We come into this world vessels of beauty, pre-packed with purpose and potential. We are full of hope, full of possibility. But eventually, the various shapes and colors inside of us begin to shake around like a jigsaw puzzle, rattling our brains, and we long to make sense of the chaos. So we begin to unpack the contents of our hearts.

A green triangle. A red square. A yellow diamond.

We spread them out on the kitchen table, and attempt to arrange a mosaic that makes sense – pairing pieces together, turning them this way and that, feeling frustration at the bits that just don’t seem to fit. We focus on individual colors, scrutinizing and criticizing them for being purple, for being orange – for being exactly what they were meant to be. We want the shapes to combine and form a flower, a mountain, a rainbow – but no matter how hard we try, we cannot arrange them into something lovely. Our attempts yield us with nothing but a dull and flat sprawl of plastic chips and pebbles. And so we hang our heads.

We are disappointed and disheartened. Our high hopes have crashed. We believe that we will never achieve anything worth noticing. We have tried, but cannot come up with a lovely or worthwhile picture.

So we scoop up the pieces, and pour them back into the can.

But sometimes, our resignation is the opportunity for someone else to get a hold of us. Someone who made all of the colors, and the vessel that holds them. Someone who knows that the value is not in the doing, but in the simplicity of being. Someone who understood that life would be ever-shifting, but, wonder of wonders, designed us for beauty even when turned upside down – tumbling masterpieces.

All I must do is hold my face to the light, and turn.

I wore a dress to work today, and that always makes for a good day.

No, I’m not going to go all “the hills are alive” twirling or anything, but there is definitely something about wearing a dress that makes me feel a little more put together, a little more credible, a little more capable.

However.

The dress cannot make up for the hair. I showered last night, and crashed into bed with a wet mop. Since I own a $12 flat iron from Bartell’s Drug Store, I have decided that I would rather not even use it than spend a long time trying, only to have it wig out (har har) like a sea anemone.

And so today, my coif is unruly – smashed on one side, wild on the other. I’m currently utilizing both a barrette AND a rubber band to wrangle it into submission – but now I just have a 1” ponytail, which is super attractive. The ponystub is so hot these days.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I ordered a Chi today. God as my witness, it was on major discount. But still. I’ve turned into THAT GIRL who drops a significant percentage of her paycheck on a hair tool.

Yikes.

I hope it’s worth it. Ladies, do you affirm my decision?

Actually, I would only like to hear from those of you who are going to say “yes.”

My love,

You know the old saying, “It’s not you, it’s me”?

Well, sorry. This time, it is definitely you.

We’ve been together for a long time. So long, in fact, that I can scarcely remember a time when we were apart. There was that one time during my freshman year of college when I needed some space, and space we took. But in your absence, I gained a ton of weight and my face ballooned up like a chipmunk. I missed you. I begged God that you would return to me.

And you did. Slowly but surely, you came back. Ever since that traumatic experience, I have clung tightly to you. You have been safe. You have been secure. You have made me look good.

At least, you used to.

Lately, I’ve been realizing what a hassle you are. You promise to be low-maintenance, but you actually take up too much time. You assure me that you’ll behave, but then you wig out and go nuts. Certain people have told me that you make me beautiful, so I’ve kept you around. But the truth is, I’ve wanted you gone for a long time.

I’ve waited. For many reasons, I’ve waited. I’ve waited until “after I’m skinnier,” I’ve waited until “after I get married,” I’ve waited until “after I’ve convinced Nashville that I am glamorous.” But when I woke up this morning, I could wait no more.

I’m sorry. I know that I will probably eventually shed tears, but not today. You’ve done nothing but take, and it’s time that you be cut off – literally. I’m leaving you for my new lover, Bob.

Cutting and running,
Annie

All day, the clock has ticked on. And all day, I have frantically thought, “What can I blog about?” Some days are just like that – nothing in particular that strikes my mind. Other days, I write 4 or 5 entries, and store them up for days like today.

But I’m out of those entries.

And so, as the clock is approaching midnight, and I want to have a blog posted before Monday is over, I reach back in the far recesses of my mind to bring you this gem. It has nothing to do with today. It has nothing to do with anything I have experienced recently. It is simply a story that I should share, if for no other reason than it is horrifying.

When I was a junior in high school, I went to prom with sweet Dylan Schoo. (That is not the horrifying part.) We stayed up all night with our friends, watching movies and talking and laughing, and the next morning, his mom made breakfast for all of us. Then, I went to church, and stayed up all Sunday long. When I finally crashed into bed on Sunday night, I was exhausted. So naturally, I overslept on Monday morning.

The alarm went off; I was late for school. I jumped out of bed, and frantically threw on clothes. I sat at my mirror, quickly applying makeup, making sure that my eyeliner was extra dark to hide my tired eyes. Though it didn’t make sense, as I was already running behind, I decided to take the extra second to use that pesky contraption called the “eyelash curler.”

I am not a frequent user of the eyelash curler. In fact, I think it’s quite silly. It’s the kind of apparatus that men will sit around a campfire debating its actual existence – as in, the men who live with women against the men who do not. A small metal clamp that women place against their eyelid, thus curling their eyelashes? Who knew?

But on that fateful morning, I clamped.

I clamped hard.

I clamped so hard that when my elbow slipped off of the desk, I ripped every last eyelash from my right eyelid.

If you are wincing as you are reading this, YES, IT HURT THAT BAD. The pain was intense, but it did not hold a candle to the alarm I felt when I opened my eyes and saw the eyelash curler still clenching every single one of my eyelashes. In my hand. Detached from my face.

There were tears. There was panic. There was absolute frenzied hysteria. In fact, I got in my truck and drove straight to the church where my mom was in a prayer meeting. I marched in and interrupted these ladies’ communion with the Lord because I’M SORRY BUT THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT.

I wore fake eyelashes for 3 months, until the real ones grew back.

The end.

There’s this woman named Sara Groves. She used to be a teacher in Minnesota, but now she tours as a singer/songwriter. She is one of my very favorite musicians; she has a conversational style of writing that cuts straight to the heart of the matter. Even when she introduces her songs before playing them, she proves herself to be eloquent and wise and absolutely real. Besides being, objectively speaking, one of the most stunning humans I’ve ever seen up close, her spirit is even more compelling. Sara Groves makes me want to be a more beautiful person.

There’s this girl named Julie. Julie and I have a mutual friend in Kansas City, and met up here in Nashville. She’s a nursing student at Belmont, and has gorgeous hair and a generous smile. She is high-spirited, vivacious, and truly interested in what I have to say. We have only known each other a short amount of time, but our interactions have been full of laughter and squealing and depth. I feel like I can be exactly myself around her. Julie makes me want to be a more beautiful person.

There’s this girl named Katie. Katie lives here in Nashville, and has Down syndrome. She attends high school and summer camp and Young Life Capernaum. She is exuberant and uninhibited, yelling out her emotions and dancing when she feels like it. She gives spontaneous hugs and loves people. She smiles and laughs and does not care who you are – she loves you anyway. Katie makes me want to be a more beautiful person.

To quote from a favorite Sara Groves song that I heard last night, sitting beside Julie and behind Katie, “And this is grace: an invitation to be beautiful.”

A friend of mine recently filled out one of those survey things on her blog. You know, all sorts of questions about life. One of the questions was, “When was the last time you felt beautiful?”

It hit me like a cannon ball in the chest: I cannot recall the last time I felt beautiful. I honestly cannot recollect when that might have been.

Please hear me when I say that I write this not for sympathy, or for compliments, or for any kind of validation. I write this because I have been struck anew with this awful truth, one that continues to crop up in my life: time and time again, I look to the world for confirmation, for acceptance, for value. And it is never, ever enough.

This is important. It is never enough.

In whatever situation in life – whether it be physical beauty, success, popularity, acceptance, intelligence, humor, power, possessions – whatever positive validation I seek, and whatever positive validation I receive, it always falls short.

Right now, Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved is speaking powerfully to me. He writes:

“Don’t you often hope: ‘May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.’ But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run.” (emphasis mine)

There’s a tiny (huge) part of me that has had the unspoken expectation that if I just followed my dreams, if I just moved to Nashville, if I just pursued the things that have been placed on my heart since an early age (beauty in all forms, music, creativity, knowledge, a good man, kids of my own), then I would be happy. And here I am, running after these things… and feeling so empty and discouraged and alone.

I have spent the past several weeks thinking, “I just need to get a job, then I’ll feel better. I just need to find a place to live, and then things will be great. I just need to spend some time convincing people that I’m great and they should be friends with me, and then I’ll be happy. I just need to get back on a workout routine to lose a few pounds, and then I’ll seriously be able to do anything in the world. I just need to feel pretty. I just need to find a desk. I just need to write a good song. I just need to make some money. I just need to figure it out.”

My very wise and compassionate friend Greta recently told me, “Annie, you seem to be looking for a quick fix to make you feel better – and maybe this time, God just isn’t going to let you have a quick fix.” What a scary thought: the possibility that nothing that I can do will make me feel better.

But maybe it’s the best, most liberating truth that there is. I don’t have to do anything. I can stop spiraling and running and toiling for acceptance. The God of the universe calls me “beloved.” Maybe that is enough.

It’s worth a shot. Because so far, nothing else has worked.

Dear Burt’s Bees,

I don’t know what to say. I am utterly flummoxed. After years of faithful service, you have let me down.

How could you? HOW COULD YOU? Did you want to cause me havoc and harm? Kick my 2008 off to a despicable start? Or, worse yet, did you think this was a good idea?

Today, I have been all over town – department stores, major shopping complexes, groceries, strip malls – and every place I have found the same deplorable truth: you no longer produce Burt’s Bees Lip Shimmer in “Coffee.”

Oh, you try to make it look like you are still a reputable organization. You have your flimsy little cardboard stands full of Lip Shimmer in various asinine shades: Champagne, Watermelon, Rhubarb, GUAVA. You even have the nerve to carry “Toffee,” causing my hopes to shoot through the roof. But the wishful “C” quickly morphs back into the actual “T,” sending my good faith plummeting back down to earth, where, apparently, dreams wither and die like fish in hot dirt.

But I’m a big girl. I do what I need to do. I bucked up right there in the middle of Whole Foods Market, and purchased your Lip Shimmer in “Papaya,” the closest thing I could find to the flawless “Coffee” shade. However, I’ll have you know that I also purchased “Blaze” by Alba, which, if I’m not mistaken, is your arch-rival when it comes to lip gloss. Take that.

May your 2008 bring you new brains and new management.

Kisses – blazing Alba kisses,
Annie

On my kitchen counter sits a Mason jar. In this jar you will currently find the bridal bouquet from a wedding that I recently attended; how I wound up with the bouquet is beyond me. If there is anything at a wedding that I hate more than the unity candle, it is the bouquet toss – at first mention of it, you will find me switching my ring to my left hand and walking toward the bar for another glass of wine, face aloof and firmly unsociable. Nevertheless, last weekend I found myself getting out of my car and walking toward my house at 2am with a gorgeous bunch of flowers in hand. The girl who actually caught the bouquet must have forgotten them in my freshly bumper-stickered vehicle.

Not that I’m complaining. The flowers are quite lovely, actually. Multi-colored roses that could only have been genetically engineered, they are complicated shades of pink, orange, and purple. And when is a girl going to refuse roses? The same day that Ann Coulter joins the Dixie Chicks, that’s when.

But seeing these roses in their contrived existence reminded me of a late-night talk show that I recently caught featuring supermodel Heidi Klum. She told Jay Leno that a botanist in her homeland of Germany had recently designed a rose specifically for her; never mind that she has yet to plant it in her California yard – those pesky border patrol laws keep the Heidi Klum Rose imprisoned in Deutschland.

Eventually curiosity got the best of me, and I looked up the Heidi Klum blossom. I mean, what does a flower patented exclusively for a supermodel look like? It would have to be glorious, magnificent, divine, right? I found that it was small, and purple, and kind of bushy. Apparently, its real selling point is the fragrance, an “overpowering scent” according to some. But really, the best quote regarding the Klum bloom came from the fashionista herself: “I hope all fans of gardening like the Heidi Klum Rose so that it will still bloom when my personal flowering time is over.”

Well, my pretties, when MY “personal flowering time” is over, there will not be an Annie Parsons Petunia to carry on my grand legacy of winsome appeal. My image may not be perfect. I might not inspire men to write sonnets or carve sculptures or paint masterpieces or compose ballads or engineer roses. No, there will never be a Hootenannie blossom to carry on my memory.

But by golly, will there ever be LEGENDS.

I have no way of explaining how it happens, but it does. That strange phenomenon of “timing.” I am not speaking of relationships… although I currently could… but no. Today, I am referring to, literally, the precision and accuracy of timing.

When walking toward a curb, one begins calculating and adjusting her steps at least 10 feet in advance, assuring a seamless arrival at the sidewalk, and allowing an easy, natural gait when confronted with the last step up onto the concrete. She might have to adjust her timing earlier – to skip and chassé in the middle of the crosswalk, perhaps – but in the end, her final step is confident and graceful. Whatever she has to do early on to make her final step successful, she will do.

I apply this principle in my own life, especially when it comes to showering.

I do not enjoy showering. In fact, I get depressed and overwhelmed when I consider the fact that it’s an activity that has to be a part of my life FOR-EV-ER. The endless cycle of wash, shave, scrub, dry, curl, lotion, makeup, spray… perhaps I’m a little high-maintenance, but I, for one, want to minimize the amount of times I have to repeat this sequence of events. And so, to ease my pain, I look at my calendar, and depending on the activities of the week, plot out when I will take my showers. I even pencil them into my red leather planner. Things to consider: workout schedule, whether or not I will have worn sunscreen, dates, weddings, meetings at work, the possibility and likelihood of a ponytail, etc.

Call me crazy – see if I care… or if I change my ways.

Depending on my week of events, sometimes I need to take two showers two days in a row – quick steps on the crosswalk, if you will. Other times, I will stretch it out as far as I can go – long, extended steps. Ultimately, it does not matter the manner of pace that I take – all that I am concerned about is the final step, the ending mark, which is usually a “look cute” event of some sort.

I am operating with 4th-day hair today – as in, I have not showered since Saturday night. Please don’t be grossed out – if you saw me today, there would be no denying the fact that my coif has reached a crescendo of glamour unknown to every-day-showerers. I cannot explain why – it just is. After the initial shower and styling, my hair looks better and better and better with each day that passes.

To a point.

Tonight, I will gather all of my strength and sheer force of will, and reluctantly heave myself under the shower-head. The motivation? My beautiful friend Christina’s arrival from Boston tomorrow. (Know her, read her, love her.)

There is an art to timing. And I am learning to perfect it, even when the in-between times are full of stumbles and grease.

In light of the spirit of my last post, I feel a little bit embarrassed even asking this question, but… is it too early to wear white pants?

I know, I know – who makes the rules? I shouldn’t care. I should ignore the culture, buck the trends, and do what I want, accepting myself exactly the way that I am. But this is more a question of appropriateness. Via today’s Google search, I have heard conflicting messages: white pants between Easter and Labor Day, or white pants between Memorial Day and Labor Day? We are currently in the no-man’s-land between Easter and Memorial Day; thus, I find myself in a dilemma this morning.

Because I DO own the most fantastic pair of white pants the good Lord (and Anthropologie) ever made – the kind of pants that made people stop and comment in the dressing room. I spent a pretty penny last spring, and need to get my money’s worth out of them every single year until I die. They are among the best things I own, along with my black boots and new dress and red coat: signature ANNIE items.

In the midst of my giving the culture the proverbial “bird,” I feel it necessary to clarify that I still think it’s okay to feel pretty every now and then. I can’t help it. I love beautiful clothes. I love to curl my hair. I love getting dressed up and wearing makeup and being put together. It’s fabulous to be a woman.

And Lord have mercy, my white pants are screaming my name today. I give in, fashion faux pas or not.