BBQ, God, Games and Goodbyes

May the Odds be Ever in your favor...

Friday night my movie gal pal and I went to see The Hunger Games. As many of you well know, its the new craze. Thing is, these books are not really for kids. They're bloody, they have themes or rebellion and good overcoming evil. I'd read all the books within the past few weeks due to the instance of my 13-year-old tutoring client who made me promise I'd read them all before the 1st movie came out. And wow am I glad I did. The movie was amazing. One of the best book to movie adaptations I've seen. But I found myself pondering other things Friday night that the epic movie I'd just seen. The part I felt the strongest about the book was the theme that 1 person can change the world. Its subtle and it doesn't really come through until the end of the trilogy, but its there. And it got me thinking, how do I want to change the world? I know. Not light stuff for a Friday night after a "kids" movie, but hey, that's what I was thinking about. I think my answer is at once simple and obvious and yet, horribly complicated all at the same time. I want to change the world through my writing; I want to teach people (and I have to a point through my tutoring) and I want others to hear about how God has guided my life, even when it was dark and twisty and even when I was at my most bitter and sorrowful. The "odds" have often been in my favor in my life, and I don't believe that's been by chance. I think everything happens for a reason. Oh, this doesn't mean things have always gone well, or the way I want it to. I've had my share of suffering. But I also, that I've been guided along the way. And I'm not alone in this. I think that everyone has a divine calling, if they choose to look or listen for it. So, close your eyes and open your heart, and ask yourself, how do I want to change the world?

One, two, three...

Saturday, turned out to be a crazy, but epic day. I was double booked, for two parties. I promise, I am never this popular. Both events were important and so even through I was exhausted from my crazy week at work and still not recovered from being out until 1am the night before from seeing the Hunger Games, I rolled out of bed and headed out the door at 9:30am.

After running a few errands I swung by Giant to grab stuff to make guacamole for the BBQ I was going to. Since I'd skipped breakfast in an attempt to get out the door on time, I walked across the parking lot to get a smoothie. While waiting for my drink I got a frantic text from AW, who was hosting the BBQ, who said she had forgotten plates and such for the party. I called her and explained I was literally steps from a store, so back to Giant I went. I finished the rest of errands, did some stuff around the house and started getting ready for the party. While prepping guacamole for LL and JL's going away party (ie, 5 rounds of onion, tomatoes and cilantro because I only have a 1 cup food processor) I discovered that the avocados I had bought at Costco the week before and had assumed would be rip, were hard as rocks. I actually cut into one and it was like cutting an apple. Yeah. Not going to work, so Back to Giant I went (and no, I didn't go to the same one, cause I was at the point that I thought the employees would think I was weird). Thirty min later, ripe avocados in hand, I returned home and frantically finished prepping the Guac just in time to head out the door into the pouring rain to the BBQ.

 

Hello / Goodbye

I met LL and Jozsi  in the first Small Group I ever was a part of in my life. We all clicked instantly and as we became better and better friends, and LL (then LB) and Jozsi  started dating, it was apparent that I would never be a third wheel with these two. In August of this past year, I had the honor of being a bridesmaid in their wedding in Oregon. It was a beautiful wedding, full of love and laughter through tears and God at the foundation of it all.

A few months ago, LL told me that Jozsi  had gotten a job transfer and that they would be moving to Memphis. The weeks flew by and Saturday was suddenly upon us, the going away party for my first two Church friends. The party was wonderful, intimate, and went off without a hitch despite the rain. People trickled in and out, eating and talking, catching up on life and sharing stories. Jozsi's parents were even there. They'd come in to town for his graduation from training. It was wonderful to see them again. I find that every time I'm around Jozsi's parents I understand the way he is a little better.

I spent most of my time talking to the other guests, letting other people who haven't seen LL and Jozsi as much as me catch up and say goodbye. By around 7:30 I had to head out to go to my other friend's 30th B-day party, so I gave both Jozsi and LL hugs and told them I loved them. As I stood there I said to LL "I don't know if I'm going to see you again before you leave." And right then, in that moment, it finally hit me. My friends are leaving.

I'm not good at goodbyes,  and maybe  that's because over recent years I've lost a lot of people in a very final way. So, people moving away doesn't break my heart the way it once did. Maybe its because I also know that friendship like mine and LL and Joszi's and  AW too, don't come along often. If ever. At least not for me. I haven't had very many "groups" of friends, even though I've always had lots of friends. But I've always kept them separate. Call it paranoiaa call it common sence, but I've had enough people turn on me when I was young (and in adulthood too) to know that takes a whole lot of trust to be friends with a group. And that was a level of trust I could never muster, until LL and Jozsi and then AW came into my life. I've since had a one or two other groups of friends, but that first group, it taught my heart how to forgive and to grow and to love in a way that I didn't know I could.

My friends are leaving. They are going on as a happily married couple to their new life together. I wish them the very best and know that no amount of distance will sever this friendship. It will change, but it will also grow. I haven't cried yet, and I don't know if I will. How can I? How can I cry about Jozsi having a job he's going to love and taking his beautiful wife and best friend with him? How can I cry about the tremendous possibilities I'm sure lay ahead for both of these wonderful people? If I cry, it would only be for myself, and that seems selfish to me and ungrateful. LL came into my life when I need a friend the most, and I was that for her as well. Since then, we've both gained other wonderful people and don't see each other as much as we used to, but it doesn't matter. We're friends. We always will be. Other people and thousands of miles will never change that. Ever. And for that reason, I will not cry. I will smile and hold my friends close in my heart and be grateful to God for bringing them into my life when I needed them the most. 
  

Begin with the Beginning...

Years ago, when I just finished graduate school I started writing this story, titled Sand and Stone. Even thought its a broken set of scenes and  jumps and skips toward the end, its one of my favourites, even in its ragged form. To try to explain what the story is about would be like trying to explain the make up of my own soul. So, here I am, five years later and I still haven't finished it. I think the reasons why I haven't finished the story are more telling about who I am as a person , a woman, a writer a person of faith, than almost anything else in my life.

Begin with the Beginning and End with the End 
When I was younger, much younger, and I'd talk to my best friend from high school on the phone, I'd often have so much to tell her that I never knew where to start. Leigh would always laugh at me and say simply, "begin at the beginning and end at the end." Its been one of a dozen or more tid bits of wisdom that she's blessed me with over the years. So, here I am, trying, in some sense to begin at the beginning.

I'm a writer who no longer writes. And I'm sure there are hundreds maybe even thousands of others like me out there, real, honest to God writers, that have completed MFA programs like I did, or written novels, has stories published and won awards... that have simply stopped writing. There are more of course, who are real writers, even if they haven't done any of those things yet, or ever, but my point in listing those kind of people, is that we were trained to write and told over and over, "write everyday" and "Never stop." So in a last ditch attempt at forcing my fingers to create people out of thin air, I'm starting a blog, something I not only never thought I'd do, but something I am as a write admittedly against. I'm against it for the simple fact that I've had the notion beat into me that if you put your work out on the web, anyone and everyone will take it. I've gone so far even, to do a "poor man's" copy right, by mailing my stories to myself and keeping them in sealed envelopes. Silly, I know. But when you've been told over and over that the written word is more precious than gold, you try to find a way to lock it in a safe.

I've come to realize, though, over the years the impact my writing can have. I thought lately that I should start even moving away from fiction and start writing non-fiction; maybe start to write about my life and my faith and how each has impacted the other. Maybe I've just read too much Don Miller. Or maybe I've spent to my boring work afternoons reading back logged blogs from one of my dear friends, to not take a stab at this too.

So, welcome to my journey.  Buckle up and hold on tight. Its often a bumpy ride. (But I wouldn't have it any other way.)