Random Text Messages:

To me.  From an unknown number at 6:15 am.

"U better man up.  Wants good.  Sexy. Sheryl"

Me:  "???"  {Who the frack is this?  And what the heck are they saying?  Who do I know named "Sheryl"?}

"Do you know what i'm talking about? Sexy.Sheryl"

Me:  "Who is this?"

"Sheryl.  Sexy. Sheryl."  {Ok.  Must be her signature...Thanks Sheryl.  I thought you were calling ME "Sexy Dot'.}

Me:  "Do I know you?"

"Wow.  Bus 766? Sexy.Sheryl"  {Ok.  Now i'm 100% Sure this is no Sheryl of mine}

Me:  "I think you have the wrong number."

Just a Reactionary

I promised deep, overly personal writing and here it is.

Hi.

I have been walking thru a weird but, I think, good tunnel with God. Post-break-up, I have been trying to keep busy. Keep my head up. Keep the TV watching and crying to a minimum by watching TV with people and crying only in the bathtub at night. I have been engaging in the typical extreme behaviour reactions that characterize my very life. This includes pledging nunnery and joining eharmony. Immersing myself in social events and sleeping until 2:30pm on beautiful Saturdays. Beating myself up and numbing myself. Swinging between the two attempts at control that Jan Meyers called me out on in her book, The Allure of Hope, which, I think along with The Ragamuffin Gospel, must be close to canonized into holy scriptures by now. Jan is buddies with the Wild at Heart crew. And I have to admit, have always had a wildly divided heart toward those books. I think I know why.

The trecherous prescription is waiting and hoping. Despite the past and the bleakness of the earthly future.

That doesn't seem sufficient enough for me and certainly feels like someone let a rabid wolverine with a sledgehammer loose in my ribcage. He's trying to play me like a xylophone from the inside, and God seems to say: "Feel this. It's good. It's how I made you. To feel appropriate emotions."

I say: "Ugh."

So I know I'm not the only person with dissappointments. So that is why I blog. Maybe I am not the only person who needed to hear this. My pendulum freakishly swings. I do stuff extremely. I always have. A person finding themselves in my shoes has what Jan calls three options, or what I have been calling "three doors."

Door number one: I'm going to kick sorrow's ass if it kills me. Or you. Or I'm gonna beat myself senseless so God doesn't feel the need to arrange my life to punish me this way. That means clean up. It means CLAMOUR. Re-double ministry efforts, service projects, find out what needs to be fixed, focus on self-improvement. Surely all these things will get you what you want. Invite people places. Be less weird. Your pain must have a reason. You are flawed. Change you.

The second door is also extreme. Accept despair. Lower expectations. Avoid being dissappointed. You don't deserve anything better anyway. Shut your heart down. Drug the wolverine. Take away his sledge. You want TOO MUCH. Change your want.

Or. The sucky awesome option of door number three. The only real one anyway. The other two hopefully are short-lived dissatisfying fixes. (Sadly I think they can easily become hotel rooms we check into and never check out of). Door number three is to feel the reality of the pain, but not to doubt the goodness of God who allowed it. And keep hope alive while walking in the tension that your desires may not be granted in this life. I am just talking about my chronic single-ness and lack of direction in life here. Some people have much worse lots to apply this thinking to and I. CAN. NOT. IMAGINE. some of them. We were all made for more than this. But we are ALL loved and seen, just as we are, right now. You are loved AND you don't desire enough.

I read this paragraph about sixteen times the other night.

"I see you. Your loveliness is intoxicating Your heart is full and substantial, and I am drawn to know you. I see your confusion, stubbornness, and darkness, and I will not back away. You are not too much for Me. You are deeply enjoyable, and you are safe here. There's so much more of you I want to know; I can't wait to know all of you. And you can never know all of Me. I can't wait to shelter you and release you to flourish."

I read it a bunch because it's really hard to believe when you are not thrilled with your current circumstances. I read it and acknowledged that I do believe it, yet I still groan for fulfillment. I acknowledged that this part of the deal just bites (and snarles and plays chopsticks on my ribs).

My mama helped immensly today by telling me something that I wasn't even aware that I needed to hear from her. She was telling me that she wasn't dissappointed in me. I am not sure how long I have wanted to hear those words but I so did need to hear them today.

Its ok if I never get married or have babies or if no one ever "gets" me.  I will always want that. But it's ok if I do not get it. It's ok to be sad about it. But I will not check out of life or into a clinic for depressed spinsters, or onto a singles cruise (not more than once anyway). And I will not be angry with God. Much. I will confess my Anger, my Envy and let them go. Daily.

Jesus is great about tending wounds, by the way. Just incase you are in need of wolverine wound care. So if you see me and happen to find me lingering near doors one or two. Remind me that 3 is the magic number.

Sucky number 3.

Is It Just Me?

Does anyone else think that the tag line "Eat your way to the Stadium" in the commercial for Cardinals tickets/McDonald's promotion is disturbing and disgusting?

Broken Heart Hook Hand

My blog was under construction.  Once again my heart is under reconstruction as well.  I pray your patience while I deal with my busted self a bit.  I tend to process things in writing.  Deep, overly personal, public writing.  Here we go.

First of all, I have amazing friends.  Friends who, I was prepared to move across the country from.  Friends who, when I broke up with the reason  to move, came over with orchids, pie and good jokes.  I also was invited to hang out again and again and that totally rocked.  Thanks guys.

Speaking of good friends, I must go back and relay a story.  A few months ago, Liz invited me over to what could have EASILY been a "couples only" dinner.  I could have easily said no, but I am glad I didn't.   I arrive and I meet her new beau, we'll call him "J".  I had met him once before, but in a big group of people.  Tonight it was just the three of us for a bit and I was glad for a chance to get to know him better.  He and Liz and puttering around the kitchen making the fixin's for a delicious mexican meal and our conversation went something like this:
J:  [Casually, with his back to me, making guacamole] "So Lindsey, last time we talked you mentioned you were an engineer, maybe moving to Portland... and you had a hook-hand?
Me: [Slightly suprised... Wow.  What a nice guy...he remembered ALL that stuff about me after meeting me just once and then I MUST have told that dumb story about me breaking my hand in college when I had that weird blue-cast that was shaped like a claw...oh, and he just called it a "hook".. whatever...close enough...whatever he's probably slightly nervous and mixing up that OTHER story i probalby told about the time i stuck a crochet hook in my ear...wouldn't be right to correct him at this point..don't want to embarass him..so I say dramatically with hand slapping the counter] "I DID have a hook hand!  Wow, good recall!"

J and Liz:  [Uncontrollable Laughter.]

L:  [That IS funny, I know.  Maybe not THAT funny, but maybe they are both nervous.  Who cares it's fun to over-laugh.  I'm in.] "Blabbity Blah blah college.  Blah basketball.  Yeah taking a bath with my arm hanging outside of the tub. Hah!"

J and Liz:  [More Uncontrollable Laughter] "Blah bla yes, more things about that blah blah HAHAHAHA"

Me:  [This is fun, I am ON. Everything I say is GOLD.  I like this boy of Liz's!] "Yeah it looked like Gonzo from the Muppets"

J and Liz: [Still Laughing exchanging lengthy glances...]

J:  "Lindsey I have to tell you ...I was very excited and nervous to see you tonight.  When Liz and I went on our first date, we went to the Drunken Fish.  And it was interesting that they had a website for people going on their first date that we happen to see.  One of the points that they suggested for an ice-breaker is to just look at your new date and say: 'You know I think I've met you before, only last time you had a 'HOOK HAND' ..."

J and Liz: [Uncontrollable Laughter].

J:  "So Liz and I thought it would be great to try that line out on one of her unsuspecting friends.  And we picked you.  And we are so glad we did.  We definitely made the right choice."

Me:  [Light bulb coming on...I've been punk'd] "Oh. Hook hand. Heh. Yeah, I uh...had convinced myself I had told you that story before."

J:  "Of all the responses I could have possibly gotten, that was NOT what I was expecting."

J and Liz: [Uncontrollable Laughter].

Me: [DORK! Lindsey! DORK! Not anywhere NEAR COOL! Doh!]


Now J just refers to me in general as "Ole Hook Hand".  
You will forever have my allegiance, mister J.  For that, and since you take really good care of Liz.

New Look

Thanks for your patience whilst I was re-constructing.

More posts from me a-comin.  In a nutshell.   I am no longer moving away.  I am staying here for the forsee-able future.

I am also not slated to travel in the near future.  Hooray.

Summer in St. Louis for me!

Lets hang out.  I'll be tracking you down.  Do not worry.  No one shall be safe.
No cool person will go uncontacted.  NO event invitation shall be denied.

I need peeps.