Complications in Paradise

Is it just me, or is this incredibly messed up?

I have a friend who I met at school. She's one of those folks who doesn't really get along well with ordinary people, tends to make far more enemies than friends, and therefore latches onto anyone who will put up with her for more than one school semester (or perhaps week for that matter). Actually she's quite a character and I guess that's why we've become pretty good friends.

Anyways my friend has only had about fifteen serious boyfriends in the year-and-a-half I've known her. None of which have real potential or bright futures...in any respect...at all. In fact, sometimes I wonder if her goal isn't just to date the biggest loser or jerk that she possibly can. But I guess that's just my opinion which doesn't really count for much as I'm not big on the whole dating thing in the first place. At any rate, her latest beau has certainly proven to be the strangest situation I've ever heard of yet. She's been seeing him for about three weeks now, and things have already started to move towards serious relationship status. She seems happy though, and bubbles over with excitement every time she talks about her wonderful new man. Last week was no different; she went on and on during class (which I find very annoying) about how he calls all the time, makes her meals, and wants her to meet his family at Thanksgiving. Then, during break I noticed that she had something else on her mind to tell me, something that was making her visibly nervous.

She looked up at me, determinedly set on saying what she had to get off her chest and stated, "There's something else about him that I put off telling you because I knew you wouldn't like it."
I guess I should mention that I have had quite the reputation in my Spanish class for being the innocent little Christian girl ever since I proudly replied "Nunca" to a question-response communication lesson: "When was your first kiss?".

I laughed, picturing everything possible that could be wrong with the guy based on what I had gathered from reading between the lines. "Try me," I giggled.

"Well...he's married." Yeah, I had figured that much. I had a thing or two I wanted to say right then and there but I let her continue.

She looked at me all worried, as if she was expecting me to shun her on the spot which, of course, I had NO intention of doing. She quickly added, "But it's not really bad like you think. He's getting a divorce." Again I thought of a lengthy speech I wanted to make, but bit my tongue instead.

She then proceeded to explain to me that she knew his wife fairly well. Well...THAT was an unexpected twist. To make matters more interesting, his wife was the one to introduce them and ENCOURAGE her to start dating him. She is even perfectly fine with having my friend spend the night there with him while she's at home.

The whole thing seems so wrong to me. I mean, I know I am not the most ordinary gal myself, but I do know something about how female emotions work. Women are capable of considering ex-boyfriends to be "theirs" up to a minimum of one year, even if they did not really like the poor guys that much to begin with. I would assume that marriage would hold even greater possessive tendencies in that case. Or at least, I would hope so.

She seemed to find the whole situation perfectly normal. I tried to see it from her perspective, to wrap my mind around how this could be right. Call me narrow minded, but I arrived at no satisfying conclusion. I guess I'm a bit idealistic, but there are just some things in the world that I would hope to retain a bit of purity when all else is so tainted. Wishful thinking, I suppose.

Queen of the Cats

Little Ballerina Girl

Have you ever had one of those moments where you happen to witness a single emotion or action of another person that brings an instant connection to them?

Although I can’t really say I’ve had too many of those experiences, I did see something that quite broke my heart about a week or two ago. It’s almost so complicated in my mind that it has taken me this long to process it enough to even attempt to write it down. But, nevertheless, I’ll try.

I guess you can say transportation issues are one of the biggest worries in my family these days. Between two cars, three drivers, and at least five different places we all need to be AT ONCE at any given moment in the day, it gets pretty crazy to arrange everything neatly. Somehow we manage though, and one way is that I am appointed official chauffer to my baby sister two or three times a week after school.

That, honestly, is not too bad because the only place she ever really needs to go is in town for her ballet lessons. The ballet classes are fun for me to watch anyways. The music, mostly all classical piano recordings, is quite relaxing after a LONG day of school. Sometimes, though not often, I even bring along my homework to plod through. But mostly I am just really content watching the cute mini-ballerinas jumping about the room in their pretty pink leotards, giggling and enjoying their happy carefree lives.

On this particular day, I was only half-heartedly watching their warm-up routines, letting my mind wander off somewhere else but, at the same time, trying to make my sister think I was paying attention. It means a lot to her that I stay and watch.

Suddenly, I was brought back to earth by a great excitement among the young dancers. I guess the teacher had announced that they would do some fun twirly French-name-that-I-could-not-pronounce-in-a-billion-years dance step across the room. In a whirlwind they had all pranced to the other end of the room, and there stood huddled together chatting eagerly.

Well all but one of the dancers, that is. One little girl out of the group caught my eye. I had watched her before: shy, sweet-tempered, brunette, rosy cheeked, and a little on the plump side. She is one of those rare but beautiful people who has the ability to both stand out and fade effortlessly into the background at any moment. From the perspective of all the other little ballerinas, she had faded just then; it fact, she might as well have not even been there at all. “How sad,” I thought. As the rest of the group chatted and leeched off each other’s acceptance and “sameness,” she stood off to the side, watching them patiently from the corner of her eye. At first I was rather impressed by the child’s self-confidence. She had no huge amount of pride, in fact, I doubt that the girl has had a single haughty or bitter moment in her life; she seems the picture of all that is sweet and lovable. She stood there and seemed to take the isolation with such dignity. I figured maybe I had read the situation all wrong, let my imagination get the better of me once again.

Then, for just a split second, I witnessed an emotion that for quite awhile I had forgotten how to feel. The little freckle faced girl looked straight up at the ring of her peers, glanced down, and sighed the most silent yet hopeless sigh I have EVER seen. For a moment, the confident barrier was shattered and I almost looked around the room to see if I was the only one who “heard” the depression she expressed just then. Then she just stood there once more, with that same incredible patience, eyes fixed on the ground and hands clasped preciously together until the dance began. For a moment, I nearly jumped out of my seat and grabbed her by those sweet little hands. “Hi there, what’s your name?” I wanted to say so badly. “I’ll be your very best friend and we can have slumber parties and watch movies and stay up all night telling secrets and I’ll never leave you out of any of my silly conversations because you are beautiful and so very VERY loved and please don’t ever forget that, sweetheart.”

Of course, I realized these actions of mine would not have gone over so well with some folks present. So instead I bit my tongue hard and looked away. I can’t even properly describe how I felt in that brief moment. I know how horrible of an age those pre-teen years can be for everyone. With cliques starting to take over social status so completely and friendships now based on a twisted sort of hierarchal female ranking, finding a way to fit in and have some sense of belonging becomes the main goal, an indescribable desire. Imagine that, if a mountain of insecurities wasn’t already bad enough, you had to deal with awkwardness, shyness, difference. What does it really mean to be considered the chubby girl surrounded by ballerinas?

I won’t go into detail about my own preteen experiences, but I will say that I know all too well how that little girl felt in that moment. I spent my whole life up until about 10th grade trying to be part of that happy circle, desiring some acceptance, some love from my female peers. Rarely was I ever able to find that unselfishness and unaffectedness that it takes to feel confident beyond the closed mentality of the cliques and sickness of leeched friends. I often wish I could have understood the futility of wanting their friendship then. I realize now that I was running after a dream that did not exist, a perfection that was really only pain. I would have been stronger standing off to the side, watching like an outsider as their silly little worlds crumbled. I did stand to the side, but I also spent far too much time desiring what they had. And now I live in fear that my relationships will never reach a level of trust that I should have normally.

I don’t know what I could have done to avoid this. I don’t know what this beautiful little ballerina girl can do to preserve all that sweetness and innocence through this awkward stage in her life before she either changes to fit in or simply becomes apathetic to it all. There’s got to be some solution, right? If only one person, one single person, would step out in love. Sometimes that is all it takes.

Queen of the Cats

Ultimate Babysitter's Degradation

As a babysitter for the past seven years or so, I have certainly had my share of interesting experiences with kids. Some bad, some good, some downright bizarre...but all interesting. Like the time baby Cassie "fell in the toilet" or the time I lost Katie for a half hour in a game of hide-and-go-seek. Then there was the day three-year-old Brandon decided I was marriage material so proposed to me and sealed the deal by drawing in marker all over the bedroom wall. And who could forget that classic evening when precious little Bennet got away from me long enough to knock over a couple cans of some kind of varnish stuff at his neighbor's house, permanently staining their back porch and leaving me in HUGE trouble?

My personal favorite was the day I walked into the kitchen to find Hailey vigorously scarfing down spoonfulls of what appeared to be sugar.

Me: "What on earth possessed you to eat half a jar of sugar??!!!"

Hailey: *innocently and somewhat hurt* "It's not sugar. It's Splenda."

But none of these quite compare to the humiliation and shock I received last night.

One of my favorite kids of all time to babysit is Seth. He suffers from chronic middle-child syndrome, and is often overlooked amongst the intelligence of his big brother and the angelicness of his little sister. He was expelled from school in kindergarten and grew up with the nickname Seth-amphetamine, which luckily did not stick. Yet, he has the most wonderful imagination, love for outdoors, and ability to create things that I have ever seen in a child his age. The more time I spend with him, the more I love the way he thinks. All he really needs is someone to pay attention to him, and I hoped that he would see the effort I had put into doing just that.

And if he had, he's got a funny way of showing it. Last night he had me sit in a chair and close my eyes tight, under the premise that we were going to play a new game of his which I assumed to be a spin-off of hide-and-seek, his most favorite. All at once, I hear a sound like cloth tearing and feel a strange pressure on both my arms. I open my eyes and find that the lil rascal has DUCT-TAPED me to the chair. For a few moments, I am shocked speechless by the actions of my friend. The eight-year-old takes this opportunity to tape my mouth shut, but not before I yell once or twice for his brother in the other room. Well, darling Gabe takes his sweet time about coming to my rescue, but after a brief fight with Seth, Guardian of the Babysitter Prisoner, he manages to cut me free and rip off the tape (along with most of my hair).

It killed me to do it, but I yelled at my little friend. I think I was more hurt than he was, and not physically either. But whatever. I have come to the conclusion that babysitting is a lousy job for me. I need to find something dealing with...animals. Or maybe rocks.

Queen of the Cats

Through the Eyes Of My Grandma

Yes, so tis my birthday at some point this week.

That said, I received a VERY welcome gift over the weekend. Not exactly unexpected, but with a story that I wish to tell. Because that is just what I do.

*~*~*

My grandpa has been gradually giving me packets that he put together of all manners of papers and articles relating to our family genealogy. It started with my own deep DEEP interest in the subject, although I think it is also in his own interest to pass this stuff onto someone since he is getting older. At any rate, he gives me these neat little folders of photocopied papers almost randomly with one not really relating to or completing the chain started in the previous. I think the idea behind that is that family trees are like puzzles, the pieces took time and hard effort to put together for those who originally attempted to do so, and therefore he is unwilling that I should have everything laid out before me all at once. Which is a concept that I accept and even love.

*~*~*

So for my birthday my grandpa gave me yet another set of papers to add to my collection. I was thrilled as always! I like to have plenty of time free from little sisters and phone calls to mull over that stuff when I get it, so I waited until late last night to pull it out and start reading. The first page was a letter from my grandpa (even though he had given me the packet in person). It explained a few minor details about the family members I would read of. I read that through quickly and laid it aside, ready to dive into a sea of lovely facts figures and names. After glancing over a copy of a newspaper article featuring my Baptist preacher great-great uncle, I reached a mess of papers stapled together, the last of the batch I was given. I read the first few lines...and found myself incredibly confused. It was a poem. I flipped a few pages, and found that ALL the rest of the documents were copied poems written by my great-great grandmother. I was so very disappointed. My grandpa is a sweetheart, and he knows what I'm set on doing in the long run: compiling FACTS. Cold, hard data. Names, places, and dates. That's what I love. That's mainly what I'm good at. And most importantly: I DESPISE (most) poetry. Write some music to it and I'm a happy girl, but I am unfortunately far too literal for most of that deeper stuff and therefore I avoid it altogether.

*~*~*

Why on earth would he choose to give me THIS particular set of papers for my birthday out of all the material he has? At first I almost put it back in the folder and went to bed, but then I realized the childishness in that. My grandpa had a purpose for what he did, and he put that stuff together with me in mind. I knew I would read it through word-for-word even if it killed me.

*~*~*~*~*

Each poem was typed up neatly with a simple, "Composed by Mrs. Martha Jane R." at the end. The first few spoke in reminiscence of her children when they were young. As the mother of 11 children and widowed young, I am sure her world revolved around those kids. These pages remember times past and hope for a bright and fulfilling future for those closest to her. The next few move onto more depressing topics. One poem was dedicated to her granddaughter, a cousin of my grandpa's, who she apparently raised for a time. The first lines read a chilling, "Please do not call me Mamma, dear. Your mamma is cold and still." After struggling through reading a few more poems that were not making sense to my blonde mind, I came across the one that finally brought everything into perspective.

*~*~*

The poem, entitled, "Just Jake" was written in memory of her late husband who died of (from what I can tell) unknown causes at a very young 43. Their oldest child, the son who would go on to become a Baptist pastor, was only 18 at the time. Yet, this poem speaks not a word of bitterness towards God or her husband, or fear of life, or anger at all the many things that had gone "wrong" for her. No, it simply stated a love that was so great that it overcame the obstacles she had been faced with. It referred to her long journey, but with the joy that she was traveling back to her love rather than dwelling on the fact that her journey would be without him.

*~*~*~*~*

It was at this point that I broke down and cried. And suddenly, I knew why my grandpa had given me this to read.

*~*~*

Many folks have spent the majority of their lives genealogy searching; obsessing over those dates, tearing their hair out when something does not fit, spending hundreds of dollars on genealogical services, living in a sort of addiction to finding out where they came from. I find this all very fascinating. Yet what was I focused on-what are many of the family tree seekers I have known focused on finding? Birth dates, death dates, social security information (does help sometimes), birth certificates, baptism certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, cemetery headstones, anything that will add to a nice neat and most importantly COMPLETE list of all the facts and figures that only you and perhaps a precious few ancestors after you will find interesting.

*~*~*

The truth is that you can find a hundred generations of cold hard facts and still not understand who you are-where you came from, yes, in the most literal sense, but still not who you are. You can even obtain a beautiful and complete collection of family pictures dating back to the dinosaurs, and still not get the point. In the end, dates are simply numbers, and old photographs, while interesting, are cold and lifeless.

*~*~*

What I learned through the eyes, the heart even, of my great-great grandma is a more priceless treasure to me than any stack of facts my grandpa has given me yet. All that other stuff means very little to me now, compared to being able to actually understand the heart of this woman I am related to. Maybe I was able to find a strength and a will in her little poems that I found encouraging to my own life. Maybe I saw a love and a silliness in her that no photograph of that era would ever dare depict. Maybe, just maybe, I will be able to see some of myself mirrored in her a few years down the road. I pray that I do.

Queen of the Cats

Romans VII

Started thinking about this song in my math class a couple weeks ago. What else is there to do in a four-hour Saturday morning lecture class, right? Couldn't remember the name of it and nearly ripped out all my hair trying to find it online. You'd think with ALL the "Keith Green Lyrics" sites out there, I would have had better resources to work with. So I basically just spent the past hour listening to various CDs of his in desperate search of this one song. Bottom line is I found it, and now I be quite pleased. Tis a grand song. Enjoy...

Romans VII

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The very things I hate, I end up doing

The things I want to do, I just don't do

Lord, it seems so sad, why am I so bad?

When in my heart I only want to be like You

~*~*~

The very ones I love, I end up hurting

The ones I want to help, I pass right by

Now I want to be finally set free

The grace You've shown, the love I've known

Please let it shine through me

~*~*~

I want to love them the way You do

I want to serve them by serving You

~*~*~

Lord, how I know Your tender heart must be broken

By all those unkept promises I've made

The question still prevails, please take away the doubt

About how You forgive and still You live

Inside me when I fail

~*~*~

I want to love them all the way You do

I want to serve them by serving You

I want to be like You, Jesus I do

~Keith Green~

Tsk, tsk...

So, I come home Friday night, apparently smelling like my friend's dog, which I spent the greater part of the afternoon playing with. I walk in the house and find out my cat is still there, and since it is about midnight, I am given the duty of kicking the poor darling out into the cruel dark night. Well, she takes one whiff of me and knows I had been showing love to (OH MY GOODNESS) a canine. Heaven forbid. Then to top it off, I have to be the one to pick her up with my doggie-dander hands and throw her (dramatic emphasis, I would NEVER actually throw a cat) out into the cold. Let's just say she was NOT a happy kitty. So now she will not so much as look at me, let alone let me pet or play with her.
Ah well, she'll get over it. Tis the beauty of kitties. Just feed em and give em their space and they usually come around.
Don't you wish more folks were that easy going?

Queen of the Cats

A Frying Pan On My Head

*I expect no one reading this to understand the title. :-)*

So I guess my so-called “sheltered” upbringing has finally come back to bite me in the butt. (I state this with my tongue soundly set in my cheek. Read on if you dare…)

For the most part, I love the way I was brought up. I really do. I loved being homeschooled for twelve years and having no social life to speak of. I loved boundaries and rules. I never rebelled as a teenager. I guess you can say, I have always just been plain abnormal. But somehow it worked for me then.

One thing my mom stressed above ALL else, was manners. My gosh, I still remember the distress and anxiety I experienced every single time we went out to eat at a friend’s house. My heart still sinks at the thought of those tedious hour-long lectures about minding every minute detail of my behavior and speech. I still shudder at the memory of those horrible drives home after I had not lived up to my mom’s expectations, and the cloud of utter disappointment that hung around the house for days afterward. I knew every time I messed up I had become an embarrassment to her. I wanted to be perfect in her eyes; I wanted to be better than all those other little daughters out there in the world.

It took a heck of a long time, but eventually…I did become what my mom wanted me to be.
But now, as a young adult, I wonder how much this really benefited me, socially and psychologically.

Socially, I do pretty well for myself. I don’t necessarily enjoy being around others all the time, but I am really good at faking it because my mom made me. “Speak well, act friendly, listen, and NEVER walk away until THEY are good and done talking.” I did not dare disobey this command of hers, and having it hammered into me for so long has actually made me a more bearable person than I probably would have been otherwise.

Yet sometimes, I feel as if I’m still living in the past as far as her rules go. My own stubbornness combines with the remnants of the fear I held onto for so long, and becomes an obsession that is almost ridiculous.

I am nearly incapable of calling an adult by their first name, even if they are no more than five or six years older than me. Sometimes this causes people to be offended or freaked out. Yet I cringe when forced to and often avoid calling them by any name at all. After all, that was one of my mom’s main rules, and it still rather kills me to break it.

I have offended the few boys who have tried to take me out on dates, because I refuse to let them pay for me and do nice things and don’t seem to appreciate their kindness. I was always taught to look after myself and others, but not to accept favors in return. My mom drilled into me the ideals of kindness and generosity, but never taught me how to receive them myself.

Be cheerful, show Christ’s love, do not bring your problems into other people’s lives. Perhaps never specifically stated, these concepts were shown through my mom’s words and actions every day and had a huge affect on how I have lived my entire life. I interpreted her outlook as “when in doubt, laugh.” And I use that to an extreme. There are times when laughter is appropriate, yet I give the appearance of taking everything lightly and thinking it trivial or amusing.

I guess, in short, I took the lessons I was being drilled on, morphed them into something scary, and held onto them for dear life. But now I sit here and question whether or not I am right in doing so to the extent I have. What would it really mean to let go of my compulsions? Would I be disgracing my mother? Letting go in reckless abandon of all the fears and meticulous pains I took as a kid? Becoming the rebellious child I was “meant” to be? Would I be changing into someone new…someone scarier than the person I was while they controlled my actions?

Or would it mean I am simply ready to move on…to grow up. Am I holding on to these silly obsessions because I refuse to admit that I no longer depend solely on those who raised me?

Despite what many of my friends believe, I was also taught independence and never felt imprisoned by rules and regulations. Yet somehow, I seem to have taken all the many good lessons my mom taught me and created my own unattainable set of laws and judgments to live by in addition to hers.

My mom is an incredible woman. She is truly everything I could hope to become as a strong, loving, and compassionate person. She tried her hardest to mold me into a beautiful girl and child of God. All these changes I make and things I choose to hold onto are fully my own responsibility from now on. No one can determine or force my behavior and I cannot blame anyone for my fears and obsessions, as convenient as that would be.

I do feel like I let these silly things overwhelm me though. I wish there was some easy way to discern what will be acceptable and be the most helpful to those around me. Because I feel like I’m just not there yet. I always feel like I’m just not quite there yet.

Father, I pray for discernment and freedom from unedifying self-condemnation and obsession.

Queen of the Cats