Tag: self-expression

Greatness

My grandmother lives in an old folks home. I recently visited her. After the second day, I realized that there’s an old lady there who goes around giving ice cold cans of Dr. Pepper to various people throughout the day. Always smiling. It’s incredibly adorable.

And it seems to be the same people each day, making it even more adorable, somehow. How ridiculously sweet and utterly silly?! I love it and it brings me such wonderful joy.

Dear God, thank you for the blessing of getting to witness that Dr. Pepper lady spreading joy so beautifully. Thank you. And thank you for the fun of Dr. Pepper itself, too. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Old crap

(Forgive the language, please a it just seemed quite appropriately used here.)

There’s a lot of junk that comes with getting old. I don’t merely mean old-er. I mean old. There are lots of little hassles and troubles involved with getting older, with aging as a whole. But getting old has a uniquely stressful aspect: As the body and mind age, they often tend to revert towards babyhood, and adults are not prepared to take care of a 90-year-old toddler who not only can make others believe he is competent and allowed to be out alone, but can get out alone the moment a back is turned or a corner is rounded.

At some point, when ZK was still on my childhood, I was talking with my dad about the idea of grown kids wiping their parents’ butts as the parents grew too old to do it themselves. I asked him if he expected us to wipe his butt one day. He, quite seriously, said he absolutely did not expect it. I was surprised. He said he expected us to hire someone else to do it. I was even more shocked. You wouldn’t want your own family to care for you? And his answer was a firm, confident, and clear, ‘No.’

I didn’t understand it back then, not really. He had said something about hatred or resentment, but it didn’t make sense to me. After seeing the struggle with someone in my own family lately, and now having to deal with it firsthand myself, I understand what my dad had meant. He didn’t want us to resent him int he final years of his life. He wanted us to be able to love him and be happy with him in those years. Yes, it is very loving to care physically for someone, but it isn’t always happy or easy doing that. There can be a massive buildup of very negative memories in that relationship right at the very end of the old person’s life, leaving the younger person grateful of the death and, necessarily, then feeling horrible for being relieved and glad for it.

It is hard dealing with an old, sick person. Getting almost no sleep in order to help with constant bathroom wake-ups throughout the night, cleaning up bodily filth that ended up all over clothes and the floor and almost none in the toilet, forcing down medicines or vitamins or healthy foods or water just to help heal an illness or relieve the pains, changing a diaper on a fully grown person who resists it, despite having just walked around half-naked in public and not knowing it… that and so much more is very hard to handle. What’s harder is handling it all and not, in some way, resenting the person for whom one is doing it all. It’s so hard not to take it personally, especially when that person yells at you for who knows what…

So, I get it. I wouldn’t want my kids to have their final memories of and with me be ones of near-constant frustration and anger and heartbreak. Having and unrelated person come in to take care of the old person goes much further than one might think, for all members of the family. I never would have thought that before doing it myself, seeing it happen myself, twice now. And I am all the more grateful for the people in this world who do choose to take up that role in society. Those caretakers make more than a little difference. They don’t just do the grunt work or the dirty work of the situation. They can truly heal the situation. They completely transform what likely would have happened without them, and all the relationships involved for the better.

Thank you, all you who take care of the old people for their families. You help more than you could know.

Thank you, God, for these people.

Post-a-day 2023

Service

Sometimes, we get the honor of biting the bullet and being of service, especially in situations where we know we really don’t want to do it.

Like really don’t want to do it…

But are those not the times that God is, basically, giving us the stink eye, waiting for us to gtf over it, give up being comfortable or within our comfort zone, and do the right thing? It often feels that way, doesn’t it?? That feeling of super judgement – lovingly done, of course – until we give up and just do it, right?? Haha

Post-a-day 2023

Returning

I’ve worked out normally again for the past three days, and it has been marvelous. I have been so sore that I moan and groan every time I go to sit on the toilet or bend over. My hamstrings in particular are shaking like they haven’t in a long, long time. It is much like when we first started working out – and that same friend is doing the sprite with me now – and it is amazing. We both are hurting in such a good way, and it feels oh-so-good to be back.

And it feels like I’m actually being myself again, which makes it all the better.

Thank you, God. And thank you, friend. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

So far, so right

I got an interview today. It was short and sweet and to the point, and I very much enjoyed it. It seems to have gone well. We shall see what comes next.

But I know things would have been different for me today with this interview if I hadn’t stood my ground yesterday (and, possibly, earlier this week).

Thank you, God, for helping me to trust in you. Please, continue to do so – continue to make it clear for me which way you are calling me in each moment. Help me to pursue you and your will as also my own. Help me to love and to be loved, with and through you always. Thank you for this life. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

P.S. I really would like to get this job, just so we’re all clear.

Pulled

God is calling me, encouraging me to take a stand, yet something, too – the devil, perhaps? – is pulling me to feel guilty at this desire to stand for myself, to stand my ground, to stick with what feels right, though it may seem selfish at a glance.

I cannot explain it any other way right now, but it feels like God is calling me to be here right now.

Ironically, I was just sharing Sunday how I’ve determined that I need to trust wholly whatever call I feel from God right now, as that will lead me to where I need to be. And now, mere days later, I am having to do just that in a very difficult way, and I almost didn’t stand up for it.

Post-a-day 2023

Preferences or pickiness?

Growing up, I had certain dislikes. Now, I have certain dislikes. A few of them have withheld throughout the years, though most of them disappeared. Several of them seemed to be a matter of finding the right way to eat something. For example, tomatoes, I find to be delicious, but only when sliced at a medium-narrow thickness. Any thicker or any thinner I not only dislike them, but I gag on them for the texture and consistency. Avocados, I love, but only as avocados. Smash them into guacamole or avocado toast, and we’re back to gagging.

All that to say, I wonder what causes us to have the dislikes as children in the first place. How and why do we dislike certain foods and drinks? Are the kids just being picky, or is there truly something that makes it difficult for them to eat specific foods? Is the palate just not ready for certain foods at a young age? Or do we just need to force it down and grow accustomed to the foods that are good for us?

Just wondering…

Post-a-day 2023

Not good enough yet

I will be good enough after more learning and experience, but I’m not good enough for the dream jobs yet.

And that’s okay. It makes perfect sense, given that I’m only just learning even how to do the basics for this new career direction I want to pursue. I feel no shame for it. A touch of sadness, perhaps, due to the need to have some patience as I learn and improve, but no wrongness about it, no, ‘I suck,’ about it all.

But for how many other parts of my life do I not allow myself to experience this same scenario in such a way? How many other places do I expect to be better than I am, further along than I am, even though I haven’t yet had the learning and experience within that ‘role’ in order to be a master of it, to be exactly who and how I want to be in that realm? How much strain and stress and shame am I giving myself, when I have no true reason to expect myself to be any better than I am at certain things in this very moment? Relationships with others, with self? Working out solo instead of in group classes? Cooking for two? CLEANING for two? And a dog? Laundry for two? (To be clear, I still suck quite badly at the full laundry process for myself, and have been working slowly on that in recent years. Yet I expect myself to be able to ah for it flawlessly for two people suddenly??) Supporting a house? Paying for life in a house? Supporting a family financially? Managing prayer life for a family? Figuring out things not on my own? Keeping a sleep schedule that is drastically different from someone else in the same house?

I was not a great teacher when I first started teaching. Yes, I was good, especially for a new teacher. I had great instincts and great ideas. I had very good relationships and rapport with students. But I wasn’t a great teacher. It took me a long time to turn a lesson idea into an actually good lesson, let alone great lesson. My overall subject-area effectiveness was somewhere just above the middle, possibly a bit higher. Sure, I encouraged and empowered students to pursue their lives fully. But they didn’t necessarily learn their subject all that well. Now, however, things that took forever or never happened come easily for me. It takes little effort to turn a crap lesson – IN THE MOMENT – into a great and effective And fun lesson (for not just be students, but also for me). I put just as much effort into teaching, but the results are monumentally greater, and in all ways. I love teaching, and I have become a great teacher. But I wasn’t always a great teacher. Just because I was good and I was good enough to become great didn’t make me great then. It only made me great now, down the road of experience and effort and desire – not merely the desire to be great.

That being said, perhaps I could chill a bit on being so harsh on myself and my life for not being better already. Sure, I may be great at much. But that doesn’t mean I have to be amazing at things I have almost no experience or practice actually doing. It’s okay to suck at those things. That’s the point of a neophyte. And I am the one (in my shoes). (And yes, I’m a total nerd and a bit of an idiot, too. Please, enjoy the terrible pun. 😛 )

Post-a-day 2023

Shake it

Tonight, we celebrated my mother’s birthday in style by attending a Shake Russell concert. We had dinner at a deli/restaurant nearby beforehand, and ended up two tables over (in a nearly empty deli) from Shake and his wife and fellow musician as they had dinner. My stepdad, who had never been to a performance before tonight, mentions after about ten minutes, “Isn’t that the guy?”

My mom and I, both confused, turn around to see whatever man he is indicating behind the two of us. Sure enough, it is Shake Russell! After a few minutes of silliness, my stepdad then tell us how, since he’s never been to a performance and doesn’t know the album covers, he recognized Shake.

‘I recognized him from the bag of coffee on the counter,’ he told us. At one point, Shake had sold some coffee that they’d named “Cowboy Coffee” after the song by the same name, not actual cowboy coffee (Listen to the song, and you’ll have a reasonably accurate description of true cowboy coffee. :P). And the coffee bags had had a sticker of Shake Russell’s face on the front. Thus, my stepdad recognized him as the Cowboy Coffee guy. 😛

We shared this information with Shake and his wife later, and they both chuckled at it. It was a great and silly little moment, to be sure, and I’m so glad it happened.

As usual, the performance was spectacular. Yes, they did play “Cowboy Coffee”, though before he’d known about my stepdad. My stepdad loved the performance and the music, by the way. He really enjoyed the music and lyrics. At the end of the performance, still on stage, Shake wished my mom a happy birthday (again, but on the microphone this time) as he closed out the night.

It was a great, great performance and night.

To top it off, as we were walking out of the building, my mom’s phone started buzzing. When she answered, she smiled and started chuckling. She put it on speaker for us to hear, too. As she phrased it afterward, it was three, good-looking, buzzed young guys, singing to her – my brothers and my man singing her “Happy Birthday” during their guys night. It was a hilarious and wonderful end for the night. I’m so glad they did it. My mom always sings for everyone else, but not many ever sing for her. That meant a lot just to me. It seemed like she really appreciated and enjoyed it, too, though. Thanks, boys!

And thank you, God, for a lovely night for all of us. I wished my mom a great birthday at the end of our call earlier today, and she replied with, “You, too,” just as we were ending the call. So, I sent her a text thanking her for wishing me ‘a happy your birthday’. Thank you, God, for actually giving me that happy her birthday. We all ended up having a very happy her birthday. So, thank you. I love you. Thank you for all this love around me today and tonight, from all directions and in so many forms. Thank you. Help us all to sleep well and sufficiently tonight, please. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023