Holidays or hell-a-days?

Okay, here is your warning, if you read my blog because you think I’m funny (which I really hope you do)  you may want to skip this entry.  As much as I’d like to put a funny thought out here for your delight…today I cannot.  Today is a dark day for me.  I have these days.  It’s a process, you know.  Today is the day before thanksgiving.  I’m supposed to be cooking and busy and HAPPY, right?  I’m not.  I will do a bit of cooking, but I will not be happy while I’m doing it.  My children are not with me.  My children have gone away for this holiday.  Holidays where the children are gone do not feel right in my brain at all.  I am very blessed to have family nearby and I WILL have a fun time with them tomorrow… but it will not lessen the grief of how messed up it is for my own children to be spending a holiday without me.  Divorce is awful.  If anyone has told you different they are either living in denial or lying.  One of the reasons God hates divorce is because of how it hurts…and in my experience it hurts a whole lot.  Today I have to breathe. Today I have to take one step and then another.  Today I have to keep klenex on hand and distract myself with facebook and freecell and friends.  Today is going to seem like 2400 hours instead of just 24.  Today I am glad I have a God who is near instead of a God who sits on high in judgment of the mess ups in my life. Today I am glad that mercies are new every morning.  Today I will remember that  it’s a process.

She is so wise

Proverbs often personifies wisdom (for those of you who got a less than stellar education, let me splain: that means that you make believe something that is NOT a person, IS a person…..Isn’t that fun?).  Proverbs 8:1-4 says, “Does not wisdom call, and understanding lift HER voice?  On top of the heights beside the way, where the paths meet, SHE takes HER stand; Beside the gates, at the opening to the city, at the entrance of the doors, SHE cries out: “To you O MEN, I call, and my voice is to the SONS of MEN.” (emphasis, mine)   I think we can surmise from this passage who God thinks is the wiser of the sexes……. I’m just sayin….. it’s a process.

Grandma's sanitizing method

Everybody is obsessed these days with hand sanitizing. You see dispensers in gyms, schools, daycares, and doctor’s offices.  You see little bottles of purell hanging from diapers bags, purses, and even belt loops.  Now when you finish shaking someone’s hand you count to ten and then watch them grab for the purell to wash off your germs.  Everyone thinks this a relatively new phenomenon but I’m here to tell you it is NOT.  My grandma invented the germ free idea…. but she didn’t have purell.  Before there was purell…. there was scalding HOT water!  I remember when I was a kid my grandma would supervise my hand washing.  She would turn the water hotter and hotter until I would scream “It HURTS!” to which she would reply, “that is how you know it’s killing the germs!”  The water temperature in my grandparent’s house would get so hot from the tap you could hard boil an egg in two minutes.  She wasn’t just making me wash like that……she washed that way, too… and had the scars on her hands to prove it.  My grandfather had really calloused hands.  When I was a kid I thought that was from all the work he did around the house, in the yard, on the cars, etc.  Later I realized it was from my grandmother encouraging him to kill germs by washing his hands in a pot of almost boiling water!  We now like to kill germs with an alcohol gel that evaporates… my grandma liked to kill germs by burning off several layers of skin.  I guess it worked because both of my grandparents lived to be 94.  Maybe I’ll take up the germ free scalding method……. I don’t know….. it’s a process.

Nuts and berries

I’ve started trying to eat healthier.  I was eating too many chips.  A friend told me I should eat nuts and berries for my snack instead of chips.  It really isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  I like them pretty well.  I’ve figured out the best way to do it….. I eat my nuts with cookies surrounding them and my berries with cobbler surrounding them.  I don’t miss the chips at all.  Good advice.... it's a process.

Golf club man

Today on my walk there was a man.  It isn’t unusual for men to be outside when I’m on my walk but this was a little different.  The men I usually encounter on my walk are either in their yard or also on a walk.  This man was walking down the middle of the street, making the gentlest crossing of a street I have ever seen.  It took him a whole block to cross the street.  While he was making this gradual cross he was aiming right for me and the kids.  I should mention here that he was carrying a golf club.  He wasn’t holding it the way you normally hold a golf club... he was holding it like it was a bat he was about to swing… and walking right toward me.  Now this is where my brain goes two ways: 1. This is a nice man from our neighborhood who is also on a walk and carries a golf club to protect himself from dogs and he wants to come over and say hello to me and these wonderful children. 2. Here comes a crazy man who walks down the middle of the street with no regard for his safety and he is about to come and kill me and my children with a golf club.  I really was leaning towards 1. I have many times had people come up to me and say hello to me and the girls in the neighborhood.  I have never been assaulted with a golf club.  But there is a first time for everything.  I tried to maintain my cool (well, what cool I have in the first place) but this guy wasn’t acting like the normal friendly greeters of the neighborhood… they usually give you the “hello” way before they are standing right in your face…. he was not going to do it.  I tried to prepare myself for option 2 by recalling all my former Tai Kwon Do skills and readying myself to have to make a move around the stroller to meet his face with my foot, if things should go bad.  It has been around 8 or 9 years since I did Tai Kwon Do, so I’m not sure how much I could really still do… but I broke boards, man, with my feet and hands.  So, I bet I could still do some damage to a face (or some other body part that presented itself).  Thankfully, my skills were not tested and the man just walked by with a “hello” to my girls……..it was strange…….. it’s a process.  

Old friends

There is something about old friends.  Don’t get me wrong, new friends are great, too….. but with new friends you lack the history.  Old friends have a place in the memory banks…. they get certain allowances and special treatment just cuz they have been in your brain longer.

Most of my “new” friends were found because of shared interests or experiences.  I meet people doing the things I like to do…. when they are doing those same things.  That is nice, because you know you have something in common with those people… but it does limit the kind of people you will meet.  Some of my “old friends” have no shared interests with me at all.  They don’t attend my church, they aren’t into the same hobbies I am, and they don’t live next door to me.  In the present, I would likely never meet those people. But they add spice to my life!  It is good to know people that are different than us.  It is good to share in life with people who have different opinions and use their time in completely different ways than I do.

I dig people.  God made them all so different.  I’m so glad I have a variety of people types in my brain!  I am glad that I have either kept in touch with old friends or reconnected with them.  Those who have taken up space in my brain the longest have a special place in my heart, as well.

Don’t get me wrong, new friends… I love you, too….. and hope that eventually you will earn that “old friend” label as well……. we’ll see….. it’s a process.