without getting up for entirely too long. I have misjudged a situation and shown too little interest and affection and for that I have been sorry, I am sorry. More than ever before, I want the chance to do it all over again, to pick something different, to choose to be another person, to listen, to be confident in what I've heard, to walk a better road, to trust and not to wonder, not to wander.

Regret is new, but I guess it's good, because it means that I cared. I miss the color the world had for a few weeks and I want it back. At the same time, I'm glad the story I had planned out is someone's story, even though it's not mine. I'll wait with this interminable patience I seem to have acquired, I won't be sad for what might have been and I'll let hope replace regret. Disappointment isn't new- it's something I'm quite familiar with, especially if it applies to myself. It's so easy to be disappointed with me, to blame myself for anything that's gone wrong. Because, if I blame myself, I don't have to blame anyone else. Then there's only one bad person in my world and I have control over her. If it's my fault, I can fix it, I'm still in charge, I can do better next time, I can carry this blame and I can solve this problem and I never have to depend on someone else for the happiness I want. And I know that's not right and I know there's no way this will make anything better, so, oddly, I'll let trust replace disappointment, because I know that people deserve it. Frustration is my perpetual friend and I'm not sure of how to deal with it. Courage to change the things I can and grace to accept the things I cannot, I guess. I guess, I guess, I guess. I felt so sure of everything…

You know, there's two kinds of rain. There's the perfect cleaning rain like you can get in the summer when it's warm outside and the only correct response is to dance in it, jumping in the puddles that gather and spinning to the beat of the drops on leaves. Then there's this cold disgusting rain that soaks your clothes and weighs you down and requires you to use all the warmth that protection and food and friendship can give you just to be normal again. The thing is, though, it's all the same stuff falling from the sky, bringing the same water to the growing things. It's just a matter of when it happens that makes all the difference.

God, I could have used summer rain.

Risk of Disappointment

So today wasn't really a red-letter day in the wonderful world of student teaching. I had a kid sit right in front of me, like smack dab in front of where I was standing while everyone was taking their test, I had a kid sit right in front of me and sleep through his test. I don't even want to grade it, I'm so frustrated right now. He even told me that he'd come before school today to get some help on it and I got myself to school early today, I'm talking like an hour and fifteen minutes before school starts, fully forty-five minutes before I'm required by the school to be there, and he never showed. So he waltzes into class and sits down and sleeps through his test right in front of where I'm working out the rest of the stuff they're going to learn today.

And I was so disappointed.

I really thought I was getting through here- he was asking for help in class, he was understanding explanations, he did his homework and turned it in, even when the rest of the class didn't, he was staying awake the majority of the time. And then today rolls around and he sits there and sleeps. I woke him up twice and he never wrote another number on his paper. What did I do? I put effort into this kid, you know, I tried. And it just broke my heart. So this is what disappointment feels like. I must have never been let down before.

You know, teaching three preps is hard. There's so much stuff you have to get ready. And I'm still learning how to teach and how to best interact with students. I need to be allowed to make those mistakes, to learn from what I'm doing wrong, or not exactly right. Students aren't like physics problems or math problems. They're these living breathing opportunities for education or misdirection, and if you mess up, you don't just crumple up a sheet of paper and start over. You have to correct and guide and hope that the opportunity doesn't turn the wrong way again. Physics problems stay put on the paper and in the book. Students do anything but that.

Add all of that onto the things I already do and having to take the PRAXIS (someone teach me biology before Saturday!) and going to the ACC tournament (OK, that's not really a stresser, that's kinda one of the best things that's happened in my life ever... the frequency of the best things occurring in my life ever has been increasing as of late and I'm not really sure what to do with that) and Europe and working and you know, eating and stuff like that that apparently you have to do, and I just crashed this afternoon. I also said those immortal words: "I can't do this."

And I can't. This is so much and I'm cracking. I clench my jaw and I take criticism worse than usual and I wake up with headaches and all I want to do is come back home and sleep. Of course, it's been this bad before, but that's when I dropped from a physics BS to a physics BA. There's nowhere to go from here. And of course I can't quit. Quitting is forever unacceptable.

Which is why I don't let my students quit. I'm going to make this kid stay awake in class on Monday when I'm back He is going to come afterschool for tutoring, so help me. He is going to learn the material and he is going to do wonderfully on this next test. And even with the risk of being disappointed again hanging over my head, I'm going to make sure that my other students think in class. They're going to fill in steps that they think they can't. They're going to learn to reason the right way to figure out these problems. I'm going to push them forward because I know they can do it. These are difficult goals, but not insurmountable. I know they can learn to reason, to think, to solve problems, to make their individual worlds better places.I know they can.

Don't you tell me they can't.

Ash Wednesday Eve-Eve

I'm sure none of you ever get lost in the same place twice like I do, but, imagine for a second what it's like to be going in the wrong direction down a road, say, in Durham at around 9 o'clock at night. You've been down this wrong road before but you can't remember if you turned at the end of the road and found your way back or if you missed a turn a while ago. It's all really hazy because you found your way back only through the grace of God and some conveniently connecting streets. It was also dark the last time. It's an odd feeling, knowing you're wrong, being totally convinced that you're headed in the wrong direction and yet completely unsure as to whether you should keep pushing forward or turn completely around.

And I know that you all know that you should turn around. You know the way behind you. Maybe you can find the (unlabeled, I might add) street that you were supposed to turn on, the place that you've been trying to get to all along. You should just go back to somewhere where the directions still make sense and then see that place where you have to follow every step more carefully. Your internal sense of direction tells you that where you want to be is behind you, but, you know, when you don't have a GPS, map or co-pilot to confirm your suspicions, it's easy to hope that there's just a turn in the road somewhere that brings you back to where you're supposed to be, another miracle, maybe, that will lead you out of the intimidating side neighborhoods of night and on to the place where you're welcomed because you're expected.

Awkwardly enough, I get the same feeling when I think about teaching for the rest of my life that I do when I'm lost down a road I've been down before. It's like I know that I'm wrong but I'm hoping that it'll turn out to be right, or there'll be a sign or something. And I keep on getting all this encouraging feedback and then I think I'll feel like I'm quitting on something if I don't keep this up and that I'll be disappointing people who've been so supportive of me through everything and it's not fair because I do what I'm supposed to do, you know, and I can convince myself at least three ways from Sunday that I'm supposed to be teaching but I keep hearing this voice in the back of my head that doesn't want me to stay where I am because it knows that I'm lost, lost, lost.

You know, I found myself one Lent a couple years ago. Maybe if I lose the bits of me that I've picked up that don't help, maybe if I come back to where I've wanted to be with the good things I've gained, maybe I'll find myself again. Can't hurt to try.

I'd apologize for spending all my time writing about my future, but it is, you know, kinda my future. Funny how we all had this figured out two years ago.

Doubtful

*Disclaimer: This is not something that has anything to do with anything that's happened this weekend. My last home game was as wonderful as life can get, and you may not ruin that memory by associating this with that. That being said, this is something that has boiled up to the surface and must be let out if I am to enjoy anything. And I think sometimes we need to hear this. But...

Hey, you don't get to tell anyone this, OK?

Mostly because I'm afraid they already know.

I can't stand myself. I'm so needy, you know, I just need attention all the time, and I need affirmation all the time and I need someone to tell me that I'm beautiful and wonderful and that I can do good things in the world around me. I have to hear that and I will go off into a thousand little fits until someone feels bad enough for me to tell me that I'm lying to myself.

And I know I am. I am fully aware of the abilities I've been given and the chances I have and I know of the good that's already come from them. I know that I'm doing a pretty great job as a teacher and that reasonably I have to learn. That's why you student teach- so you can learn how to be a teacher better. I am also aware that I am a decent musician. If I'd practice the amount that others practice, I'd be better. I've got some kind of talent. I know this. I also know that I'm smart and that I'm pretty and have wonderful eyes and hair and voice and that I'm a good and giving friend. I can enumerate these things all day long because I have heard them from other people and when I'm being honest with myself, I can see how far I've come and how proud I can be to be me.

But you know, pretty little smart perfect girls don't get attention. We get set aside in the porcelain doll case to be admired when visitors come over or the at the family reunion, but you don't love a porcelain doll. They might break. You set them away, where they're safe, where no one can hug them or take them away to new, dangerous places, where no one can use them or play games with them or love them. You shut them out from everything that could possibly bring them to life, from any chance of bringing a little bit of character to their perfectly made figures. And of course they sit there smiling patiently so that you walk by them every day and you, even the people who set them up on a pedestal as a model of perfect, even you forget that they are there.

So those of us who desperately want a soul, those of us who want to live and breathe and do something, we jump off the shelf, we break something, whether it's our parents expectations or our safe goals for ourselves, and we become someone, someone with a personality, someone with a story to tell, someone who can interest people who will never stop to look at that case. We adopt things, we make up lies, we change our clothes, we do things that we're not supposed to do so you'll effing look in our direction just once, so you'll smile at us for a change, so you'll know that we aren't silent, that we have a voice behind those perfect little lips, that we have a brain and more importantly, that we have a heart that bleeds just like yours, just like the rest of you people who weren't set away in the first place.

You don't give us any battles to fight. You don't give us the opportunity to grow. So maybe we go through twelve, thirteen, sixteen years of school and do what we're told. We walk across our stages and land our jobs and do what we're supposed to. Maybe we'll get lucky and you'll marry us off and then we can just be exactly what our husband expects of us. All the while that soul is shrinking and that heart is getting closer to the day when it stops its beating without ever having known what it's like to pound.

But, God, we want to live. So we make our own battles. We fight against ourselves, against the voices in our heads that tell us that we can be better, we can be perfect. We pick something ridiculous to try to achieve, some goal that makes no sense but will challenge us, will push us, will actually make us use our minds, to the point where we want to throw it all in but through stubbornness persist. We compete. We put ourselves out there. And the minute someone pays us attention, that person gets our affection, our attention, our praise and our focus. This whole process plays out better for some than for others, and you're left wondering what went wrong.

Me, nothing goes wrong for me. Everything is always in the cards. I'm never hurt, never crushed, never ruined, never broken. I'm never on my knees before God asking Him to make things better, I'm stranding in front of Him with my hands on my hips demanding to know why He doesn't work more strongly in someone else's life. Why do you waste all Your blessings on me, when there are so many people with so much less? I'll be fine. Take a day off from providing for me and go bring peace to a country, light to life, food to a table, joy to a home. I'm already damn perfect, ain't no reason to waste your time on a life that can't get any better.

I'm not worth Your time anyway.

And I'm so afraid that everyone sees that, that everyone knows that I think that there's not really any intrinsic value to my life. I scared you all know how deep the self-doubt runs, how entrenched the opposing force is, the internal conflict monger who has to stay around just to give my brain something to do, something to fight against, something to fight for. I'm frightened you'll all know how much I crave your attention and affirmation and that you'll know that it's all wasted on someone who made up these problems in her own head. I'm terrified that you'll move on to someone whose problems are real, whose needs are physically apparent, and whose life hasn't been exorbitantly blessed by the One who gives all things and leaves us to find affection among His fallen creation.

No, and I know that you all think I'm beautiful and wonderful. I know that you all think I am worth so much, and I understand the thanks I should be giving for my blessings. And I am thankful, for every one of you and for all the glorious things I've been allowed to have in my life. I just… you know… there are days when I can't see that. And I know I'm not alone (Please, tell me I'm not alone) in being so unsure of myself, in wanting to work hard and let people see my struggles so they'll applaud me and take me out of the case and let me be someone new. I wish I could step away from this cycle, but it's so comfortable. I need something new. I need a change. I need a new set of things I'm supposed to be, a new set of goals to try for. I need something completely different in my life, away from school and all the things I've had so far.

I don’t know where to stop, you know? I don't know where to set back and think, "This is who I'm going to be." 

I guess I'll learn.

Listen, can I just say that there is nothing wrong with having free lunch? Plenty of people had free or reduced lunch in high school and that doesn't mean a thing about your school's quality or the people you're teaching because we are not determined by our socioeconomic status. I know how much your home can affect who you are and I know how difficult having any kind of financial disadvantage can make, but I also know the wonderful ability of the human body and the human spirit to heal and recover and overcome the problems we face.

And listen, I know and understand that my students have other issues that are stopping them from learning, that they're not just lazy and they're not just spiting me. I know and I understand and I'm willing to work with them but I also know that I need something from them. I need them to try. I need them to work a little bit. Give me an inch, just somewhere to get my grip, and I'll pull you along until you're where everyone else is in the first place. And it's hard, I know, I know, I know. But I also know that you can do it. And I'll work harder. I'll be more prepared, I'll have problems prepared, I'll have ways to explain things, I'll understand the topic as best I can and I'll work until I can't keep my eyes open anymore to make things clear to you, but you gotta give me something. I don't care where you're from or where you've been or what's holding you back. You can do it. You gotta have confidence in yourself, regardless of your situation. We choose who we are and you can choose to be better. You can choose to work hard so that there's nothing standing in your way. And I'm not just saying that- I know that if you want this, it's going to be a lot of hard work, a lot of hours before or after school, a lot of time spent beating your head over these problems but they'll get you where you want to go, I promise. You'll learn to think and work and I don't care if you want to go to college or work or join the military, thinking and working will get you places other people aren't going to go. It's your life here. It's your choices and you gotta choose them. Choose to be great, like I know you are.

Ain't nothing wrong with free lunch anyway.

Flooded In Light

I want my life to be a story.

No lie. I really, all my life, have wanted it to be something worth writing about, something, I dunno, spectacular and interesting, with perfect dialogue and wonderful emotion. I'm really quite fixated with the idea. Besides the fact that stars are emphasis-adding-expletive awesome and I'm good at math and generally bored with humanities, being an astrophysicist just sounded cool. Good life choice, right? But once you're in, physics has this way of sucking you in deeper until it's a battle for your soul that you have to win before you can move on. I'll graduate with a BA degree in physics but that piece of paper is really just a testament to my stubbornness. I could have changed majors sophomore year. I just hate running away.

Maybe I just wanted the heads to turn, to continue to be unique. After a while, it becomes a badge of courage or a point of pride. Why yes, I am a physics major. I do insanely hard math and apply it to the world around us to decipher its secrets and unlock its mysteries. I also don't sleep much and spend hours writing on boards and reams of paper, working on problem sets and studying derivations time and time again, hoping it'll make sense. Don't you feel sorry for me? Aren't you amazed at what I can do? Don't I just astound you?

And then, of course, after I figured out that I wasn't going to be an astrophysicist, I had to pick something else, something doable and yet impressive, a conversation starter. I'll go to seminary. I'll be a pastor, and a woman pastor at that. I love being in front of a crowd. I love it when they listen to me, to all the knowledge I have to impart. Don't forget all that thankless work as well, those long hours talking to people, caring about people, visiting in hospitals, talking people through their issues, imagining the next great mission project, working out the details for another new discipleship program, hours spent working with schedules, planning meetings, writing letters, all giving me a backstage kind of unspoken glory. Best of all, this would be a great story to tell, how I went from the sciences to religion, how I changed from studying the universe through the secular lens to thinking about it with the lens of faith. People would ask. I'd still be a novelty.

Even the stories I tell, I tell for recognition. I have a friend who's student teaching right now, and he says that God is working great things through his students, or at least working with him through his students. I would love to have some encouragement, love to hear his stories, but like either one of us has time to sit down and write these out. And would it mean anything once you had removed all the details to make sure you protected kids' privacy? It's not fair to them and I understand why he doesn't share his stories. I don't share mine because they're not exciting enough, I haven't gleaned a lesson from them, I don't have a gem of a tale to tell, and so I don't tell them. They're not interesting enough. They don't generate attention.

The saddest bit it, I know it's wrong. I know I shouldn't be seeking all this attention (I about die when I get some- a post from someone I want to hear from, a compliment from a friend, appreciation from students) and I know my life isn't the important one here. But it takes such strength to be humble, so much energy to back away and give someone else the chance to be wonderful, so much effort to remember that I'm not the one in charge here and I'm not the one that's blessing this situation. But the worst thing, the hardest thing? The hardest thing is to know that these words, these things that I'm most proud of, these strings of sentences that give me so much attention and praise, these aren't mine. Someone gave them to me and I send them out, but they are a gift and they aren't mine. Do you think less of me yet?

I know you didn't need to hear all of this, but I wanted you to. It gives me much more of a nuanced character, don't you think? I do so want to be nuanced and complex, with layers to analyze and understand. Just think of it: that awkward girl who laughs too much and can't stand to be stared at is actually an attention-grabbing engineer of her own fate, making her life choices with precision to create the utmost impact on the drab yet poetic scene around her. For all of her quiet moments and inappropriate humor, she is silently weaving a tale of great interest and intrigue with her daily choices, colored with importance and symbolism. She lives a double life with an inside world of such complexity you can't even begin to guess at the truth of its existence until you spend hours in conversation, picking up hints of the greater wonder hidden away behind the never-pretty-enough face. Don't you want to meet her, to get to know her, to understand her? Doesn't she intrigue you? Aren't you curious to see who she is?

Aren't I such a great storyteller?