She's a Good Girl, Loves Her Mama, Loves Jesus, and America too...

Sometimes I get a little worried that I should have been a boy. These thoughts usually enter my mind when I’m recalling random sports statistics. I am a big sports fan. I love my Philadelphia teams passionately and can carry on an intelligent conversation about most other sports. This blog will probably be desolate during the fantasy football season.

There are other reasons why I think I’m not very good at being a girl. I have no use for Lifetime, TLC, or hair straighteners. Nicholas Sparks can’t make me cry (just throw up in my mouth a little). I own a really beastly drill and a plumber’s snake and I’m not afraid to use them. I kill all my own spiders (I admit calling my brother to get a dead bird off my porch) and I don’t like weddings.

The truth is, though, power tools and Sports Center do not make the man—or a man. Underneath my macho interests, down in my emotional wiring, I am all girl. I was having lunch with a girlfriend the other day and sharing with her some of the worries that are consuming me this week. I talked about desperately wanting to find a balance between two extremes (“My world will end if…” vs. “My life will begin when…”). Wisely, my friend said, “Of course you do. You’re a girl.”

During another lunch with the same friend, I vented about not being able to turn off my brain, about not being able to keep it from getting 10 steps ahead of my actual life. Again, she said, “Of course not. You’re a girl. We all do that.”

These conversations have brought huge relief. First, they have assured me that I am not bad at being a girl. Second, they have shown me that I am not alone in my tendency toward worry, or more honestly, frenzy.

I’m still chewing on the worry issue in my life and I’ll let you know what I figure out. In the meantime, I can recommend Marian Jordan’s Wilderness Skills for Women. Her writings on worry made me cry (take that, Mr. Sparks!).

Walking Through an Empty House, Tears in My Eyes

Since buying my house four years ago, I’ve had three roommates (not including my cat, Cosmo). Somehow, I’ve managed to be out of town when all three ladies moved out. Today I returned from a week at the beach to a house with an empty bedroom, empty shelves, and an empty feeling.

Looking around at all the space, I am tempted to spread out. For example, there are now two empty shelves in my pantry. When I was unpacking food from my beach trip, I threw it on the empty shelves instead of trying to organize it. My last roommate kept some things on the kitchen counter and I’ve already found myself dumping things in those empty spots. With no one sharing the space, it will be easy to get lazy about tidying up.

It will be easy to get lazy about other things too. Being on vacation with my family this week showed me how accustomed I am to having my own space and doing my own thing. I don’t want the TV on, but my dad is watching CNN. More people in the house want to watch The Deadliest Catch than The Bachelorette. I have to wait to use the internet. If these simple things were challenging this week, after I’ve had a roommate for a while, how hard will they be when I’ve been completely on my own?

For me, the worrisome thing about living alone isn’t being lonely; it’s forgetting how to play well with others.

L.A.'s Fine, but it Ain't Mine, New York's Home, but it Ain't Mine No More

It occurred to me recently that I am pretty hard on the town where I live. It’s a habit I picked up living in Philadelphia. Philadelphians are filled with hometown pride, but we temper it with a good bit of cynicism about our city. We can put our city down, but if an outsider tries it—it’s on.

Now I live in North Carolina, in a city nowhere near as grand as Philadelphia, and I rarely say anything good about this place. But if I really hate it here, why do I stay? As I was driving around running errands today, I was thinking of the little things I love about this town.

1. The Stamey’s sign that tells what flavor cobbler they’re serving each day.
2. Going to Edward McKay, selling an assortment of “what was I thinking?” CDs, and leaving with $20 and a Paul Simon CD bought with store credit.
3. Hearing local Idol Chris Daughtry singing a cover of “Poker Face” on the radio.
4. Being able to visit three different Targets in the same day.
5. The sense of accomplishment I feel now that I can drive from place to place without getting lost. This is not an easy place to drive (it was not planned on a grid like a certain other city…) and the roads change names without warning. This week was the first time I drove to my friend Heather’s house without directions.
6. My local grocery store is tidy, well-stocked, and staffed with the nicest people in the world. I’m convinced I will die in the lawless parking lot, but the store itself is a treasure.
7. The neighborhood around Walker & Elam reminds me of the neighborhood where I grew up—only posher.
8. Taking walks through Battleground Park, and going for bike rides along the greenway. I love that this town invests in places for us to keep fit.
9. My local branch of the library, set back in the woods with its sun porches and walking trails, is as fun as it is functional.
10. Downtown is going through a renewal. I love that restaurants like Ganache make their meals using locally grown products. I love getting a cider and some sweet potato chips while sitting on the upstairs deck at M’Coul’s.
11. Speaking of locally grown products, the farmers’ market is amazing.
12. The abundance of Mexican restaurants.

Mostly, though, what I love about living here is the same thing I miss about living there—the people.

Every Time We Say Goodbye

Last week I received a phone call from Compassion International informing me that one of the children I sponsor left the program. The message they left on my voice mail was very encouraging. Her family was pursuing opportunities in another area where there wasn’t a Compassion site, but she planned to finish school and hoped to continue on studying medicine. In the meantime, she has gained computer skills through the Compassion center that will help her find work when she does finish school and she has heard (and I believe accepted) the Gospel.

Knowing that she has moved on has caused me to reflect on our relationship. I started sponsoring her when she was 10 years old. The first picture of her I received showed a little girl with big eyes, a smile, and two braids tied with colorful hair bands. Since then, more pictures have come and I have watched her grow from a girl of ten to a young lady of 17.

When I moved to North Carolina, I met a man who is on staff with Compassion. He was taking a trip to the Dominican Republic—where this child lives. He graciously agreed to take some small presents to her from me on his trip. Soon I received a picture of her wearing bows in her hair that I had sent.

There have also been letters. In them, she would tell me about her hopes for the future, her progress at school (I even received some of her report cards), and her desire to see her friends and family come to Christ. She also faithfully inquired about my parents’ cat, Lizzy, who was my cat when I began sponsoring her. Somewhere in the Dominican Republic, there are pictures of Lizzy and her successor, Cosmo.

It is disappointing that I won’t get to see her finish school and exit the Compassion program ready to support herself; but I am thankful for the years we’ve had. I am excited to begin a relationship with another little girl the Compassion folks are mailing me (information about her, not the actual child). I look forward to Heaven, where I will get to meet these kids and where we will be able to talk without translators.

The Rest is Still Unwritten

I’ve been at the beach this week. While I sit in my beach chair, I think big thoughts. I ponder. A lot of things I think about are between God and me, some I share. As a result, my time here has not produced any fruitful blog posts. Before I leave, I will share some posts that I started in my mind, but probably won’t finish.

Public places where it is acceptable to pick a wedgie.
1. The beach.
2. Exercise class.

Why do families on vacation argue so much? Do they always argue, but when on vacation they just do it openly? Or is it the disruption to routines and sleep schedules that makes everyone ornery? Maybe sharing a small space for a week wears thin quickly?

In a related thought, I have overheard parents on the beach talking to their children in very abusive, belittling ways. I’ve also heard parents asking their children to do something five or six times and then giving up without the child responding. It makes me thankful that Shannon and I are able to get compliance from our students without shouting, begging or being unkind. But with that thought comes conviction. Let’s face it, a child being shouted at and called names at home is going to bring that baggage into the classroom. That child is probably going to need discipline and correction at school, probably a lot of it. Am I providing correction in a way that builds up the child, or tears him or her down? Am I correcting with kindness, or with the impatient frustration he or she gets at home?

Over the past few days I have been blessed to spend hours in conversation with some of my very best friends. The three who visited me here have been in my life since we were toddlers. Maybe it’s all the beach-sitting I’ve been doing, but I think of our friendships being like the tide. Sometimes, we’re really close and our lives overlap. Other times, the relationships recede and there’s dryness and distance. The good news is, these friendships are always there and they will always be there.

I'm Just Carryin' on an Old Family Tradition

Earlier this week I was cleaning out my pantry. It had gotten pretty disorganized in there and summer vacation seems like the best time for this sort of job. As I was tidying up I had a breakdown.

My dad’s dad was known for his stockpiles of stuff. When I discovered six unopened boxes of Crystal Light packets, three opened boxes of them, and enough canisters of Crystal Light to make 32 quarts of beverage, I called my mother and cried into the phone, “I’ve become my grandfather!”

I can’t drink a Dr. Pepper without thinking of him. My grandparents lived in Philadelphia, so we usually visited them once a week while we were growing up. One of the first things Dave and I would do when we got to our grandparents’ house was head for the mudroom behind the kitchen and grab a Dr. Pepper. There were always cases of soda back there.

If we ever got a toy or a game that required batteries we waited until we went to Pop & Gig’s house (that’s what we call them, go with it). Pop kept a box full of batteries in the back of the house (beside all the Dr. Pepper), so we would just raid the battery box and begin playing.

This year for my birthday, a couple of dear friends sent me a Taste of Philadelphia box. In it were Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews, a kind of candy my grandfather always kept on his kitchen table. If someone had handed me a Dr. Pepper while I was eating one of those peanut chews, I probably would have forgotten where I was.

Pop, and my father and I after him, could not resist a good deal. If he saw something on sale and it wouldn’t go bad, he bought it. But here is the thing about Pop—when he bought this stuff, I don’t think he bought it just to have it. He bought it because someone else might need it or want it. In the 16 years I knew him, I never saw him drink a soda and it wasn’t his Walkman using all those AA batteries.

Pop was wise about his money so that he could be generous. He bought shore houses for the family to enjoy. He and my grandmother gave Dave and me a weekly allowance. He bought me so many McDonald’s hash browns on Saturday mornings that I started to look like one. He would take us out for steak dinners and, during the meal, would ask, “Did you get enough to eat?” No matter how you answered the question, he would cut off a piece of his steak and put it on your plate.

As I think about Pop, and my dad, on this Father’s Day, I am thankful for the lessons they’ve taught me and for their tradition of stocking up. But if there’s an area where I really want to grow, it’s to learn their generosity. So if you need some Crystal Light, call me!

One more anecdote about Pop, unrelated to those above: A couple weeks ago while I was ranting about being at the shallow end of the family gene pool, my dad pointed out that Pop's genes gave me my singing voice.

Who's That Girl?

I have never been someone who sweats a whole lot. To illustrate my point, I will share the two times in my life when I can remember sweat rolling off my face.

First, the summer before eighth grade at basketball camp. We worked out in an old gym with a few oscillating fans to cool us. After a summer spent lying on the couch watching Dirty Dancing every day, my middle-school body was not used to such exertion.

The second occasion was the summer I worked at Sesame Place. A few times, instead of my regular character bodyguard duties, I was assigned to wear a character costume and walk around the park greeting children. As soon as the final snap on the Honker costume snapped, my pores ranneth over.

Even when I trained to walk a half-marathon a couple summers ago, I didn’t have much of a sweat situation (although one day after consuming a Power Bar Gel, I sweat salt, like “could put it on corn-on-the-cob” salt).

So given this history of sweat, I am increasingly surprised by how much I sweat these days—like good, roll-down-your-face sweat. This morning I soaked the bandana I wore to the gym. At first, I was simply going to add this phenomenon to the “30 Ain’t No Joke” list, but I’m beginning to think there’s something else going on.

I think this gym thing is changing me from the outside in.

The outside results are kind of easy to notice—old clothes are baggier, new clothes are smaller, I am, apparently, sweatier. The inside results are more subtle; I’m just beginning to be aware of them. One thing I’ve noticed is that this girl who never left the house in sweatpants will now go to the gym and then run errands. I have been around town in stretchy pants, bandana, pig tails and a t-shirt that says, “Happy Birthday, Peachy!” I’m using my blow-dryer less (and my clothes dryer, for that matter). I’ve joined Freecycle. I eat granola!

Part of me hopes I’m on my way to becoming one of those gangsta old ladies who does whatever she wants and is like, “What are you going to do about it? I’ve got newspapers in my house older than you are.”

But the super-self-aware part of me worries that this is just another phase I’m passing through. Today my feet prefer flip-flops, but wasn’t there a time they wanted knee-high boots? Today I’m wearing a t-shirt and air-drying my hair, but it wasn’t that long ago that I sought out Ralph Lauren and Clinique. (Who am I kidding? I still love me some Ralph!)

So I’ve decided to enjoy where I am, for as long as I’m here. Maybe the Joy-of-the-future will laugh at me some day, but I’m not going to sweat it.