Becky and Faith

My dear friend Becky was my reason for visiting Norman, and I had a full week of spending most of the day with her. We watched the Food Network and movies and talked and napped and ate...mostly we ate.

Becky is sick. I knew that; I'd talked to her numerous times on the phone over the past few weeks, but the gravity of it couldn't sink in until I saw her in person. The cancer is affecting her nervous system, causing her weakness and pain. She can't walk without help, she tires easily, and her voice is being affected by the medications. It was overwhelming the first day, to see my spunky, feisty friend use a walker & keep a notebook of her many meds. After the initial shock of the first day, though, I was able to see that despite her illness, that the girl is still my Becky. There is a difference between someone who is 'being strong' and someone who is strong. Becky IS STRONG! She doesn't put up a front and act strong about the situation she's in, rather, she's got what it takes to face this trial full on and do whatever it is that Heavenly Father wants her to in this experience.

It was an honor to witness the solidarity of character that she possesses. And to see that she can be frustrated and scared, and struggle with her faith in this process, which doesn't take away from her strength, because is it part of her! Someone asked me at church how she was doing, and said she'd heard that Becky was struggling with her faith. I realized that some people want to see the stone-faced stance in someone who is going through a trial. But the REAL perseverance and growth that comes in a trial is to struggle (which some people, in their fear, hear as "lose") and become stronger in one's faith, which doesn't come from saying so, but from experiencing the spectrum of feelings and uncertainties and finding how to let God mold one's heart and will according to His plan. It's not something one can just decide and make happen. In that case, it's not real, but just another example of 'being strong'. I think this is part of what I have always loved about Becky - She's got faith, but that doesn't mean she can't experience the feelings and emotions that come with being mortal along with her faith.

The image that comes to mind is that of birth. A fetus struggles in the womb and birth canal, and gets worn out in the process, and cries and most likely doesn't want to progress to the next phase of the unknown world, but it's inevitable and, really, for the best to be born. We don't fault a child (or a mother) for screaming and wishing to not be in that situation, but because of it, one is made stronger and able to progress, either as a newborn child with his mortal life before him, or as a mother with the opportunity to love in a new, greater capacity.

Deep Breath

I found out this evening that one of my very dearest friends has brain cancer. I'm scared and angry and sad and concerned. I hate that she has had so many physical trials, and that she's got another - a crazy-scary one - to deal with. I hate that I can't be there to be with her. I want to support her, but I don't know how to except for praying. I can't imagine how she and her family and husband are dealing with this. I'm very confused and bewildered. If you read this, please pray for Becky and her family that they will be supported in the very best way possible through this trial.

Random thought

So I was pondering the meaning of life and such this morning on my way to class, and had this thought. Blood is the only bodily fluid that one can't control with one's own thoughts or muscles. You have to actually touch the bleeding area externally in order to make yourself stop bleeding. We can 'hold it in' when we have to go to the bathroom, sniffle our noses, suppress our tears, slurp up our drool, etc., but we can't will ourselves to stop bleeding. I wonder if it's significant that the thing that makes us "mortal" is not controllable by our mind or spirit?

Power greater than myself

I love this-

"I had always believed in a Power greater than myself. I had often pondered these things. I was not an athiest. Few people really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere. My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the evolutionists, suggested vast laws and forces at work. Despite contrary indications, I had little doubt that a mighty purpose and rhythm underlay all. How could there be so much of precise and immutable law, and no intelligence? I simply had to believe in a Spirit of the Universe, who knew neither time nor limitation."
~Bill W. in Alcoholics Anonymous

House of Cards

I read a book today called A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis. It is only about 86 pages, but really very good. Lewis was a 'confirmed bachelor' for many years, and married a woman who died of cancer 4 years later. The book is a small journal of his process of bereavement an effort to keep his faith intact in the face of such a loss.

The past few years in my life have been a process of questioning a good deal of my convictions as well as my personal hopes and desires. I lived for a long time according to the set of goals/beliefs/behaviors that were given to me by other people, but I decided that I didn't want to live like that anymore. It has been a slow, but very rewarding process. Right now I'm smack-dab in the middle of the process of looking at my faith in, and relationship with, God. I'm trying not to hurry the process and 'make' myself come to the 'right' conclusion. I want my relationship with Him to be more meaningful and real this time, rather than doing what I know I should do and feeling what I think a good disciple should feel towards Him.

Preventative maintenance

I used to run until I crashed, and I realized a few weeks ago that I haven't crashed in a long time. It's not because I haven't been running, but rather that I've been resting also and changing my oil and checking tire pressure and turning off the lights when the engine isn't running [ ;-) ]
I've learned how to practice preventative maintenance in my life, and that helps me keep going even when things get tough. I'm filling up my gas tank before it becomes depleted. I think I'm actually more productive now than I have been in a very long time.

I ran a 5k last month. My time was 33:00, which isn't anything amazing, but I haven't run regularly in over a year, and the last 5k I ran (three years ago) was in 30:34...and that was when I was running every day and training for a half marathon I felt a huge difference in the dynamics of how I performed and how I felt about myself. My body is way healthier than ever before, as well as my mind, and it's showing!

Friendship

Real friendship implies a lot more than what I see on a day-to-day basis with most people. A real friend will take the compliments and niceties along with the nitty-gritty. I want my life to be filled with people who can take and give confrontation (read "real communication", not "contention"). I learned the concept of giving and receiving confrontations in the treatment center where I began my recovery. It has changed a lot about the way I relate with others. The 'formula' for a confrontation is this: "So&so, when you do this, I think this, and I feel this. I need/would like you to this and I intend to this." It's a way of talking about the actions of others and the feelings of myself in a constructive and clear way. It removes the opportunity to control & manipulation in tough situations, and sets up an opportunity for mutual accountability and clear communication of feelings. I rarely use the formula anymore, but the concept is a big part of my interactions with people in my life. It's something that is still a struggle for me, but when I do implement it, I have so much more intimacy and freedom in the way I relate with people.

I'm realizing that the people who leave and/or enter my life lately have different degrees of willingness around real communication, and that's what determines the level of friendship that is plausible with us. My perception is that I've lost a few friendships because the people involved didn't want to talk about some feelings that could potentially be hard. It's a shame, because they assumed that I would respond a certain way, and didn't want to face that, so they didn't even give me the opportunity to talk about it. But, at the same time, I benefit from situations like this, because I know that those people aren't willing to share the same kind of openness and honesty as I am, and a real, intimate relationship just isn't feasible in that case. It also helps me to appreciate the relationships that I have that ARE capable of the level of mutual respect and communication that I desire. And that's what life is all about.

Goals

'Tis true that every day is a winding road. There is a certainty in the fact that I don't know where life will take me. But I've realized I need to plot out some markers for myself so I have at least a bit of a more concrete idea of where I've been and where I'm going. I know the general direction that I'm going. I know what I hope for in the course of the journey. I'm doing my part to get to my ultimate destination, but I don't have a lot of mile-markers set to mark my progress. To use another metaphor, I'm smack-dab in the middle of the forest, and I can see the whole valley of green, but I'm having a hard time seeing the individual trees. It's time to pick them out and give them names.

In the course of the past three years, my perspective and approach to the way I handle life has done pretty much a 180-degree turn. I'm not trying to micro-manage every step and wallowing in the chaos that results from failing miserably at that. Now, it's more of a "roll with what comes and see what God has in store" kind of approach. This new way is working SO much better for me. But I think I need some goals & objectives mixed in there, too, so I can measure the progress and change that is happening in my life. The challenge here will be to not fall back into control mode, and let myself have goals while continuing to let God handle the wheel. Wish me serenity!

Transitions

I helped a friend move today. My relationship with her has become one of the most valued in my life right now, and I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend the better part of a day with her. It's funny, I helped her move all her belongings into a storage space and clear out her apartment, but I feel as if I benefited just as much or more from the time together. There are evenings that I spend with friends going out or watching dvds or playing games that are not nearly as exhausting as today was, but the boost I received from today was much more than I get from those evenings.

Doors are shutting, and new ones opening in my life right now, and at the moment, I feel very at peace with the movement. It's really quite eerie how things seem to be working out lately.

Mostly, I just have to say that I feel enriched and grateful for the progress and direction that God has provided for my life. ...and the California sushi roll I had tonight wasn't bad, either ;-)

Baggage

Everyone has baggage. We're all in the airport. We've all been in different places, and we're all going to other places. We take things with us from the places we've been, usually things we think will help us be ourselves and be safe in the new places that we're going to. Sometimes we pack too much, and sometimes we pack too little.

Whatever baggage we have, whether carryon or check-in, is very important to us. We don't want to loose it involuntarily, we don't really want other people rummaging through it, and we DEFINITELY don't want to be found in possession of something those other people deem inappropriate to carry with us.

Sometimes - in reality very much more often than at a standard airport - we find ourselves in possession of baggage that is not really ours. Someone left it and, sometimes unbeknownst to us, sometimes voluntarily, we pick it up because we're doing that person a favor, or we really think it's ours. The trouble with this baggage is that we don't know what is inside. We're unfamiliar with the contents, either because we don't want to take the time to look at them, or we unwittingly trust that that person or period of life wouldn't want to give us inappropriate baggage.

To not know what is in the bags you're carrying is very risky business. That's what causes trouble in the airport, and down the road at new destinations. They used to ask us at check-in "Did you pack your bags yourself? Has anyone else handled your bags?" It's so important to know exactly what's in our bags and to have placed it in there choicefully ourselves. If that's not the case, then the airport is the place to get those bags checked-out and find out what's really in there. This is a safety precaution for ourselves and everyone around us. As long as we know what's in our bags, and understand why it's there, we have a much, much better chance of not blowing ourselves up or injuring those around us by the denial that comes of carrying items we aren't sure about the contents of.

On the other hand, we've all seen homeless people sitting outside a terminal. Their baggage is usually out in the open, piled in a shopping cart or in lots of plastic shopping bags, visible for all to take inventory of if they wanted to stare that long. These people have become paralyzed by the junk that is all they carry with them. Even if someone had a ticket, it would be very difficult to get him on a plane because of the disorderliness of his belongings. Some people live life like this, hanging on to a few dingy things from their past life, unable to move on; immobilized by the gravity and cumbersomeness of their belongings.

As for me, I've been one of those who said sure when someone asked me to watch their bags. I even codependently picked up those bags, and eventually assumed full responsibility for them. Then I got to the security counter and was informed that the bags I'd been carrying, both mine and the other people's, had items that were not safe for me to carry, and would be harmful to those around me. Having put so much energy into carrying these bags, it's been hard to let them go and repack the items that will be helpful on my trip into a more compact load that's easier to carry, and to give the other bags to their rightful owners. There are still some things I'm carrying that security thinks would be better if I didn't...not lethally dangerous, but excessively heavy items that they charge me extra to put on the plane. But I at least know what they are, and have a plan to dispose of them safely.

I need fellow-travelers who are on the same track. The contents of these bags are by no means pristine and perfect, but their owners know what's there and how it got there and what they want to do with it. I just REALLY don't want to get blown up half-way into my flight because someone I'm with didn't take the time look carefully in his bag and missed that time-bomb that he didn't realize was there.

daily learnings and such

I'm starting a blog to record the bits of awarenesses and aha! moments in the day-to-day life of a twenty-something girl.

Today I remembered how much I enjoy classic movies. I watched "Singin' in the Rain". Such a good one! I also SO love dancing.

I have found recently that I have a hard time seeing past appearances and linguistic accents to get to the real person that is talking to me. This awareness has helped me look past those things, but I have a lot of preconceived notions about many people in my life that I want to get away from. I learned this way of NOT relating to people from my mom. She had so much energy around not picking up the West Texas, and then the Oklahoman accents, and I picked that up and have been carrying it ever since.

Personally, I am an accent chameleon. When around my mother's Californian family members, I completely loose any accent. When in Texas, my vowels get MUCH longer and I loose all G's at the end of my words. My memphis accent is a happy medium.

My goal is to leave twang and accents out of the equation as much as possible when relating to another person. Just because my co-worker SOUNDS like she's from backwoods Tennessee, she's really very smart, a caring mother, sister and daughter who has just as much of a realistic understanding of the world as someone who enunciates each sylable crisply and concisely.