The Chronicles Of My Embarrassment

I do not have an awkward meter, per se. While most people (I'm told) can feel awkward or embarrassed on a regular basis, I can pretty much count on one hand how many times I've actually felt that way. People are always talking about things being “like so awkward” or “super embarrassing” and I have a hard time relating to that. Even when they tell me the story of why they felt that way, I cannot see any reason to feel that way. I love this about myself.

 

I'm not sure why I don't have this meter. Don't get me wrong, I've definitely felt embarrassed before, however it's only ever been by my own doing. I don't really get embarrassed because someone made me embarrassed, only when I do it to myself. And even then it is very rare. I could recount my tales of embarrassment to you, and I almost want to say the average human would not be able to physically handle the level of which I embarrass myself. Not that I think I'm high and mighty in any way, it's just the truth of the matter. The faces of my friends and coworkers when I tell them how I've embarrassed myself tell me that they themselves could not have moved on from such a situation.

 

This is a funny thing for me to write about because to me it seems like a non-issue. It's not something I deal with, or ever have dealt with really. But it fascinates people. How can someone not hardly ever feel embarrassed, they wonder. I do not have the answer to that. But for your entertainment, I will share a few stories. Some of them have already been shared on this blog, but it's been a long time now, so I feel fine to share them again.

 

I present to you, The Chronicles Of My Embarrassment:

 

-Episode One-

 

When I was 12 my family went to Wisconsin Dells. I had this bright yellow bathing suit that was too big for me so my mom folded the straps over and sewed them down and every year she'd let it out a little bit. Everyone was laying on these lounge chairs resting after walking around the park all day. I went and stood under this large mushroom shaped thing that had water pouring around the edges of it. I was just standing there, letting the water run over me, when suddenly my Aunt Donna looked over towards me and started laughing hysterically and pointing. I turned to see what was so funny, but I couldn't see anything. My dad sat up to see what she was laughing at, except instead of laughing he had this look of horror on his face and came running towards me. I didn't understand why until he reached down and pulled my too big bathing suit up from my ankles and helped me get it back on. Curse that mushroom rushing water thing.

-Episode Two-

A few years ago I came home from work and was in a big rush to get to my friend Adam's house for a taco dinner. It is important for you to know that I was wearing a black cotton skirt. I came home, took a quick shower, picked my black cotton skirt back up off the floor and put it on, finished getting ready and ran out the door. I had to stop at the store for tortilla chips, and I noticed a lot of people looking at me. I thought I must be looking dang good and felt really confident and flattered. I finally got to Adam's and we were sitting around talking waiting for everyone else to show up. I got up to get a cup of water and as I got to the kitchen I heard him yell, "why do you have a big white sticker on your butt?" I replied, "What? No I don't!" I spun my skirt around to look at the back of it, and much to my horror I realized that it wasn't a bit white sticker, but a pantyliner! I ran into the bathroom and peeled it off my skirt and threw it away. As I was about to go back out to the kitchen, it dawned on me that that was the reason everyone in the store was staring at me! I was THAT girl that everyone wanted to say something to but didn't know how! I felt my face go red. I went back in to the living room and sat back on the couch, staring straight ahead. Adam said, "I thought you were getting some water?" I said, "oh yeah" and got back up. I suddenly just started laughing hysterically, I couldn't help it! He just looked at me like I was crazy. I managed go squeak out, "Adam, that wasn't a sticker on my skirt, it was a feminine product, and I went to the grocery store like that!" We were dying of laughter. I still to this day have no idea how that got on my skirt.

-Episode Three-

Before this story begins you need to know that I have two brothers, one named Luke and one named John. You also need to know that for John's entire life Luke and I have called him 'huge'. I'm not sure why exactly, but I think it's something to do with the size of his head as a child. Moving on...

This past New Year's Day I went to my cousins house for a big family dinner. Afterward when everyone but me had left, I asked her and her husband if they knew any guys they could potentially set me up with. They said they did and invited me round the next day to watch the game (ie, the Packer game, is there any other??). The next day I went round and the moment I walked in the door I knew that this was not the man for me. But you can never meet too many people or have too many friends so I stuck around. We laughed, we talked, we watched the game. Normal stuff. Except for my family who apparently lack any and all sense of appropriateness in a “setting someone up” situation. When I first got there, after I met John, I took off my coat and said I needed to use the bathroom (which I did). After I came back from the bathroom, my entire family had moved around in order that I had to sit next to John on the loveseat. At one point John asked if my cousin could make coffee to which my aunt replied, “Coffee?! Sarah loves coffee!”. I shot her a menacing glance and said, “Yeah, who doesn't?”. So this went on throughout the entire game (which we won, by the way). Also, this guy John was actually pretty funny. He had recently lost 100lbs, which is awesome! He and my aunt talked about this and how he did it for almost the entire length of the game. After we won, I started to put on my coat and my cousin said, “You can't leave, we're going to play Apples to Apples!”. So I stayed. Heck, I love that game! We had played a few rounds when the word 'huge' came up. Everyone threw their cards in and as we were waiting for my aunt to figure out which card best fit with 'huge', I suddenly started laughing. And out of my mouth came the words, “Oh man! Too bad I didn't have a card that said John!”. I laughed ridiculously loud. I realized no one else was laughing and slowly looked up from my cards as to why. Everyone, and I mean all of my crazy family, were staring at me with looks of horror, humor and distress upon their faces. Out of the corner of my eye I see the guy (who had just talked for over 3 hours about losing 100lbs) turn his head towards me. It was at that moment that I remembered his name was John. As his head is turning he says, “Oooookay...”. I cannot contain myself. I am laughing as hard as I can ever remember laughing. I am crying. I am mortified. My entire family also busts out laughing hysterically. My aunts are crying, my cousins husband is on the floor. This is awful! This guy John thinks we're all laughing at him!!! No one can get out why we're laughing. I'm dying a slow death when finally my one aunt spits out that I didn't mean him, I meant my brother John. To which he replies, “Why would you call someone that?”. I now have tears and snot and sweat pouring down my face I am laughing so hard. Everyone else does too. My aunt sputters something about a big baby while we all fight for our breath in fits of laughter.

Yeah. THAT was embarrassing.

Death & All His Friends

Ask me what I did this past weekend and I'd have to really think about it to come up with the answer. Loosely translated, I did nothing of much significance. It was just another weekend in my life, neither memorable nor noteworthy.

One town over it was playing out completely differently for my coworker J. What started out, no doubt, as an ordinary weekend, turned into one of the most horrific of her life. Her husband went out late Saturday evening to go snowmobiling. Something normal, something he went out to do regularly. But due to the repeated thawing and freezing, his usual route was covered in ice. But still, it was not too bad to turn back home. But once further up the trail, as he neared the railroad tracks, he lost control of the snowmobile. I'm not sure entirely of all the details; what I do know is that he slammed into the iron railroad guard rail, flew off his snowmobile, and died of massive head trauma.

I knew nothing of this until Monday when I came to work. The whole office was somber. J doesn't work in my branch, but I have served on several committees with her through my years working there. J is now a widow at the age of 36. Her children, ages 14 and 9, are fatherless.

Grief was back in my life.

Grief, for me, is one of those things that's never too far off. He's always lingering somewhere in the back of my mind. He never seems to leave me be for too long. And it doesn't seem to matter how removed a situation actually is from me; He will just sock me right in the gut at the mere mention of a tragedy. I didn't know J's husband. It in no way tangibly affects my life that her husband is gone. I can't even remember the last time I saw J. Yet my mind has been in overdrive praying for and thinking of her, my heart has been breaking and crying out to God for her and her children.

The interesting thing to me about death, loss, grief, is that just when you think the elevator of 'how low you could possibly go' hits the bottom floor, it lurches down another floor deeper. And yet, there is something of the human spirit that cannot be held down there for too long. It is my experience that your spirit will start pulling you up and out much sooner than you may feel prepared. As does time. I have felt cheated by time, pulling on me to move on much sooner than I would have liked too. And yet, even in the depths of loss, life can be found.

A natural example of this is my lavender plant. I bought a lavender plant this past summer and it thrived. Then one day I woke up and it had inexplicably died overnight. Instead of throwing the whole thing away, I simply cut the entire thing down to a stub. I left it in the sun and continued to water it regularly. A few months later it made a comeback. At first it was just one measly little stalk that started to grow up. I felt sad that it wasn't the glorious plant it used to be, but soldiered on taking care of it. Right when that stalk really started looking good, it too died. Frustrated, I gave up on it. It sat on my shelf for a few weeks, still giving off the heady aroma of lavender. Then, suddenly, out of that dead stalk I noticed new growth shooting right out the middle of it. And now, a few more months later, there's even more growth.

Life and death are like this. Right when things seem the most hopeless, the most drear, life will come forth. Life will always come forth.

And that is the beauty of it all.

Reasons I Love Winter

Many people have recently asked me why I love winter so much.  The short answer is "there are many reasons", and nobody likes that answer.  So here's the long answer...

I grew up here, in the southeast corner of Wisconsin.  While we don't get the worst (the best?) of winter, we definitely get winter.  I was born in the Blizzard of '79, as it's known around these parts.  My entire family was stuck sleeping and living in the waiting room of the hosiptal for three days because they couldn't leave.  Doctors and nurses were being brought in to the hospital on snowmobiles because cars were out of the question.  I'm told (yearly) that it was so bad that once the roads were able to be plowed, when you were at an intersection you couldn't actually see any of the cars coming from the opposite direction due to the walls of snow.  People put long poles on their radio antennas and flew hunter orange flags at the top to let other people know there was a car on the other side of that wall of snow.

This is the reason my mother gives for why I like winter so much.

While it's true that I grew up loving winters in Wisconsin, I also loved (and still do love) the summers, springs and autumns.  I generally love all of the seasons, for wildly different reasons.  And maybe that's my secret, loving it all.  Yet for some reason, people are shocked when you say you love the wintertime.

Usually what happens (at work anyway) is a conversation like this:

Me - "Hello"

Unsuspecting Person - "Hi"

Me - "How are you doing today?"

UP - "Cold, sore from shoveling and some idiot almost killed me because he was driving too fast on my way here."

Me - (laughing) "I'm sorry to hear that."

UP - "Yeah well that about sums up winter doesn't it?  It just sucks here in the winter."

(at this point my coworkers wince because they know what's coming)

Me - "Oh I'm not who you should be complaining to about winter.  I love it!"

UP - "What??  What's to love about this godforsaken season??"

Me - "Oh I love everything about it!  The snow, the bundling up, the adventure of it, you know?"

At this point they usually just go on and on about how horrible it is or how I must not have to shovel (which I don't, but I have had to in the past and it never made my love of winter waver).

What I can never get across is that winter is full of quiet romance, and I love that.

Snuggling up on a cold night in a warm house, drinking tea by the steaming cupfuls, the rhythmic chopping of winter vegetables to make soups and stews, making hot cocoa for the kids while they're out playing in the freshly fallen snow (okay I don't have kids, but I do live with 3 of them), cozy sweaters, steamed up windows, frosted windows, flickering candles, dark inviting evenings, the idea of everyone snuggling up in their warm house on the coldest nights, the picture of rows of houses whose windows blaze with warmth while the sky outside is turning to a deep dark blue.  The trees naked and coated in ice, the deep settling in feeling, blankets, hot oatmeal breakfasts, the dazzling colors of a winter sunrise, and a big yellow moon rising over the frozen cold white land.  The fat fluffy snow, the beauty of the sun after days of clouds, feeling the suns warmth in your home while sitting near the window, the adventure of driving up to the store a mile away for something much needed in the middle of a massive snowstorm.  The starkness, the nakedness and vulnerablity of nature.  Everything is undercover and waiting.  The anticipation and expectation of spring is overwhelming at times.  The longing, the hope of what's to come.  I love it all.

I especially love afternoons like this one.  Quiet, reflectivly writing thoughts while nature creaks and moans outside my window as I sip tea.

So maybe that answers it, maybe it doesn't.  Maybe it's a silly reason like I'd way rather be cold than hot.  You can always add more clothes, drink hot drinks, take hot baths, but when you're hot there's only so much you can take off.  Or maybe it's just something in me that causes me to love all of life, even the winters.

A huge part of me thinks that life is what you make of it.  And I'd much rather love everything about life and find joy in it all instead of wasting my energy hating something that I know will always come every year until I decide to take myself out of it.  Optimisim--it has it's perks!

Ruminations - 1/13/11

Today I am thirty two years old. So far I feel no different. That's the funny thing about birthdays. I've always thought all my life that I'd feel different at certain ages, somehow forgetting that any other day it would simply be 'tomorrow'. I've never actually felt different though. Yet I continue to think I will every year. I still don't feel like an adult, let alone a 32 year old woman. The part that fascinates (and slightly scares me) is that when I talk to my Grama (she's going to be 76 this year), she says that never changes, that she feels the same she did when she was my age, but she looks different, everyone's grown up and moved on and she's just sitting in that big house all alone feeling like she's never aged. Age and time boggle the mind.

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I made a list of things I'd like to do in 2010. I didn't do hardly any of them. I don't know if that's due to lofty thinking when I made the list or if it's because of laziness/lack of focus. Hmm. I think instead of making a new list for 2011, I'll just keep working off the 2010 list. I'll just re-title it :)

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I'm re-reading Bridget Jones' Diary again. I love that book. I can see so much of myself in Bridget. That sort of scares me, but mostly makes me laugh.

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Usually around the New Year and my Birthday (yes I did just capitalize that) I can feel super introspective. This year that didn't happen too too much, just a little. Maybe that's the change in getting older? Or maybe I just missed the Writing Opportunity Boat by thinking instead of writing? If we're being honest, that is generally the case for me. Too much thinking, not enough writing. I think I should quit thinking and just write. It doesn't matter so much that it comes out messy, just that it comes out. I need to stop being afraid of writing something dumb. Even if I do write something dumb, it's still more than most people write. Haha, yes, this is the new plan for 2011! Fear be gone!

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And ideally, ideally, I would like to attempt to update the ole blog at least once a week. That doesn't seem too daunting. Although if we're keeping track I'm technically behind. Unless we start from today, my birthday, instead of the first of the year. Yes, that is what we shall do!

Embracing Loneliness

In the quiet, in the stillness

I know that You are God

In the secret of Your presence

I know there I am restored

When You call I won't refuse

Each new day again I'll choose

There is no one else for me

None but Jesus

Crucified to set me free

Now I live to bring Him praise

In the chaos, in confusion

I know You're Sovereign still

In the moment of my weakness

You give me grace to do Your will

When You call I won't delay

This my song through all my days

All my delight is in You Lord

All of my hope, all of my strength

All my delight is in You Lord forevermore

I am a human being.  I get lonely.  For whatever reason, I don't think it's okay for me as a Christian to be lonely.  I realize this is a ridiculous thing to think, but somewhere along the line it's become ingrained in my mind.  That makes me feeling lonely a miserable thing.  Not only do I feel lonely, but I also feel condemned in it.  I want to change this about myself.

I was recently hanging out with my new good friend Becca Christian.  We were talking about this very thing.  She said something that was eye opening for me.  I'm sure that in all my conversations with people about this subject that they've all said similar things, but for whatever reason that day the way she said it resonated deep in my heart.

She challenged me to embrace feeling lonely.  Not to run away from it (which is what I do), but to be totally honest with God and just say 'God, I love you, and I know you love me, and this is where I'm at.  Please meet me in it.'.  Now, I understand that this isn't the most mind blowing revelation.  In the simplicity of this truth of how we as Christians should deal with everything, I found myself comforted.  I don't know why I had never thought of doing this before, but I am doing it now.  Sure, I still feel lonely, but I'm not alone in that feeling if that makes any sense.

So whenever Loneliness sneaks up on me, I now give it a big ole hug and ask it how it's been instead of running away screaming.  If anything, I'm becoming more polite!

Untitled

I am very aware of my lack of blogging as of late.  But please be encouraged it's only because I've been writing so much!!!  Stay tuned for more to come...

Oh--and I've lost 17.2lbs & 29 inches so far on the diet.

September 11, 2001

     On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I had an 8 o'clock class at UW-Parkside. I was running late as I got into my car to go, frustrated that I slammed my wrap skirt in the car door. I remember wondering if I had time to stop for coffee. As I started the car, my frustration grew as my local rock station wasn't playing rock music at all, but some sort of staticky, strange broadcast. As I drove through town I flipped through the radio trying to find music. Finally as I realized they were all playing the same broadcast, I decided to listen. I drove, shocked at what they were saying. Two planes had hit the World Trade Center towers. The man on the radio sounded bewildered, shocked and confused as he was speaking. It reflected perfectly how I felt. I remember driving with my mouth hanging open, looking at people next to me at stoplights, the recognition in their eyes too. We were all moving through town as one. A city hundreds of miles away that I have never been too was suddenly so dear and precious to me. I was praying fervently as I listened.


     At school chaos and rumors and fears roamed the halls with the students. As I was walking in I ran into my friend Tom who told me he had heard there were 11 other planes hijacked and headed towards major cities throughout the country (this obviously turned out to be false, but it was a rampant rumor on campus). Fear gripped my heart. Students were all over campus running to their rooms or the computer labs, trying to get ahold of loved ones. It was as if the whole of the nation was suddenly a suburb of New York City. We all wanted to make sure our loved ones were safe.

     I stumbled, now 30 minutes late, into my English War Lit class. It was odd, they were going on as if nothing had happened. As I took a seat my professor eyed me. I raised my hand. He was clearly annoyed that I was interupting his discussion of Catch-22. When he called on me I asked if they knew planes where crashing into the Twin Towers. He said they did, that it was old news, did I think I was the only person who knew about it. This disturbed me so much. How could he not care, how could these people sit here and be in class when this was happening. I left class. I went to the computer lab and emailed my dad. He works in Chicago and I was concerned for him because there was also a rumor that all major cities were being evacuated. He emailed me back immediately that he was okay, they were all huddled around a small portable TV someone happened to have in their car. They weren't working, they were keeping each other company, people in his office clinging to one another. I called my friend Kristen who was a flight attendent. She didn't answer and that bothered me. Her voicemail box was full, so I couldn't leave a message. Everyone was probably worried about her.

     Back at home, the family I was living with was huddled around the TV. I joined them. We sat and watched all day as Peter Jennings kept going, reporting what was coming in as fast as possible. We were stunned. Tears fell down all our faces that day. We sat and watched all day and late into the night. I don't think I slept at all that night. At about 4am I quit trying and went back down to watch the news again. They were all there too. Nobody could sleep. Peter Jennings included, he broadcast live for two days straight through.

     They say nothing bonds you more to someone than going through a tragedy together. I had never felt so bonded to my country before. I had never felt so connected to people, those that were known to me and those that were unknown. As the stories of heroism and small victories came out, I felt their triumph. As families on TV wandered through Ground Zero, I felt their grief and shock. As the Towers fell and that video of that tsunami of wreckage racing down the street aired, I felt the panic and fear of those people running for cover.

     And now, nine years later, I can still feel it all.

     I was watching The History Channel last night. There was a program on about 9/11 Conspiracies. I felt so outraged, so betrayed almost by these American people who think that this could have possibly have been brought on by our government. I thought that this must be such a small group of people who think this way, those who call themselves "Truthers", but then driving to work this morning I saw signs up and down one of the main roads I drive for a "Truth Conference". I don't know much about the government, but as a Christian, I do know that God has placed these men and women as our leaders, regardless of who you voted for. I pray for these people, and I honestly believe that the majority have our best interests at heart. It is shocking to me that these extremists can be so full of pride that they can't acknowledge a defeat. That they can't acknowledge the lives that were taken or the lives that were forever changed by these events. How can we as a country move forward if we can't even realize the event was real?

     One thing I absolutely loved in the aftermath of 9/11 was the community. How we all came together. How it didn't matter who was next to you, we all held held hands and joined together. It was beautiful.

     I'm currently reading a book by Sarah Cunningham. I think she sums it up perfectly in this passage--

The immediate and generous response of our small city, which—on a normal day—is six hundred and fifty miles from Ground Zero, made it seem like New York was our next door neighbor. Thus, by the time all the follow-up emails and phone calls had been exchanged and we announced our clearance to help man the Salvation Army’s relief stations in New York, Jackson was falling all over itself to support our new endeavor.


Before this point, recruiting volunteers or donations for service projects sometimes felt more like asking people to give up vital organs while they were still living and in need of them. After the towers fell, however, asking for help became akin to asking people for a simple cup of water. Residents arrived weighed down by armfuls of donations, as if the items they were bringing poured out of their faucets for free.


~Excerpt from Part IV of Picking Dandelions: A Search for Eden Among Life’s Weeds

     If there's one thing I learned from 9/11, it's that we are all so much alike in our humanity. We all need to believe in the good of each other, we all feel the same things, we all long for Someone bigger than ourselves to intervene.

     When I think about the things going on now regarding 9/11, the conspiracies, the pastor in Florida with his Koran burning, the taxi driver in New York who was stabbed when asked if he was Muslim by a man with a multi-faith peace group background and the mosque that wants to be built near the site of Ground Zero, I can't help but think that we are all the same. We are all fearful on some level, we are all wanting justice, we are all trying to make sense out of such an extreme act of terror. I am not trying to justify any of these things, but I am trying to understand where they are coming from.

     Maybe if we all learned to love each other, these things wouldn't happen. Love is so strong. As a Christian, I am called to love my neighbor as myself. 9/11 is a good reminder for me. How am I doing in my love? Who have I loved lately that might be deemed unlovable by others? Have I been building walls or tearing them down?

     Spirit come, rain down on me. You're everything that I need.