Sometimes you just have to pass someone

I double checked my atlas, adjusted my GPS; ready. The two-lane, open road was in front of me -California bound! 12 hours of just the road and me, or so I thought. About an hour into my drive I came to a halt as an "oversized" truck hauling a house puttered down the road. The truck took up most of both lanes which made it very difficult to see around him. This made it even more difficult to pass the guy on highway in the middle of nowhere. I slowed down and told myself that it was much wiser to be 'safe than sorry'.

Safe than sorry turned into an hour of 50 miles an hour which wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that my foot really likes to do 80. By this point, I had a few cars lined up behind me and I felt the pressure to pass. If only I could see around the wide-load. It wasn't until a car 4 back decided to pass us all that I decided to muster up the guts to pass as well. I pushed the pedal to the floor and finally zoomed around. Awe! It felt good to pass the wide-load. The open road and I were one again.

It wasn't until a little later that it came to me: sometimes you just have to find the courage to pass people. I thought about how I could still be behind the wide-load, driving s.l.o.w, stressing over how fast I could be driving, and wishing I could see the beauty in front of me. I could have been stuck! Instead, by finding the courage to pass the truck, I got to my destination quicker and my entire perspective of the drive changed. I was free! I saw the beauty. I was on an adventure, not tainted by anyone.

On the rest of my drive, I wondered about how often we do this in life. We get stuck behind people that prevent us from getting to our destination, they taint our view and because of this, the perspective of our journey is much different than it could be...

All we need to do is find the courage to pass them.

The Whatever Trend

 

Recently, I’ve been hearing a lot of “I don’t care."

I've also been hearing a lot of “whatever."



To me, both of these phrases communicate the same thing: “Pshhh! I’m too strong to let anything get to me.”

As I’ve heard these phrases more and more, I’ve started to wonder: How often do we really mean “I don’t care” or “whatever” and how often do we say it even when we don’t mean it? Part of me had this hunch and I wanted to see if I was on to something so I started doing some research. I asked random friends, coworkers and students that same question:

How often do you think you really mean “I don’t care” and how often do you say it when, really deep down, you don’t mean it?



Submitted by one of my students hours before this post was published.

Now I’m an English teacher, not a math teacher, so my statistics are far from perfect; however, I will say this, every time a person thought about the times he/she said “I don’t care” or “whatever” in the last week, often it was a circumstance where he/she REALLY did care!

You see, this was my hunch: Almost every time we say “I don’t care” or “whatever” we really don’t mean it otherwise we wouldn’t go to the efforts of verbalizing it. In other words, when we care enough to say “I don’t care” it’s usually a good indicator that we really do care! Then there are other times when we think we don’t care until it comes down to acting on our “I don’t care”.

Example: A husband and wife are deciding what to eat for dinner.

Husband: “Where do you want to go for dinner?”

Wife: “I don’t care.”

 

Husband: “Buffalo Wild Wings it is!”

Wife: “Really?! I don’t feel like there!”

Husband: “But I thought you said you don’t care!”

OR
 

Example: A friend tells you something insulting; something that strikes a chord with you as a person. You try and tell yourself that you don’t care. You tell yourself that that “friend” really doesn’t know you… but when you are honest with yourself, you know the friend does know you and what he/she said really does hurt. Yes, you really do care.

We tell ourselves all the time to not care, just be tough. Sticks and stones can break our bones but words can never hurt us! -à The ultimate “whatever” speech. But what if we care more than we want to admit?... or we care but just don’t know it?

As I have noticed this “whatever” trend gain momentum, I’ve noticed that we don’t know what we care about and what we don’t care about. We don’t know what or who we love (other than ourselves) and we don’t have a passion for anything.

We just don’t care… or do we?

I think I’m going to try something different for the next week. I’m going to take “I don’t care” and “whatever” out of my vocabulary. Instead, I’m going to work on saying “I DO care”…

I would love to hear your thoughts on the “whatever” trend…  Do you think my hunch is right or off base? Do you recognize some of the “I don’t care” in yourself?

I would love to hear!

Just a big junior higher

I read this blog post by Donald Miller the other day. The entire point of the post is that we will become like the people we spend the most time with.

"In five years, you’ll become a conglomerate of the people you spend the most time with. In fact, if I wanted to know who you were going to be five years from now, I’d not ask what you do, what education you have, what you eat or whether you exercise, though all those things have an impact. Instead, I’d want to spend a little time with the folks you spend time with. That alone would tell me who you were going to become." -Donald Miller

When I finished reading this post, I sat there and thought about it for a minute; who do I spend the most amount of my time with? The first thought that popped into my head was junior high and high school kids... Oh man, I'm doomed. Now I know Donald wasn't necessarily talking about the people we work with. I think he is referring more to our close friends, but still. I spend the majority of my time with teenagers and cheerleaders. I must admit, I love my job, but the thought that I will become like the people I spend my time with kind of frightened me. I don't want to just be a big junior higher for the rest of my life!

I spent a few more days letting Donald's blog post percolate in my mind. No need to have a complete nervous break down, I scolded myself. Maybe there were some benefits to being a big junior higher. Within a few days, I began to see the light and now I wonder if we should all want to be big junior highers. Then there is part of me that wonders if we really are just big junior highers who try to pretend like we know what we are doing in this adult world.

So as I look at it, here are a few things we can learn from junior highers:

1) They aren't too cool to do fun, dorky things. They can joke about some of the dumbest things and they can even get excited about silly activities like writing verb raps. They put their hats on sideways, bust out their coolest dance moves and verb lyrics, and for just a few moments they let the little kid shine bright without any hesitations.

2) They cry. (They aren't hard yet.) Maybe it's just that I'm a really scary teacher, but I have had some really great, transparent conversations with junior high kids. In the midst of those conversations, they cry and they aren't afraid to let it flow. I mean, they aren't afraid to cry for ANY reason; they let their emotions flow (yes, you remember the days) and flow and flow. While I'm sure we are thankful to be over the hormonal craziness of junior high, I think there is some beauty in letting ourselves cry in front of others. It breaks down the walls and it invites pure friendship. It breaks our adult jaded-hardness. How beautiful it is to see tears.

3) They say it how it is. "Mrs. Sharpmack, what were you thinking?... Sharpmack, I think that is dumb. .... You are acting weird.... You are such a dork...Well, that was dumb!" I hear pure truth (not to say I don't hear a few lies too) and it is direct. You never have to guess what junior highers are thinking. Now I know, a little tact goes a long way and that is something I teach every day... but I wonder if adults spoke a little more pure truth and we didn't always play this "politically correct" thing, maybe we wouldn't feel like we were always on such a slippery slope. We wouldn't guess what our boss or coworker really thought of us.

4) Life hasn't become too complicated yet. They still view life in very basic concepts of right and wrong. They aren't jaded and they haven't allowed the gray to cloud their views of life, themselves, and each other. They may feel insecure in how they act or what they look like. They may be in this awkward time of "figuring themselves out", but at their core they still can sift life through a right and wrong, black and white strainer. They are still innocent, overall.

I guess at the end of the day, I can't deny it, I am thankful that I have grown up and moved on from the dreaded awkward junior high years. Yet, if part of me is stuck being a big junior higher because those are the people I spend the most time with, I think I'm ok with it. There are certainly some benefits of seeing life from a junior higher's perspective.

Oh but wait, I must ask, who will you be like in 5 years?

Let Go: of the Hollywood movie

 

I must admit that sometimes my life plays out like a movie in my head. I'm weird, but I think about this question: if I were to cast someone as me in a movie who would I want to play my best me? Do you ever think about that? Ok, so it might just be a weird thing I do. Even still, I imagine my Hollywood drama playing out perfectly -just like it always does on the big screen.

 

Imagine the typical movie: The characters are gorgeous and life seems perfect. Then something drastic happens which changes the entire tone of the movie and the characters have to face some sort of character transformation. Finally, just before the movie ends there is this dramatic revelation and a happy resolve hits the main character. You know, the "happy it all worked out" kind of Hollywood movie.

Well, I've been catching myself thinking that my life will play out just like that movie. Then I remember that my life is not a movie and a hopeless-romantic screenplay writer is not writing my story.

God is.
And he is much more creative than any screenplay writer and his best stories are always far from perfect.

There is no perfect formula; a +b = c and then everything will be perfect. Life is up and down. Some days are beautiful and other days just suck. God blesses with the beautiful, but one thing I often forget is that sometimes he allows for the ugly and messy to come in and shake us up. Far from the perfect resolve in a movie.

I'm reminded that in either season of life (beautiful or messy), I must trust that the author of my life is in complete control and the imperfect stories are always the most relatable and life changing.

My life may never look as beautiful and put together as a Hollywood movie, but I have to trust that the script written for my life is much more adventurous, life changing, and challenging than any Hollywood movie could ever be.

Sisterhood

I had the opportunity to guest write on my sister's blog. She asked me to write about sisterhood. Here's a section of my writing.

~ ~ ~

Mandy asked me to write a “guest post” for her blog on sisterhood and what it means to me. To be honest, when she first asked me to write this post, I wasn’t really sure what to say. I mean, yes sisterhood is a wonderful gift but what is there to write about?

So after months of procrastination, I finally forced myself to sit down and reflect. Here are my thoughts on what sisterhood means to me.

 

1. My sister’s friendship is constant.

No matter how much of the raw me my sister sees…

No matter the opinions we agree with or disagree with…

No matter the thousands of miles apart or the different seasons of life we are in…

No matter the hurt feelings, the unspoken competition, the awkward family dinners…

No matter what…

We are sisters. We are friends. We are constant.

2. We testify to the growth and change in each other from childhood to adulthood. 

My sister and I were very different growing up. She was rather boy(ish) –playing soccer, getting in the mud, running around with my brother. As she ran around in her cut off T-shirts, boy shorts, and way too short of a haircut, I wanted so badly to pierce her ears. I thought that would at least distinguish her as a girl. She was fearless and she didn’t care about what others thought of her. Me, on the other hand, I was bratty, spoiled, bossy, and a know-it-all. I was the older sister that always got her way and that had to be the best at everything. I cared way too much of what others thought of me. Needless to say, Mandy and I were as opposite as we could get and that clashed between us for years. We were not friends. We could barely carry out a normal conversation. It wasn’t until Mandy moved away to college that we met each other again. We began to get to know the new us. We set aside of what we knew about the old sister and we began a process of meeting the new sister. Today we both can look back at who we were 20 years ago and we can share the ways in which we’ve seen each other grow and change and become new people. It will be interesting in another 20 years to see how we have changed again, but just as sisters do, we will be there (God willing) to say, “Hey, remember when you used to be like that?! Gosh how you have changed.”

Please check out her blog to see the full piece.

 

 

Story Time with Grandpa

A few months ago I blogged about my trip up north where I learned so much about my father's side of the family. It was through that experience that I realized how much of me is made up of so many different people. It was reassuring in a way, like even in the midst of navigating through this world, some of it was prepared for me. As if, perhaps, I didn't have as much choice in who I am as I thought I did.

About a month ago I traveled north again, except this time it was to visit my mom's side of the family. Both of my mom's parents are still alive. They are in their late 80's and have story after story that testifies to the fact that they have truly lived!

One afternoon while we were visiting the ladies went to the store, but frankly I hate grocery shopping, so I stayed behind with grandpa. We sat out on the back patio and story time commenced. I asked him what he liked to think about when he sat out on the patio. He chuckled and said, "Mostly the good ole days; the days of being a cowboy and riding the land." He shared about his time of riding free in the wild west, about when he beat the world's best bull rider 3 years in a row, and about his time serving in the navy right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. His stories flowed off of his tongue, one after another as if it had just happened yesterday. The tears came too as if he was reliving each memory right in front of me and all I could do was sit and try to take it all in as quickly as he was reliving it.

It came to the end of our conversation and I asked him one last question, "Grandpa, do you regret anything?" Without hesitation but with tears flowing, he simply said, "Not a one thing. I've worked hard, loved deeply, and lived fully." Later that night as I thought about our conversation, I realized why he didn't regret anything. In all of his stories, good or bad, these few things were evident:

1) He was sure of who God made him to be.

2) He loved working hard.

3) He was not afraid to let others see him; to truly know him.

4) He loved knowing others.

5) He embraced love.

6) He wasn't afraid.

7) He truly LIVED!

 

I went out on the patio the next morning and sat in his chair and I imagined myself in my late 80's. As it is with anyone, I sat there hoping and praying, making it a goal in my heart that I would live these next 50 years like my grandpa. As I thought about it, 50 years doesn't sound like a lot anymore. It will come and go so quickly, just as my grandpa felt like his stories were from yesterday.  And the urgency began to swell within me.

 

It's time to live!

Never let go

Writing is a therapeutic process. When I sit down to write, part of me knows the direction in which the keyboard will be played, but it's always about half way through the writing that it takes on a mind of its own. Before I know it, the writing evolves and morphs into something I didn't know was deep inside me.

That is what I love about writing.
And that is what scares me the most about writing, especially when it's read by others.

I suppose that is why I haven't written for over a month (sorry to those few friends that are loyal readers). There are so many things that have been on my mind, all of which have been a jumbled mess. Perhaps I've been nervous to see how it all comes out and how my writing evolves into something I didn't expect.

So here goes the evolving writing:

I know that my last few posts talked about the theme of "letting go"... letting go of the material items, memories, relationships, lies, and all the things that weigh you down. While that has been a very influential theme of my life over the last few months and one that I will continue to explore and write about, there is one contrasting theme that has been loud in my life over the last few weeks.

Don't ever let go of what you know to be true

because it's your constant.

 

It is in the hardest of times when what you know to be true carries you through. It gives you strength when you feel weak. It gives you hope in the hopeless. It reminds you that there is more to life than you. It keeps you grounded and pushes you forward when all you want to do is stop. It is life when you feel like yours has stopped. It's the whisper that says, "I made you for more than this. Keep going. Keep living." It is your constant. Whatever you know to be true becomes that baseline to life when everything around you seems to shatter into a million pieces. We all need a baseline; something that grounds us and keeps us sane. It's that truth deep within us that reminds us of who we are and who we are meant to be- even in the hardest of times.

 

Never let go of that truth!

 

My truth has been with me since I was a little girl sitting in the back pew of church. There have been times where I have doubted, where I have wanted to let it go but it wasn't so simple. It was my rock. For more than 20 years this truth has walked with me. It has been my constant when I was a stubborn little girl, an emotional teenager making dumb decisions, a young woman walking into adulthood, and it will continue to stay with me and be my rock. So what is my truth? What is the truth that reminds me of who I am; my baseline for life no matter how good or bad life gets?

 

It is as simple as this:

I am loved deeper than I could ever understand by a God that is bigger than the universe.

My crappy, carnal sins are paid for -Not by my own effort.

Grace and mercy is ever flowing and I'm given a brand new chance each new day.

 

Today I am most thankful for that ever constant truth in my life.

It's my constant and I'm never letting it go.