Adventures at the mall

On Thursday, I went to the mall to return a few things I had ordered online, and then I also needed wanted to get some candles from Yankee Candle. Every southern girl needs some fall candles. And I had a coupon, so it was basically a no brainer.

The weird mall trip started as I was returning quite a few items of clothing. The lady helping me had never done an online return before and ended up choosing one of the wrong items when she scanned the receipt, so lucky for me (and her), she had to do the whole thing again. In the mean time, a mother and her three elementary aged daughters came up in line behind me to make a purchase. The four of them clearly lacked the concept of personal space as all of them were in my bubble at some point in time. I was awkwardly shuffling around while the girls kept moving from one side of the register to the other. The return finally got finished, and I went on my merry way. Or so I thought.

On my way from making returns to the Yankee Candle store, I walked by one of those booths they have in the middle of most malls where they have pushy sales people that want to talk to you or get you to try something. Normally I am pretty good about avoiding eye contact and will just keep walking, and it has never been an issue. So here I am, walking through the middle of a mall I am still not incredibly familiar with and am about fifteen feet away from one particular booth when the guy working there grabs a card and starts reaching toward me and looking at me. I avoid eye contact and keep walking. By the time I have gotten to where he is standing, you know fourteen feet later, he practically has this card in my face. As I walked past him, I heard him mutter under his breath something about being rude.

False. You, sir, were the one being rude. You stared me down from fifteen feet away, invaded my personal space, and then had the nerve to say that I was being rude? Really?

After making my purchase in Yankee Candle (Farmer's Market, Autumn Wreath, and Red Apple Wreath, YUM!), I ventured to the Hallmark store to purchase an engagement card, where I discovered that Hallmark sells some really weird cards, so if your greeting card needs include losing a tooth, potty training, new cat, new dog, new car, U.S. Citizenship, or feast day (whatever that may be), Hallmark is your place.

Vulnerable

Enough has happened in the last two weeks to write an entire book, but I will refrain.

Today, after months of planning and preparation, best friend proposed to his girlfriend. She said yes, of course.

I got a text from her while I was running, and a phone call from the two of them this evening.

After my recent issues with engagements, I was surprisingly happy. Not that I'm not always happy, I just expected for there to be a little twang of sadness too, but there wasn't. Perhaps it is that I had been mentally prepared for this day for the last, oh, three months. Perhaps it is that I am legitimately friends with both of them and found out from them instead of facebook, twitter, or instagram.

This morning, I opted to sleep in instead of going to church. Normally when I do this, I just have a lazy morning or get started on school work. Fall break is this week, though, and I am banning myself from doing school. For today, at least. I probably do need to do a few things during the break, but I will cross that bridge when I come to it. Anyway, I decided instead to watch the service that the church in which I grew up streams online on their website. I am so glad I did. So glad. The sermon was preached by a man who is the preacher at a daughter church and is probably our most frequent guest preacher. His sermons are often some of my favorites. He had one a few years ago at the 4th of July on unforgiveness that stuck with me. Today it was about how God is a relational God and because of that, we are designed to be in relationship with one another, and part of being in relationship with one another involves being vulnerable.

It was exactly what I needed to hear. I'm not one to be vulnerable, even with the people who know me the best and love me the most, because even though being vulnerable produces growth, being vulnerable can be hard and gives people the chance to hurt you.

He shard this fantastic quote from Hiding from Love: How to Change the Withdrawal Patters that Isolate and Imprison You by John Townsend. Townsend says, "Attachments occur when we take the risk to allow someone else to matter enough to hurt us if they choose to."

Whoa. I'm the person who intentionally chooses seclusion because it is easier, safer, than attachment.

The preacher went on to, basically, say you can't have it both ways. You can't simultaneously be in good relationship with others and also expect to never get hurt. It's part of life. Part of being in relationship with others is that they are going to hurt you. It's inevitable, but the truth of the matter is that, even though I don't often live this way, the pain that comes from being vulnerable is easier than the pain that comes from loneliness.

In some ways, I think that is why I started this blog. My desire to be vulnerable. Of course, only I would make a blog for that purpose and then fail to share it with anyone that knows me. It's easy to be vulnerable with complete strangers that have no idea who I am and whom I will never meet. Plus there is the fact that I don't have any regular readers, but that is beside the point. The point is that, after over 100 posts, I am still choosing not to actually be vulnerable because I am still choosing not to share this with anybody who could actually hurt me.

My team

I am about to (pretty much) reveal where I am from and make it relatively easy to guess where I live. I think I am okay with that.

I grew up in a college town. In the southeast. As in a southeastern conference college town. This meant that from the time I was born until I moved away to go to college my sophomore year, I lived in a town in which Saturdays in the fall were planned around football.

Being the nonconformist that I was am, I hated football. The super bowl was about the extent of my football watching, and even that was hit or miss. That is until I, after moving back home for a year after college, moved away again to a city two hours away where people are fans of teams other than the SEC team that I spent eighteen years being annoyed by. Slowly but surely, this weird thing started to happen. I would catch myself watching football games. On Saturdays. This other weird thing happened, too. I would cheer when that team intercepted the ball. Scream when they scored. Heart would pound out of my chest waiting for a call. I avoided it for 24 years, but after the game that team, my team, played today, I don't think I can deny it any longer.

Did they lose? Yeah, they did, but damn, they played a hell of a game. When your unranked team that has largely sucked for the last five to seven years loses to the number six ranked team by three points, it may not be a win, but it is certainly a victory. A step in the right direction. Made even more glorious by the fact that the douche bag that the entire city, and yes, I do mean the ENTIRE city hates got fired from a certain job last weekend, I would say that it has been a good week for that team. For my team, and oh it feels good.

Priorities

Last night in class we did an activity of sorts. Perhaps activity is the wrong word. I don't know. I had seen it done before. Take a jar and fill it with golf balls, and you'll say it's full. Fill it with pebbles. It's full. Add in some sand. Yeah, full. And then for good measure, you add some sort of liquid. To really make it full.

We had to make lists of the things that are our golf balls, pebbles, and sand, and then we ended up talking about them. The golf balls being the "big" things that, if there was nothing else in life, my life would still be okay if my golf balls were there. God, family, friends. The people in your life, essentially. The pebbles are the important things but are things you could live without. School, work, your house and car, etc. The sand is everything else. The minutia, if you will. Free time activities. The extras.

As we were discussing this, I had this realization that I have taken nearly all of my pebbles and turned them into golf balls while simultaneously making my golf balls into pebbles. I realized that if I let myself, I could probably continue allowing myself make golf balls of the things that should be pebbles. Because I let myself. I tell people that they come before school/work, but I don't live my life in a way that is consistent with that. Actions speak louder than words, and my actions are telling the people in my life that they are not as important as the things in my life.

Let me say that again.

My actions are telling the people in my life that they are not as important as the things in my life.

Whoa. Hard truth to swallow.

I think it's especially hard to swallow in the context of my last post, shortly after which I texted best friend to whine about it. He was pretty blunt, which is one of the things I love most about our friendship. He told me I was putting school first after God and that I didn't have time to put forth into a relationship. You would think he knows me well or something.

The thing is, he was wrong. Partly, at least. School isn't first after God. It has become my god. I realized it in the context of that conversation on Sunday morning, and I realized it again last night as I processed through the giant pebbles and miniature golf balls that are currently filling my life.

Change doesn't happen over night, and that's the thing. Change takes effort. Change isn't easy, but then again, nothing worth doing ever is. Change is often hard, and it often comes at a cost. And it's easier not to. It is so easy for me to live life with school as my god. For my job, husband, children to become my god.

I think this quote that I found at some point while reading for school (hah, irony) pretty much sums it up.

"We must learn from the past, but not hold on to it because it feels comfortable and because change is difficult." -Mark Kuranz

I don't want to wake up one morning and realize that my gods have kept me from knowing my God. I don't want to live a life in a way that my words, every single one of them, are a lie.