It’s amazing how quickly I, an alleged full-grown woman, can revert back to feeling like I did with other girls in elementary school: insecure, timid, and small.  Recently, a moment leapt out of nowhere and grabbed me by the throat, reducing me to those irrepressible tears that leave me shaky and sick to my stomach – because my feelings got hurt.

I am naturally a sensitive person, but I’m also fairly rational.  I don’t get my feelings hurt all that often – mainly because I am largely surrounded by pretty tremendous humans who rarely do or say mean-spirited things.

But when it does happen, it makes me feel so sad, and shocked, and ultimately, rejected.

How could I NOT cry?

But here is the difference between 9-year old Annie and today’s Annie: to forgive is to not let those feelings take root – even when they are justified.  To forgive is to deflect any feelings of insecurity catalyzed by those initial words.  To forgive is to let go of what is right, reasonable, and defensible – in favor of something entirely unsensible.

It’s hard work, forgiveness… but then again, isn’t it our very best option?  Isn’t it the easiest, most freeing thing we could possibly do – to simply let it go?

No one ever loses if no one is keeping score.

Here at the Emma shop, some serious gems get forwarded along; after all, email IS our native tongue.  As I am 1) a fan of the internet, and 2) feeling completely unoriginal 2) a giver, I thought I would pass along some of my favorites.

Brought to you by my co-workers:
1)    The world’s most amazing movie trailer.
2)    The Tone Matrix.  I could do this for hours.  Who am I kidding?  I DO do this for hours.
3)    If you get nightmares easily, do not look here.

I told you.

- – - – - – - -

My sister Becca put a spike through her face.  Just one more example of how different we are… and how she can make absolutely anything look cute.

- – - – - – - -

Debbie’s curry hummus ranks among the top 5 things I have ever tasted.

- – - – - – - -

Whitney is a girl I’ve never met, but her writing is absolutely lovely.  She left a comment on Monday’s post that I believe is worth highlighting:

“We do what we love because love stretches us even when it’s hard. Even when routine threatens our own boredom and we feel a lack of inspiration that threatens suffocation. We do what we love because love is the point, even and especially when we don’t feel it. Because loving and acting out of love when the feelings aren’t there reminds us that love isn’t a feeling, and we aren’t a chaos of emotion wrapped in a thin layer of skin. We continue to do what we love because, even if it’s music, even if it’s a relationship, even if it’s writing, even if it’s weaving, we remember that love isn’t about what we get out of it. Love teaches us, in desert, in valley, as well as mountaintop.”

You want to know what the lamest thing to spend money on is?  A vacuum cleaner.  I am currently researching the suckers, and it’s even less exciting than spending money on a beige bra.

Speaking of annoying purchases, I don’t think that dryer sheets make any difference.  They are a scam – a dishonest scheme to make you spend more money.

For a lot of years, I followed the instructions on the tube of toothpaste: “Squeeze 1 inch of toothpaste onto brush.”  One inch?  One INCH?  I was going through a tube of toothpaste every 3 weeks.

We are encouraged to get the oil changed in our cars every 3,000 miles.  I will typically wait until somewhere between 4-5,000.  My car is swiftly approaching the two-decade marker, but I never pay the extra money for the oil for my old (I prefer to call her “mature”) car.  And guess what: the Honda is holding together just fine.  Still.

I wonder how often we’re supposed to change our Brita water filters?  I’ve probably had the same one in my pitcher for a year.  I might as well just strain my water through some rocks or something.

I can’t help it.  I like to make my money go as far as it can.

However, there is one thing that I have recently decided is worth letting go of before I’ve squeezed every possible ounce of use out of it.  And that is…

The bar of soap.

When it reaches that flimsy, frail thinness, and you can’t use it without breaking it in half, then just let it go.  Because it’s gone.

Music is never going to pay my bills – and I have no expectation that it should.  So why is it important that I dedicate any time, energy, or effort to it?

Because I believe that we simply must do what we love.

But in the last 6 months, I’ve really stopped pursuing musical endeavors.  I am not writing.  I rarely go to shows.  I feel depleted, and uninspired, and checked out.  I work long days, and have my evenings booked up with various commitments and responsibilities.  So many other things have taken the place of writing.  Silence is a rarity, imagination seemingly an impossibility.

How do we keep the thing that we love a priority?  In the midst of work and relationships and laundry and grocery shopping and getting a zit INSIDE ONE’S NOSTRIL, how do we stay focused on what we were created to love?

I am grateful for my very full life.  But these days, all I want to do is drive away.

I don’t know where to go, though.

And so I stay.

I can blame my lack of creativity on this exhaustion and depletion, thinking that I just need to change something about my day-to-day reality.  It’s so easy to live a guilt-based existence, assuming that if only I did this or that differently, I could dig myself out of this hole.

But to think that “success” or “failure” – in any area of my life – is up to ME?  That is giving myself far too much credit.

I have to remember that the only true source of life and inspiration is in Christ.

I don’t know where else to go.

And so I stay.

I had a thought.  It’s not much, and I don’t even know why I’m feeling it acutely these days, but here it is.

It bothers me when people use their singleness as an excuse for continued adolescence.

I don’t want to use my singleness as an excuse for continued adolescence.

That’s all.

I have this friend named Juliette.

We met through the internet.

I’ve met some of my favorite friends through the internet.  Here is a sampling.

Whoa.  If it’s possible to meet such attractive women through the internet, could I meet attractive guys?  Why have I not signed up for eHarmony?

Anyway, this story is not about them.

It’s about her.

Juliette lives here in Nashville – well, Franklin, to be exact.

Franklin is where I did this.

(I know, it always has to be about me.)

BACK to her.

She’s wonderful.  In my year and a half in Nashville, we’ve only hung out a handful of times, but she’s one of those people that you kind of wish you could hate but you can’t help but love – because she’s all these fabulous things like beautiful and creative and hilarious and talented and kind and really smart.

She makes this look cool.

The week that I lost my job, she treated me to wine & cheese at Rumours.

IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW, that is the way to my heart.  That, and foot rubs.  And men with good scruff.  (Clarification: Juliette did not give me a foot rub, nor does she have scruff.)

But guess who does?

HER NEW FIANCE, TODD!!!!!!!

The girl is engaged.

And I am so, so excited for her.  She deserves the best guy ever.  And it sounds like Todd is.

I hope that through the various activities that surround weddings, I will be meeting Val and Dani and Joey soon.

(If you’re wondering what Joey looks like, well.  He no longer believes in Facebook.  Probably because internet strangers like me would go in and steal his pictures and post them on their blog.

But I have it on good authority that he looks exactly like this guy.)

I know Val, Dani, and Joey through the internet, too – although I’ve never met them.  They’re some of Juliette’s best friends.  I hope they will adopt me.

Sometimes, against all odds, people find each other.  WE find each other.  Congratulations, Julie-girl and Todd – and thanks to all of you internet people who have turned out to be awesome in real life, too.

One month from yesterday, I will be leaving here…

… and flying here.

One month from today, I will be on my way here…

… onboard this.

One month from tomorrow, I will be watching these…

… with wonderful family members, including them.

We will welcome her back from Haiti.

I will buy her one of these.

And upon re-porting in Seattle, I’ll be a bridesmaid for them.

Who might as well be them.

All of these things make me feel like this.

As I lay in my bed last night, sweltering and un-asleep, my thoughts bounced back and forth from the mundane to the life-and-death.

“I need a pedicure.”
“It’s so hot.”
“I hope those journalists are released.”
“What if there’s a nuclear war?”
“I can’t forget to buy toothpaste.”
“Cancer is so evil.”
“Who will take care of Wendolyn?”
“Ugh, I hate gnats.”

How can I have the capacity for such a spectrum of considerations?  To swing from orphans and illness to weight loss and shoes?  I mean, when I am made explicitly aware of issues like poverty and starvation and war and death, how can I spare a thought for something as diminutive as the trailer for “New Moon”?  When I think of American women being detained in North Korea, or little Haitians with no one to love them, or a dear friend who is battling a horrific lung cancer, how can I think about vacations and dating and music?

And yet, here I am.  Caught between the temporary and the eternal, the physical and the spiritual – spinning my wheels wondering if I am pursuing the “right” (often selfish) things when I know, deep down, that life is only meaningful if given away.  Carrie Underwood sure got it right: “When you figure out love is all that matters after all, it sure makes everything else seem so small.”

I guess that Jesus said something along those lines, too.

So simple.  So radical.

A notorious over-packer, I recently flew back from a 2-day trip to Seattle with a suitcase weighing in at 49.5 lbs. – one shoe away from the overweight charge.  And that’s not to mention anything of my second suitcase.

Travel this weekend, I was determined, would be different.

Flying to Kansas City on Friday night, I did something I have never done before – I ONLY CARRIED ON.  One small roller suitcase in the overhead bin – and no waiting at the baggage claim!  Brilliant!

But on the way back, things were a little different.

Remember how my mom is especially fond of sending me away with a suitcase of frozen food?  This time, it was a pork tenderloin – a large, cylindrical, vacuum-sealed piece of meat.  I am not entirely sure how to cook a pork tenderloin, but still: lucky me!

Until I got to security.

Wouldn’t you know, the guards saw something a little “suspicious” in the x-ray of my suitcase.

And there, in front of God and everyone, they unzipped my bag to find the culprit.

“Uh, Ron, we’re gonna need to run this through again.”

“What is it?”

“Looks like a piece of meat.”

I stood by, compliant and taciturn, as my precious hog was passed from hand to hand, back to the beginning of the machine.  Everyone in line behind me looked at me with a collective, “Seriously?”

Seriously.