Self Identification

Listen. There are some things I need to do. I need to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things before my mother-in-law flies into town today. I need to come face to face with my Bible study today. I need to wash my dishes and I need to finish writing the book that I need to start writing. But, instead, I'm sitting here thinking about how to explain to my personal online diary that anyone can read that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about how to reinvent myself these days. How to be the person that I feel like I am inside instead of the person I project.

The truth is, I'm not sure how I got here.

Here is the place where I'm responsible and I take care of business and I'm serious and prudent and cautious. That's me. On one hand, anyway. I care about what people think and I want to make them happy and please them and have everyone like me. Do you know what this has looked like over the years?

It's looked like my freshman year college roommate finally losing her ever loving mind and calling a meeting with our R.A. in which everything I'd ever done to annoy her was spilled out while I sat uncomfortably on my bed. I refused to engage--despite having a laundry list of things I could have said--because WHO DOES THAT? Who sits around telling someone what they hate as though some earthly good would come of it? Newsflash though, it's really rude to blow dry your hair two feet away from your sleeping roommate.

It's looked like sitting at a table with someone while they tell me all the ways I'm a terrible pastor's wife and I just nod and say that I'm sorry and I'll try to be better. Because I understand that whether or not I agree, that's the reality for the other person. Even if I don't think it's a fair assessment.

It's looked like being the bigger person a lot.

It's looked like getting cast as the stage manager because I could be trusted to handle it when I really wanted to audition even though I knew I probably wouldn't get a part. And now, as I gain a small fraction of confidence in my voice, I wonder why I didn't just say, "I want to try. I can sort of sing, actually."

It's biting my tongue. And I certainly know that the Lord calls me to certain standards. It's just that He doesn't call me to be a doormat. That's it in a nutshell. I've spent a lot of my life (outside of my home) being a doormat and not speaking my mind.

The truth is, I'm all the things I said I was. But I'm also adventurous and outgoing and energetic and a total spaz. I can be funny and fun and exciting when I'm not busy being reserved. It just takes a long time for me to let other people see this second side of me. So I've been sitting around trying to figure out a way to blend all that I am into one big personality that I'm happy with and not two separate ones that cannot coexist. And I've been trying to figure out a way to just say, "You know what? If you don't like me for who I actually am, I'm okay with that."

But can a pastor's wife BE okay with saying, "Like me or don't. Either way I still belong to Jesus."

And, when did I start identifying myself, first and foremost, as a pastor's wife?

Competitive

If you know me in person, and not just through a screen, you know that I am super competitive. I do not like to do anything if I don't think I can do it well. I love all manner of competition. And I am constantly setting short term goals for myself. IF I clean the bathroom, THEN I can eat five of the candy corns my mom sent in the mail because she loves me. For example.

This also extends to utterly ridiculous things like, let's see if I can correctly guess the number of gallons of gas I will need to fill my tank today. And, yes, there is let down if/when I cannot.

The most recent, ridiculous competition I set is between me and my heater. God bless Mother Nature this year because it is October 30 and we have not had any snow. This is the way fall should be. Still, in true fall tradition, the temperatures have been getting chilly. On the heels of being warm all summer, what will feel tremendously warm in the spring feels downright freezing in October. Several weeks ago, I decided to compete with my heater. NO HEAT TIL NOVEMBER is what we're calling this particular challenge.

Lest you think that the inanimate heater could not have possibly won, I assure you it could have. If it had snowed, say. If the fish bowl had frozen over. If the hot blooded husband had asked. But, it does look as though I'm going to pull out the win.

But not without sacrifice. The past two mornings have been brutal. It's so warm and cozy IN my bed and so not warm OUT of my bed. I almost folded. But, alas, competition runs deep in these veins and I refuse to let the heater win. At least, not without a fight.

The Daily Mufasa*

I am so coveting the long, wavy, fresh from the beach, hair look. There's just one problem. I don't have wavy hair and I don't frequently frequent the beach. Okay. So that's two problems. Two really big problems. The first is a problem because I have to figure out a way to make my hair wavy in order to satisfy these deep feelings of hair lust. The second is a problem because BEACH! I MISS YOU.

Everywhere I go I find someone who has mastered this gorgeous wavy hair look. That someone is not me. There is not a single lick of body in my hair. No volume. No nothing. This is fantastic when I want my hair to be straight. It's also great because I can take a shower two seconds before I go bed and all is not lost. I wake up in the morning and my hair is the very same way I left it. Except, no longer wet. It is, however, not great when I want waves.

So I started watching tutorials on the Internet.

I've yet to master any of them.

The other night I saw a video featuring a Victoria's Secret model (wearing actual clothing and not lingerie at that precise moment) giving a tutorial on a no-heat-but-still-arrive-at-your-wavy-hair-destination technique. It involved putting a twisty bun on the top of one's head and going to bed. In the morning, ta-da, my hair would look like I was ready for a photo shoot with Victoria's Secret except that I would not actually be ready because TOO SHORT! TOO NOT QUITE PERFECT LOOKING ENOUGH! TOO HANES-HER-WAY AND T-SHIRTS! Meh. No matter. I wouldn't know exactly how to pull off Victoria's Secret model by weekday, pastor's wife by Sunday anyway.

The model in the video showed me how to do it and there was proof, right there on YouTube, that it worked. Her hair fell into perfect waves.

So I tried it. On a Saturday night. Which was dumb. Because do you know what day comes after Saturday? I do because I spend a lot of my working days with kindergartners and first graders and there are songs, y'all. Oh are there ever songs. "THERE'S SUNDAY AND THERE'S MONDAY! THERE'S TUESDAY AND THERE'S WEDNESDAY! THERE'S THURSDAY AND THERE'S FRIDAY! AND THEN THERE'S SATURDAY! DAYS OF THE WEEK! DAYS OF THE WEEK!" So I woke up on Sunday and oh my goodness I looked like the walking, human form of Mufasa. It took a lot of work to get it looking acceptable.

Once I deemed it worthy of walking out of the house without a paper bag on my head, several people told me they liked it. (But, mind you, this was after A LOT of fixing up.) I told the story about how I'd awoken my inner lion and certain people started playing "The Circle of Life" when I walked by. On Facebook I explained that I looked like Mufasa and people wanted to see the proof. I had none because I'd already fixed it.

So, like a true friend, I did it AGAIN last night so that I could wake up, take a picture, and then spend the rest of the day sporting the enormous puffy, king of Pride Rock, look. I was not amused because my hair was sort of lumpy, sort of fuzzy, and NOT AT ALL BEACHY AND SMOOTHLY WAVY which is what I was going for.

                                                        

I don't want all that volume. I want chic and subtle and not HEY THERE, LET ME KAPOW YOU WITH MY CRAZY PUFF BALL. So I posted it to Facebook and do you know what happened? A ton of people started saying, "WHOA! Gorgeous!" "Check out all those waves!" "That looks great!" And sometimes you are posting a picture in the hopes that people will be like, "So great!" and validate what you might already suspect and then sometimes you are legitimately not thrilled with the misleading lingerie model. This was most definitely the latter.

People did NOT think I looked like Mufasa. But, do you know what? I simply could not look more like him. Except that, here, he is seen smiling whereas I am not.

It is THE VERY SAME HAIR, PEOPLE!

I'm not giving up on the subtle, sleek, sun-kissed, beachy waves. But my stick straight hair is going to have to find a different way of achieving them. Also, the bun was getting in the way of my beauty sleep. We cats need a lot of it and the bun kept hitting my headboard and waking me up.

*I have to thank one, Mr. Aaron G for the inspiration for the title of this post.

Would You Rather Be Too Hot or Too Cold?

I really, really, really, really love summer. That's NOT to say that I love when the weather is over 100 degrees or that I love the way it feels to sweat uncontrollably. Those things I really do not like very much. But I try hard not to complain because I spend the months of November to April complaining about being cold. I don't think it's very fair to complain for five months straight about THE FRIGID COLD THAT WON'T LET UP and then turn around again and start bellyaching about WHY I AM SO HOT? Last summer when our air conditioning broke and it was 93 degrees INSIDE my house, I did start complaining. But typically, I make a conscious effort not to.

I've heard people ask, "Would you rather be too hot or too cold?" The usual answer is that people would rather be too cold because they can always put more clothes on. I heartily disagree with that response. In the winter I can usually be found, ALL DAY LONG, wearing my thick winter coat in my house. I'm usually still not warm. Part of that is the fact that I keep my heater set to about 62 because I'm a cheapskate. So, yes, I'm actively enabling my own hypothermia. But, SIXTY-TWO. How am I still that cold? Why do I need pants, a long sleeve shirt and a jacket on to keep me from shaking?

This is why I maintain that I could move to Florida or Phoenix or Guam and be JUST FINE. Because if I lived in any of those places I don't think I'd ever see the number 63 on a thermometer. See, I, myself, would much rather be hot. If you're hot you can wear a tank top and shorts. You can sit in front of a fan. You can drink a tall glass of iced tea. You can run through the sprinklers, head to the swimming pool, or hang out in your basement. There are things to do to get cooler, people. Sometimes, in the dead of winter, I am so cold I think I'll never be warm again.

There might be something wrong with me. Maybe I should get my circulation checked. I was told that my blood would thicken after a couple of winters here. Seven is a lot more than a couple and I'm still waiting. Apparently, spending 26 years in San Diego gave me a permanent case of thin blood. See, here, in Utah, the sun comes out and I feel just about 1,000 times happier than I felt ALL winter long. Because water and splash pads and popsicles and flip flops and the smell of sunscreen and sunshine. And so many smiles on the faces of my kids.

Back in the (COLD) winter, Garrett was given the Star Student Award which only about five kids in his class had the honor of getting this year. As part of his reward, he got a coupon for a free activity at a place called Classic Fun Center. He kept begging and begging to use it. It's a good thing we didn't because the water park would not have been open in February.

And so all of this fun would not have been had.

They'd have skated or played on the jungle gym or bounced.

But instead, they got to do all of this...

I also had another coupon for a free activity. I had to pay a $2.00 spectator fee. So all of this fun was had for exactly two dollars.

And it was WARM! The sun. The fun. The water.

Have I mentioned that I LOVE SUMMER?

Singing

So I've done a little public speaking, here and there. The first few times, I was nearly immobilized by nerves. I mean, like, the caterpillars who usually crawl around in the pit of my stomach had branched out, formed chrysalises in every imaginable part of my body, emerged as butterflies and were flying through every inch of my being. It seems that each time I speak, the nerves get a little easier to handle. Now they are typically located in the pit of my core, where they belong. I start to hyperventilate only about five minutes before it's my turn to speak which, let's face it, is simply too late to back out.

I haven't been doing much speaking lately. That was just a long way of saying, nerves usually get better over time. The more you do something, the less nervous you are about it.

Except. No. There is an area, for me, in which this does not prove true.

I am not a singer, by nature. That is to say that while my car, my shower, and virtually every room in my home know that my life is characterized by loud (often off key) song, I'm not a stand-up-in-front-of-everyone-and-sing-a-solo kind of singer.

Because the horror. The possible probable voice crackage. The potential for humiliation knows no boundaries. Truth be told, I wanted, almost desperately, to sing in the middle school choir. I didn't because I was terribly afraid and, assumed, in all the wisdom of my twelve years, that I needed years of elementary singing experience in order to be of any worth to a middle school choir. More truth be told, I wanted to audition for singing roles in my high school musical theatre class but I didn't because I'd convinced myself that I'd most definitely have needed extensive voice training to do such a thing--even when my friends without such training were landing roles. In college I very nearly took voice lessons in the music department but didn't because THAT WOULD MEAN SINGING ALL ALONE IN FRONT OF SOMEONE WITH ACTUAL MUSICAL KNOWLEDGE. Somehow, I'm still not entirely sure why, I auditioned for a role in Into the Woods.

I bombed the audition on account of not being able to remember when to come in and making my pianist start over again.

Still, because I'm some sort of glutton for punishment, I auditioned AGAIN for a musical. This time, a role in Godspell which I landed in large part entirely because there were only seven girls auditioning for a show with five females. One of the girls had some kind of tongue issue and when she sang or spoke it would dramatically protrude from her mouth. That's a bit challenging when you're hoping to get work on stage. I don't remember what the issue was with the other girl but I'm sure there was something because there's no other earthly explanation for why I was cast. Still, it remains, to date, the most fun I've probably ever had on stage*.

When it came time to sing my NOT ONE BUT TWO solos, I thought I might shrivel up and die from nerves.

I sang this incredibly silly song called Learn Your Lessons Well--a song that features the phrases "swath of sinners" and "there's gonna be a quiz at your ascension". Not only does the song sound like something from a children's church camp, I'm fairly certain I disagree with 87% of its theology, I had to stand on top of a table while I was singing it AND (if memory serves me correctly) we were performing on a raked stage. For the first few nights, whenever it was coming up, I internally panicked, temporarily wished I would die, worried mightily that I'd miss the cue (as I had a past history of that and all), and sighed huge breaths of relief when it was over.When no one threw tomatoes at me, I got the confidence boost necessary to sing the second solo.

Not long after we moved here, I got the crazy notion that joining the worship team would be a good idea. I don't know, maybe I was attempting to reinvent myself. Maybe my love for music was finally taking over. Maybe I'd managed to sleep through a full frontal lobotomy.

Last summer I sang a duet with my friend, Abi (HI ABI!). I don't even remember how it all happened but it did and when I stood up to sing that song I thought I would literally die before it was over. I was shaking so badly that it looked like I had an actual disorder of the nervous system. Also, there was a great deal of excess sweating. So, pretty much, there I was, trying to sing a song to Jesus, all the while convulsing and perspiring. I imagine I looked a bit like a heroine addict in withdrawal**.

Then I sang a song with our worship pastor (HI CHRIS) at Christmas. And here is where history should repeat itself. Here is where I should sweat a little less and stand a little more still with each new singing experience. But. No. I simply do not trust my voice to sing the correct notes and the thought of having my voice crack or go sharp or go flat or just not sound very good in general in front of ALL THE PEOPLE is just terrifying.

We sang another song in the late winter.

And another one just last Sunday.

And I really love it. I do. I love the rehearsal process. Back in my college days, when I wasn't cast in a play (read: MOST OF THE TIME), I would hang out in the theatre. If I was cast in a show (read: NOT MOST OF THE TIME), I would go on days I wasn't even called just to be around all that creative energy, just to learn, just to be. I love, especially, to try to use my voice to bring God praise and honor.

I do not love the nerves. The nerves might kill me dead one day. They just don't seem to be getting better. But I made it through the run of Godspell without a single hurled tomato. So there's always that.

This cast features
1. One of my bridesmaids/best friends. (HI KRISTIN!)
2. Someone I dissected a fetal pig with and who happened to be one of my rocks when the poo hit the fan when I broke up with my fiance in the middle of directing her in a one act.
3. My ex-fiance.
4. Someone who announced onstage during a performance that she was pregnant (she had a husband so it didn't come completely out of left field but the timing was maybe not great). Said someone also had the most incredible voice. Of, like, ever.
5. Someone who's wedding I was a bridesmaid in.
6. Our college librarian.

7. My ex-fiance's roommate.

8. The child of a millionaire.

9. A person who, in one of our rehearsals actually said, "Oh, I just missed that note. That's the first note I've ever missed." And s/he meant in his/her entire life.

10. Me

*My resume is short, don't judge.
**But I wasn't. Drugs are bad.

Awakening

Always. Always I have loved classic novels involving a woman having a major identity crisis, walking out on her marriage, and, more often than not, killing herself in the end. Although, I suppose it could be argued that she wasn't having an identity crisis at all. Perhaps she was finally peeling off the layered mask and presenting herself as she'd always been. I devoured every word written by Tolstoy about Anna Karenina--an almost miraculous feat considering my general lack of enthusiasm for the Russian authors. I couldn't get enough of Madame Bovary by Flaubert. I considered Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie to be a real gem. None of them, however, meant as much to me as Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin's The Awakening.

I can't explain my affection or my attraction to these characters. I've always been a strong believer in a biblical worldview, the sanctity of marriage, and, well, not killing myself. It's not as though, as an impressionable, young college student, I found the actions of these characters to be a defining factor in my belief system. Rather, nearly everything I stood for stood in opposition to their behavior.

Still, to this very day, isolated moments from The Awakening occupy corners of my mind. They send chills up my spine. There is no explaining it because I hate Edna Pontellier. I always have. Even at a childless nineteen, I couldn't understand her reckless behavior. It furrowed my brow and made me angry--the way she just abandoned her children. Leaving her husband, my brain could wrap around that, even when my own worldview couldn't. But to abandon her children, to just keep swimming away until there was no hope of ever making it back, this makes me hate her.

But I love her, too.

I love her for acknowledging her own skin, dreams, feelings. Bold. Unpredictable. I suppose I envy her transparency. I do not share her values nor do I aspire to. But I do long to be real, open, and passionate. Seen. 

"She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world." -Kate Chopin The Awakening

I don't want to be fictitious. I no longer want to be bound by expectations unless they are placed upon me by the One who knows me without garments. I want to serve that very One with total abandonment and freedom. There will come a day when I will stand before Him in glory and more than anything I know--in the deepest recesses of my very being--that I want His words to be, "Well done MY good and faithful servant." 

I've always been open. But I've never been very good at transparency. I'm only just learning the chasm between the two. Perhaps that is what I've envied in these characters for so long. They find out who they are. And then they don't apologize.

Only He

I'm really so ridiculously glad that I found him.

By him, I mean, of course, all three of them, but I'm talking specifically about the one in the middle. 

Only he would put up with my weird dance moves, my life's a musical, sing it loud mentality, and my general bizarre-ness. 

Only he would humor me by sitting next to me and watching a show that is ten years old.

When I quickly run upstairs in the middle of making dinner just to dial my home phone from my cell phone, only he would know that when he answered, I was going to ask for Joey's pizza. And only he would respond, "Wrong number," as though this was the most normal conversation we'd ever had.

Today, I discovered a pair of tweezers in my travel bag that I thought were supposed to be in my bathroom. I stared, confused, and said, "Did I go on a trip recently?" Without missing a beat he responded with something about Hong Kong and a covert op. Because only he and I, after cramming our heads full of Alias, are at least 0.0219% convinced that the other one is actually working for central intelligence. 

Due to a series of ridiculous and unfortunate events, we ended up with an A/C company at our house on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I told Troy today that I kept repeatedly sabotaging our air conditioning because it was the only way I could connect with my handler who was aliasing as an Action Plumbing, Heating and Air repair man.

"Ooohh. Good cover," he told me.

Because only he would actually engage in this kind of dialogue. Had I married anyone else, I think he'd have had me hauled into intensive psychotherapy by now.

My life is actually one big audition for whatever play, musical or television show I can think up in my mind. Only he would actually stay around, convinced that I'm perfect for the role.

I Heart Kindergarten

I really love kindergartners. Maybe it's because my kid is one. Maybe next year I'll think kindergartners are nothing but a bunch of snot-nosed brats and that first graders are sweet buttercups of the earth. But the more I substitute in my son's class--and the afternoon class that follows him--the more I adore them.

I see them in four tiers. There are the kids I really love, the kids that I like just fine, the kids I sometimes struggle with and the kids that drive me right up to the edge of my own sanity. Thankfully, out of 41 students, only a handful of them fall into that last category. Yesterday, one of them, the one who is probably my least favorite of all because he cries and gets into some kind of catastrophic fight at least once every time I sub, told me twice that he loves me.

And, honestly, even when I'm not particularly fond of a kid, if he tells me he loves me, I'm apt to start thinking more positively about him.

This is not my advice to dating teenagers, however. In that case, use some discernment.

But, really. I *heart* kindergartners. It's maybe possible that I missed my calling in life which was actually to play with five-year-olds all day. To listen to their laughter, to read them stories in funny voices and listen to them giggle in all the right places, to sing songs and wait, patiently, as they tell a three minute story that has nothing to do with anything and could have been told in twenty seconds.

This might be bliss.

But bliss would require a degree that I have basically no transferable course work for which is altogether ridiculous because THEATRE. Theatre is what enabled me to read stories in funny voices. And I've been told by more than just one or two kids that I'm the best story reader...OF EVER. I'm not bragging on myself here, folks, I'm just making the statement that a degree in theatre should totally get me hired as a kindergarten teacher.

Although, sadly, I do not think the district would agree.

Which is probably for the best because, like I said, next year I might think kindergartners are just a bunch of germ infested little pests.

Fear of Mediocrity

My whole life, I've been afraid to fail.

I don't know why.

I am more than certain that my parents did not instill this in me. They pushed us to be the best we could be, yes. They had high expectations for us, yes. But I can't remember a single time when I tried, failed, and was made to feel unworthy by the two people charged with raising me up.

Still. Failure equals fear.

Somewhere along the line, fear of failure turned itself into fear of mediocrity.

What if I turn out normal? What if all that can ever be said of me is that I am average? What if I never achieve greatness? What if I struggle to make ends meet? Always, always this has been wrapped in the idea that I must reflect the work, the love and the care that my parents put into my life.

It took a lot to get me through those many years until my husband stood at the end of an aisle and I became his problem.

I thought, "My parents invested time, energy, and money into my competitive swimming." I must achieve swimming greatness.

"They put much into my education." I must get myself a good career.

"They are good parents." I must find a way to be equally as good.

The list was/is extensive, this feeling that I want to be the very best so that they have something to brag about. Honestly, I've lost sleep at night wondering what they tell other people when they ask. "She's doing well. She...um...raises a couple of kids. The end." And that's all fine and good except most of the time I feel like the kids are raising me.

I'm speaking at a conference in a week and a half and my session is called Pursuit of Perfection. I've studied. I've prayed. I've contemplated the topic. I've done a great deal of self reflection. Why am I the way I am? Why does it matter so much to me that other people see me--and my husband and children, by extension--as more than just average? I don't have an answer beyond wiring--beyond the fact that I was born a ball of bones and sinew and competition. Because, like I said, no one else put this on me.

Yesterday I was driving alone. Praying and thinking and doing a lot of self exploration, I ended up circling the issue again. And it came to me by divine suggestion.

There is only one thing I want for my children, really. There is a great multitude of things I wish for them but there is only one thing that I truly want for them. I want them to love the Lord with all their heart, soul and mind. That's it. That's all I really want.

I can't speak for my parents and the expectations they had/have for their children. But if their wants boil down to this one thing, perhaps I am not living such an average life after all.

I Smell Like Water

When I got home from the pool this morning, The Rock Star was snuggled deep into the covers on my side of the bed. Unfortunately, when I open the garage door to leave, it often wakes up at least one of the children. Usually I come home to find that my oldest is no longer in his bed. Once he was sitting in silence on the couch.  If you think that didn't kind of creep the heck out of me, you'd be wrong. Typically, he's nuzzled up to his daddy. When I walked in the door, I immediately heard the squeals coming from the boys' bedroom. Matthew was wide awake and laughing hysterically at something. I went in to get him and take him to the bathroom.

I was wearing a wet bathing suit, my old team parka, knock-off Uggs, and a towel around my waist. My soaking wet ponytail was a pretty dead giveaway of where I'd been. I smelled like chlorine for ten straight years of my life but nothing (NOTHING!) compares to the bleachy stench of an indoor pool. Even I can hardly handle the scent and I'm fairly certain the chemical singed most of my nose hairs ages ago leaving me practically immune. Practically, but not entirely. When I get home from a morning of laps, I stink. At least it's a squeaky clean kind of smell. If we're looking for bright sides. If we're the kind of people who need silver linings.

Before Matthew climbed up onto the potty, he leaned in, took a big whiff of me, and wrinkled up his nose. He furrowed his little brow, cocked his head to the side, and declared, "You smell like water!"

This made me laugh because if my water came out of the tap smelling like I did this morning, I wouldn't touch it with someone else's tongue. If the ocean smelled like me, all the sea life would be floating belly up. "I smell like water?" I questioned. "I think I smell like chlorine."

He considered this for a moment and then corrected me. "No. You smell like water."

I've showered and applied large amounts of lotion. Yet, I still smell like water. Chlorinated, indoor, pool water. Gotta love smelling like a freshly cleaned bathroom.

Show Me the...

Troy and Garrett have Kid's Club on Wednesday nights. I love that I get to spend time with Matthew one on one. Although, all that is ending on February 1st when I will start teaching the Beth Moore James study on Wednesday nights (CANNOT. WAIT.) and Matthew will hang out in the church nursery. But anyway. Tonight Matthew and I were building a puzzle.

"Where does that bunny go?"

"I don't know," he responded.

"Well, do you see another bunny?" I asked. "Maybe that bunny goes next to the other bunny."

"I see it!" He said.

"Where?" I questioned. He didn't respond.

"Show me the bunny," I said and then burst out giggling at myself. "Show me the bunny!" Cuba Gooding Jr. style. "Show me THE BUNNY!" This parenting thing sometimes cracks me up.

"It's right there," Matthew said, wide eyed. Sorry, dude. Mommy is a total nutcase. 

Grudge

Nine years ago today, I called off my engagement.

He was a Kansas City Chiefs fan but that isn't why I broke up with him.

Still, when my Chargers play at Arrowhead, my skin crawls a little and I feel nauseous. When I hear their noisy fans and watch that sea of red, I can't help but cringe.

It might be my longest running grudge.

Biopsy

I sat in the chair, soft pink gown tied loosely in the front. The significance of the color wasn't lost on me. As I waited for the doctor to come in I contemplated my surroundings. Enormous bright light, jars of liquid, liberal amounts of gauze, needles, scalpels and a plethora of other stomach turning paraphernalia. I'd already sat in the waiting room for a good half hour past my appointment time. Now I was sitting in the office. Waiting.

When I'd pulled up in front of the surgical center I was doing alright. I'd prayed the entire way over that God would remove from me a spirit of fear and grant me courage in its place. It was courage I'd had as I boldly rode the elevator up to the third floor. It was courage I'd lost as I flipped through magazine after magazine and allowed the Father of Lies to use fear to permeate my thoughts. I'd finally been called back and my blood pressure was the highest I'd ever seen it. Thankfully, it was still well within normal. The nurse left and I waited.

I called my mommy. "Remember the Flu Shot Experience?" I was six. The nurse came in with the vaccination. I snapped. Berserk. Completely. I ran around the office and out the door, shrieking at the top of my lungs. It ended with my mother and the pediatrician holding me down so that the nurse could administer the vaccine. I had to write a note of apology. It wasn't my finest moment. 

I proceeded to tell my mom that I was seriously contemplating a repeat performance. I mean, it's been 24 years. I figured that maybe my time had come once again. She asked me if I could feel her hugging me. I didn't answer for a long time. She probably thought I was mute on account of the fact that I was wondering how I could feel a hug from 800 miles away. In actuality, I wasn't speaking because the lump in my throat was swollen with fear and tears. I knew if I spoke it would all come flooding out.

I'm just not a huge fan of needles. Or scalpels. Especially if they're going to be used on me. Especially if they're going to be used on my breast.

It all started back in April when I noticed a tiny lump just under the skin. After waiting a few weeks to see if it would change, disappear, or grow, I went to see my doctor. Based on its location, she suspected that it was a blocked duct and had me put hot compresses on it. I went back to see her a week later. The bump had not changed. Again, because of its place of residence, she sent me to a specialist. I saw her in June. After an ultrasound, the plan was to keep an eye on it for the summer and come back to see her three months later.

So last Monday I saw her again. She opted to remove it. 

Eight days later I found myself sitting in the procedure room waiting for her to enter the scene. My mom was 800 miles away but, thanks to technology, pressed directly to my ear. She talked me off my ledge. Or, at least, she talked me out of running around the doctor's office screaming like a total ninny. After all, it really wasn't even appropriate when I was six. I don't remember what she said to me but I loudly declared, "I know I'm not going to die!" And just as the second half of the sentence came out, the doctor walked in. All she heard was the declaration, "...going to die!" 

She quickly turned her head in my direction and said, "Are you talking to me?" I explained that, no, my mother was on the phone. I quickly hung up. She had me get on the table. Then she couldn't find a marker. So she left for another five minutes.

I hadn't been afraid of the procedure until two different people, on the same day, told me that the numbing needle was quite painful. I stared up at the giant light and pictured a torture prison where people routinely came at my breasts with enormous needles of death. She came back in. She told me that the first part was the worst part. So I've heard. I told her that I'd once run around the doctor's office in an attempt to avoid a flu shot. I'm nothing if not chatty when nervous. "It's just like having dental work done," she explained.

"I've never had a cavity," I replied.

"Get me the small needle," she said to the nurse. Oh good, I thought. I'm getting away with the small needle. I don't think her or her pregnant nurse had any intentions of holding down a full grown woman with a sudden and irrational fear of biopsies. The nurse handed her the biggest needle I've ever seen used on me and that's when I realized that it probably had something to do with width and not a lot to do with length. She plunged it mercilessly into my...self. Okay. She totally didn't. In fact, I barely felt anything. Really. It hurt less than a flu shot to be sure. Just after the initial poke I did feel a slightly uncomfortable push as, I assume, she went into tissue. "Is it horrible?" she asked. 

"No!" I almost shouted, annoyed that I'd lost nearly an hour of my life freaking out about this. I should have listened to my mom who kept telling me that it couldn't possibly be that bad. Note to self: Mother knows best.

Then she performed an excisional biopsy which I've come to realize is the same thing as a lumpectomy. I felt nothing except for weird tugs and pulls. The worst part was listening to the snip snip snip of the scissors and realizing that she was inside of my body cutting things out. It was just a little disconcerting. She pulled out a pea sized mass. Just as she began to sew me up my stomach began to growl. I started pushing on it with my available hand--the other one was secured under my head--and hoping that if I sort of massaged it, the protest might stop. In the middle of a stitch she asked, "Are you feeling this? Is this hurting you?" 

"No," I said. "My stomach won't stop growling." She then shared with me that her stomach often has dialogue as well. This prompted my sharing of the time my stomach distracted an entire group of students from the SAT at hand. She assured me it wasn't distracting her. "Good. I'd rather ruin 100 SAT scores than distract my surgeon," I answered. She laughed. 

She finished sewing me back together and put medical glue on the incision. And then I waited and waited. The nurse was standing there. The doctor was sitting there. I was lying there. Nothing was happening. Am I supposed to jump up and be on my merry way? I wondered.

She pulled the light closer. "The warmth from the light helps the glue dry. I want to to make sure it's dry before I put a bandage on," she said. "Otherwise you'd have to come back so that I could remove the bandage. Or live with it forever. Your choice."

I laughed. "I'd probably rather not have a bandage stuck to my chest for the rest of my life."

"Oh! The worst was when I did a rectal surgery. A few hours later the poor woman called me up and told me that I'd glued her, uh, cheeks together." Let me tell you, nothing makes you love your surgeon more than finding out she once glued a patient's butt together. "Thankfully she was a really good sport about it," she finished.

I'm really private about certain things. My health is one of them. I just didn't want to tell anyone, or for goodness sake blog about it, until I had an answer. I could barely stand the waiting myself and I didn't want to wait knowing that everyone else was sitting on pins and needles right along with me. So I came home and I kept quiet. Turns out, if you want to keep quiet, you need to tell your five-year-old the plan. He knew something was up so I explained to him that mommy had a bump taken out of her. I showed him my bandage. That night, Troy took the boys to the softball field. A man from our church asked Troy if he was on Daddy Duty. "Yeah, Lori's not feeling well," he answered. 

"Mommy has a band-aid on her nipple!" Garrett screamed. And if you think I didn't just try to figure out a more appropriate synonym for nipple to use in its place you'd be wrong. Because I totally did. But that's what he said. To a man my father's age. About that man's pastor's wife. Good times. The best of times, really. So much for keeping things quiet. One must have first birthed a quiet child, I suppose.

While that fun episode was occurring, I was at home, recovering. Oddly, I was completely at peace with whatever news the results would bring. I kept praying that God would use this to glorify Him. If breast cancer--at thirty of all things--would bring Him glory, so be it. If a clear reading would bring Him glory--bring it. If I've learned one thing through the trials of bringing children into my family, I've learned that God's way is Plan A. Every. Single. Time. 

"If I have cancer, God, so be it. May your name be lifted high!"

As it turns out, I don't.

The doctor called this afternoon. It was benign. 

To God alone be the glory!

Some 25 Years Ago

I wonder if there was ever a doubt in my parents' minds that I was going to be dramatic.

I think I was five in that picture. In fairness, I also think that I would have been incapable of sporting that head wrap on my own. My mom must have helped. I totally look like some incognito famous child. Add the ridiculous sunglasses and I simply reek of the theatuh. Dahling.

Birthday

Well, the twenties are gone. So far thirty feels a lot like 29 and 11 months.

I suspected it would.

Now let's just pray that my flight doesn't go down this afternoon. Because I think a tombstone that read: September 8, 1981-September 8, 2011 would just be exceptionally depressing.

Right now I'm trying to type and both of my boys are entertaining me with bizarre dance moves. It doesn't get better than this...


Special thanks to my friend, Joelle, for revamping my blog as a birthday gift.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

It has come to this.

Tomorrow I turn twenty again.

Personally, I think recycling is a grand idea. Don't you?

I'm leaving tomorrow night for the Women of Faith conference in southern California. My parents treated me to the event and bought my airfare to commemorate my thirtieth birthday commitment to recycling. I won't technically be thirty twenty again until 8:33 pm Pacific Standard Time and by that time I'll probably be in a hotel room with my mom and my friend, Shannon--who is making the trip with me. I trust that they'll provide a much needed diversion.

In the form of liberal amounts of alcohol.

Okay, they won't. I wouldn't drink it anyway. I'm a pastor's wife. And I'm turning twenty. Not 21.

I've enjoyed living through my twenties. They were eventful, to say the least. I graduated from college, got married, successfully raised a golden retriever, experienced the birth of my two children, moved away from the only place I'd ever called home, went to New York for the first (and second) time, relaxed on the white sand beaches of Hawaii, toured Israel, taught, learned, and grew in ways I never thought possible.

It was a good decade.

Might as well do it again, right?

Happy re-twentieth birthday to me.

Tomorrow.

Interview With An Almost 30-Year-Old

I used to watch Inside the Actor's Studio. Back when I had time for things like that. Back when I wanted to be...a star (whispered dramatically and accompanied by vigorous jazz hands). Truth is, I haven't seen the show for awhile. Are they even making new episodes? I don't know because I've usually got my hands wrist deep in peanut butter or poop but thankfully never at the same time. Yet.

Anyway. At the end of the show, James Lipton asks the person being interviewed a series of questions. I ask my oldest son these questions once a year and will ask my younger son when he can say more than, "Don't do dat!" and, "I don't want to!"

Although, side note, yesterday Garrett and I were looking for a grasshopper. He'd hopped behind me and Matthew was frantically saying, "Here it is! Here it is!" over and over again while pointing at it. Later, he put his stuffed monkey on his head and declared, "Yook! Monkey hat!" So I have every reason to believe he'll have an actual conversation with me someday.

But the questions. I thought I'd tell you my answers.

1. What is your favorite word?
Grace. According to Strong, "of the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues." It doesn't get any better than that. To be kept and strengthened in Christ is to truly live and when his saving grace is upon us, nothing else matters.


2. What is your least favorite word?
Oppression. Defined as "the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner."

3. What turns you on? (Understand that this question is almost always answered on a much larger scale than "in the bedroom". It might better be asked, "What stirs your heart?")
Worship music

4. What turns you off?
Arrogance.

5. What sound do you love?
Ocean waves crashing on the shores of the beach or gentle currents lapping at the edge of a lake.

6. What sound do you hate?
My alarm clock.

7. What is your favorite curse word?
I'm a pastor's wife so I'm gonna go with...fiddlesticks. Alright. I don't think I have actually ever used the word fiddlesticks. I might start. I don't really use curse words. Unless I'm driving alone and someone cuts me off or I drop something on my toe or other such similar circumstances. My favorite curse word that I actually use frequently is probably crap. I know. Somebody call the cops.

8. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?
Acting. And as long as we're dreaming here, it really needs to be on the stage. Not that I wouldn't make a movie or be on television, it's just that I'd have to be one of those actors who also popped onto Broadway every now and then.

9. What profession would you not like to do?
Anything having anything to do with sewage.

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
Well done, good and faithful servant.

Your turn. Leave a comment with your answers!