A Virtual Christmas

Somewhere hidden in phone lines and cyberspace is my family. With Christmas nearing, it’s hard not to think of those faraway. Lying in bed, before I open my eyes in the morning I imagine I’m home again and that my Mother is washing dishes and cooking breakfast. Before I open my eyes, I pretend that out my windows are towering evergreens and snow-capped mountains. For a moment, I am on that little swivel stool next to the fireplace, listening to some in depth conversation about nothing. Sometimes, I’m even sledding or playing Kick the Can in a ridiculous snow suit. Before I open my eyes in my own bed in my own house, I am home…where comfortable is an understatement. Then I get up and let the images dissolve back into my wishful thinking and call Mom.

 “We’re sorry, no one is available to take your call. Please leave a message….”

Click.

Which reminds me: These 21^st century gadgets have become so secondary to us, we’ve lost sight of what was once real. A few weeks ago, I was lying in bed in the morning playing on my phone, scrolling through the news feed on Facebook. One of my friends had posted a picture of Carbondale dusted in snow and its caption read “first snow of the year.” And that’s how I found we had our first snow. I reached seven inches away and pulled back the curtain to see that, sure enough, it had snowed.

Two nights ago I saw my sister in Hawaii over Skype , yesterday I drew a picture like we used to do as children and posted it on my little sister’s profile so she could be reminded too, and  last night my 9- year- old nephew asked “did you see my status?” It’s everywhere—all around us.

I remember conversations with my brother that lasted regardless of cell service. I remember my Mother’s voice and what it used to sound like before being separated by half the United States, and I miss that. I can even remember the way her fingernails fold downward and her distinct sneezes.  That half smile right before my Dad tells a pun is hard to decipher over the phone, but I remember it. Just the way I remember my sister’s foot tapping the piano pedal and trying to follow along. And just the way I remember my little brother’s face as he hesitantly joined the room when us girls were doing our hair.

But it has become harder to remember.  This will be the first Christmas I will spend away from my family…away from home.  I imagine that in less than a week I will get to scroll through dozens of pictures and will be a part of several phone calls to that small town in Washington. But I will miss the feel of my stocking  and the sound of my sister’s guitar. I won’t be there to bear the heat of the woodstove or to taste that coffee. This year, I won’t wake to kindling and bacon crackling on Christmas morning, and I won’t sit down to a meal with my parents.


 I guess I’ll just Skype them with my iPhone while they open their gifts that I bought online. Then maybe, I’ll even blog about it share that in my updated status. I’ll call them to say Merry Christmas and then send them a text to say how nice it was to talk to them. I’ll load up my Facebook albums with new photos and tag myself in theirs.

And if it’s a really good Christmas, I might just like it.

Rock Bottom or Something Like It

I’ve thought a lot about these “ruts” we get into as humans. How sometimes our lives seem to steadily swirl toward rock bottom, until finally we realize there’s space even below rock bottom.  For me, these ruts have lasted a while. I wouldn’t have called it depression, though, because I wasn’t sad. I didn’t have a problem getting out of bed in the morning, and I went through my days just as any other, but I certainly never looked forward to them. It’s a waiting game really—when will the next unfortunate thing happen? When will my car break down again or my dishwasher stop working? When will I find another unexpected bill set on the edge of the piano for me? When will I forget a research paper and fail a class?

And pretty soon, when I’d trip on my shoelace I wouldn’t chuckle. I didn’t even shake it off and keep walking. I would grunt and mumble (even when alone) something along the lines of “ugh, just my luck.”

I’d come to expect those things and merely roll my eyes…waiting. Waiting for rock bottom.

And it was at these moments that I could honestly say, I didn’t want to be happy. I tried praying—a lot. But I knew that somewhere deep down, as a “p.s” to my prayer, I was asking God not to answer me. Because my life was out of order, priorities scattered and passion a mess, and until it was right, I wasn’t willing to be content with it. I had to get it back.

I decided to start doing everything right. I stopped going out when I shouldn’t. I studied hard and worked long hours when I wasn’t doing that. I kept my house clean and ate well. I held the doors for strangers and got to bed early, I sat in church every Sunday and gave thanks for things I hadn’t before.

But I felt nothing.

I laid there in bed a few weeks ago, scrolling through Facebook on my phone when I learned of my friend’s death. And in that bed is where I stayed for two full days. I cried that entire night, I cried so much I wasn’t sure if it was possible to cry anymore. But then I would, and it was just as full and wet and sad as the cry before that. I sat up alone wondering why these things could happen to such a young, beautiful, kind, girl... and I still don’t know that answer. I thought and cried and though some more until six that morning when I finally had no energy left and I fell asleep. The next morning was foggy through my swollen, glazed eyes. I woke up too early and felt sick to my stomach when I realized is wasn’t all a dream. This was my rock bottom.

Then, before I had fully woken up, I got a call from my sister. My uncle had passed away. That is when I learned there was no such thing as rock bottom, and THAT was a terrifying thought.

In the least expected moment, God was merciful, and for some amazing, unknown reason, I was able to go back to work soon thereafter. He let me stop mourning and instead remember fondly. On what was one of the worst days of my life, I was pulled out of the rut.

They were taken to a place so amazing that I will always have something to look forward to. So, while it’s not up to us when we hit these ruts, or how long we’ll stay there, it is certain that we will be saved. Even in the hardest of ways.

It’s good to be back.

~In memory of sweet Ericka Wade and my fun, loving, Uncle Don~

Givingthanks

I got to thinking, last week, about how Thanksgiving was coming up and it was a time to figure out what the heck I was thankful for. I imagined sitting at the table and going around naming stuff I’m glad to have. Of course, without even having to try, I immediately thought of my amazing family, my friends, my health, my education, a roof over my head, and God. But as I sat there in my house alone, heavily procrastinating on my research paper, I got to thinking…

It is expected to be thankful for those things. It’s easy. What about being thankful for the things we hate? I had the house to myself for a week or so as my roommates went home early for the holiday.  It hit me as I was making a pot of coffee one evening that I was living my dream. As a child, I spent hour upon hour fantasizing about one day having my own place to live. I cleaned my bedroom and pretended it was my home, and suddenly the cleaning wasn’t so bad. At least once a day my siblings and I would set the kitchen up to be a grocery store where we would shop with cardboard boxes as shopping carts, piling green bean can after bread loaf into the paper bags. Then we would load it all into the car, pretend to drive “home,” (buckling in, yelling at the “kids” in the back, playing with the radio…the whole bit) and eventually put it all right back, after we turned the “store” back into our kitchen. It was thrilling to feel like a grown up; someone who got their own groceries and drove their own car to their own house.

Now I add water to my conditioner just to avoid the store one more day.

I hate getting into my car and going to the store, I hate cleaning the house and paying rent. But this is it. What happened to that excitement for independence, for being grown up? It could mean that reality is just a tad grimmer then imagination, but I think it means I haven’t been thankful enough. No matter how old I am, I should still be thankful to be on my own and living how I choose. This is the life I am making for myself and God is helping to mold it every day, and for that, I give thanks because merely being thankful isn't enough. There are so many days that I feel the weight of the stressful world and I wish I were a child again. But all I wished for, then, was to be here. But I am here. And I am thankful for it.

I am thankful for my dented, door-leaking, way too many miles- car. I am thankful for my house that takes an entire day to clean. I am thankful for my “dead end” job that works me to death, and all of those bad shifts that reassure me getting a career is a good idea. I am thankful for my own money to buy my own groceries. I am thankful for student loans that are putting me in debt. I am thankful for church that comes way too early. I am thankful that God will still let me complain. I am thankful for my independence, integrity, upbringing, and my life—even at its worst. I am thankful to be alive, and for all of those awful moments that remind me I’m still alive.

Fed Up

After getting back from my trip, I was making my bed and, as I knelt on it, I felt there was something under the blanket. I flipped it up and was horrified. There it was-a white notepad scribbled with things I needed to do. A to-do list in my bed. It's when I realized this has gone too far-I need out. I need out of this whirlwind of stress and deadlines, of time management and to-do lists. At some point, we imagine that we'll put down the books at the end of the day and switch on the TV. or maybe even eat and sleep. But not for me- it's constant. So constant that I’m organizing my assignments with half my face pressed against the pillow.

 Aside from my final projects, portfolios, papers, and exams, my focus has been on changing my major…again. It has taken me nearly three years to come this realization:

 Maybe I’m not the person I was last year or the year before. Maybe I’m no longer the girl who wants to wear a fitted suit and hold some “important” job. Maybe I’m not able to push myself all the way all the time. Maybe I don’t know all the answers, or sometimes any. Maybe this “important major” is of no major importance. Maybe I don’t enjoy all the Literature I have to read-maybe I hate it. Maybe I can fall behind and not be the best in the class. Maybe my faith struggles, and maybe—just maybe—I’m only human. So, maybe I’m restless. Maybe I can’t always make decisions quickly enough. Maybe I make some too quickly. Maybe I waste a lot of money and time. Maybe I’m miserable with the major I chose to declare, and maybe I just figured that out. Maybe I wasn’t as open minded as I thought.

Maybe I want to take art classes instead, and write poetry, and wear what I like, and toy with film production, and write, and create, and never stop learning. And maybe that will be important. Maybe I can defy the box I created for myself at far too young an age. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s my answer-my way out.

Maybe I’ll say to Hell with that box. Maybe I just did.

Buried Alive

Electronic Coffee

Sometimes when you need a vacation the most, it’s the worst time to take one. Take it from me, a worn out college student trying to juggle a full time job and a commute to school, which I loathe. So, I took off to the ocean and to see a much missed friend, and while I didn’t exactly get behind on work while I was gone, I definitely adopted “vacation mode.” In vacation mode you learn to stretch out everything you do so that it might fill up your day, since you really have nothing to do at all. You stay in bed hours after you wake up and then just move around until some opportunity presents itself. For example, after returning home last night, it took me 2 hours to do one load of laundry (which still hasn’t been folded), about an hour and a half to unpack, and four hours of playing with this darn blog before I realized I had no time to do homework and should just go to bed. This morning, I went to the library to grab some books for my ridiculous amount of research papers and spent over an hour to ultimately bring home two books…that are really of no use. For that, however, I blame the library system for not carrying the other 17 I needed.

Librarian: “Oh you can just request them, honey, from another location, and they should arrive within the next two weeks.” All I heard was SHOULD and TWO WEEKS.

My Inner Dialogue: “Don’t call me honey, and two weeks, really?! Ever heard of carrying fewer copies of Twilight and instead supplying your shelves with books people might actually need? Oh, hold on, let me call my professor and let them know they will have to extend my due date into Christmas break. Huh, that’s funny…they said no. Guess I’ll fail. Thank you for nothing.

My Actual Dialogue: “oh, okay, actually I think these two will work just fine. Thank you”

Of course, I am not doing homework now, either. You see, sometimes a delicious, hot cup of black coffee won’t even do the trick. Some days I need to open up my mind and just write a bit—it’s the only kind of exercise I am willing to do. So, I flip up my laptop, start her up, and begin boring the poor reader who was attracted to my catchy title. Muahaha. This is my kind of coffee.

Although, the regular kind is good too. In fact, mine is running low. Gotta run!

Distraction

My jittery legs struggle beneath this blanket. I fidget until I become so tired that I curl up, causing my books to fall from my lap. Getting back in to position, I open up my laptop and begin typing. But after ten minutes, I have deleted more words than added. My mind runs wildly. Procrastination dominates, and I am drawn in my every distraction. This is the feeling of inner turmoil-writer’s turmoil. The wind whistles through the window, but after I shut it, I can still hear the faint roar of cars. The busy street calms for no one. My computer modem grumbles and the ceiling fan whines. Shadows from the trees distract me as they cast themselves across the white curtains, sharing space with random spots of sunlight. I cannot concentrate or think of what to write about it. Due dates run through my mind, and all the other things I could possibly be doing instead. My hair is wispy and untamed; it is bothersome to me. The strands tickle my shoulders, sending chills throughout my body. I pull the blanket up higher but only to expose my feet. I am cold. I sip on a cup of tea and let the hot liquid run down my insides, only to leave me thirsty for something else. I am hot.

I push my books and laptop aside with force, throw the blanket away from me, and scoot the tea to the other end of the table. Shuffling through my IPod, I finally find something perfect. Smooth and crisp, his voice takes over every petty distraction, and I begin to write…

Sudden Sobriety

It's after the raging night club has cleared out, the music has stopped, and our drink is warm that we find ourselves re-evaluating...again. What keeps us going back to those places is the guarantee to let go of our weekly lives. It isn't that it goes away, or even that we forget about it, but for that moment, we do not care. And that tastes like freedom. What we call a "good night" is sometimes merely a blurry recollection of entertaining things we would never do sober. If only for a night, we get to wear our new outfits and revolve around flashy drinks and those little blacks straw feeding us our medicine. It is when time and money mean the least to us and work and school don't matter either. Heck, where we're sleeping doesn't even matter.

But when we wake up in jeans, with one boot, an empty wallet, 20 minutes to finish a research paper, 21 minutes to get to work, and a cement basement floor cushioning our back, it kind of matters. Then we stand there, clocking in to life again, shamefully chipping away at our faded nail polish. Our eyes heavy, a non-brushable taste left in our mouths, and a couple of aspirin swimming around in our otherwise empty stomachs, we get back to work. And it is these moments when we feel sobriety at its strongest.

But for some of us, it isn't the cold beer or salty margaritas that leave us in the initial haze. Sometimes, it is simply anything that wears on us. Could be money hunger, classes, friends, relentless errands, or just staying up too darn late-again and again. We become so wrapped up in distracting things (whatever the world choses to dangle by our eyes this time), that we forget what we should be focusing on-what makes us happy, how we find enjoyment along the way. It is simply faster to skip over those little things and get straight to the big picture. But how much are we missing? Well, inevitably we sober up. Our past week or year... or two years, becomes a blurred recollection of a life we never intended to live. We wake up and have no idea where we are, how we got there, or who we turned into along the way.

We liked the idea of cute, black, reading glasses and new computers on our laps with a cup of tea nearby. We liked the idea of walking to class in a scarves and unique book bags, carelessly trudging through the pretty leaves. We thought we might have philosophical conversations at our dinner parties and talk about careers with all our new friends. But one day we look around... we sit in sweats and long sleeved t-shirts, un-showered in cold classrooms. We get up late and  rush to those bright rooms where we breathlessly slide into our uncomfortably small desks. We liked the idea of a lot of things. 

Now we are sober and we must learn ourselves again, pry into our past and hope to find something—anything that can remind us who we used to be. But more importantly, learn how we became these numb, lifeless, bodies that share our names. Suddenly every step we take is the walk of shame. And we know it’s going to be a bad hangover.