Reflections on another year gone

It is way past my bedtime. Seriously, I should be in bed and I will regret this tomorrow morning at 5 am when my alarm goes off and the gym makes me its slave for an hour. But it's my birthday and I'm 27 now which means I can do whatever I want.

Birthdays lose their excitement as the years pass. I'm not yet at the age of dreading birthdays (although that age is coming in t-minus 3 years...), but gone are the days of excited butterflies in anticipation also. I actually forgot a number of times this week that the big day was approaching. And the day itself was so insanely busy that I probably would have forgotten there was anything special about it if Facebook hadn't let me know every 30 seconds that someone else had wished me a Happy Birthday (seriously, there's nothing like a birthday to make a girl feel loved).

Overall, 26 was a good year. Adjusted to some major change in my life, and while it was a bit a of a battle at some points, I think I've done it fairly gracefully. I think I've mellowed even more over the past year, and grown remarkably in my ability to love and understand myself. I'm more willing to own my mistakes and my successes, more ready to admit my weaknesses and take credit for my strengths. I hope God has shaped me to be more compassionate, giving and graceful. Even more so, I hope to be able to repeat that last sentence in 365 days.

I have a feeling that 27 is going to be a good year. There is hope and there is peace.

Have a Laugh or Three

He he he...these are funny.

Let Me Tell You...

Let me tell you about some of the things that happened today....

...a student very kindly asked me how I was doing this morning and tears rushed to my eyes astonishingly quickly as I tried to explain that I was a little bit tired.

...I found myself wondering if the student sitting across from me in my office could see that my eyes were completely glazed over and that I was really struggling to focus on what he was saying.

...my phone rang this afternoon and I whispered "no" and it stopped ringing.

...I was in the middle of writing an email and I closed my eyes and they stayed that way longer than they should have.

...I knew I needed to leave when I reached the point where hearing one more student ask if I was in my office was going to bring me to tears.

Two more days, friends. Two more days. Then I sleep. I'm tired. I'm happy, and thrilled to be doing what I'm doing, but I'm tired.

The Help

I've just finished reading this book. It seems as though every other woman in North America is also reading it and now we're all waiting for the movie version to come out sometime next week. And I needed to write about it. Because it was a deeply impacting book for me, and I've been dumbfounded at others' reactions to it.

A co-worker asked me the other day "Have you read The Help?" to which I replied that I was in the process, and she exclaimed, "It's so funny!" I think she meant "funny" not in a ha-ha kind of way, but more funny in a delightful way.

A friend on Facebook posted on her status "reading The Help! So cute!" I stared at it a moment...."cute?"

I found the book deeply disturbing. Were there humorous expressions in it? Certainly. Were there some cute stories within? Absolutely. I very much enjoyed reading it. But I would not use the words "funny" or "cute" to describe it. I would use words like....no, I don't even know what words to use. "Heartbreaking," maybe?

I should insert here that I really DID enjoy the book. I was proud of the courage of those characters, I did find their stories delightful at times, and did giggle at parts of it. I DID enjoy it and I want to see the movie, but...

The fact that our history includes the horrific belief in racial segregation breaks my heart. It does. That men and women, who share my skin colour, honestly believed that others with a darker shade of skin were "less than" and "dirty" and "diseased" and couldn't bear to share a bathroom or a dining table with them makes my heart ache. Who do we think we are?

What is even more heartbreaking is that despite the fact that laws and many North American cultural views have drastically changed in the past 50 years, racial discrimination is still alive and very well in our country and our world. Who do we think we are, that the colour of our skin makes us above another? Who do we think we are?

What makes me even more angry is that this is still happening in our churches. No, not between races, at least not in my church. No, here the segregation, the unbalance, the inequality, is still caught up in our body parts. Because I have the body parts of a female, I am not allowed to take formal leadership roles in many MB churches in this area. Because I am a woman, I do not have the wisdom, or the leadership abilities, or the blessing of God to add my voice to church governance issues or to stand behind a pulpit and preach. Who do they think they are?

While most MB churches in Canada have come a long way on this issue over the past 20 years, it appears that the churches in BC are actually moving backwards on it. A prominent church in my area, the biggest MB church in the city, one of the largest in the BC conference, has just pulled all of their women off the leadership council. It's asinine and makes me feel ill.

Where does this come from, this proclivity towards inequality? It doesn't come from God, of that I am certain. God has not created some of his children as less important or less human than others, because of their skin colour or their anatomy. This does not come from God.

We should be ashamed.

Bathroom Stall Wisdom

You know how sometimes there is writing on the inside of public bathroom stalls, usually put there by super classy girls who want the world to know that L+B=Love 4ever? Tonight I was in a bathroom that had a fair amount of graffiti, and someone had written:

Shut up

+

Love yourself

That struck me as profound. It kind of reminded me of that comedy sketch where the guy is a therapist, and his approach to counselling his patients was to yell at them to "STOP IT!" This bathroom stall message was somewhat like a verbal slap upside the head, "Shut up and just love yourself already."

Message received, super-classy-girl-who-writes-on-the-walls-of-public-bathroom-stalls. Thanks for being so obnoxiously, eloquently right.

In Pursuit

I completed my first hike today. I don't think I've every really hiked before...at least not like this. Certainly not in my adult life. Guys, I'm pretty proud of myself, I can't even lie to you. I've lived in BC for 11 months now and have done very little to utilize the gorgeous playground we've got here. My goal was/still is to get into hiking this summer; fits in well with my overall goal of living a more active and healthy life.

The hike we did today was labelled "moderate," (which for me was quite a workout...starting with an easy hike didn't really occur to me) but was relatively short (3.4 km return). It took us about 50 minutes up and about 40 down. My dad asked me this evening "did you guys get wet?" (because the forecast was pretty rainy today) and my reply was "nope! At least not with anything that my body wasn't producing." We sweated good and hard. That's one of the best feelings, I think.

Going up was hard for me, I can't lie. I'm not in awesome shape yet, and I was the slow one in the group. It's frustrating because I don't like to be that one in the group that has to stop to breathe, but my friends were gracious and encouraging. I only contemplated stopping once and it wasn't very seriously. I was pretty determined to conquer that mountain.

And I did. What a feeling. I felt like I had accomplished something important for my self-esteem, my motivation, my sense of determination. I did it. And I want to do it again.

This is what hard work looks like.

And this is what victory looks like.

You can all pat me on the back now :)

Simple Things

Yesterday, two things gave me immense joy, as I was babysitting the cutest kids in the world...my nieces and nephew.

1. I was putting the girls down for a nap and as I put Morgan into her crib, she started crying and saying she wanted to "walk." I was somewhat confused and kept telling her, "no it's time to sleep, Morgs." She kept crying and wanting to "walk" so finally I said "fine, I'll let you out and you can walk around the room." She walks over to the rocking chair and looks up at me expectantly. The light bulb went off in my head, "Oh you want to rock!" Now that I can do. So I sit down with her in the rocking chair, she lays her head on my chest and we rock. Life seriously does not get any better than that. Every time I said, "Ok Morgie, it's time to go to sleep now," she would reply, "I just want to walk a little bit..." I'm sure I "walked" with her much longer than her parents normally do...but Auntie Dana is pretty much mush for that little girl.

2. As the girls were sleeping, I got to hang out with Caleb (who just turned 5...how did THAT happen?). He was laying on the couch with me and I kept poking him, and every time he would just giggle helplessly. If you haven't heard his giggle, you won't get why this gave me so much joy, but he's seriously got the best giggle ever. I'm grinning just thinking about it right now.

Days like these remind me why I uprooted my life to be closer to my family.

I Love...

I love...

...seeing my nieces' and nephews' faces light up as I walk in the room and they launch themselves into my arms.

...the feel of new books in my hands.

...authors who can string words together like poetry (but not actual poetry).

...anything with a black and white pattern.

...meaningful conversations.

...the mountains and the prairies equally.

...Sunday afternoon naps.

...the point of a relationship where you're so comfortable together that you can sit side by side without needing to talk.

...a good cup of coffee.

...getting the giggles - the kind that you can't get under control and that usually hit at the most inappropriate times.

...driving down the highway on a sunny day, singing along to good music.

...finding new musicians to be obsessed with.

...knowing that I have been chosen by God.

...sitcoms that make me laugh out loud.

In Which No One Wins

We can all remember where we were when news of 9/11 broke. Nearly 10 years later we have news that the mastermind of that attack was killed by a US covert operation.

There were news reports last night that celebrations took place outside the White House and at Ground Zero, that justice had been served. I can understand why people say this, "an eye for an eye" and all that. But my heart was heavy last night. Was justice really served by taking another life? Why do we think that we can serve justice at all in this situation?

Was God pleased yesterday that bin Laden had been killed? Forgive me, but no. I am not saying that any of what that man had done in his life was pleasing to God, but somehow I don't think that rejoicing over the murder of a human being is any more pleasing to Him. I think that God weeps over the state of His children; we are all so wicked and filled with evil. We kill each other and are hateful and vengeful. I think God weeps.

"...as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live." Ezekiel 33:11

I don't think justice was served; I don't think justice was able to be served in this situation, at least not by us. I don't think anyone wins here. And I think God weeps.

This is for Sam because he found my blog

Today I was driving home from work and I passed a girl playing with one of these

These were THE thing to have when I was in grade 2, which was *ahem* 20 years ago.

Blue skies and sunshine

It's amazing how the world looks different when the sun is shining. Like, yes, in the literal sense of "hey! those trees are actually green" and "wow! there's mountains over yonder!" But also in every other sense too. Like, "hallelujah, God has remembered us here in the valley and has given us a break from the gloom" and "hey! I'm not actually depressed, my body has simply depleted its Vitamin D tank about three months ago!"

*I'm all about le italics today. They are helping me add emphasis to the point.

Life's good, folks. School is wrapping up and this is the first year that I'm actually sad about that. I'm not burned out this year! In fact, I find myself regretting the fact that I haven't gotten to know more students! Do you hear the different tune I'm singing from the last two years??

In other news, I had dinner with the fam-jam tonight and my mom made these hella good potatoes with bits of bacon on them and I was all "Mom! These are awesome! How do you make such awesomeness?!" And she proceeded to tell me that once you are done frying the bits of bacon, you mix up a bunch of crap in the bacon fat and put it all over the potatoes. Guys, my stomach likes it not. Bacon fat is so not meant to be eaten.

It is what it is

Not sure about any of you, but I don't like things to be beyond my control. I like things wrapped up in a neat little box, properly labelled and defined and put on a shelf; I always know where the box is and can easily identify it because of it's proper label. So when there are things that refuse to be boxed and labelled and shelved, I get mad.

I've spent some time being mad this week. Maybe much time.

So because I can do nothing else, I have put it into a damn box (so there!), labelled it "it is what it is" and put it high up on a shelf where it will hopefully get forgotten.

It just occurred to me that by "putting it on a shelf" I mean "putting it at the foot of the cross." An appropriate place for it, I think. The only place for it, I suppose.

Say What?

Today I saw "spring bulbs" for sale at Superstore.

It's February.

I frikkin' love this part of the country.

To Be Known

There is joy in being a pastor's kid. I say that without sarcasm. To be sure, there are disadvantages, but there is also an upside.

I became a pastor's kid later than average - I was 15 when my dad took his first church - so I really didn't have the experience of growing up in a fish bowl as many other PKs do. My dad also put me (and I speak in terms of "me" rather than "we" or "us" because my siblings were both out of the house by the time Dad went into ministry) first, before church or conference responsibilities. I very clearly remember him looking me in the eye and saying, "if you don't want to do this, we won't" when our family was in the decision-making process of taking that first church. It meant moving to a different province and I desperately didn't want that. If I had been a more selfish teenager, we would have stayed where we were. The knowledge, though, that I was more important than the church was important.

We've also been blessed with churches that haven't placed many demands on me as the pastor's daughter. I didn't feel judged or watched or held to a different standard. This was good because I had made it pretty clear that they wouldn't get much out of me.

There is, however, a certain level of celebrity when you're a pastor's kid and it gets worse when you're a grown-up pastor's kid. People are somewhat fascinated by us at my parent's newest church; they know details about us, but don't really know us.

The upside of this is that people know who I am there. Now that I am new in town and looking to make connections, it's been nice to walk into that church and have people talk to me. I can walk into and back out of other churches without anyone saying a word to me. So it's nice to walk into a church where people make an effort to make me feel welcome. It's nice to be known.

All that said, though, I miss my friends and my home church deeply - today more than any other I think...

Laugh til You Cry

**Make sure you pause the music player first

Haunted

I have stayed up half the night reading - something I haven't done in a very long time - and I can't sleep yet for fear that what I've read will manifest itself in my dreams. So I will write it down, even though the tears aren't yet dry on my cheeks, and hope that this keeps it from haunting me tonight.

This book was not easy to read and yet I couldn't force myself to put it down. I usually read before bed, but I found myself thinking about the story throughout the day. The story is "fictional," but is one of those stories that rocks you to the core because you know it is an echo of someone's reality - lived long ago, buried deep, but not forgotten. Never forgotten.

It was a novel that followed an 81 year old woman as she slowly - painfully - told her daughters the story of her survival through the Great Terror of the 1930s in Russia and World War II. Did you know that more than 1 million Russians died there? Murdered. 70% of them starved to death. The horrors of mothers placing their children on evacuation trains, not knowing that the trains were heading into the heart of the German invasion. The horrors of mothers watching their children waste away from lack of food and knowing there was nothing they could do to stop it. The horrors.

There are thousands of stories like the "fictional" one I just finished reading. My grandparents and great-grandparents had these stories, maybe not these exact stories, but versions of it from elsewhere in Europe during that awful time. I know they do because I have heard murmurs of the handicapped brother and son who was left behind all those years ago - a memory so locked away that I have heard mention of it only once and even then only after my grandparents had passed away. This history is also my history. That knowledge is heavy and so is the thankfulness that I was not the one who had to survive it; but the fact that someone DID survive it is why I am here today.

What an amazing, and terrible, terrible book. The kind that makes you keep turning the pages, that changes you, but that you never want to pick up again.

Officially Official

Ok first I need to tell you a story. I was babysitting the kids tonight and Morgan(18 months old) was giving the cat, George (affectionately known as Georgie), some "love" to which the cat was responding with swats of the paws. Morgan gets up to walk away and the cat reaches out, hooks his paws around her ankle and trips her. No lie. She picks herself up, turns around and goes, "Georgie! NO!" Darren and I laughed so hard. She was so affronted. The cat defs got the last laugh there. I wish I'd had a video camera.

So I am officially a BC resident. This week I got my BC Care Card (medical coverage) in the mail, got all of my banking finalized and FINALLY got my car insured. It has been an unbelievable process. You see, insurance in BC is uber expensive (because everyone drives like idiots), but you can get a 5% discount on it for each year you have been claims-free (up to 40%). You just have to be able to prove it to them. So I got a claims history letter from Manitoba, but because my car was insured under my dad's name for a few years, my letter only showed that I had 3.5 years of driving history. The result would be only a 15% discount and insurance premiums that were double what I paid in Manitoba. I wasn't ok with that. So, to make a long story short, I (and my dad...probably more my dad) did a bunch of calling around, eventually resorted to calling the MLA and we managed to get ICBC to agree to give me a full 40% discount if I provided a Driver's Abstract. So I FINALLY got that on Friday. The plates are on my car.

The relief is physical. I feel as though a weight has been lifted off me. I will randomly remember that everything is done and I get a little bubble of excitement in my tummy. It just feels so good to be finished the process. Hallelujah.

I also went and got a library card today. I was waiting for my driver's license to come so I could prove my local address. I am so excited to read again. I haven't really had time in the past 3 months and now I have access to a library and I have 4 books to read in the next 3 weeks. Hallelujah.

Living Life at a Very Fast Pace

Well, I keep thinking that life is going to slow down to a normal pace, but we're a ways away from that happening apparently. My sister's wedding is in T-minus 11 days, and then Ben comes to visit, so life may return to a manageable level on Nov 1.

I miss routine.

So I volunteered at work to be one of the First Aid Attendants. If I had known the amount of work it took to become such, I may not have volunteered so cheerily. I was in a full time course all of last week, with monstrous amounts of homework/study in the evenings. Last week felt like a month. There were times when I couldn't even remember what city I was in (that tells me I'm not exactly adjusted to life in new province yet) and I totally forgot I even had a job elsewhere. That's how much brain space the course took up.

BUT I rocked both of my exams (written and practical) and now I am officially qualified to save lives. Or at least KEEP people alive until MORE qualified people arrive.

It was the closest I'm going to get to living out my life-long dream of being a doctor and it was really fun:)

Ahem...*tap tap tap*...is this thing on?

Ok, so I know. It's been awhile. But for real guys, it's been helllllllllllla busy at work, plus I've moved, plus I have no internet at home, PLUS the internet at work sucks (not to mention the fact that I have no time to write a blog at work anyways).

But here I am. Stealing Starbuck's WiFi, which they fully advertise as being free for everyone, but it still feels just a little like I'm pirating the internet waves cuz I've been nursing this vanilla latte for, like, 3 hours now and I'm not giving Starbucks any more of my money, but I'm going to keep on using their so-called "free for everyone" internet waves.

I'm really tired.

But I'm alive. And I love my job. And even though US loans continues to drive me to drink, and I can't seem to win the-battle-to-get-the-desk-slash-office-setup-that-I-want, I still like going to work. All in all, this move has = victory!

For real, even though I love stealing Starbuck's "free" wireless waves, I gotta go to bed. My butt is falling asleep - this chair is really hard.

In Which I Bang My Head Against a Wall. Repeatedly.

I am considering taking up heavy drinking as an extra-curricular activity.

Guys, the US student loan system is taking all my brain cells. Just when I think I've got it semi-figured out, I spend 40 minutes on the phone with them (over my lunch break I might add. TWICE now.) only to find out that I know shit-all about this system.

I have never been so confused or defeated in all my life. That might not be totally true, but I DID almost cry today.