The Stories We Tell Ourselves

We read books, we watch movies, we narrate tales to one another in an effort to connect, to refocus, and to channel our emotions. Some stories we repeat to ourselves often--like my tendency to watch Scrubs every night before bed--and some we repeat to our families until they have become--a sort of legend.

We tell stories of ourselves, and we tell stories to ourselves.

We create and we destroy through our own telling.

When I am stressed, I reread stories that make me feel hope, I watch shows and movies I can watch resolve, and yet, my own words tell stories to myself that work against these coping mechanisms. I read about the princess in trouble and her grand romance, but I tell myself love can't hold warmly through trial.

I watch the rising conflict in my rewatched media, but I tell myself the problem before me in reality is insurmountable.

Worse than these, I frequently avoid words altogether instead of pressing in to aid me.

My journals are bare from the past 5 years.

I have not known how to access my words to cope with power mad dictators (of my country and my workplace), the traumatic and long loss of a pregnancy, loss of all living grandparents, loss of my best dog, loss of my health to post pregnancy issues which arose unexpectedly, and loss of personal expectations of being a mom. I also gained, during this time, a beautiful and wild daughter. She also escapes the boundaries of language to describe or capture her.

It is remarkable to have a daughter. She learns insatiably and without my cognizance that I'm communicating something to be learned. I have many strong qualities I'd like to transfer down, but I have many tendencies I'd not like to see renewed.

I have found that, even if I have failed myself in this, I intentionally story to my daughter, rescribing anxieties, sources of anger, and sadnesses in ways that will empower her. She believes me when I tell her stories. She repeats them to herself.

I would do well to follow her.

I Wear My Own Pants, Thank You

 When I graduated high school, I was named co-Salutatorian. I had been working toward being Valedictorian since 9th grade, but with people like the Paul Twins lurking about, Salutatorian was the highest I could get. 

After the pomp and circumstance of graduation, I was shocked by the number of people who expressed shock at me being named that. Literally, people came up to me and said, "I didn't realize you were smart!" 

In my mind, I feel like "nerd" is written all over me, but from feedback, this just isn't the case. 

In college, I dated a guy who demonstrated several red flag behaviors. One was that he appeared almost disgusted by me in heels (which puts me at about 6'1" to his 5'10"). Another was that he was really weird about me being smarter than him. I likely wasn't smarter than him, but he absolutely communicated this idea that he felt personally affronted or personally victimized when I would score higher than him or understand a concept better than him. He was smarter than me 9/10 times, but that tenth time, yikes. 

Specifically, I remember a time when we both wrote a paper for a Bible class. He asked me my subject, I told him, I asked him his, and he told me. His was so high-brow that I literally had no idea what he was writing about. I was writing about biblical spit. He thought it was adorable (read: not intelligent). My professor ADORED my paper. I'm told that he still talks about it in every single New Testament course that he teaches. It burned my (then ex) boyfriend to his core. 

In a conversation about it, he told me that he didn't understand why my prof would like mine so much better than his because mine was "so...so..." [didn't finish his sentence that would have finished in "dumb"]. 

Microaggressions. 

Later in life, I would be told that it was offensive to people when I would use big words or try to explain a concept that I knew a lot about. 

Later in life, I would be told that I was more likeable if I would be quiet and giggle when appropriate. 

Later in life, I would be told that it would be better if the representative could talk to the man of the house because I wouldn't be able to understand. 

I could tell dozens of these stories. 

I'm caught in this dichotomy of perception. Either I am perceived as being too adorable to be intelligent or I'm so intelligent than I am no longer lady-like. That it's an affront to my fellow men. 

I've never heard these types of comments said to my male counterparts. I can imagine that maybe some might say, "Wow! You're smart AND athletic!" or "Wow! You're even smarter than I realized!" But not shock that they were intelligent at all. 

Maybe, "I haven't heard of anyone doing that topic!" or "We went really different routes with our ideas, but yours is really creative!" But not that it wasn't intelligent enough to be considered. 

A man would never be told that he should be quiet and giggle. He'd seem insane. 

A man would never be told not to use smaller words because he was being offensive with his intelligence. 

I listen to the news and I hear outrageous attacks on women in politics, and I also see men in politics saying absolutely bananas things. And then I hear people making heinous comments about, primarily, the women. I can't help but think to myself that if they were men, their "sins" of being outspoken and opinionated would be forgiven and their voices could be heard. 

It happens in classrooms.

in relationships.

in hospitals.

in politics.

We all hear through implicit bias. It's worth questioning that bias before you open your mouth. 

29 is weird

Another year has come and is now gone. And now there are 12 months before I leave my 20s. 

I feel like I just graduated college, and yet, I am an actual, no-doubt-about it-adult. 

This year brought a lot of weird. I rang 2020 in the near year with some good buddies from college!! We played board games and stayed up late. 

My birthday was spent wonderfully with my parents and husband in a neighboring city, just walking around in the fresh air. 

My job was extremely difficult. Living with my parents was awesome. 

One day in March, my boss told us all to take our laptops home just in case. I took it home as a joke. I literally never went back to that office, except to clean it out in July. 

My extremely difficult job got even more difficult, except that I got to sleep more without a commute. 

COVID was a weird combination of the introvert wet dream and an anxious person's worst nightmare. You simultaneously have never been happier in any situation in life, and yet, it's for a horrible reason that plagues you awake and asleep. 

But, of course, we passed through all the COVID phases: anxiety, bread-making, doomsday groceries, Tiger King, and then all the other 15 phases that have now all become one clump of a psychedelic dream. 

During all this, we found and bought a house. It's at the top of a hill a few miles away from my childhood home. It overlooks all of Tulsa and has garden beds for days. It's nice to have some office space, but we also miss nightly games and The Mentalist with my parents. 

Don't worry. We still go over for games every Friday (and also go over any time a small person is there). 

I got accepted for a PhD program, and miraculously, I was offered a Graduate Assistantship position. Even more miraculously, my husband and I were able to figure out a financial plan that allowed me to leave my job and take the job. He had, by that point, started his new full time job working as a therapist. The kids he substitute taught were very sad to see him leave, but COVID happened pretty simultaneously, so the timing literally could not have been better. 

I left my job in July, cleaning out my office like a bandit--the ghost town campus was a really creepy experience. 

My mom and I took a very safe little trip up to Branson at the close of summer--lots of masks, airbnb, lots of distancing. We shopped carefully (we went in the middle of the week and avoided all the crowds), we kayaked, we ate good food. It was very fun. 

I started my PhD in August. I read so many books. It was the best. The people I work for are so kind. They tell me nice things even when I'm just doing what's expected of me in my job. 

We had a college student live with us for a while in November, which was nice. I also got COVID in November, which was stupid. My mom, dad, and brother also got COVID. Luckily, our college student, my husband, and my brother's wife/kids managed not to get it! It took me about 2 months to 100% recover, but I no longer have to take breaks going up the stairs, so that's nice. 

We closed out the year with a trip to Arkansas to see our favorite neighbor and my favorite admissions counselor buddy get married. I did lots of hair and lots of bossing around. It snowed a bunch, so we made snow boots work with wedding attire. We were thrilled to see them happy and together, after a long and international separation. 

Probably other things happened, but 2020 really all smooshes together once my memory hits March. 

Life is weird. I feel guilty enjoying this time when so many are having the worst year of their lives, but I do. The American life was designed for extroverts. I have worked extroverted jobs my entire professional career (which is close to a decade at this point). Now, I get to be home with my husband and just do my dang job without having to be near other people all the stupid time. Do you know how much I save in gasoline and emotional energy? 

Julius and I wake up, have breakfast together, read books or play outside, then do our jobs/school until it's well dark. The nights finish out with games/puzzles/cooking shows. My dog follows me around every second of that routine. Then we all go to bed. Rinse and repeat. I will miss this period of my life terribly when it ends. Cubby will miss it more. 

Grief Tomatoes

 It's the deadliest year since 1918, and the toll continues to rise. It's difficult, surrounded by death, not to think about the dead. 

Summer 2019 hit us blow by blow. Neighbor and neighbor, grandmother then grandmother, unborn nephew rounding out the season. 

We hardly had time to recalibrate before the next assault to normalcy. 

The first two deaths were heralded by the celebration of growing things. That's what I remember most. In our little cottage at the top of the cliff, we were surrounded by neighbors who watched my husband's garden grow. 

Miss Jo would text me pictures of our sunflowers from her front window; she reported to me nearly every day with their outrageous height you could see from the end of the block. 10 inch heads of pure sunshine on 12 foot stalks. We sat on our driveway harvesting their seeds as we watched the ambulance at their home for the 3rd time that week. We stayed sitting until the paramedics came out, and we asked about her status when they did. Her oxygen levels were failing. It wouldn't be long. 

Robert next door was such a private man. He and his wife slid in and out of their life on Gunter as deer in the morning. They remained in utter stealth until the tomato garden bloomed beside their front entryway that second summer. Robert told us of the gardens he would plant in his youth. He began to stay longer and longer on his way in and out, telling us more about his youth, travels, family, and, when we would ask, his health. He had seemed to be gaining strength until his fall. It was as though the breaking of bone unleashed all the cancer cells back into his body. Rather than ambulances, it was the parade of visiting family's cars who signaled us to the end. 

We kept gardening. 

We gardened as the family came and went, saying their goodbyes to our friend, their uncle/father/cousin/brother. We gardened and didn't know what to say to them, if anything. It was them who talked to us, though. Each family, without fail, wanted to tell us what a wonderful garden we had. They talked about what a wonderful garden Robert used to have. They commented on what a crop of tomatoes we had in store. Robert loved tomatoes. 

There is a comfort in growing things, a balm for grief I can't explain. I have seen the hope a sunflower brings a dying woman. I have seen peace replace sorrow in the faces of bereaved as they let the vines of a tomato plant transport them back in time. 

Growing things bring color and expectation. Growing things bring distraction and demand attention. Growing things remind us that the future brings fruit we can only dream toward right now. 

We brought Miss Jo's widower sunflowers, not knowing what else to do. We brought Robert's widow our lily and a bag of our first harvest. She wrapped herself around me and cried. 

Sometimes, when you don't know how to grieve with someone, all you can do is share what you know of their joy and hope it plants a seed. 

My Phone is Off, and You Don't Need Me: A PhD Student Life

 Since 2014, I have been "on." 

What felt like every second of every day, I was checking my email, my texts, my work app texts. While this was partly self-imposed due to a paranoia that I would miss something, it was also very much expected that I would respond. That paranoia was confirmed, as those who did not respond immediately were chastised. Everywhere I looked, everywhere I went, I was surrounded by eyes and expectations. 

Being a salaried employee is wonderful and so secure, but it can go down a big hill on a little tractor so fast. There's a sense of ownership that comes alongside a steady paycheck that is inhuman. 

I even answered emails on my honeymoon. I answer emails at 1am in my bed. I answer phone calls in dead sleep two hours before the workday starts. I am dependable. 

I tried to create boundaries in my life, but after a certain point, where life begins and where work begins becomes so convoluted that you lose where you are in the world, outside of your worth to the system as a whole. 

My husband, in his kindness, allowed me to put trust in an opportunity. I left my job. The release was not immediate. Halfway through my graduate assistant orientation for my PhD program, I felt a sudden surge of joy when a meeting ran long: I work 20 hours a week. When those 20 hours conclude, c'est le fin. Time taken in one place is deducted in another. 

My mornings since the beginning of August have been spent drinking coffee with my husband in the soft sun of the morning. We cook lunches together before parting for our separate office spaces upstairs. Though it will soon be dark when we conclude our work projects, we will have been able to spend the best part of the day and the best parts of ourselves with one another--not the war-warn exhausted shells we have been able to give over at the end of the days. 

There is such joy in the freedom to learn. I can give of myself freely, but I am at no one's beck and call. I am not so naive to deny that a PhD might very well be brutal, but I will not deny the intensity of the freedom, the joy, the release that I have been granted so graciously. 

Nurturing Orchids

Before she left our work and moved to Germany, a friend entrusted her desk orchid to me. It is purple-speckled, lovely, and the sister to my own dual-colored orchid.  

When she gave it to me, I didn't know that I would also join her in leaving our workplace just a few weeks later. Her orchid moved from my desk to my piano at home to the garage when it dropped its flowers and was unpresentable for staging to the floor of a sunroom when it came to Tulsa months later, then, finally, to my new kitchen's terrarium window. 

Orchids are fickle friends. When loved well, they are generous, abundant in their blooms. Three ice cubes a week and gentle sun are what they want. Too much or too little, and they wither and fall to pieces. 

My own orchid gave us 12 blooms this early summer until an ant infestation led to de-soiling, re-potting, and a heavy rinse. The leaves have all dried and fallen, and only 2 blooms remain. 

Tabitha's plant has only remained in our family out of determination--it has been brown and gray for months with no sign of life. Still, each week, three ice cubes are added in with hope. 

Almost a year later, it has regrown a full four huge leaves and is nubbing out for re-growth of a stem. Buds and flowers will follow. 

My orchid will survive with the same determination, but its speed of growth and vibrancy is what drew the predators. What we thought was so strong was being eaten alive below the surface. At this stage, the plant we had taken for dead is the stronger and healthier by far. 

We don't know the roots for the blossoms. Assumptions of strength are mere assumptions and not determinations. All that we can do is be patient, remain consistent with encouragement to grow, and act to protect when enemies make themselves known. 

Policies and People: How to be a Good White Person?

Once, for a job, I had to tell a transgender person that the policy of the place where I worked was to live by their birth gender. 

I said this after talking to this person for an hour. 

I said this after a year of knowing about this person but never having spoken to this person before. 

I said this even though this person did not disclose being transgender to me. 

I said this because I was told to say it. 

I still feel ashamed. That's not what love looks like. 

You see, there are people and there are policies. You can have a policy, but you can't treat people like policies. I did not know them. By speaking out against them, I betrayed their trust, I made them feel afraid and defensive, and I demonstrated judgment. And I just don't think that's what Jesus would have done. 

Jesus led through relationships. He created change through relationships. He opened doors for difficult or awkward conversation through, you guessed it, relationships. 

By having that conversation, I did not communicate love or understanding. What I communicated was that a group of people had been talking about them behind their backs and had sent me as a spokesperson. I, a stranger, knew one of the most personal qualities about them. And, by speaking out against that quality without a relationship first, I nearly guaranteed myself that I would never have a relationship with them. I saw the pain in their eyes. 

I feel that same shame now. Navigating people and policies is so difficult, especially when you have close relationships on all sides of the spectrum. 

I have not been in any way hidden about my sentiments toward our current leader. Those sentiments have not shifted toward the positive in the past four years. In fact, his behavior, his tweets, and his constant fire-poking toward increased hatred and violence have only pushed me further into the political sphere when I once was not in any way interested. I have seen the impact on all ages, as his language use and behaviors validated voices of hate and made them socially acceptable. 

Hear me, these sentiments were already alive and well, but they had not previously been given an allowance to be communicated aloud without condemnation. The impact was immediate--I saw it wash over my small town, and I see it here in my larger city. I see the influence of those behaviors on the day to day of his people. 

Voting for him on a one or two policy ballot is irresponsible and dangerous, as the effects of his humanity are widening the gap of our country. It actually does matter who a person is in their real lives, especially when they broadcast a constant spew of hate and violence speak in such a non-stop, public way. Yeah, guys, his twitter really does matter. You may believe in God using unholy people for holy purposes. He is not creating holy outcomes. Not at all. 

This weekend, he has chosen to come to visit Tulsa, Oklahoma for the largest indoor even since the beginning of the pandemic. It is the 99th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, and tomorrow is Juneteenth (Freedom Day). Many Republicans (and family members) have claimed that this date selection was done in ignorance. His tweets suggest otherwise. 

This decision caused another tense internal debate between policies and people. This rally is in the midst of a second wave of virus reports, this rally is on an extremely important African American holiday, this rally is in the midst of race/police brutality protests all over the nation. My policy, as an introvert and someone who wants to be socially responsible, is to avoid large public gatherings. However, my humanity calls for action. I cannot be another Millenial to claim I care and allow that only go so far as to post online about it. But how do I prevent him from using a peaceful protest somehow in his favor? How do I avoid the violence which may be incited by his trigger-happy behaviors and the equally trigger-happy behaviors of his aggressive followers and white supremacists? How do I show up without somehow making the equally heinous Millenial mistake of acting only long enough to get the photo op or make something very much not about me, about me? How can I speak out without drawing attention to me and not the issue? How do I be an ally? How do I be a good white person? 

After a week of massive backlash, he moved his rally date to the day after Juneteenth. 

I told myself that it was only that which made me worked up enough to entertain the idea of attending a protest. But I don't think I could live with myself if I stand on the wrong side of humanity on this one. Remaining silent is to be complicit. It's to communicate that his behaviors, his lies, his location choice, his calculated language use as it relates to race and riots, and his presence in my city during a pandemic, national crisis, and grim anniversary, is acceptable. It is not acceptable. 

The policy is free speech. But that policy is being abused and manipulated to allow a stampede of the people. It flies in the face of our African American groups here, to the families of victims of Greenwood, and even of the health and safety of his followers. 

My sentiments have marked me as an extremist to many members of my family. In conversations, I immediately alienate myself. But Jesus threw tables in the temple. He cracked a whip, in fact. There are times when righteous anger is appropriate. I would rather alienate myself on behalf of humanity than disgrace myself with defending the degeneration occurring now with ideals of single-ballot issues. How is it less pro-life to defend the full lifecycle than it is merely to defend birth rates? I cannot reconcile it. 

We are still navigating the safest road to take, but safe is also not Jesus. Justice is Jesus. Truth is Jesus. Standing beside the oppressed is Jesus. Resisting evil is Jesus. So we will shut our mouths and put on masks and stand alongside our brothers and sisters in solidarity and, with hope, peace. We will listen to the stories of both joy and pain. And we will be there as a physical demonstration that balance and justice are necessary for trust. We are going because we don't know what else to do and it is no longer an option for us to sit back and watch from our place of privilege. 

28 is Pretty Great

Since my last post, a good portion of my life has changed.

Year 27 really started off slow, but it ended the last 6 months like dynamite.
During this year, I:

• Traveled to Arizona to visit my grandparents and family 
• Took a total of 18 credit hours of graduate credit
• Taught 12 hours of university English 
• Cut off 18 inches of hair
• Traveled to Arizona for the wedding of a best friend
• Worked a full-time job at two different universities.
• Traveled to Point Blank, Texas to enjoy one final year of Odomfesting at the Odom Lake House 
• Planted a ridiculous amount of plants with my crazy, gardening husband
• Very suddenly, changed jobs from one university, where I had been working as a senior assistant director of admissions, to another university, where I am working as a Student Success Coach 
• Very suddenly listed our beloved Cliffhouse 
• Faced the death of a dear friend and neighbor, Robert Barnett
• Faced the death of my grandmother, Daisy Marie 
• Faced the death of my grandmother, Ruth, one week later
• Faced the death of another dear friend and neighbor, Miss Jo Stephens 
• Faced the death of my unborn nephew, Philip
• Moved in with my parents
• Sold our Cliffhouse
• Saw my husband graduate with his Master's in Counselling 

It was a weird year. When the year began, I told my husband that I found myself pre-grieving. I didn't know why, but my heart told me it would be a painful one, and it was. I said goodbye forever to four beautiful people. I said goodbye to a family home of memories in Texas. I said goodbye to the home and garden we had poured ourselves into in Arkansas. I said goodbye to a team and a university that I had given everything to for roughly the past decade. I said goodbye to Siloam. I said goodbye to many friends and neighbors who I moved away from and who moved away from me. I grieved. I grieved a lot. 

I am so thankful for the time I had been able to share with those who died. I am equally thankful to be closer now to my family. I missed them. I am thankful to share space with my parents (even if it makes me realize just how much clutter we own) and play games and watch The Mentalist and be silly. I am thankful for my new job and for the new job that Julius will be starting soon. I am thankful that, somehow, we were able to harvest every plant Julius had planted before we sold the house. We got an offer, transplanted to pots, had the first frost that killed everything, and then closed on Cliffhouse. It was amazing. 

It's been a really exhausting half-year. But we move forward and hope for good and plant good seeds, maybe even in our own garden soon. 

A Small Grievance

Dear grandma,

I had thought we had a deal. If not a deal, then at least an understanding. You had told me that you would stay with us until I was married and had a baby. I got married, but I thought I still had you on the hook for the second part. I wasn't ready yet. I wasn't ready to have a baby, and I wasn't ready for you to leave. I guess you caught on to my game and called my bluff...but I heard you'd bought fabric to make me a baby blanket. I haven't found it yet, but I will. I'm pretty good with a needle, if I know what direction to head. I wish you were here to give it to the kid yourself, whenever we decide to have one. Thank you for thinking ahead and leaving a part of you for a future part of me. I love you.

Love always,
your granddaughter

A Belated Thank You Note

Dear grandma,

Your thoughtfulness never stops. I don't know what it means to "send away for" a book, so I don't know if you sent a paper check through the mail for a book you saw in a magazine or saw something on TV or hoped something existed and had my aunt look it up on Amazon. In any event, the unusual tricks for gardens book I received was the result, and it is quirky and handy and fun. We love it. I'm sorry that my thank you note is a few weeks late. I forgot to write it in a more timely manner--I hope you knew how thankful I was for your gift and how much I loved it, even if I neglected to put it in ink. Next year, we'll make sure to implement some of those wacky tactics, and maybe our tomatoes won't get blight. I wish I could share them with you.

Love always,
your granddaughter

The Dangers of Ambition

Sometimes, it is difficult for me to ascertain whether it's the Christian or the woman part of me that causes my ambition to be question and squelched.

Contentment with your position is valued above all. If you love God, then you should be content with where he has led you. If you are a woman, you should be thankful that you are being respected or paid well at all, especially since it might not be a long-term investment in you, being a baby-maker and all.

Sometimes, this is communicated overtly, sometimes covertly.

The contentment issue, though, is not. Be thankful, they say. Be thankful that you have a job and a good community.

However, what I am wondering is if ambition and thankfulness are maybe not mutually exclusive things. I am thankful for my job. I am thankful for my workmates and for the community of really wonderful people that I work for. I am thankful for the consistent grace and pay and 4 minute commute. I am thankful for the beautiful grounds that I can walk briefly every hour. I am thankful for the luscious autonomy I enjoy after being in my position going on 6 years. I am thankful.

Does that mean I am not allowed to want more? Where is the line between greed and drive?

I've been told that I shouldn't desire more rungs on the ladder.
I've been told I should be happy.

What if I could be happy going through several different doors instead of just the one hallway? What if there's another option for me that could potentially lead, not just to my happiness, but potentially to the happiness of another group? Shouldn't utilitarian principles outweigh?

I'm currently sorting through a very full plate of thoughts, and it feels confusing on a host of levels: loyalty, community, family, purpose, future-thinking, sentimentalism, ambition.

What if ambition were re-framed as "growth". Would it be ok then? Would it be kosher to express that, while thankful, you desire a bit of a change so that you can continue to grow and flourish? But what if that choice hurts your team? Or perhaps ambition, or even growth, is always a two-edged sword. No one grows without destroying at least a part of their past: a seed discards its shell as it sprouts. At the end, though, you get a zucchini. Unless, of course, a groundhog eats it.

Dear Seamus, thank you.

Within the first few weeks I lived in Belfast, I visited the Linen Hall Library, which is beautiful and old and makes you feel that creativity lives all around you and literature is alive and breathing and you, too, are alive and breathing and creative. Seamus Heaney had died not a month before and upstairs, at the top of the flight, was a memorial book. I felt the weight of the moment—of course I want to write in a memorial book for any writer I had ever heard of in the upper hall of a library I was enthralled with. I knew of Seamus from his translation of Beowulf, a book I hated in a class I found no purpose in during undergraduate school. I can’t remember what I wrote—I’m sure it was neither impressive nor meaningful. I didn’t know him.

I know him now.

Each time I teach English II, I teach through his entire Field Work collection with my students. We start small with “Oysters”, and by the time we reach “Ugolino”, my students are fiery and on my level in terms of general obsession for the Northern Irish Troubles and for Seamus Heaney’s heartthrob for his people, for reconciliation, and for the willingness of the divisive groups to listen to one another—if only they would listen to one another.

They move from essential non-knowingness (like I did) to being able to describe the man by his themes, his loves, and his heart. They begin to understand his poetry (very hard for people in general) because they can hear his voice and feel the pull of his motivations.

This is when my class starts to shift. We get political. We get real. We talk through the difficulty of listening, of sorting through the hard stuff when divisiveness and fake news surround us. We talk about how bad people can be good, how good people can be bad, and how God is there, swimming around in all of the midst of it, even when we might not even mean to invoke him.

Seamus Heaney loved his wife and he loved his country. He speaks of wounds from their Troubles as though they were imminent and eternal and yet, he spoke through his pain with hope. Together, we feel the pulse of humanity and take that energy into our next two series before the semester’s end.

Were he alive, were I able to meet him, to thank him, I am not certain I could do so without a gush of hot tears, thankful for someone who could create such beauty and such vulnerability and such accessibility and help snotty teenagers learn to open their hearts and their ears to love and care and feel compassion for a situation they could care nothing for beforehand, since they had no heart in the game.

You made them care. You draw us, one another, in and help us to hear in a way we couldn’t before.

Dear Seamus, you planted goodness and hope where we could only see blood, see walls, see bombs. You helped us dream toward a better tomorrow, of white-washed rooms with elbow room, of the smell of saltwater inthe air, and of young women with baskets of green cabbage, new potatoes, andfresh carrots with mould still on the tops of them.

27 is Okay

I turned 27 after two months of fear and anxiety over the health of my grandparents.

I didn't find much to discuss--I just wanted to sink into a deep hug with a crazy old woman and let her love me and be near her.

The year leading up to 27, though, was filled with adventure:

• the year started with beauty and friendship in Perth, Australia 
• I got my first tattoo
• my cat Ootzyde was stolen 
• Julius's dog Ginger died
• Julius worked on his Master's degree, and I worked on mine
• We gardened, excessively
• I travelled to beautiful Vancouver with my team from work for a conference 
• I saw Kesha live in concert with Julius and our friends Jill and Michael
• Spent some wonderful family time at Odomfest
• Won best new poet in a town poetry contest
• Traveled to Arizona for my cousin Kenzie's wedding 

It was a good year full of plants, travel, and preparation for the next to come. 

Trying Our Best

My husband and I decided that power couples, more than anything, are two people doing their best. With how many different monkeys we have spinning on plates, I'd say that for us, we aren't doing our best, but we're sure trying. 

This semester I have felt like I was falling to pieces, dissolving into a human puddle person. Between family medical emergencies, computers that crash when you've just finished an 8 page research paper due that day, huge cracks in your windowshield that you could have prevented but didn't quite make it in time, deceased dogs, fat jeans that don't even fit anymore, 50 students, the work to grade of 50 students, 300 pages of required reading a week for my grad classes, and my never-just-40 hour work weeks, I have been barely holding it together. 

Meanwhile, the hubs stopped working full time in order to work full time for no pay at the same place he had been working full time for full pay. Hooray internships!!!! He also took 12 hours of classes on top of that. 

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo you could say that we're a little stretched thin. 

Moments of this semester, I have felt truly thankful and blessed. I love my students. I love them. And I love seeing the students I helped get here around campus, making friends, growing up. 

I have been thankful for the continued life of my grandmother, after she scared us pretty good at Thanksgiving. 

I have been thankful for classmates that I have enjoyed very much in my grad classes this semester. 

I have been thankful for time spent with my brother's family from Atlanta last month. Only seeing them once a year makes me feel like they grow 6 inches and 6 years of maturity each time I see them. I can't believe how much they've grown. 

I've been thankful for time spent in Arizona for my cousin's wedding and the good memories made climbing mountains and laughing with my family. 

and I've been thankful for having my husband as the light at the end of the tunnel of this semester. He makes sure I eat food and take care of myself. And he gives me all the snuggles. Marriage is so hard sometimes with all the stressors of life, but having a human there to love you and bring you shoes when you forget them and bring you snacks to work when you get a meeting scheduled--again--over your lunch break and squeeze you when you're panicking and squeeze you when you have a migraine and try really hard to make you laugh when you're grumpy is the best. He's the best. 

So, at the close of a really hard semester, when I feel like I am dragging my empty body across the finish line by one bloody arm, I can really only be thankful. Anything else might feel justified, but it wouldn't be true. I am loved, I love others, and I am loved by God. At the end of a difficult season, that's the part that's most important. 

To Be and Not to Be

Face in my hands, eye rubs, deep breaths, a pill every so often, arm wraps, ultra tight hugs when I go home, visions of beaver tranquilizers dancing through my head.

Life with chronic anxiety really is "taking life one anxiety attack at a time."
Recently, my mother told me that she sees my life as one crisis to the next.

That has bothered and stuck with me like a dumb kid who puts super glue between his finger and his thumb.

It bothers me because I worry that others might look at me and think that.
It bothers me because it's probably true.
It bothers me because it isn't true.

Is that my life?
Is that who I am?

My flair to the dramatic I use for storytelling, but I don't feel things deeply like that.
The thinks I feel deeply, I'm probably not talking about. Probably, those deep feelings are getting subverted into random energy for other stories.

So it's true. And it isn't true.

Those who know me probably think it's true, but they would likely describe those "crises" much differently than I would.

It's the difference between a symbol and a motif.
A symbol can stand alone in a story. It is one and it can be done. Some symbols might "transcend" stories: for instance, a dove in any story can generally be seen as a symbol of peace or of Christ. Its use in a short story, though, can be singular.

A motif is something that doesn't necessarily transcend stories from different authors, though it might in a single author's work. It is a symbol that recurs. It is different than a theme in that its appearance may not be discussed or wholly pertinent to a story's meaning, though analyzing its use assuredly deepens understanding to the story. An example of this is in Derek Mahon's poetry. His use of meteorological terms throughout his poetry is so pervasive that I developed, while in graduate school, a multiple page index of his use. Single spaced.

All my "crises" are varied. Boys. Not fitting in. Eating disorders. Female friends because girls are the worst. Housemates. Parental fights.

The roots, though, are all the same. The deep, scathing, inescapable anxiety.
In all honesty, every single one of my life crises probably has that as its center. I was consumed by my own nature, and I did something weird, socially unaware, or straight up mean. Or, maybe worse maybe not, my body tried to soak up my anxiety before it could do those things and accidentally harmed me. The manifestations of which included, but are certainly not limited to: anorexia, vasovagal synchope, trichotillomania, depression, teeth grinding, gum recession because of teeth grinding, the need for a root canal because of teeth grinding, chronic migraines from teeth grinding, friend loss, boyfriend loss, family conflict, job conflict, panic attacks, being the worst at parties, people thinking I'm a B, coming off as a B, reclusion, crying in Walmart, in Starbucks, on the playground in elementary school, various libraries, various countries, various continents.

Hi, my name is Jamie, and I'm going to tell you a really lively story about going to the post office because I have tubs of aching, crippling anxiety that I have no story for but that are driving me to act out.

I talk. I hate my self for talking. I am silent. I worry people will think I'm anti-social. I can't win, even with myself.

That's my motif.
It's not a very good one, and I'm sure many people in my life would respond with something well-intentioned about Jesus, and I would caution them against that. Jesus is great, but Paul had his thorn too. Loving Jesus doesn't make bad stuff go away. He helps give a path to learn where to gain peace from and give breaths of respite, but it doesn't remove the darkness from my nature.

So yeah. My life is a series of crises. I wish that weren't true. But it is. That doesn't mean it's the whole story, though. Maybe that's why it bothers me.
My life goes through one crisis then the next, it isn't just one crisis then the next.
I am not a crisis. I am a person.

Pretense and Prayers

This week, I have found myself caught in a difficult place I have found myself so many times before.

To families I work with, I have often called myself a "nontraditional Christian". Perhaps that's prideful, perhaps it's a cop-out so that I avoid judgment, but I'm really not 100% sure of my motivation. A professor in college once called my personality "slippery". I didn't like that, but he's not wrong. I avoid, as much as possible, any and all definition, even though there's nothing more satisfying than feeling known.

I am a question asker. I am a person who needs to know "why". I am a fighter and a seeker, and that can come off wrong. Many times, people have judged that as not being a faithful Christian because they see it as a sign of doubt or disbelief. In my mind, I see it as a sign of faithfulness, of belief. Why fight for something you don't believe in? No, you fight for that you do believe in.

Throughout my life as well, I have been in puddles of "perfect" people while at the same time having a knack for collecting broken people. Maybe I love the broken because I know that we are all broken. Everyone is broken. Everybody has their fissures and canyons in their life. That's why we need Jesus. But there's something beautiful about broken people's inability to hide theirs. You can see Jesus better when you can't hide where he's working, or wants to be working.

Perfect people, people with rock solid testimonies and veneers, bother me. They bother me at some level because I distrust them and their stories. God is good; yes, all the time. But he is also working all the time. In true community, you share. If we are supposed to be in true community spiritually, then why are we not sharing? Why are we judging instead? I posit that we judge out of our own insecurity, out of our fear that we ourselves are seen as being imperfect. Because maybe we won't be respected anymore or get that job at that Christian foundation or be thought of as a "struggler."

Because we have seen how those labels have power and have seen their impact on lives, as people start to believe what they are called. We're responsible for our own development, but it is hard not to feel the sear of the rejections and the names.

My broken collective has all gone different directions. Some have become their labels, some have overcome their labels. All grow, just in different ways.

Have you ever sat down to "judge" someone's faith walk for one reason or another? Walk that line with prayer and petition. Just because one person has chosen to be vulnerable and share where they honestly stand does not mean that they are necessarily more or less "solid" than the person who stands in front of you and says that they're rock solid in Jesus. No man knows another's soul. No one has "arrived" in their spirituality or their walk with Christ. One man's plateau or peak period may be during another's valley. Give them six months. The man you thought couldn't be shaken might have proven himself weak and the "weak" man may still be standing strong.

We are called to love, to lead back to Christ, to be diligent and prayerful and gracious. We correct when we need to correct, but we should always start with love and with God.

I am a person with the propensity for very strongly worded opinions, This is something I am challenged about daily and something I try daily to be more wise about. However, with regards to this topic, I know that I speak truly when I say that above all other subjects, this one should be treated with more gentleness, wisdom, diligence, and prayer than any others before words come out of our mouths.

Paul writes, "may your love abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you maybe able to discern", "approve what is excellent" "and may be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ--filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ".

The first definition that comes up for "sincerity" is "without pretense." Without our masks.
When I read this verse, I hear, "If you are following God with your whole heart, then he will cast aside all human-coated thoughts, leaving behind only what is true and good and holy."

Follow God, listen to his voice while turning yours off, and speak out with a voice that is not your own, one not coated all over with your pride, your position, your particular brand of sinful.

Crawlspace Creatures

The groundhogs have to go.

For more than a year, they have hunted us, and we them.

Since the raid began, we have captured 2 chinchilla rats, 4 groundhogs, 1 opossum, and one very angry raccoon who, admittedly, was framed by the groundhogs.

You'd think we had rid ourselves.

Currently, one groundhog lies deceased in our "humane" trap as a warning to the others.

Their response? A sit in protest in the front yard.

One would also think our cat would do something. Anything.

But no. She is also on strike. We have the dog during one of the rainiest weeks in Siloam, so she can't come inside. Thus, she watches the groundhog with this look in her eye like, "See if I care, human."

My Amazon wishlist is full of murder devices.
My "humane release" heart has hardened.

Julius doesn't believe me that they could have found their way back across two tributaries and 10 miles.

But he doesn't know them like I know them.

Fools, well-meaning fools, have suggested we just "fill in the hole" into the crawlspace.
AS THOUGH WE HADN'T CONSIDERED THAT.

The heart wants what the heart wants, though, and they want in. Filling a hole won't deter them.
They'll just dig another.
We'll fill it.
They'll dig another.
We'll fill it.
They'll dig another.
And then the house sucks down into the ground like a Florida sinkhole. We've read the testimonies of fellow victims.

We will not make their mistakes. "[W]e are going to fight and our fight will be merciless".

26 Flippin' Kicks

It's another year come and gone. I cannot even begin to believe that I am now in my late-mid twenties. For sure still routinely tell families that I'm 22. I'm not a liar, it just doesn't occur to me that I've aged.

In my 25th year, I:

• Watched every season of Survivor with Julius
• Taught my very first college class, which was amazing. Yes, it was 7:30 in the morning and yes, I got a really bad dose of the flu partway through (and continued to teach...), but it was the fulfilment of a degree and a lot of hopes.
• Taught Seamus Heaney's Field Work
• and Hamilton
• and The Book Thief
• and Oscar Wilde's short stories
• Saw 21 Pilots in concert in Little Rock (because I won a radio contest!!!)
• Saw Panic! At the Disco in concert in Tulsa (which turned out to be incredibly weird)
• Attended a Redesign Summit with our office that ended both badly and great. I got a little sassy, which landed me in the "please make a public apology" arena, but it also was a huge opportunity for me to step up at work.
• I made a gigantic excel sheet of all the ideas and organized the living daylights out of it
• then broke up our office into committees
• and instigated us toward actually achieving goals we set during a group retreat.
• Got rejected for a PhD
• Got really into community Zumba classes
• Found and hired a new regional recruiter for Dallas to work under me
• Helped us hire a new admissions counselor
• Helped to create an Early Commit Track and a Community Changers Scholarship
• Went to Colorado for admissions counselor camp

• Helped Julius build and paint 5 sets of Corn Hole (complete with bean bags)
• Got a sweet little AirBnb with Julius in the middle-of-nowhere Texas
• it had a pool
• and roaches
• and an outdoor shower
• but we loved it
• Travelled to Odomfest and spent some gooooood family time at the lake
• Named Assistant Director of Admissions
• Attended my first Global Leadership Summit
• Completed my fourth travel season in Texas
• while also teaching my second in-person English II class
• I loved them. I LOVED them. It was emotional and connecting and challenging and all kinds of wonderful.
• Caught:
• 2 chinchilla rats
• 1 opossum
• 3 groundhogs
• and 1 very angry raccoom
• Attended the wedding of my best friend's much loved older sister
• Had Best Friend Weekend 2017 with Kira and Tyler (a beta test of things to come)
• notably, we went to the Gentry Safari, a movie in a cave, and ate all the foods.
• Ripped out and replaced our kitchen countertops and kitchen sink. By ourselves.
• Started "teaching" an online English I course for a school in Virginia.
• Got my first root canal
• Put together the facts and discovered that my chronic migraines were being caused by teeth grinding
• bought a $5 mouth guard that has, quite literally, altered my whole life.
• Decided I was unhappy with what desk life has turned my body into and lost 12 pounds (until travel season decided to squash my goals of pushing further into that goal)
• Went to Arizona with Julius thanks to my parents
• for my cousin's wedding to his sweet new wife
• and to see my bestie Sarah Cowles.

• Discovered Outlook Task Manager and fell deeply in love with it
• Got a brand new baby nephew!
• Wrote my third article for the faculty excellence magazine
• adopted a stray cat we named Ootzyde Ket (Oots for short)
• Got in a plane and went to Australia to celebrate 10 years of friendship with Kira and Tyler

My 26th year is starting strong with sunshine, friendship, a true break from my work (if we're being honest, it's my first true "unplugging" since I started this job 3.5 years ago).
I'm just so happy and deeply thankful.

Non Compos Mentis

Christmas: anxiety levels at atomic mushroom heights.

Children screaming. Wrapping paper everywhere. And the anxiety of potential flight complications looming.

 
Yet while I sit here, conscientiously stilling my breath and taking some Lamaze notes for my own stress levels, I let the reminder of life's brevity overtake me.
 

These people, these loud, just unbelievably loud, nuanced, weird, testy, loving, fun, funny people are what gives me a reason to come home.

Tulsa is just a city. Its shops and hills and predictability are comforting, but it's the chaos of my family that makes my heart so full.
 

I would be devastated if I ever lost even one of my people. Our unit is messy and sometimes I need to leave the room--maybe drink a little contextual beverage--and chill my introvert sensory self out a little, but I love them with my whole heart.

So let them scream. Let them eat cake. I would rather have a ringing in my ears than a hole in my heart.

Nap till It Ends

Days and seasons whip through me.

It's still fall semester. It has felt longer than a year, and I feel like you can see at least a year imprinted on my face and spirit.

There was an Aflac commercial running a few years back where the duck and a dude are in a little fishing boat, and a hole starts spouting water. Aflac duck plugs it. But then, oh no! Another hole. And another and another and another until he has his whole beak plugging a whole and filling him with water.

There have been some truly good moments, but I feel a little like an Aflac duck. I plug one hole and another spouts. Meanwhile, while my focus is away, another spurt spurts.

To actually have a grip on all the projects and the problems going on, I'd need 18 hands working simultaneously.

At the same time, I'm so thankful to be alive and alive in this stage of life. I often find myself internally angsting hard, but, at the same time, I don't want to wish away my life. I love my life. I love my husband and so many of the people I work with and work for. I love my near and far distance friends.

I love teaching and the ability to share my crazy ideas with people paying to listen. :)

It's just so hard to maintain a spirit of thankfulness in my divided heart and mind when everything in me wants to sleep and sleep and sleep.