Pithy Signs Don't Make You Cool

It seems like everywhere I go lately, every store, every home, everywhere there are these wall hangings with clever, sweet and pithy little sayings like,

Last night, my husband and I were out and we saw one that said this:

In our home, we

Live Joyfully... Sometimes, but not always. Read this, and you'll know sometimes I'm really sad.

Laugh Abundantly... Sometimes we do laugh so hard it hurts. But, what does abundantly mean? 

Sometimes, we don't laugh at all. Sometimes, we yell and call names. Sometimes, we are mean.

Give Generously... That sounds nice. Wouldn't it be nice if we did that?

Love Affectionately...

Care Deeply...

Listen Carefully...

Smile Spontaneously...

Yes, let's do those things. 

Pray faithfully...

Forgive Freely... Yes, let's do these things too. I want us to do these things.

Play Adventurously... This one. This one, my boys have it down. They know how to play adventurously. But, it's okay. I'm not afraid of the E.R. Been there. Done that.

Hug Tightly... This one. I'm really good at this one. I can give Squishes ALL DAY.

But, I look at this list. This wall hanging that I keep seeing everywhere I go, and I wonder.

If I buy it and hang it on the wall, will that make it true?

No. It won't.

I didn't buy it. I'll probably never buy it. 

But, then I saw another sign and it gave me an idea. We don't have an Elf on the Shelf to do silly things or give our kids little gifts, and we don't pretend that a fat man in a red suit is bringing them stuff either. 

But, they do have a generous Dad and a silly mama. So, this morning, while they were all sleeping, I made them a sign. One we can all do. It's on the wall in my kitchen. 

It looks like this:

This.

I'm pretty sure we can accomplish this.

We are going to be amazing today.

And, maybe we'll even be amazing every day.

People are like painted walls, you never know what's underneath all those layers

Home remodeling projects always take more work and more time than we expect.
Several weeks ago, I started to tackle the bathroom walls.

Several months ago, I tried to ignore the bathroom walls.

The paint kept peeling. I would pick at it just a little with my fingernails, just enough to keep it smooth so the babies wouldn't mess with it. But, it just kept getting looser and looser until the spaces that were missing paint were pretty obvious.

Too BIG to ignore.

So, I got a scraper. I still intended it to be a quick job. Simple.
I would just scrape around the loose edges, get it smooth enough to paint and paint over the problem. That's obviously what everyone before me had done.

I even found the matching paint in the collection of various colors that line a wall in our basement. The can even said "downstairs bath"

But, no. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

The "downstairs bath" color was NOT the current color of the downstairs bathroom walls. No match. I looked again. I'm still hoping that maybe one of those unlabeled cans might be a match, because I haven't opened them all, so there's still hope.

But, then I had another thought. The painted walls look like tile. The floors are ceramic tile. Hard tile. Like every dish that hits the floor breaks on this tile. What if the bathroom walls were the same tile, but painted over? Wouldn't that be neat?

I thought maybe I could pull back the layers and find something beautiful underneath. I like to think I'm that way. Covered with layers of life experience, some beautiful, some ugly, but underneath it all is something wonderful. I wanted the walls to be beautiful underneath all that paint.

Layer after layer after layer, I slowly and carefully peeled and scraped until finally I found bare tile. But, it was not what I thought. It's just plaster.

Today, it made me think about how people are sometimes that way too. They look on the outside like something beautiful underneath the layers of life, but then they turn out to be mostly plaster covered in paint. Layers and layers of paint, but nothing but plaster in the end.

So, now, I've set myself up for all this work, and I still  have to finish peeling the paint layers off the wall, so my babies don't. And when that's done, it will be my chance to make it something beautiful. Because plaster can be patched and painted. So, I'll join the long line of women who have lived in this home and thought they could make it beautiful. This time it will be my turn to discover a beauty within myself that I can project onto the walls of my home, so that the next person might see something beautiful under a few less layers.

Why don't you just ask for help?

Why don't you just ask for help?

Sometimes, I get a little crazy. Some people call it Depression, some call it panic attacks, some call it anxiety.

I think DROWNING. I feel like I'm drowning.
Can't. Get. Enough. Air. To. Breathe.

Sometimes, it makes me say mean things. Sometimes, it makes me cry irrationally. Sometimes, it makes feel like I'm dying.

I used to think I was the only one going through my emotions, that they were brought about by the circumstances of my life. Abandonment. Neglect. Loneliness.

When I was in high school, I used to do all sorts of crazy things to try to get attention. Attention from my mom, my teachers, my classmates. Boys. Mostly, I tried to get attention from boys.

Then, when I got to college, I thought there must be something wrong with ME. It was not my circumstances. I met other people who had gone through way worse things than I had. They survived. They didn't panic or cry or freak out. They just went on. Why did I have so much trouble going on?

I thought I must need drugs, therapy, some remedy for this ailment of mine.

But, that didn't seem to help either.

As the past twenty years have gone by, I still get crazy sometimes. Some times I get crazy more often than not. But, I've come to realize that so does everyone else.

Everyone I've ever met, who I've really gotten to know, has admitted in some way at some time, that yes, they too have moments of crazy. Moments when you can't figure out how to move past the emotional block in your mind. When you just can't imagine how life can go forward from this moment and ever be good again. Sometimes, you can't imagine good at all. You can't even remember that it ever was.

EVERYONE.

Now, if you have a friend who has admitted this to you. I believe you have. You probably tried to give them some advice. I always do.

Try Vitamin X.
Try this therapist.
Try Medication Z.
Try Yoga.
Try. Try. Try.

Let me tell you how much I've tried. I've found that the more I try to FIX this thing, this craziness, this whatever it is, the more I find I can't FIX anything. I only end up making things worse, feeling like more of a failure and then spiralling downward into the insanity abyss.

Why don't you just ask for help? Well meaning as it is, and I say it too. Usually, we say something like, "Just call me." "I'll help you." "Let me know what I can do to help you."

I know you mean well. I always mean well when I say it too. It is a most sincere offer. Mine usually goes something like this.

"The coffee is always on at my house. Please, come interrupt my day." (Many thanks to the wonderful friend who first said this to me and meant it.)

But, it doesn't fix the hurt. I don't know why some things in life hurt SO much. But, I do know who carries that hurt for me.

Why don't I just ask for help? It isn't because I don't believe you, or that I don't trust you. It's simply that I know there really isn't anything that you can do. In those moments of crazy, I don't believe that anything can be done.

If I thought there was something that could be done to help the situation, then I would have already done it. See? It has nothing to do with the kind of friend I think you are, or whether or not I believe you are sincere. In that moment, I don't believe that anything can FIX it. It is a moment without HOPE. It is scary and I don't see any way out.

The only thing that pulls me out of the abyss is Jesus Christ. I find myself often laying helpless at the foot of the cross and begging for God to please, please, please just end this pain.

I wish I could say that He always does. But, He doesn't. He just carries me through it to the other side. He helps me remember the good. He helps me see that there is good on the other side, and He reminds me of the people and things that I love. Then, I wipe the tears off my face and I do the next thing.

That's it. Just do the next thing.

"It's okay to feel sad sometimes. Little by little, you'll feel better again." - Daniel Tiger

NOTE: Just to be clear, I'm not making light of real diseases, like Clinical Depression here. I'm just talking about the reality of living in a sinful world where we all pretend we are as happy as our internet memes portray us to be.

The Giver book review

The Giver by Lois Lowry.

I didn't like it. But, it has had me thinking and talking about it ever since I read it, so that's something. I had not read it before this past fall when it came up on our book club list, but many people have. in fact, they often say they read it around fourth grade.

This fact is what has me talking about it.

I don't question that the book is an easy read. It wouldn't be too difficult for a fourth grader. But, just because someone can read a book, it doesn't mean they should.

SPOILER ALERT - the following text will give away some important plot points. You've been warned.

The setting for the story is a utopian society where everyone is assigned a role during childhood, and those who aren't useful or don't follow the rules are thrown away.

Literally.

They are injected in the forehead with a needle of poison and then they are disposed of in the trash bin. Babies who don't meet milestones? Trash. Old people who don't work? Trash. Women who've had three babies? Trash.

It's fiction. I'm a Stephen King fan. I can handle scary. And gory. And weird.

What bothers me is why is this such a highly recommended book for elementary students?

Here's my own mental connection. (Keep in mind, this blog used to be called 'onecrazylady' so I make no claims about having some kind of revelation that isn't completely nuts. This is just my opinion)

The adults who read this book in elementary school over the past twenty plus years are now part of a generation that struggles with "life" issues. We fight about abortion, euthanasia, etc. Is it possible that this one story "The Giver" is just a small cog in a wheel of an education that normalized the idea that the only way to have utopia is to throw away those who aren't useful? And, don't we all want a perfect society?

The young and idealistic twenty-somethings fighting for a world where there are no guns, no arguments, no anger, no crime... maybe it all starts by forgetting how our world got so messed up in the first place (Adam and Eve trying to become God) and it ends with all of us taking drugs to keep from feeling any emotions and throwing away all the people who don't fit into the perfect mold we've created.


Alright. Having said all that, I actually like the book a little more. It's a pretty good what if? scenario.

I still don't think we should be assigning it to fourth graders.

Making my home beautiful

I live in a parsonage.
That means I am always struggling to balance the fact that this is my home, but it is not my house.

Before my husband attended Seminary, we had always owned our own home. All of our married life was spent in homes that belonged to us, homes that we made payments on, homes that we put our financial equity in as well as our sweat equity.

I've spent most of my adult life living in a place that was wholly mine.

I don't mind not being responsible for all the maintenance and repairs, that part doesn't bother me a bit. But, during Seminary life, we were renters. It was never ours and it was always short term, always had an end date.

So, I didn't hang pictures on the walls, or paint, or decorate or care if it was beautiful. I found beauty in my children and my books instead.

But, now, we don't know how long we'll be here.

I think part of making a place feel like home is making it beautiful. But, everyone has their own idea of beautiful.

I think about this as I scrape through layer after layer of paint on the bathroom walls. It had started to peel, probably because of the humidity, and I had picked at the peeling paint. I couldn't help myself. I felt obligated to fix it. I planned to scrape just the loose bits and then paint the walls, but it kept coming off and every time I thought I was ready to paint, I would find another loose spot.

There are reds and greens and blues and creams and pinks and shades of grey. Some I think, oh I like that color and others I think oh my I wouldn't have chosen that. But, all of these colors and patterns were beautiful to someone at sometime. Now, it's my turn to choose what I think is beautiful.

We've been here for two and half years, and this will be the first time that I have had a chance to put some of myself into this space. It will never be my house, but maybe someday it will feel like home.