Chess

Supposedly, chess players are good at moving forward in life, rather than continually thinking about what they should have done. I used to play chess against my iPod and computer frequently, until I learned how to beat the computer.

I'm reminded of chess because I've been thinking about the movie Spirited Away. It came up in conversation on Christmas Eve and I remembered that it had moved me in a big way, and I didn't quite remember why. Reading the plot online, I got to the very end, and as I read about a little girl walking away from a very close friend she may never see again, and being told not to look back, I remembered why I felt so strongly.

I can remember a number of walk-away moments in my life. There have been moments where I've stomped away in anger, and moments where I nearly floated away because I was so happy to leave. The walk away moments I remember most clearly are the ones that ripped my heart out so much that I don't know where my legs got the strength to take any steps at all. I imagine that's what this little girl in the movie felt as she walked away from her friend without looking back at his face.

According to the chess theory, walking away without looking back would be easier for a chess player, as they would be used to making moves and not being able to take them back, only think about the next moves forward. I don't suppose that my strength to take forward steps has much to do with my chess abilities, and I don't think little cartoon girl's did, either. Mostly, any ability I have in chess comes from picking up on patterns that the computer tends to use, and I can't really make many conjectures about a cartoon character's chess skills. 

To change the subject of this post completely, I should be quite happy today because I found a townhouse I would like to live in recently and settled on the purchase price today. People keep saying "congratulations", but I'm not quite sure why - I haven't accomplished anything special - many, many people own houses, and I don't even own this one, I just agreed to go ask the bank to help me buy it so that someday I can own it. Maybe my lack of excitement is due to the complete failure of the last condominium I was going to buy (see a post back in October for that story) and I don't see the point in getting excited about something that might not happen. Maybe I'm not excited because I'm scared I'm getting myself in way over my head with a 1200 sq ft townhouse, a garage, a basement, a deck, and a mortgage. Maybe I'm not excited because I'm afraid no one will ever come visit me, or that I will get lonely, or that I will be afraid when I'm there alone, in the dark, at night. 

Maybe, I'm just numb to any emotion at all. 

Maybe, I've had to turn around and walk away in horrible pain so many times now that I've just shut myself off. I don't feel the bad, but I don't feel the good, either. Certainly I'd remain calm, collected, and totally unaffected by a lousy chess move. I'd say "Oppps!" and keep on playing.

Maybe, I just live life like I play chess.

I Write

I don't have anything particular to say today. I don't even have any particularly entertaining stories to tell. Still, I have a desire to write. 

A few years ago I was having a rough day. I don't remember all the particular things that happened, but it was more difficult to manage than a normal day because I'd pulled a muscle in my neck and it was quite painful. After teaching a dance lesson with a friend I was more sore than before, and was discussing this with him as I walked out the door of his house. I remember that I was carrying an empty cake pan. 

Somehow, our conversation turned to something serious. This isn't surprising - we talked about anything and everything, which was, on that particular day frustrating for me. Having someone to talk to is great, but emotional intimacy often breeds deeper feelings that can be near impossible to manage in a strictly friendship setting. As my friend talked I said nothing. I had no desire to tell him that he was toying with my emotions, and so I started to cry. 

He thought I was crying because my neck hurt, so he took the cake pan out of my hands and started massaging my shoulders and neck. This didn't particularly help the situation, so I started to cry even more. He turned me around, and hugged me, and let me cry. I couldn't tell him way I was so upset, so he suggested that I write, to get it out. 

When I got home I took out paper and wrote about my day. I wrote about my sore neck, and the dance lesson, and my friend. Of course he had been right, I felt better.  

My neck isn't sore today, but I have a few other random physical ailments, and some big decisions weighing on my mind that, again, are making my days more difficult to handle than usual. This time, I write. I write because I've learned that off-loading my emotions onto another person is neither safe or fair. I've re-trained myself to desire prayer or writing over human comfort. I've learned to let me emotions go - go to God in prayer, go into music I play, go into ink on paper, or typing on a screen -  rather than just putting them in someone else's hands.

Arguments

My friend Jesse likes girls. He tells me about the girls whose phone numbers he gets, the girls who write on his facebook wall, the girls who he thinks are cute, the girls who he thinks are hot, the girls who bother him, the girls who call him, the girls who come to him with their petty guy issues (guilty), the girls he flirts with, the girls he e-mails. You get the idea - girls, girls, girls. Personally, I don't think anyone will ultimately find satisfaction in life through flirting. I think guys ought to stop focusing so much attention and energy on whatever attractive, hot girl is around to flirt with at the moment, and shift their focus towards a meaningful, lasting relationship with a female who represents more than just a sex object to them.  

I should mention that I do think Jesse is an awesome person and friend. We talk on chat, and on the phone, and have coffee dates, and I think it'd be safe to say that we're good friends. However, if Jesse moved to Minneapolis, or we hung out less, or talked less, my life would go on without too much trouble. I might cry a few tears once or twice, and there would certainly be times I would miss him, but I wouldn't be a wreck, or get an auto immune disease out of my upset-ed-ness. I care about him, but just not to that extent.

Last week, after having tacos at Moes, I skipped across the parking lot with Jesse to Starbucks for some caffeine. After taking probably ten minutes to order our beverages we sat down by the window, and Jesse told me how hot one of the girls behind the counter at Moes had been. I nearly spit my coffee out - I'd labeled the girl as fake looking, and was somewhat disgusted that this is even remotely attractive to guys. The two of us had a heated discussion about what girls look like, and continued on and off for the rest of the evening about this. Every time a girl walked past the window he'd ask me if I thought she looked fake, too. I went home, though, and forgot about the whole thing (until I was needing an example for this blog post). It certainly has had zero effect on my friendship with Jesse.

A few years ago, after having some sort of disagreement that lasted for a few days, I asked a friend of mine if he was angry with me. He said no, he wasn't angry, and that he'd only ever cared about three women enough to be angry with them. At first I thought this theory was wrong, because I argued with people I didn't care deeply about all the time. My argument with Jesse is a perfect example.

Then, one day, I cared about a man enough to get angry with him. I'd raise my voice, or give him the silent treatment and stomp out of his car without a hug goodbye. Then, I'd go lay in my bed with a pile of tissues and cry for a little while. The predominant thought in my head, though, was rarely "That jerk! I could kill him!" but "Why didn't I just hug him, and smile, and move on?"

I see myself do this all the time. I tiptoe around the emotions of people I'm not tied to, and lash out at the ones I truly care about. Instead of saying my piece and then letting it go, I let it get personal, and then I let it explode. I'm not the only one who does it, I see plenty of other people do it, also. I don't know why people do this - maybe because we feel safe to let our emotions out with people we are closest to? I think we all so often forget the last step of arguments, when it comes to the ones with people we care most about - the part where you just forget about it, forgive/makeup, and move forward as normal.

If we forgive the people we don't really love so easily, then wouldn't it make sense to be even more forgiving after arguments with those we do care for?

What Hurts The Most?

I met my friend Dave when we were both 15. We talked on and off for most of high school, but really connected when we were 18. We didn't see each other much. I was in college in central PA and he was up in NY working random jobs. When I was home on break we'd go to movies, or wander around the bookstore for hours, or eat fried foods at Friendly's. Once we threw knives at cardboard to test how well they worked.

When I was off at school we talked. We talked on AIM, we e-mailed, we had phone conversations. We talked so much I had to buy a bluetooth headset for my cell phone. I'd cook dinner while we talked, and then we'd watch the same TV show while talking on the phone. I told him nearly everything; we were best friends.

After nearly two years of this Dave enlisted in the army. He spent a few months in boot camp, then got sent to TX, and then a year later was preparing to go Iraq. I was a wreck in the weeks preceding his departure. I remember sitting in his jeep, not wanting to get out and watch him pull away, because maybe I'd never see him again. He told me he loved me. He told me he'd be back in the US by the following Christmas. Nothing made me feel better - watching your best friend go off to war just isn't easy.

The evening before he left we talked on the phone until he had to shut it off to put it in storage. I told him I'd e-mail. We said goodbye, and I hung up the phone, and started crying. I was sitting in my desk chair, and let myself fall onto the floor, and cry. My friend Sylvia came and hugged me while I cried. The next day, in an attempt to make me feel better, my friend Chris got some french fries from the cafeteria, and we went to play the organ for a few hours, but I felt too sick the eat the french fries.

I felt sick the next day, and the next day, too. I recall telling Dave how sick I felt in several e-mails. The sickness didn't go away, but got worse. I was exhausted, and took 3-4 hour naps every day. My stomach was cramping, and sometimes the pain was too intense to even sit/stand up. I started eating bland foods, chicken broth and saltine crackers, but that didn't help. I couldn't digest a single thing.

When my doctor diagnosed me with celiac disease a few months later, more things than just my stomach cramping and energy level improved. Problems I'd had for years and years, such as dizziness, skin rashes, and hair loss, disappeared, too. Everyone wondered what caused the celiac to become such a problem when it did, but I figured it out quickly, especially when I read that a possible trigger is emotional stress.

Sometimes, people ask us to downplay our emotional turmoil. We're told to just keep smiling, to "fake it 'till you make it", to keep living. Sometimes people tell us to be thankful that we're not sick with cancer or whatnot. I'd like to argue that hurt is hurt, pain is pain, and the lines between physical and emotional are not well defined. The things that hurt us the most, that get under our skin and stay there, are powerful. I don't care if it is an infection or a person - huge, all-encompassing hurts are possible.

I'm not saying all this to say that my life is terrible, or my disease is terrible (it isn't), or that dying of cancer isn't terrible (it is). I'm just acknowledging the emotional pain and physical pain are linked, and in many cases, just different manifestations from the same root cause.

My Dad explained it to me very simply once, when I was about 13. The word disease can be broken down into "dis" and "ease". It simply means to not be at ease.

My Mornings This Week

I've had some crummy mornings this week. Usually I wouldn't share, but I honestly think it's humorous.

Sidenote: Cross contamination is a big issue when you are a celiac. So, things like butter and cream cheese, where the knife goes back and fourth between the bread and the cream cheese, can be problematic - bread crumbs are left behind! Most people solve this by having two containers of condiments, one for gluten free bread items and one for normal bread items.

Sidenote 2: My commute to work is all of 8 minutes. However, there is construction at a major intersection on my route. Currently the workers seem to be at the paving stage.

Monday: I used the last of the gluten free cream cheese on my bagel.

Tuesday: I realized I never bought new gluten free cream cheese, and decided the normal cream cheese didn't have enough crumbs to make me sick. Clover Street is down to one lane because of paving and it takes me 25 minutes to get to work.

Wednesday: I wake up before my alarm with horrible stomach cramps. For breakfast, I'm ready with new, un-contaminated cream cheese for my bagel, but I discover the microwave is broken so I can't defrost my bagel. On the plus side, traffic runs smoothly!

Thursday: I get woken up by stomach cramps far before my alarm. By now I've figured out maybe using that cream cheese wasn't such a good idea. I manage to fall back asleep, and have horrible nightmares, and oversleep by 20 minutes because of them. The microwave is still broken, so no breakfast for me - not that I'd want to eat it, with the gluten reaction, anyway. I manage to get in the car 2 minutes before I usually leave for work, but sit in traffic for 25 minutes, again, so I'm late for work. Luckily my boss wasn't home. Unluckily, she wasn't home to notice the dog poop in her kitchen. I notice the dog poop as I am walking through the kitchen, and then hear a squish. I hop into my office on one foot and take off my shoe so I can go wash it. As I'm walking back into the kitchen (via a different route than the first time) I step in more dog poop, but this time in my sock. 

Note that this is the end of my post, and it is only Thursday. I'll see what tomorrow brings!

The Closing From . . .

Today I swore. I don't usually swear, so something must be especially frustrating for me to do so. My statement was "This is the closing from hell". 

Let's recap my home-buying process over the past 3.5 months:

I put in my purchase offer  on a condominium the end of June. 

One and a half weeks later the negotiating was over and I received signed paperwork from the seller.

I applied for an FHA mortgage the beginning of July. 

On August 13th I was denied for the FHA loan, because the condo project was not approved for FHA loans. I proceeded to apply for a conventional mortgage. 

On August 28th, my expected closing date, paperwork was not in from the homeowner's association. 

On September 28th, one month after my expected closing date, the paperwork was still not in. 

On September 29th the paper work was in, but I was denied for the conventional mortgage because the paperwork had not been sufficient. 

I was offered a portfolio loan, which I accepted on October 2nd. This loan was denied by a mortgage processor that same day.

The loan, and my file, were taken to the president of the bank on October 6th, and approved. Closing was being scheduled for October 9th. 

On October 8th (today), my attorney discovers that the title is not clear, and advises me strongly against closing until this is cleared up by the seller's attorney. Closing is being scheduled for the end of October. If the title is not clear, I will be walking away from the deal.

Sometimes, there are morals to my stories. A possible moral for this one is to buy a house with cash - at least you could avoid the bank problems. I have a few others, but they are too violent to share publicly. The truth is, whether the industry is a mess or not, buying a home is a smart financial choice if you have a sum of money to use for a down payment. But, go into the process with two expectations. First, that you will drive the progress. Second, that your timeline, as clearly as you state it, is dependent on many things, so you might as well think of home buying as a ongoing process that will have a large presence in your life for several months. 

Life (Not) In a Box

I dated this guy for my senior year of high school and some of my freshman year of college. When the distance of being at different colleges became tricky he would always say "This is just the next step before we get married". I knew in my heart it was really just the next step before we would break up. When he tried to turn a Halloween spider ring into a promise ring of sorts I refused it, which had been a wise choice as a few weeks later he ended up kissing another girl and we broke up. 

I took all the gifts he'd given me and things that reminded me of him and put them in a box -Birthday cards, a bracelet, a sweatshirt, etc. Now . . . (I'm counting) . . . 6 years later, this all means nothing to me. Okay, maybe nothing is the wrong word - he was important in my life and I recognize that, but I'm not going to have an emotional reaction to the Miami Dolphins the same way I used to. I googled him just now, to see how I felt, and I felt nothing.

For some reason I like to be able to pack up parts of my life in a box. Oddly, I often ponder what would go in different boxes if I had to give something up. Don't ask me why I do this, because it's the dumbest thought process to go through . . . "If I lost this important thing and it was too painful to be reminded of it . . ."

I have a drawer in my desk that has almost become my "West Coast Swing" box.  All of my competition numbers are in there, some fliers, and pictures, and notes from workshops. I have a couple things in a pile that would go into an "RIT" box. I have a scrapbox that is my "box" from college. I think it's the idea of containing everything in one area that appeals to me. If, for whatever reason, I miss someone or something from college, I can open the scrapbook, and relive the time. When I don't want to live it, it sits on the bottom of my bookshelf and I don't have to worry about that. 

Life doesn't fit in a box, and isn't meant to fit in a box. My work, my hobbies, my relationships - they are all totally intertwined, nothing can be separated out easily. Thinking about it, I believe life is intended to be this way. Not being able to simply take a portion of my life away means I am truly involved in the things I do and the people I associate with. It means I have to make decisions carefully, and with clarity and guidance. My business decisions effect my personal life, my personal decisions effect my business. 

A lot of people like to leave the office physically and mentally at 5pm, and I'm all for not stressing out about work all evening and weekend long. But life is life. It moves and changes and grows and everything effects everything else. I could put everything in boxes, and shift around my boxes, and put some boxes in storage, and start new boxes, but I wonder, if I did that, if I'd really ever feel . . . if I'd really ever live.

Dog Problems: Part 2

If my boss and her husband weren't making poor decisions before, they certainly are now.

As the saga of the tumorous dog continued on, things looked up. The vet wasn't able to remove most of the tumor, but Seamus could get up and down on his own, and even walk up the stairs. Keeping the tumor area bandaged seemed to be the biggest problem. The bandages fell off, so, being the resourceful people they are, my boss and her husband duct taped the bandages to the dog. The tumor was leaking, and the incisions weren't healing (old dog - harder to recover). The wooden floors in the house/office had trails of drops of blood. Somehow, the solution to this problem was to cover the duct-taped bandages with a T-shirt. Imagine clients reactions, seeing a dog with a T-shirt duct taped around it.

Since the bandages and wounds were just covered with a T-shirt and not cleaned, they got messy. In all his wisdom, my boss' idiot husband decides to "sanitize" a knife and cut off some of the infection/dried fluids.

The unofficial surgery did nothing to help the poor dog. By Monday afternoon it was clear he was going downhill faster than ever, and so my boss puts a call in to the vet to see what would be best to do.

On Tuesday morning her husband walks into my office (this never happens - the man hates my guts) and says "Kristin, everyone will seem a little sad today, because Seamus didn't make it through the night". He was crying. My boss was crying all day. They'd put the dog to sleep on Monday night.

Their children however, are positively giddy about life. Odd, as they had been so concerned about Seamus being healthy and having the surgery. I come to find out that Seamus had been taken for "emergency surgery" on Monday night, and he didn't come home because he was "in a coma".

Now the situation has really exploded, because you have a big lie on your hands. When does the dog die? Do you tell them you lied? What happens when someone inevitably slips up and they lose your trust?

Again, no one has thought past the present moment. They've thought, and admitted, that it's easier not to have to tell the kids and deal with their pain, as well.

Problems don't disappear.

Dead dogs don't come back to life.

Problems cannot be solved through blatant ignorance towards the issue.

Life requires consistent action in a forward direction.

Fixing Problems

My boss has two children and two dogs. A ten year old girl, a six year old boy, and huge black lab mix, and a tiny chihuahua. The black lab-ish dog, Seamus, is getting old, and has grown a large (larger than his head) tumor on his stomach. Lately, clients who come in and out of the home-offices have been commenting on the tumor. One woman was so bothered she didn't want to have her meeting in the house where she could see the dog, and had to have her meeting outside. A few kids have asked if Seamus was having puppies. Most people just look at the dog, pet it, and comment on how badly they feel for it.

All the negative comments led my boss to take Seamus to the vet, something she has never done before. At the vet she was told that surgery to remove the tumor would cost $600, and it would probably just grow back because the disease is so widespread. Now, my boss and her husband are business owners. They own several business, and when one is struggling they will try something drastic (like buying a mobile billboard truck, or producing a musical) to make some extra money. Generally the new, extravagant, venture ends up costing more than it makes, and they end up worse off financially than they were before.

My boss was hesitant to agree to a $600 surgery that would not cure the dog, but her kids were insistent. She made a deal with them: they would start a business to cover the cost of the surgery. Last Monday morning the three of them went out raspberry picking. They came back with about two dozen cartons, set up a tent and table in their front yard, put up a whole bunch of signs, and the kids sat outside selling raspberries. The first day they gave away three cartons and ate two. The second day they sold 6, which put the kids in the profit margin by $7.00 (not including the gas money to drive one hour in a Yukon to get to the berry picking site). The third day they used the remaining raspberries to make a dessert of some sort. The dog went for the $600 surgery on Friday.

My boss ends up in the hole, again. 

I'd like to present a different scenario:

Let's say, when Seamus' tumor first begins to appear, he is taken to the vet. It's possible that it could have been cut out while it was still small, and stopped from spreading to the point it is at now. The dog wouldn't be in pain, it wouldn't have had a negative impact on business, and my boss could have spent three days actually trying to make money, rather than running a fruit stand. 

What if she took it a step further, and dealt with every problem when it first arose, rather than ignoring it until it was absolutely necessary? Real-life example: There is often not enough money in the bank account, and my boss is aware of this. A check bounces, and the bank charges a $32 fee. Now, instead of having to come up with X amount of dollars to cover the bill, she has to come up with X + 32 dollars. Say this happens every week for a month - if she would come up with the money for the bills before the checks bounced she could save nearly $150 a month. 

The solution to problems seems simple to me - solve problems when they first come up, while they are smaller and manageable - don't wait until it is a gigantic mess. The solution might not be easy to carry out, or any fun at all, but problems will never solve themselves, so taking steps to fix things while they are still manageable will always be an infinitely better choice than waiting for a disaster to appear, and then trying to fix that.

Too Much Work or Too Much Money

Yesterday I was on a time sensitive mission for work. Get to the bank to make a deposit before it closed at 4:30. It was 4:20, when I learned I needed to do this. In my rushing I forgot, until I was tuning out the parking lot, to turn the trip odometer back to zero. So I reached my hand through a space in the steering wheel to hold in the knob for a few seconds, until the odometer changed to zero. Well, as my right hand was reaching through the steering wheel, my left hand was turning the steering wheel to get out of the parking lot. Many times, multi-tasking is good, but in this case it wasn't. My right arm turned in ways it wasn't supposed to. After I rescued my arm I actually thought it may have been broken it hurt so badly, but it doesn't seem to be anything some time, and icing, will not fix.

So, I've been looking at my arm yesterday and this evening. I can't tell if I'm getting a bruise, or if it is more of a rope burn type of thing. I can see some swelling, also. In looking at my arm I noticed something even more unusual. A harder, darker patch of skin on the back of my right wrist/the bottom of the palm of my hand. This little square of skin looks different and feels different. I started wondering how it got there - Did this happen from the steering wheel, too? I hadn't thought my hand was even in the right spot to get hurt. Then I started wondering if I had some sort of skin problem, or other problem that effected skin. I know that skin doesn't just turn colors and textures on its own. I decided to stop worry, and went back to whatever I had been doing on the computer at that time. I only had my hand on the mouse for about 3 seconds when I realized what had been happening. Because of the less-than-ideal chair/desk combination I have at work, my keyboard and mouse have to be right at the edge of the desk, nearly falling off.  When I use my mouse, that corner of my wrist rests right on the edge of the desk. This happens for hours each day. 

It was then that I came to the sad realization of  how largely my job effects my life. Last week I was sick to my stomach with worry, this week I'm injuring myself. I took a call at 8:00pm from my boss on Tuesday. Two weeks ago I worked for seven hours on Sunday.  I go home and feel entirely drained.  I'm not saying that extenuating circumstances don't come up that have to be dealt with. Part of being a salaried employee is dealing with these things. I also believe that part of being an employee means that you are not a slave, or work horse. If I am working extra entire days, dealing with unprofessional business situations and all the other time consuming, stressful things that happen, I believe that I should be compensated in some way for that. 

I watched a documentary the other day on the Bank of America/Merril Lynch merger/sale that happened this past fall, and they have the opposite problem. Billions and billions of dollars of Merril Lynch's income is allotted to bonuses each year. Instead of putting money back into the failing  bank to rescue it, the CEOs keep the money for themselves. The average salary of a Merril Lynch employee, who also receives a large bonus each year, is $240,000. The average salary of a Bank of America employee, who does not receive a bonus is $75,000.  Of course, Bank of America is the bank that is thriving and bought out Merril Lynch.

The point I am trying to make is that correct compensation for work is extremely important for a business to succeed . In the case of the employee who puts in a lot of effort, and just receives enough to live on, the employee ends up over tired, injured, unhappy, and frustrated - and is not very useful to the business in that state. In the case of the employee who earns a large salary, and is automatically given large bonuses, the best interest of the business is not in mind there, either. In the case of Merril Lynch, the bank was so far in the hole that the federal government basically ordered them to be bought out. 

I believe there is a happy medium out there. I believe that employers and companies who can find that will find success for themselves, as well.

Laughing at the Bad

This morning, on my way to work, a car pulled out in front of me. I slammed on my brakes and my phone, iPod, and the contents of a file folder fell onto the floor of my car. As the car slowly gained speed in front of me I frantically looked for the bowl of soup I had brought for lunch, hoping it hadn't spilled all over my car. There was no evidence of soup, which was at first a relief, and then I realized I'd left my lunch at home. Sure, I work on a very commercialized strip with plenty of cafes and fast food restaurants - none that cater to celiacs, however, so I realized it was no lunch for me. 

As I walked towards the door to work I realized something was wrong. I hesitated while I unlocked the door - Work did not feel right. I unlocked the door, hit the light switch, and nothing happened. I hit it again. Nothing happened. I made my way around the corner in the total dark, and hit the light switch in the next room. Nothing happened. I set my violin, viola, bag of files, and coffee mug on the floor and called my boss. One and a half hours, a nearly dead cell phone battery, and a lot of embarrassment later, the lights came on. 

My life is full of ABSOLUTELY ridiculous problems. So maybe the missing lunch isn't so unusual, but how many people honestly walk into their jobs on a Wednesday morning to the power having been shut off? I've had a lot of absurd problems recently - work and non-work - and they have upset me greatly. Yesterday I had a headache because I had spent so much time crying. I couldn't even eat, I was so upset. Today, when I walked into a school without power, I didn't cry - I laughed. 

I laughed because I am helpless. I realized, in that minute, that there was absolutely nothing I could do to make the lights turn on, no matter how badly I wanted them to come on. A man in an office building downtown has that power, but I do not. So often, I am given the power to solve problems. I solve, and solve, and solve, until I have no more energy to solve anymore, and then I keep solving. What a relief - to finally have a problem I could not solve! Instead of crying and worrying (ok, I admit it, there was some - but it was not overwhelming) until the power came back on I sat in a comfy chair in the dark and relaxed, and was thankful for the downtime, which I so rarely get. 

So what did I learn? Oddly, something my exceptionally wise boyfriend just asked me to learn last night, even through my persisting that it could never possibly happen. I can dislike a situation. It can be awkward, uncomfortable, upsetting, angering, frustrating - BUT, at the same time, I can be at peace with it, knowing it is out of my hands, and in the hands of someone who does have the power to fix it. 

God never fails to amaze me with what He can do. 

Valentine's Day

I'm supposed to do a Valentine's Day post. 

I'm flexible and easy-going. I didn't always used to be. I used to plan out my life and if every little detail did not go according to plan I would fall apart. People often ask questions like "What do you want to do tonight?" or "Where do you want to eat dinner?" or "What time do you want to get there?" In my opinion there are only three ways a sane person would answer these types of questions:

1. You have an opinion and say it ("I want to eat tacos for dinner and then play video games").

2. You have an opinion, but don't say it ("I don't care. Whatever you want to eat", while dreaming of tacos in your head the entire time).

3. You honestly do not care ("I don't care").

For the first 20-something years of my life I choose option 2. I always cared, but I never wanted to admit to caring. I don't know how it happened, maybe I just said "I don't care" enough times, but I really began to not care. I actually heard people describe me as "flexible". 

An odd thing happened after I didn't care for a while - I started thinking. Not that I never thought before - I had thought a lot - but I started thinking in a different way. Somehow, when I'd been empty and without-a-care, all my pre-conceived notions of the world, and ideas society had put there, disappeared. What happened next was even more interesting - once I started wanting to care, I was able to make my own decisions, and share them, and live by them.

I decided that eating at restaurants frequently wasn't for me. I decided that I didn't want to get a Master's degree. I decided not to drink alcohol. I decided not to ever purposefully lie. I decided that if I was going to eat sugar, it was going to be chocolate. I decided to follow what God called me to do, not what other people called me to do.

Somewhere, in all my decisions, I decided that holidays were nothing special. In my opinion, holidays are cliched and over commercialized.  I boycott all holidays that are simply an excuse for people to drink excessively. I don't go shopping on the day after thanksgiving. I'm generous at Christmas, but don't go overboard like society wants me to. Halloween is just pointless.

I definitely don't do Valentine's Day. 

As far as I'm concerned, if you love someone, you should let them know that all year long, not just on some random day in February. Also, if I'm showing someone how much I care about them, the ideal way to do it doesn't seem like waiting 3 hours for a table at a restaurant, and then . . . I don't know . . . whatever people would do after that. Go see a movie? Eat dessert? Have sex? 

Or, if you're so into this Valentine's Day thing, why not just make your own? Pick some random day in some other month, and then you go do all those things without the lines, and, if you live in Rochester, possibly even without having to scrape ice off your car in between every stop. 

So, in my opinion, the only real benefit of Valentine's Day is that I end up with chocolate, and that is rarely a bad thing. Other than that, besides the people who have a financial interest in Hallmark, who actually cares? 

Deep Thoughts With Kristin

I am a girl.