A Run On the Seashore...

One of my favorite things to do here is to run at the beach. It's seriously amazing.

Sometimes it's raining and washed up jellyfish litter the beach.

Sometimes it's dusk and the beachfront hotels light their tiki torches and they guide my way.

Sometimes I park by the crab shack and can hear the party music.

Today, it was gorgeous weather. He-Man and I took the girls to the beach and they fed the seaguls while I took my run.

There was so much to see on a morning like today's. A man had his little Coleman cooler and he was fishing along the shore.

A couple I've noticed before was scanning the sand with their metal detectors.

There were bikers, joggers, yogis and families basking in the gloriousness of the beautiful weather....lots of positive energy.

I noticed as we arrived, canopies and barricades were being broken down from an event. It ended up being a race in supporting breast cancer research. I felt a little sad that I hadn't done my run just a little earlier so I could participate and support the cause. It's such an important cause.

As I ran up to what was obviously the finish line of the race, I noticed the plastic pathway hadn't been broken down. A few feet from that finish line I saw something that took my breath away. It was so simple yet given the circumstances of the event just held there, what I saw seemed so profound...

I lost a great-grand mother to breast cancer. It's in my family. My Aunt Keturah lost her mom to it. My beloved grandmother had it and recovered. We've had several scares with my mom finding suspicious lumps before. Just recently I have cried and prayed over two friends who were scared out their wits after discovering lumps in their breasts. There are countless other stories of people devastated by this disease.

Seeing this simple, beautiful message touched me. I don't know who left it or why. I can only speculate. All I know is that it was powerful.

It reminded me that life is short; too short for anger, resentment or wasted opportunities to express our adoration for each other; too short not to sing at the top of your lungs a cheesy rendition of 'happy birthday' over the phone, accost your lover with slobbery kisses and over dramatic hugs, and play hide-and-seek with your kids.

To whomever it was that left that message for whom ever you intended it for, may your love be for forever and always...even if death separates you for now.

Memory Monday...The Tough Stuff

Memory Mondays are fun. It gives me a chance to laugh at things I never thought would be funny.

Not all of my memories are funny or happy though. Some are devastating. As much I hate to admit it, some have left scars; deep, painful hurt, that for a long time, negatively impacted the way I behaved. Looking back on those are important too...not to dwell on them, but to recognize them for what they are. They are moments that, for better or for worse, shape who we are and what we will become. Better, if we choose to never put another human being, a divine child of a loving God, through the same brutal scenario. Worse, if we don't allow those scars to fully heal, but instead, only allow it to scab over, vulnerable to abrasive blows.

I have a friend who is suffering right now. She's hurting and desperately trying to successfully navigate herself through a very dark place; the graveyard of all those painful moments where either her actions or the actions of other people left gaping wounds. This post is for her. It's an effort to illustrate that others have been there too, that as perfectly candy coated as some of us seem, it's an effort to rise above the ugly stuff. Whether successful or not, when you're fighting for that happiness, you're making progress. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it's not.

I hope some of these examples can be at least chuckled at for their disastrous delivery or level of idiocy. For me, it's a bit cleansing to admit they happened and while they were expressed out loud, it's doesn't necessarily make them truth.

*I was once told by a guy that, whom up to that moment I considered to be a close friend, I was rather unattractive and my only assets were my large chest and a great personality.

*Another guy friend once explained the two types of girls: Hotties and Baby Makers. He firmly placed me in the 'Baby Makers' category.

The unfortunate thing about these two situations was not that I had no romantic interest in either one of them, it was that they were men I considered friends and was convinced they were only being honest.

*Hands down, the most devastating thing that happened to me in junior high school was at lunch one afternoon. A girl who I thought was my friend, sat at a cafeteria table in front of me and proceeded to talk about how much 'she couldn't stand me'. That wasn't the most hurtful part. That came from several of my friends who were sitting with her and agreeing. They shortly realized I was right behind them which only added to the embarrassment.

A few weeks later one of those girls decided that art class was the right time to tell me, to my face, that I was the biggest 'fake' she'd ever met and she didn't care who knew how much she disliked me.

I still have a hard time with that one when I meet new people.

*A few years after high school I moved home from college for the summer. Mine was a small town where everyone knew each other and it wasn't uncommon for any of us to be at church with our school teachers or see them in grocery stores. As was the case with one of the teachers I admired the most.

My mother reluctantly told me one night, as I was preparing to go out with one of my best friends who ended up working at our high school after graduation, something that had been bothering her for weeks. One day during class, my friend and this teacher were making fun of me and gossiping about something I had recently gone through. What they had forgotten was that my younger brother was in the class and heard the entire conversation.

I haven't been comfortable around that teacher since.


It's interesting how my hands are shaking right now. I feel strange revisiting these moments. Yet, as ashamed as I was back then, I'm not anymore. It's as though the wound is gone, but the emotional reaction isn't. Odd.

Before any of you feel badly for me, please don't consider me a victim. I dished out my own ugly, hideous baggage on other people too. Perhaps I was young then and didn't know who I was but that certainly doesn't make the pain I inflicted upon those at the other end any less than what I endured at the hands of others.

*I once used the most vile and disgusting language at a guy who was making fun of my religion in Home-EC. class. What a hypocrite I was to convey my feelings in such a manner. Any effort I was attempting to make in representing members of my church was completely tainted by my behavior. Worse still was the shock and disappointment I saw on my older brother's face when he heard what I had done.

*I allowed a perfectly wonderful young man, I had no intention of marrying, to ask my parents for permission to propose, only to have them shoot him down because I didn't have the guts to do it myself. Can you imagine the humiliation? I lost a great friend that day.

*Perhaps the worst of those moments is when I stood idly by, not saying something that needed to be said, not standing up for someone who needed me to, not acting when someone needed me to do something.

In 6th, there was a girl named Trisha who was maliciously teased on a constant basis. It seems she could do nothing without someone taking an opportunity to pounce on it. She often sat alone, humiliated. I always felt bad for her. I'd go home sick to my stomach for laughing at her. I even remember calling her one night to apologize for being a jerk.

The next day nothing had changed. The kids still teased her. At one point, she looked and me and said, "You really didn't mean what you said on the phone, did you?!"

How could I have been such a jerk?!

If only I could go back.

I'd scream at myself to do the right thing, to be kind, to not worry about what other people thought. To just be honest.

If only I could.

But I can't. Nor can I comfort the little 8th grade girl who couldn't find a private place to cry after a humiliating lunchroom experience.

I can't reassure the young woman who was staring in the mirror for hours scrutinizing, then magnifying every flaw her 'baby making' body had.

BUT, what I can do is take something positive from every one of those experiences. I can choose to speak up and speak out on behalf of those people who need another voice to speak for them.

I can comfort other devastated 8th grade girls and insecure, awkward young women who happened to gain the 'Freshman 15'. I can encourage my girls to be honest with their boyfriends and potential suitors.

I can trust my Heavenly Father's love for me. And for others. His opinion is all that matters.


By the way, I'm finally grateful to be a Babymaker.

REALLY listening to a story I've heard hundreds of times...

I've been reading in the New Testament book of Luke recently. I'm rereading many stories that have come to mean so much to me. One particular passage I read struck me on a deeper level than ever before. It is the story of the woman who came unto Christ, broken, ashamed. She had committed a grievous sin.

My new understanding of Jewish law helped me understand the significance of this story a little more than I did as a child. The woman came to Jesus. She came to him while He was in the presence of lawmakers and men of significance. They could have legally killed her. They probably would have too.

Except were it for our Savior, Jesus Christ. We all know the story. She collapsed before Him. Crying, a soul-shaken cry. She bathed His feet with her hair and tears. She kissed His feet. She begged Him to forgive her.

He did. Frankly, in fact.

His love and mercy were pure and obvious.

But what about her?

The day I reread those scriptures, she became a hero to me. I imagine the woman was stooped, withdrawn and defeated; an imperfect, obviously flawed woman. She stood taller than all of her accusers at that moment.

That day I saw her a little more like my Savior would see her as I considered the following:

She most likely entered that building hoping for grace but probably expecting death.

She stood before her accusers knowing perfectly well they hated her. As she stood there, they probably mocked and whispered back and forth, pointing and jeering. What mortification.

She came to the presence of our Lord's love having at least enough faith and courage to face the judges.

She was probably suffering under the crushing weight of her own guilty conscience yet possessed at least a little sense of her own divine worth.

Otherwise she would have given up and let them kill her.

But she didn't.

Her faith, however large or small it may have been, were met with the greatest of all rewards.

Forgiveness

She probably left His presence that day truly understanding repentance/forgiveness, justice/mercy better than many people in her time ever would.

Memory Mon...er Tuesday-Why I Don't Much Ride Bicycles.

Hmmmm. Busy weekend. I'm still acclamating myself to homeschooling and we blessed RP this weekend, had fabulous family out for the event and I was hopped up on Benedryl for half the weekend so I missed my post yesterday.

BUT I promised to explain why I don't ride bicycles very often.

As kids my brothers and I loved dogs...probably a little too much. So much so that several of them bolted at the first chance of freedom (an opened door, an unlocked gate)

Such as was the situation when I found myself as a 10 year old girls, riding my mom's bike around the neighborhood screaming myself hoarse for our chihuahua named Chokey. I couldn't have been taller than 4 foot 10 but insisted upon riding my mother's very tall bike because mine had a flat.

I had to stand in order to pump the pedals. I didn't even consider stopping. After riding, sobbing and wailing throughout the subdivision, loud enough for every single neighbor to hear that we had lost our dog and his name was Chokey and he had just been diagnosed with Heartworms, I reached what we affectionately called 'Suicide Hill'.

My brothers often rode down that hill with as much speed as possible, shouting something like 'REMEMBER THE ALAMO' or 'I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!' or other such statement of profound bravery. I was always struck with terror and would walk whatever wheels I had down it.

Not this time. I needed to rescue Chokey. I backed up and cautiously gave myself a running start to gain enough momentum to hop onto the bike. It was about half way through the hill, when I reached what felt, to a 10 year old girl, like Mach 10 that I thought about stopping.

Now the wailing wasn't for Chokey. Not for the Alamo. Not even for the world. It was for the stark realization that I was about to die...or atleast be seriously maimed.

I desperately looked for a way to stop. I thought to myself, "A fire hydrant? No. Garbage cans? No... Aha!! There's a big empty field at the bottom of the hill with a huge rock. I can just run my bike into that. Surely, that will stop my bike!"

I soon reached the bottom and veered off the road. My screams became bumpy hiccups as the bike carrened through the grass...but it worked. My bike stopped. I didn't. I flew forward. Amazingly, I've still been able to birth 4 children.

***
A few years later.

I had grown taller and the bikes I rode shrunk. My friend Heather and I were taking a leisurely ride through our little town one afternoon. After a while, we noticed about a dozen or so bikes parked side by side by the park and a gaggle of our friends together. We decided to join them.

Only, I still didn't know how to stop. I swerved back and forth, trying to gain control of my bike and ended up crashing into Heather, which made her fall off her bike. Then, over compensating, I swerved into the other parked bikes. Just like a domino effect, every bike in turn, crashed to the ground.

I'm lucky my friends weren't big, hairy bikers with Harleys. In addition to bloody knees and elbows, I'm pretty sure I would have walked home funny with the mother of all atomic wedgey.


***
About the last time I seriously rode a bike was a week later. Same place, different people. This time a bunch of guy friends and classmates gathered for a game of basketball. One of them, Scott, had invited me to a party. I had been stumped on what to give a guy for his birthday. Seeing him there felt like the perfect opportunity to ask. Certainly, it was way more important than a basketball game, right?

Me: "Oh, Hi, Scott! How are you?! Thanks for the invite to your party. What do you want for your birthday?"

Scott: "Oh Hey. Um. I don't know. Just come. It'll be fun!"

Me: "Me? Bring nothing? I can't do that! I.....

C-O-O-O-O-O-N-N-N-N-G-G-G-G-G!

It was about that time when I realized I wasn't looking where I was going and happened to be in the path of a very large, uncompromising lamp post.

The next thing I knew, I was laying on my back and looking up at a circle of guys who, once they knew I hadn't passed out, were trying really hard not to laugh.

Have you ever seen 'Wayne's World'? You know, the part where his ex-girlfriend is waving at him like an idiot, not watching where she's going and crashes into a parked car?

Yeah. It was pretty much like that.

15 years later, my bike riding skills have not gotten much better. But at least I no longer steer towards inanimate, immovable objects when I'm trying to stop.

It's a wonder I was ever allowed to get my driver's license.

Ice Cream with Lulu

Tonight while the older girls went to the library with their Daddy, Lulu and I ate ice cream.

After the interview, she required a bath.

Memory Monday: My Freshman Year aka All Humiliation, All the Time!

Okay, I lied, it didn't suck that bad.

BUT, someday, when I'm a widely published, I want everyone (who didn't witness it first hand) and my children who think I'm uber-cool, to know that I too, had an awkward phase.  And when I say 'awkward', I mean train wreck bad.  Yes, my friends, this super sophisticated, cool as a cucumber, smooth under pressure, lady of dignity was a dork.  Please.  Stop hyperventilating from the shock.  (I wrote a post a year and a half ago that describes some of this.)

As I've pondered what to take time to remember for my Monday Memory, several illustrations of my awkwardness came to mind..

Illustration #1:  My ambition to become a cheerleader.  Not so bad by itself; except I happened to be an enormous klutz.  When I decided to try-out the end of my eighth grade year, I'm pretty sure my loved ones were scratching their heads over that one.  I didn't exactly fit the bill.  Yet, I persisted.

 The 11 of us trying out were informed that there were only 7 spots and after practicing for a week, my chances of making the squad were slim at best.  But I persisted.  On the day before the tryouts we drew numbers to determine the order in which we would give our self created routines, otherwise known as my one-woman-freak-show.  I drew #1....of course.  I came up with this nifty little number that included lots of arm flailing and a couple of random kicks to me bellowing out every other rhyming word.  Add to that my tendency to speed up when I'm nervous, I basically looked like I was trying to recite Doctor Suess while seizing.

I was greeted with blank stares and the sound of crickets.

Illustration #2:  Miraculously, I made the squad.  (Here's where I should mention that we ALL made it.  Seriously, I'm not being modest.  It was really that bad.)  During the following summer, I received a crash course on all things 'cheerleader' and basically faked it; but by the beginning of football season, I was beginning to feel a little more confidant.

It was customary for the cheerleaders to wear their uniforms to school on the day of a football game.  On one particular day, I was in the hall waiting for class when one of my classmates was waiting for his to start.  He happened to be on the football team and being that I can't stand dead air, I struck up a conversation.  Which eventually came to discussing creating cheers and Juan encouraged me to come up with an impromptu cheer for him. This is pretty much how the following train wreck went down...

Thinking to myself..."Hmmm, how do I spell his name?"

Okay.  Ready.  (More Arm Flailing, a little more deliberate this time since I sort of knew what I was doing.)

"Go, Fight, Win!  G-o-o-o-o-o-o-o Juan!  W-O-N!"

Juan, (blank stare again) "That's not how you spell my name."

Me, "Oh.  sorry."

Awkward.





Illustration #3:  Needs no explanation.  My favorite outfit when I wasn't wearing my uniform was the following:

zebra print cut off cotton pants
coordinating tee-shirt with wild life on the front.  The wild life were cartoon red.  and neon blue...gosh, that's special.

I wore that in public.  A lot.

 How's this one for high fashion?

Lastly, Illustration #4:  My mother had a neighbor who loved to mess with my hair.  After she destroyed my hair with a really bad perm and then themed my next hair cut to the cartoon "Duck Tails" (she thought it was adorable that my hair looked like the butt of a duck) I took matters into my own hands.

My mother cautioned me about the dangers of having split ends and regularly advised me to give my hair a deep conditioning.  Then one day, as I wondered around the local PX, I came across a hair product designed for African American hair.  I'm not a label reader.  All I knew was that the lady on the front had a beautiful mane of hair obviously split-end free.  I snagged it up in a hurry, ran home and prepared to 'deep condition' the split ends out of my hair.  The first thing I noticed when I opened the jar was that it resembled Vaseline.  That didn't stop me from applying approximately half the jar onto my head.  I wrapped my hair in Saran Wrap and 'conditioned' for 20 minutes.  After which I rinsed it out.

Only, it didn't come out.

I rinsed it again.  and again.  No luck.

By this time I started to panic.  I enlisted my mother's help and she proceeded to rinse my hair with vinegar and raw egg.  This basically amounted to me having plastic hair AND smelling like potato salad.  To add insult to injury, she made me go to school the next day...and every day after that for the three weeks it took to get the stuff out of my hair.

I was mortified by the thought that someone would notice and make fun of me.  Strangely, only my closest friends who knew what I did said anything.  Perhaps people were scared that I'd fashion a weapon out my pliable hair and stab them with it.  It remains a mystery. 

Amazingly, even with these and other equally mortifying experiences, I made it through ninth grade.  I even eventually ended high school as a mostly coordinated cheerleader.  Isn't it funny how those moments when we think we are actually going to die of embarrassment, we don't?  Even better is 20 years later when you realize those moments actually made life interesting...and dare I say...fun?

 It's nice to know that now, I'm much more dignified.