I Voted.

One of my clearest childhood memories is waiting in the car with my brother while my mom voted. I remember watching her walk toward our car and noticing the red sticker on her shirt that she didn't have when she went in.

When she got in the car I read the sticker, which said, “I Voted.” I remember very clearly feeling a sense of jealousy. I wanted a sticker like that. I don't know now if what I wanted was a sticker (I was a little girl) or the ability to do what she had done- the ability to participate in our country's government.

Either way, as soon as I could,I voted. I have voted in every election since I've been eligible. Every election- not just the presidential elections. And, can I just say, you don't get the sticker when you do absentee- boo.

Today felt different. As I filled in the ovals today in my blue booth, it felt very different. For the second time in my life I feel like I am witnessing history- things my kids will ask me about. Just like I asked my mom about the day JFK was shot, or what it was like to protest the Vietnam war. My kids will ask me about the day the planes hit the twin towers, and what it was like to vote for the first black president (hopefully!)

I'm honored to be a part of something so big, so beautiful. For the first time since the 1996 Olympics where the US Women's Gymnastics Team kicked the pants off Russia and Romania- I feel patriotic!

And with that, I'm headed to campaign headquarters down town to be a part of history. Go vote if you haven't!

Wearing Pants

I was having a bit of an emotional melt down the other day. My melt downs tend to catch me by surprise. I will convince myself I am doing fine until it all explodes in some sort of knee-jerk spontaneous compulsive action. Like emotional eating, emotional drinking, emotional spending, emotional napping, emotional yelling... you get the picture.

Fortunately on said emotional melt down, I sensed it coming a bit early and tried to give my close friends a call before any emotional explosion could make it worse. Jenny was at class. Kayla didn't pick up. My mom was at her volunteer position... and it just kept going like that. So what did I do? I took advantage of having an excuse for a meltdown and headed to the store to pick up some of my favorite emotional foods. On my drive home, the privacy I needed to indulge in my impulse, the phone rang. Crap! I've been caught.

To pick up or to silence? I look at the caller ID: Kayla. Kayla will understand. Heck, she'll probably join in with me! I pick up. Before she can speak, I confess, “I'm eating bad things...”

“I'm too late?” She asks.

“Yes.”

“I'm on my way.”

Kayla, friend since third grade, best since ninth, was coming to the rescue. She kept me on the phone (aka, unable to practice my intended gluttony) until she got to my house. With arms open and ready for hugging she rushed upstairs to where I was sitting. After initial hugs, we took a step back. She looks down and congratulates me with an, “Oh! At least you have pants on!”


First, it got me laughing. Which was good. Secondly- it reminded me that things are not as bad as my emotions make them out to be. I was fully dressed, even in what I will dare call an “outfit”- which is new for a re-urbanizing girl like me. Things could be worse. I could be completely unemployed. I could not have a place to live. I could not have an “outfit” to put on. Suddenly I felt like a selfish dirt bag.

And with that I registered with a volunteer database website, called up my grandma to see if I could clean her bathroom, and did the dishes from my roommate's baking endeavor.

All I needed was to step outside of myself, my selfish ambitions, and my emotions were put in their place. How often are we upset, angered, or even to the point of a meltdown over “problems” that others would feel blessed to have? My friend who's planning a wedding has many complaints about budgeting, and I would love to just have a wedding to be unable to afford. Not that problems aren't problems, but perhaps if we put them in their place in the grand scheme of the world, they wouldn't cause us so much grief.

Definitions

Last night after work I went to visit my best friend about 25 minutes from where I live. I ended up staying pretty late, and was really tired by the time I began talking about going home. Kayla asked me if I would like to spend the night, and not have to bother with the drive home. I paused hesitantly, at which point she gave me a knowing look and said, “your cat?”

Apparently I have used my cat as a reason to not stay out very long, stay overnight anywhere, and even as a reason to stay home. Oh crap. I'm a crazy old cat lady.

I've always joked that this day would come. But I never imagined it would happen in my mid-twenties!

Now, I do have a cute cat. I found her under the dining hall of the camp I used to work at in Pennsylvania and after “cat-sitting” her for a week, she was mine. She also has no tail- not really sure why, maybe a genetic defect or something got it while she was a kitten under the dining hall. But she and her little butt-nubbin are very cute.

But not that cute. Not cute enough to threaten my personal life, which, as a 24-year-old single girl in a bustling metropolis after a lonely two years in a boondocks town, is finally on the rise.

So it gets me thinking. Why am I so attached to, so homesick for this little cat all the time?

Because, to me, in this time of exciting uncertainty in my life, she represents home to me.

I'm squatting in my (other) best friend and her husband's guest room. A room full of their decorating style, their furniture. This is only a temporary situation, and I expect to move out within the year. All of my good friends in Mpls have significant others they have been with for 5+ years. I am single. I am working an odd mix of fun and challenging, yet temporary jobs. And my job-search is wide and varied. My sense of place is hanging by a thread.

Many people in their between-college-and-grown-up-life years have little, if anything, that people are usually defined by. We don't have spouses, houses, jobs we will work into old age.

I happen to live with a couple who do have these things- which may be another reason I cling so tightly to the things that do feel stable in my life. Like the cat who came with me in my big move from PA to MN, and who will live long into my 30's with me. And, I suppose its not that bad to really like my cat. She is cute.

But perhaps I should be clinging to some other things that are just as stable as marriage, home-ownership, careers. Like God. Talk about stable. This time of in-between for me has begun to force me into defining my relationship with my God outside of the superficial definitions of myself. Not coming to Him as a (fill-in-the-blank,) but as bare-naked me. It is very humbling to come to Him with out anything to offer. But, for the third time in my life, I am feeling grace in a new, soul-defining way. In being stripped of definitions I've placed on myself for years, I am learning more and more about what really defines me. Grace, forgiveness, blood, Words, Spirit, love, heart.

Introduction

Blogs have always seemed to me to be one more way to indulge in our own self-centeredness. Many blogs I've read along the way have been full of everyday babbling without much point to them, other than perhaps a way for the blogger to qualify his/her life to the world. I have found myself mostly frustrated with blogs because I do not want to read about what you did today- unless, of course, you can provide for me a deeper meaning to your doings of the day. I do not want to read about your woes in finding a detergent, unless you can provide for me advice on buying or choosing detergent or a larger message of the impact of detergents on our endangered planet. I do not want to read about the TV you watched yesterday, unless you can spin it into a rant against today's sex-saturated, in-artistic, sell-out entertainment.

Blogs have only ever seemed useful to me when loved ones travel far away, in which case blogs offer a more dynamic story-telling device than plain mass emails.

Today I find myself beginning my own blog. And no, I am not leaving the country. In fact, I recently moved back to my hometown. I do not really have anyone to update. I don't even know if anyone will read this. But I do vow to anyone who does, that I will not post any play-by-plays of my day, I will not write only about myself. I vow to explore my life and what I see a bit further than that, and hopefully provide for you a more substantial blog that others I've seen.

And since I am being honest, I will also let you know that another reason I am beginning this blog is because I have decided to write a book. A friend told me the night before I moved back to Minnesota that I should write a book about some of my experiences. Maybe I am taking her more seriously than she intended. But, I have had some unique experiences and feel that now is a good time in my life to start exploring them, reevaluating them, and qualifying their meaning in my life, and the lives of others. I intend to do this by writing about them.

I hope this blog will be an outlet where I can work out some of my experiences, receive feedback, and experiment with my writing style. That being said, I hope that any readers of my blog will read it critically, offer feedback when they have it, and enjoy.
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Once upon a time I was also a hater of Facebook, adamant that it had no positive use in my life, even in society. I now proudly state that I have been a faithful Facebooker for at least three years, and have found it profoundly useful in the way that I network, keep in touch, and build relationships. Perhaps my journey from blog-critic to blogger will be similar, and I pray that it yields equally positive results.