The evils of facebook and horoscopes

People can be mean.  People using facebook can increase their meanness, intentionally or unintentionally.

For example:  I can go throughout my life making a good attempt at forgetting bad memories and hurt feelings.  But, facebook "friends" post pictures of themselves having a great time at a great event with other "friends" of mine and the feelings come right back up again.  Not cool.  I don't want to unfriend, but I don't want to be reminded of what I'm not invited to, what I'm excluded from.  I need a button that says, don't show me fun things that I was exclude from. 

I happened to read my horoscope this week:
Aquarius: Aspects are not the best for the Waterbearers at this time. You may feel isolated or as though no one around you can possibly understand who you are. In some way, life circumstances may be preventing you from communicating. Turn off the inner critic and make peace with yourself.


I don't really believe in horoscopes, or at least I don't really want to believe in them.  But, this week, the horoscope is right on target.  Ugh!  Greg was out of town all weekend.  My Mom came up for the day on Saturday and that was great.  But, I was mostly alone with the boys the rest of the time (I realize "alone" and "with boys" don't match up.)  I didn't have a whole lot of interaction with adults, that's for sure. ("Isolated?"  Yes!)   And I have so many thoughts lately: vocational discernment, visioning, dreaming, practical task list making, self improvement challenges...that even if I started getting all these things out there, I wouldn't even make a dent before sundown.  And since the abundance of ideas and things to say are overflowing, it is hard to figure out where or how to get started.  So "circumstances may be preventing me from communicating" in more ways that one.
 
Make peace with myself.  Oh yeah, I'll get to that just after I do the laundry and feed the ducks.  You've gotta be kidding me!
 
Now, I read the horoscope before Greg left for the weekend.  Did I make the horoscope prediction come true or did it come true because of the stars?  Or is it really true at all?
 
"Go and sin no more."  eek!
 
I'd like to say I'll quit facebook and horoscopes, but I'm guessing that won't last real long.  I've gotta see what's happening with my "friends" and I'll likely just happen to skim over the horoscope on the way to the crossword puzzle.
 
For give me for I know not what I do. ;)

Minute clinic

Waiting my turn at the minute clinic. Pink eye will be diagnosed and medicine given.  What about all the other places in my life that are in need of a refresh button? Is it possible that the minute clinic nurse is a super hero, able to cure all that ails?  It'd be pretty cool to walk out whole and healed and energized. I'd come back every day for that!

"Feeling some kind of way"

I hear the phrase "feeling some kind of way" pretty often around my neighborhood.  I haven't been able to determine exactly what it means.  But today, I'm feeling just that...some kind of way. 
 
     After a several year bout with alzheimer's and a recent fall, my Grandmother (Nana) died on Thursday morning.  On Thursday, I kept relatively quiet about the news.  I didn't really want to talk about it and I really didn't want to hear people's condolensces.  I expected to hear words like "I'm sorry" or "She's in a better place" and knew that they'd only result in me being angry.  So, I just kept quiet about it. I was stressed, too, about the logistics of going home and so I just kept to myself until after our boys went to sleep.  
After a stressful converstation about when to go home and where to stay, we made our plans and resolved to travel to Raleigh on Saturday and stay through Monday.  The visitation and Graveside service would be on Monday afternoon.  Friday, I spent much of the morning looking through old pictures.  Unfortunately, this was a solitary exercise.  The kids were a little to crazy and the husband was helping with the kids.  I sorted through pictures and spent time remembering by myself.  Saturday, we packed and got ready and went to a friend's house warming party before going to Raleigh.  I was looking forward to spending time with family and hoped that sharing stories and spending time with one another would be healing and comforting.
     And it was.
     We went to my home church on Sunday morning and it was great to be home there.  We spent the afternoon and evening with family and I enjoyed visiting.  Monday, we walked down my Grandmother's Street and took pictures on her front porch before going to lunch and the visitation.  And it was all good and helpful.
Today is Tuesday, though, and I still feel some kind of way...a mixture of ways, really.  I feel like I want to see more pictures and hear more stories.  I feel like I want to ask questions to get at the mysteries a once child-now adult does not understand about her grandparents.  I long to have a token, something to hold onto that was Nana's, to keep in my line of sight and remind me of her.  I want to grasp onto an idea or practice that will help me to commemorate or honor her life. 
     Going back to a "regular" day of work and living is strange.  I see the long list of things I wish I would do: dust, clean, sweep, reply to emails, make phone calls, write letters, read the new magazine/book/blog, unpack my suitcase from the weekend, put up the laundry, fix the couch slip cover (again), plant the new begonia.... but, I can't manage to get up to do much of anything at all. 
It doesn't help that I'm tired from traveling and staying with two toddlers in a hotel room.  It doesn't help that it seems I have pink eye.  It doesn't help that it is just cold enough outside to make me want to stay in a ball up in a blanket.  It really doesn't help that the list of things I should be doing seems so long and so unattainable that it feels like there's no point in even starting at all.  And all these very practical things might just be the reasons why I'm feeling some kind of way.  Maybe it has nothing to do with Nana's death.  Maybe this blah feeling just comes from the moutain of uninteresting and unmotivating things I wish were done.  Or maybe I'm feeling some kind of way because this week I lost my maternal grandmother.  Either way,I'm ready not to feel this way.  I'm ready to feel differently: alive, healthy, whole, motivated, energized.  But, I'm not sure I'm ready to tackle that to do list.  Can't someone do it for me?   I'm ready to feel some closure, but am not sure how to obtain it.  Can't somebody give me the answers?
 
     I will have to say, after experiencing the death of my own Grandmother, I now know better how to care for others in their time of difficulty.  The favorite things I heard (and the things I wish I had heard) are:   "Helms, i am sensing that you are going through something.  When you want to talk about it, I'd like to listen."  "Tell me the stories about your grandmother."  and when I asked someone to pray for her, they wrote a prayer to God and sent it to me to read.  The pastor who peformed the ceremony was Jack Glasgow.  He certainly had a way of listening and caring for us.  I was grateful to be cared for such a comforting person.  And, folks, you are right that she is in a better place and that it is better that she is not in pain, but that kind of comment doesn't feel good.  It may not feel good simply because our Pastoral Care professors told us not to say it and it may not feel good because it isn't the best thing to say.  Either way, it doesn't feel good.  What did feel good was to be enveloped by our family and friends as we stood together at the grave.  What did feel good was to have Nana mentioned with love and admiration.  What did feel good was for friends and family to remain in our presence, not saying a word at all.  What felt good was to turn around at the visitation and see that one of the flowers was sent for me.  And it felt good to have someone who didn't know my grandmother at all send a gift in her honor solely because the giver knew and cared for me.
     I learned through this how to be a better caregiver to my peers.(Do I have any?)  Not a single one of my peers came to the visitation or graveside service.  I didn't expect them to come, but I did sort of watch at the door just to see if someone'd surprise me by coming.  And I'm not hurt by their absence, but I have learned by this that I want to be there for somebody else.  And I don't care if they won't be there for me or if they aren't the kind of friend I want them to be for me.  I want to be for them a healing presence.  I hope I don't beat myself up later on when I can't attend every funeral or be at every visitation, especially when it is a good distance away.  But I do want to creatively think about ways in which I can extend a spirit of care and comfort to my own peers; not just my parishoners, but my peers.
    Some things I still long to hear:  the positive ways in which I am like Nana,  the secrets no one was willing to tell that helps me to know more about who I am and why our family acts certain ways.  And I wish we'd recorded one of our family jam sessions.  And I wish I could play in her dresser again.  And I wish I'd been given something of hers to cherish.  And I wish I had a really good picture of her.  And I wish I'd recorded her voice and bottled her smell.
    There are more things to reflect on: being at my home church and remembering the joy and pain I experienced there, being with my family as they stayed relatively stoic and quiet throughout the few days, things I remember about Nana...more to come.
 
      

Be uncommonly good
Helms
 "And deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome some day, by God's grace, by helping the seed of the kingdom grow in ourselves and in each other until finally in all of us it becomes a tree where the birds of the air can come and make their nests in our branches.  That is all that matters really."
~Fredrick Buechner
Hyaets: http://hyaets.org
donate to Hyaets by clicking here
crafts:  www.littletreetrimmings.etsy.com
blogs: www.littletreetrimmings.blogspot.com www.farmcityfolk.wordpress.com
704.392.2346 (home)

Be it resolved...

Enuma Okoro in Reluctant Pilgrim writes, "It felt like the sadness you feel after you finally decide to stop trying to make a bad relationship work-- defeated resignation tinged with stabs of relief and momentary freedom." 

Before recently, I don't think Okoro's words would have resonated with me, but I read them today and say, "Yes! I know exactly how that feels!"  Maybe part of the reason I can relate now and not before now is that it is only recently that I have ever given myself any sort of permission to stop trying to make a bad relationship work. In fact, my typical way is to try hard to make almost every relationship work. And when I say hard, I mean hard: withstanding rejection & emotional manipulation, saying no to inner passions and sense of calling...

In the past few weeks, I have felt at peace about letting go of some of these relationships.  Of course, the nagging nelly or maybe even voices from the Bruderhof visitors we recently hosted whisper in my ear, "What about brotherhood? What about unity? What about unconditional love?"  I'd like to answer saying that I can still love the childhood friend who does not return my affection without trying so hard only to be rejected. I'd like to hush the whispers by explaining that I can still love my coworker without engaging in heated debates and hurtful emotional drama. I can work with them without being their friend. I want to tell the nagging voice that it is ok to just let that family member contact me rather than fret about making some sort of strange feeling and forced connection.

I'm not convinced of my own reasonings and excuse,though.  I am convinced that it feels right to let go.  Right, with a little sadness mixed in. And so, for now I will do just that.

Wash over me

Driving down a city road
The past washes over me
Suddenly I am 17 again
Friendships are being made without me
Slumber parties, inside jokes, bonding
And I am not a part.

Everyone witnessed
Everyone knew
Trusted adults, childhood pals
They let it happen without me

Why?
What was it about me
15 years later
Asking the same question
What is it about me
Driving down a city road
The feeling washes over me
And then it is gone
For now


Connected by DROID on Verizon Wireless

blog ambitions

Ideas run through my head all the time: the next coolest restaurant, the soon to be top selling novel, and the blog that'll be a breeze to write and everyone will love.

Sometimes my brain is more ambitious than I want it to be.

I can't open up a ramen place in Charlotte.  There's no way I have time to write that book about all sorts of different people's lives crossing one another's and centering the story of a young couple with a sick daughter in the hospital that ends with a mixture of grief and hope.  And how in the world would I write the anonymous blog of letters everyone wishes they would write: the letter to the teacher who's breath made you hate math; the letter to the childhood friend who doesn't return your attempts at keeping in touch; the letter to the person who donated your favorite t-shirt to the goodwill where you found it for $1.50.

Maybe one of these days....until then, I'll haphazardly update this blog and keep thinking good ideas.

Sometimes....

Sometimes I still pick up the phone and dial my grandmother's number.  The thing is, she's not there to answer on the other line.