Christianity

Stop the Insanity

/ Roxie / Leave a comment

Here’s the situation: It’s not ok.  It’s not ok to treat people different because of their choices and it’s not ok to force people to do something that they don’t want to do.  If you took this concept and applied it to any other scenario, we would be outraged and it would be considered a crime.

Before I get started, know that I’m shortening the key words in this (and their many forms and tenses), because I don’t need any sort of bot flagging my post and attaching some dumb PSA link to it, even though I’m sure this site is free of that.  You’re smart, I’m sure you can solve these abbreviated mysteries.  Cvd = duh.  V = this should be obvious.  Un-V = if you can’t figure this out, we have other problems.

Well That’s Just Great

Remember 19 months ago when we all heard about this ooky spooky virus and the very thought of it was crazy?  Then we thought social distancing and masks and lockdowns were crazy?  And then how crazy it was that our government essentially cancelled Christmas.  Do you remember the madness?!  Well, that madness almost seems sane to me now because the world has done gone and lost it’s mind!

Prior to that, if you would’ve asked me to list any reasons I could think of as to why my life might not turn out the way I want, I might’ve answered that it would be because the things I’d like to do require me to have a platform and a following but I’m a nobody.  I might’ve answered that it would be because I’ve done and accomplished all I want to/can do as a single person and the rest is dependent on finding a partner to do life with.  It would never have been because some stupid freaking virus would appear out of nowhere, disrupt the ENTIRE planet and potentially screw up all of my future hopes/plans/dreams.

The Blame Game

If I were God (and you should be thankful I’m not), I would be sending the flood right about now.  Just wipe this whole hot mess of humanity out because in the words of a basic white girl – I literally can’t even!  But like actually, I can’t.  The hate in the world is palpable!  There have been so many wrong things that have happened in North America this last year and now to top it off, the government is literally pitting the V and the un-V against each other and it is not ok!  None of anything that is going on right now is ok!  I get that everyone is over this crap, mentally and physically exhausted and looking for something, and now someone to blame, as to why a year and a half later things are worse, but can I just put this out there?  Blaming doesn’t help anything.  Blaming does not get you the results you want.  Blaming only causes more division and more hate.  Do you know who plays the blame game?  CHILDREN!  Tiny little humans whose brains haven’t fully developed.  This is the level of maturity we exhibit when we blame.

To V or Not to V

Personally, I legitimately DO. NOT. CARE. what you’ve decided to do.  If you got V – great, if you didn’t – great.  YOUR BODY, YOUR CHOICE!  But therein lies the frustration and the stress of many right now.  Canadians (and Americans) are losing their freedom of this choice and even more worrisome is many cannot see past the here-and-now to see the bigger picture of how losing this freedom could impact the future in a very negative way!

“Do your part.”  “It’s not a big deal.”  “Just get it so we can get over this pandemic.”  For many people, it’s not that simple!  The people who made the decision to get V had their reasons, just as the people who made the decision not to get V had their reasons.  The reasons might not seem valid to you, but they are valid to each person individually and news flash, it’s not your place to be the judge of someone else’s reasons!

I have both V and un-V people in my life and here’s what I know.  Not everyone who went and got the shot is a mindless sheep and not everyone who hasn’t got the shot is actually anti-V or a selfish conspiracy theorist.  A few people I know who got V were required to do so in order to see family members that live in care facilities, but I’d say the majority had the mindset of ‘we just want to get back to normal and if this is what it takes to do that or travel again, we’re going to do it’.  They can’t be faulted for that; that’s literally what they were guaranteed by the government!  Just as they can’t be faulted for their choice, the people who chose not to get V can’t be faulted for theirs.

I know people with auto-immune disorders who cannot get V because it poses a higher risk to them, yet they don’t fall under the exemption categories.  I know women who are hesitant of getting V because the long term effects on fertility/infertility are unknown and won’t be known for many more years.  I know people, who know people, who have died after getting the V, had adverse side effects and even been paralyzed.  As such, these people would rather take the risk of getting Cvd than the risk of getting V and you know what?  That’s their choice!  Where there is risk, there should be choice!

Stop It!

I could go on and on (and off!) about all of this.  Do I lean more towards one side than the other when it comes to my personal opinion?  Of course, but that doesn’t matter right now, what matters is, I think in all of the chaos that has only been amplified this last month, people have forgotten about the humanity in others. Reminder: there is still a person behind the decision to be V or un-V.  There is a stranger with a story that you don’t know and it’s really none of your business to know.  There is a coworker or a friend or a family member that, even as recently as a couple weeks ago, you could still enjoy the company of, while respectfully having a different opinion than.  Unfortunately, as soon as we were told that one side is to blame, humanity went out the window and now we just look at people and see them as the reason we’re living this unending cycle of insanity!

Let’s think for a moment about what happens when all of this ends?  Not Cvd, because I’m pretty sure that’s here to stay, but what happens when we’ve figured out how to continue living with this thing in the background and things have calmed down?  Are your relationships going to survive?  Will you be able to come back from the opinions you’ve formed or the things you’ve said?  What if it turns out that you were wrong?  What if it turns out that they were wrong?  Is this stupid virus worth losing relationships over?  Sorry, not in my world.

One Last Thing

Where are my Christians at?  No seriously, where are the faith-filled, miracle-believing, pray-without-ceasing Christians?!  I see and hear and read too many things that get posted and it seems like many Christians have forgotten about God (and the devil) in all of this.  Yes, science and medicine have done wonders for us in the past, but I’ve seen faith in a V elevated higher than faith in God.  And let’s not forget that we’ve been commanded not to fear, so why are you allowing fear to drive your life?  Dare I make a suggestion?  Turn off the news.  Close your newspaper.  Stay away from social media.  Why not spend that time in prayer instead?  Pray radical prayers that Cvd disappears!  And when you’re done praying, pray some more.  And then, go enjoy time with your family and friends.  Yes, even the ones who made a different choice than you!  Get to know people again and have conversations that don’t involve anything related to this nonsense!  You’ll quickly realize that people are more than their V status.

White Flag

/ Roxie / Leave a comment

Here’s the situation: Surrender is hard!  But why?  If God is good and God is for me and God has a plan that’s better than any of my plans, why aren’t I a little more “Jesus take the wheel” and a little less “hold my poodle”?

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Before I get started, this blog is sort of a continuation of two previous blogs.  I reference thoughts or circumstances from them, so without my having to recap everything, I suggest you also read The One Without a Title and Hope Lost. (Click on either title for the link)

No Surrender

Does anyone remember when the brand No Fear was all the rage?  It was definitely in the 90’s.  Did you know there was also a brand called No Surrender?  If this is the first you’re hearing of it, then your family must’ve had money!  It was the ‘more affordable’ (aka imitation) brand they sold at Kmart and well, we didn’t have money so we shopped there!  I also worked there for a year and a half and every time I would walk past a rack of the t-shirts, I would say under my breath “no surrender!” in a sort of Braveheart FREEDOM-esque voice and it always make me chuckle, because the brand was supposed to sound so hardcore, but like, you’re lame.  You’re sold at Kmart and we all know you’re just trying to be No Fear.

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Well, I wonder if every time I uttered those words to myself, the idea was actually planting seeds that I unknowingly watered, because I have walked out way too many years of my life in a state of ‘no surrender’.  That doesn’t sound so bad though, does it?  I mean, it actually sounds kind of strong!  It’s just another way of saying I’m not giving up or backing down and those can be really good things, but unfortunately, when you become a Christian, one of the main things you’re called to do is surrender to God (submit your own will to the will of God, showing complete faith in Him, belief in His promises and choosing to trust Him in everything), so if you’re clinging to your own things and unwilling to surrender them, it becomes a real internal tug-of-war, let me tell you!

Modus Operandi

Have you ever run an idea past a friend and all you really wanted was for them to agree with what you’re thinking, but instead they ask something so frustrating, like what your motives are or if your intentions are pure?  Um, of course they are!  …and we really do believe that most of the time too, but if you’ve ever dared to strip back your excuses and be 100% honest with yourself, you might’ve found that your intentions were not quite as pure as you thought!  That’s kind of what I discovered about myself with surrender.

For years I’ve been convinced that I’ve surrendered every area of my life to God and I was using the things that I do, or don’t do (anymore), to quantify that.  I mean, I go to church every Sunday, I serve on a team and I join small groups.  I tithe and I read my bible.  I volunteer.  I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t do drugs, I don’t look for validation from men or relationships, etc, etc.  I felt like Chandler Bing – could I be anymore surrendered?!  Turns out, I could.

(Stomp Stomp Clap, Stomp Stomp Clap) He Will, He Will, Prod You

I believe that a lot of us to need to hit a rock bottom of some sort before we’ll make a change.  That, or we need to get to a place where we’re finally sick enough of the way things are that we’re willing to try something different.  At least that’s how it is for me!  I mean, why would we change anything if things are working for us?  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?  And it’s because I’m a Christian that I also believe that God will sometimes allow a once-good situation to turn sour or “bad” things to happen in our lives in order to drive that change.  It’s like His way of cattle-prodding us to move and even though He’s probably trying to move us to a healthier state or to something better, sometimes it feels like nothing more than a cattle prod!

Previously On The Situation Room

If you’ve been keeping up with TSR, then you know that the past few years I’ve felt like I was in a constant deficit.  It’s been one change after another for other people and their gains were usually my losses.  I would get close to a friend and then they would get married.  I would get close to another friend and then they would move away.  Others started having babies and others left the church I was attending.  Everything was changing for me and yet nothing was changing for me.  It becomes pretty disheartening watching everyone pass you by, and they’re not just months ahead of you, they’re years ahead of you!  You start to feel pathetic and like something must be wrong with you.  You wonder if you’re being punished for something you did in your past.  You feel like you’ve failed at life or you’ve failed at being a woman and no matter what you do, your life just. won’t. progress.  After enough time goes by without any change, you can’t even see how anything ever could change anymore.  Reality just becomes too real.

That’s the place I had gotten to earlier last year and that’s when I figured – fine, if this is my lot in life, then I guess I’ll just try to make the best of it.  I have to, I have no other choice.  As frustrating and disappointing and heartbreaking as it was that that had even become my option, I was certain I could at least survive this life, as long as I had the few close friends I had left and nothing more changed.

…and that’s when God laughed.  (And rustled up the ol’ cattle prod.)

Do You Smell What The Rock is Cooking?

If you’ve been keeping up with TSR, then you’ll also know that last year 2 more of my close friends’ lives changed drastically – changing everything for me, again!  And then there was that guy I mentioned in Hope Lost.  Even after he had cut off our contact, I still left the door ajar.  I mean, we didn’t completely stop talking and I still maintained my curiosity about what might happen in the future (and I’m pretty sure the curiosity was mutual).  However, that door was swiftly SLAMMED shut on New Year’s Eve of all days!  And not even during the day, but like, around 9 p.m.; leaving me with one final blow to end the year.

That evening I found out (from the guy himself) that shortly after me, he had met a new girl and dated her, “officially”.  This from the guy who told me multiple times he couldn’t handle anything more than a friendship at the moment, and that we couldn’t stay in contact because he needed to go figure out his life and work on himself, by himself.  Mmhmm…I see that worked out well.  After learning of this new information, a social media post he had put up a few weeks prior immediately came to mind.  In it, he had cryptically announced how he’d met someone this last year and fallen in love with her (and he assumed this someone would read the post and know who she was).  When I read it I thought – oh wow! I figured he liked me, but I didn’t realize he felt that strongly!  If you’re tracking with me though, you can probably guess – that post was NOT about me!  If the other stuff was the door being slammed shut, then that was the door being locked and the key being thrown away!

At the literal end of 2020, I had been stripped of all of my comforts, all of my potential plans or hopes for the future and everything/everyone I was relying on to survive.  The real annoying part though, is that I suspected I knew who kept allowing these things to get taken from me and why.

Friggin’ Surrender

As I started the new year, rock bottom and sick enough of the way things were to be willing to make a change, I began to think about surrender.  Surrender (and/or putting God first) is actually what’s been unearthed every time I was struggling or wondering if and when things would ever change for me.  I would be sharing with someone and they’d Matthew 6:33 me, or anytime I was going through something, the church message would always be about Matthew 6:33.  Anyone who was ever trying to encourage me, even strangers, would quote Matthew 6:33 to me.  I hated Matthew 6:33.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

– Matthew 6:33 (NKJV) (emphasis mine)

When I signed up to see a counselor for 6 sessions a few years back, I wanted the quick fix.  Tell me what’s wrong with me and how to fix it so that my life can move forward.  We pulled back a few layers and no surprise, unearthed surrender…or my lack thereof.  What? – don’t you remember my list of how surrendered I am?  After 3 sessions we agreed that meeting any further would be pointless; both her and I knew what I needed to do.  I think I went home and over time just let go of a few of my dreams, further proving to myself that I’d surrendered even more areas, but in reality, defeat ≠ surrender.

This year though, with no comforts and no plans and no people left to rely on, combined with my unwillingness to go around this mountain again, it was time to try something new.  “Ok God, I get it, you are literally all I have left.  Now what?”  As hopeless as I may ever feel, I’m also an action person.  I’m not the type who’s going to cry about her life without also working towards a solution and this year, the solution looked like a white flag.

Irrational Fears

I sat down to really think about surrender and once I stripped back my excuses and actually got honest with myself, I began to realize just how scared of surrender I was.  How scared of surrender I’ve been.  In fact, I am terrified of God’s will for my life!  I started jotting down notes:

  • I feel like if I surrender, I can’t have dreams or plans or desires of my own, or even an opinion!  And if I do still have those things, then maybe I’m not fully surrendered? or ever will be?
  • What if I surrender my will for God’s will and His will is that I become a missionary?  I don’t want to be a missionary!
  • I’m afraid that if I surrender my singleness for whatever God has in store, maybe what he has in store is singleness?  Or that if I surrender my desire to be married, God will say “ok finally!  Now that you’re ok being single, that’s what you get – being single”.
    • On the flip side, I’m afraid that if I surrender my desire to be married, I’ll actually lose that desire and I don’t know if I want to lose that.  Plus then I’ll have wasted so many years “becoming the person” and learning what it takes to have a great relationship that I don’t even get to put it into practice?
  • I’m afraid if I surrender my timeline and the things that I want take too long to come to fruition, I’ll just get discouraged and be here again.

Not only all of that, but HOW do you surrender?  How do you go from wanting things for years to suddenly being ok with the possibility of a different outcome?  Is surrender just a simple choice – “I choose surrender!” or is it a struggle – “I want to surrender, but I need help with it!”?  I actually do believe that God’s plan IS the best plan for my life, but what if His plan isn’t even close to mine?  What if His plan holds nothing more than this life that I’m already living, but being ok with it?  And why would he create me one way, put desires in me and then ask me to let go of them?

Guess I’m Dating Jesus Now

Gosh, I pulled a thread and the whole sweater unraveled!  I guess when it comes down to it, we’re really only willing to surrender to someone we truly trust and you can only trust someone you know and you can only know someone you spend time with!  Apparently I don’t know God as well as I think I do, since I’m always anticipating the “lessons” He plans to teach me, instead of anticipating the blessings He wants to give me.

The best way I could think of to rectify this whole hot mess of mine was to fast.  Let me tell you something, which is probably no shock now since it seems I’m hardly even a Christian!  I’ve never fasted.  And I’ve never intended to fast either!  Good for the people who do, but I love food.  The few times I’ve considered fasting, my motives were wrong.  I wanted the quick fix – maybe if I were to fast, God would give me what I want.

Fasting really is not about trying to get miracles and breakthroughs from God.  It is about aligning yourself with God and what he already wants.  We don’t fast to get God to change something.  We fast so that we are changed and come into a greater level of faith.

– Stovall Weems, Awakening

I need more faith.  I need to surrender.  I need to know God more and trust God.  This time my intentions were pure.

January 1st when I wrote out my goals for the year, under spiritual goals (there’s 5 categories: personal, relational, financial, spiritual and miracle), I wrote “maybe fast for the 1st time ever. UGH“.  By January 2nd I had already decided I was going to fast this year.  It would be 21 days and I would start Monday, January 11th.  Then the very next day, January 3rd, my church announced they were starting 21 days of fasting and prayer on the 10th.  I opted to bump up my start date so that I could do it alongside the church and with the book Awakening (a 21 day devotional about prayer and fasting).  I won’t go into all of the details here, but I allowed myself to eat from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. (8 hrs) and chose to fast everything but water from 3 p.m. to 7 a.m. (16 hrs).  (Feel free to message me if you want more details about the whole experience.)

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I’m happy to report I finished the 21 days yesterday and I crushed it!  Like, I’m actually super proud of myself!  So here we are, the first day after and how do I feel?  Well, I can’t say that I heard from God or know my distinct purpose or that I’m even expecting my life to change at all, but I feel alive again and my spirits are up and my fears are (mostly) down.  Yes, I’m still a little afraid of God’s will, but I’m choosing (because it doesn’t come natural just yet) to continue working on my surrender and trusting that God is good, God is for me and His plan is better than any of my plans.  So, I guess…Jesus take the wheel?

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out that there isn’t, than live my life as if there isn’t and die to find out there is.

– Albert Camus

The One Without a Title

/ Roxie / 2 Comments

Here’s the situation: A lot of things had me ‘in my feelings’ these last 2 months and questioning God’s plan, but what else is new, right?  I started writing to process and just kept writing and well, this is it.  No title, no theme wrapped up with a bow.  It just is what it is, kinda like how I feel about life right now – it is what it is!

Back in September, I did something very unlike me and I joined a book club.  I was invited by a girl from church and even though I’m not a huge reader, I figured it was a good opportunity to meet and make new friends!  The book: Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge.  The plan: read 1 chapter a week and meet weekly to discuss.

One of the evenings a girl in the group asked if we could think of any times in our lives when we were mad at God for doing something we didn’t like or thought was a bad thing, but now we can see He did it for our good (Romans 8:28).  That was a pretty easy yes.  I can think of countless times I’ve been mad at God for what He was doing, because it seems like all He ever does is take things away from me!  Of course, with a little bit of time under my belt, I can usually see what he was saving me FROM, but the more I thought about that question and the things that I’m still waiting for 20/20 hindsight on, the more I started to wonder – but what exactly was He saving me FOR?!

Set Apart.  For This?

For me, there’s no denying it was God who saved me from multiple relationships that I wanted to settle on, but…for what?!  It’s not like He brought me out of them to bring me into something amazing, because He’s had years to do so, but I’m still single.  And almost every one of the friends I feel like HE specifically placed in my life during this “season” so that I wouldn’t feel so alone, HE then opened up doors for and gave opportunities to, which in turn took them out of my life a short time later!  If He knew He was just going to have them pass through my life, why did He bother bringing them into my life?  I sure didn’t need to get close to another person who was only going to leave.  Spare me the time and the heartache!

It’s that piece of my heart…  The piece that longs for companionship, be it a relationship or even just a friendship…  That desire that is supposedly a God-given desire…  It’s that piece that can’t seem to understand what God is up to.  He knows how I feel – why would He bring me here and then just leave me here all alone?

The (Claw) Game of Life

When I think about this in my life, I picture it like one of those claw machines you’d find at an arcade or a Chuck E. Cheese and we are all the toys inside.  The few times I’ve made some life-changing decisions, it was the claw (God) picking me up and dropping me in another spot in the machine.  Or, if there were times when the claw couldn’t grab ahold of me (because sometimes I’m stubborn and don’t want to budge, eg. a relationship He knew was headed nowhere), He would pick up the other toy and move them to a different corner instead.  But more often than not, it’s the claw coming to get one of my good toy-friends and carrying them all the way to the prize chute.  (The prize chute being where they get what they’ve been praying for or hoping for or secretly wishing for all along.)  With their spot in the machine now empty, other toys naturally tumble in to fill it’s place and just as I start to get comfortable with the new toys, here comes the claw again to take another one away…

This Ain’t No Kirk Cameron Movie

Left behind.  That’s how it feels anyway – every time a friend gets married, moves away, has a baby.  All of these things are exciting and I am happy for them, but for me?  Every step forward they take is a reminder of where I’m not (and not even close to being), and it’s a step further away from me.  I’m aware of how immature and selfish that sounds and I know that my friendships won’t end because of these things, but they also won’t ever be the same.  Distance changes dynamics.  Spouses change priorities.  Children change everything.  And that’s fine, that’s life.  That’s what’s supposed to happen.  You’re supposed to grow up!  Leave and cleave.  Heck, if their opportunities had been my opportunities…?  Pssh, later b****es!  So who can blame them?  I would never expect a friend to stay where they’re at on my behalf.  That would be immature and selfish and I sure wouldn’t do it for them!  Unfortunately, their changes have become increasingly more difficult for me the last couple of years, because their changes are now affecting my plans for the future (unbeknownst to them)!

Morgan – You’ve changed.  You always promised me you’d never be one of those girls who ditches their best friend the minute they get a boyfriend.

Mindy – I would never promise that.  All I’ve wanted in my life is to abandon all my friends for a boyfriend.

– Mindy Kaling & Ike Barinholtz, The Mindy Project, S3E4 (I Slipped)

The Back-up Plan

My life feels stuck.  What’s even more annoying is I’m pretty sure it’s no fault of my own either.  I haven’t rejected opportunities or prioritized a career above all else.  I didn’t put off getting married or having a family because I wanted to travel while I was young or save money first.  I’ve been here.  I’ve been ready.  I’ve been trying to make it happen, but no matter what I do, this seems to be where the Lord keeps me and I don’t get it.  Not sure I ever will either, but rather than try to understand anymore, I’ve just been trying to make the best out of life.  Making the best of it however, has been very dependent on my friends and my friends’ lives not changing.  I hate to say it, but my friends, in a way, have become the back-up plan to the things I really want.

Now, DON’T misunderstand me – I love my friends!!  I love spending time with them and even if I were in a relationship, I already know there are things that I’d prefer to do with friends!  Friends are so important!  What I mean, is that there are things that I want that at this point, don’t look like they are ever going to happen, so I’ve had to let go of them and find contentment in the next best thing.

Next Best Thing #1

I want to travel!  I should probably preface this by telling you that I don’t want to travel alone.  Sorry, but the fun for me is exploring with a friend, not going by myself, so for the time being, that’s not an option.

There are trips that are easy to take with friends, but then there are trips that would be better taken with a significant other.  For instance, I’ve always wanted to stay in a glass bottom bungalow in Tahiti for my honeymoon.  Not exactly a vacation that you take with a friend!  I’d also like to get to Europe at some point and if I’m headed all the way in that direction, I’d like to take a few weeks or a month and explore all the places, instead of spending a week in 1 destination and hoping to make it back another time.  It’s easy for my friend’s husbands to say “sure, take a girls trip to Vegas for a few days”, but it’s a far cry for any of them to be able to take a month and a chunk of their savings to go somewhere they’d probably like to explore as a couple!  (Also, I’m not sure I’d want to spend a month with just a friend.)

Sans significant other, I certainly won’t be going to Tahiti and my European vacation doesn’t look very promising either.  It’s disappointing, but the next best thing is that one of my best friends is my cousin and she’s always up for travel!  Plus, her husband wants to travel too and doesn’t seem to mind me being around.  We never really discussed it, but it didn’t seem like they were planning to have kids, so I took solace in the fact that I would likely always have them as travel partners and I already knew they wanted to go back to England, so I could at least get there!  It was also comforting knowing that when I’m 80 and probably still single without children, they’d be 80 without children too, so while everyone else had kids and grandkids to spend time with or to take care of them, we’d have each other in our uncommon life paths.

And then…this spring she announced that she was pregnant.  It’s amazing, but it also totally changed my trajectory.  They were the crux of my singleness survival plan!  They were the 1 thing that didn’t make me fear how my future might end up, but now their lives are forever going to be different from mine!

Next Best Thing #2

I talked about it in All By Myself – I’ve always had a sort of ‘friend spouse’ in my life.  That person I did the boring parts of life with (running errands), as well as the fun.  It’s a lot more rare now, as most everyone is married, but over the years there’s always been at least 1 girl my age, in my stage of life who was up for the same adventures as me!  Or to do things that would be considered a date if you were on them with a man, but since we were both single, why not go on a “date” with each other?  It’s better to be out with a friend than sitting at home alone!  Would I prefer to be doing these things with a man?  Yea, for sure, sometimes!  But, I figured, if I am called to a lifetime of singleness, I’m not going to be thrilled about it, but I should be able to survive it, as long as I have this friend in my life.

This friend though, whoever played the role of it in changing seasons, has always been taken from me!  It’s what I talked about before.  They were brought into my life, but then God relocated them or brought them a spouse or both and with my most recent friend, she got a job transfer that moved her across the country and now there’s literally no one left to fill the role!

Are You There God?  It’s Me, MargaRoxie

So, we’re back at the beginning again; what exactly is He saving me FOR?  I used to believe that what was in store for me must be amazing, that’s why it was taking all that extra time.  Or even that God had to keep emptying the spots I kept trying to fill so that I’d even have space for the someone He was planning to bring along.  After this much time has passed with zero progress though, I’m not convinced of either of those things anymore.  What am I going to do about it?  Nothing.  I’ll still believe in God.  I’ll still have the same desires.  I’ll still get mad at God for taking things away from me and I’ll still keep trying to trust that He is actually doing something.  And, I’ll keep trying to make the best out of life and writing about it until nobody reads this anymore!

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(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

/ Roxie / 1 Comment

Here’s the situation: When plans don’t go the way I intended, I’m learning to make the best of them, but even though I can find happiness in the day-to-day and unpredictable moments, overall, I’m just not satisfied!

If I were to ask you what your biggest fears are, would you be able to easily identify them?  Some of the most common ones are the fear of public speaking and the fear of dying.  I am totally in agreement with the public speaking thing – thanks, but no thanks!  And though I’ve never really been afraid of dying, I have feared how I might die.  Alone, in my condo and nobody would notice until my neighbors called the police because of the smell coming from my unit.  That’s when they’d discover my body, half eaten by 42 cats.  Do I own a cat?  No.  Do I plan to own a cat?  Never.  But I feel like they find you at a certain point in your singleness and they’re probably already en route.

Ok, so having a bunch of cats eat my flesh may be a bit of a stretch, but if you were to ask me my biggest fears, for the longest time I would’ve said dying alone.  Or I guess rather, dying having never been married.  Even though the idea of being eternally single can still evoke bouts of panic, it seems to have taken a backseat to what I might actually be afraid of now:

  1. Living an ordinary life.
  2. Never truly being satisfied or content.

Ordinary is in the Eye of the Beholder

chasing-sunriseSo what is an “ordinary life”?  I suppose everyone would have a different idea, but I fear the ordinary in a variety of ways.  I fear there never being anything more to my life than working Monday to Friday, 8 to 5, just to pay bills and afford some things I enjoy.  That doesn’t feel like living life, that feels like surviving life.

Ordinary makes me think of living a ‘small’ life, for lack of a better word.  For example, rarely venturing outside of your community or having a circle of friends that never grows.  Or ‘small’ like you’re so stuck in your little world that you never try anything new and you immediately reject ideas that might take you out of your comfort zone.  Don’t get me wrong – I am not a spontaneous, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of girl.  I like information, my decisions are usually well thought out and I enjoy a good comfort zone, but I don’t want to get so stuck that I never stretch myself.  There is a world out there and I would like to experience it!

I also fear an ordinary life in that, I might have an unremarkable existence.  You hear people say stuff like “they are the best thing that ever happened to me” or “meeting them changed my life“.  I would like to be that for someone.  I want to make an impact.  I want my life to matter and have meaning, but right now, it kind of feels like it doesn’t.

Survey Says

I texted a few of my friends recently and asked them some seriously loaded questions.  Questions that unintentionally made them worry about my mental health!  Things like:

  • Are you content or satisfied with your life?
  • Do you feel like there’s something that’s missing?  Or something you’re striving for that you think will make you happier?
  • Do you think you’re living out your purpose on earth?

I just wanted to know how people felt about their lives in comparison to me.  Are their jobs fulfilling?  Do they feel like they have purpose?  Or maybe they didn’t feel like they had purpose until they found their spouse or had children?  Is there still something inside of them wanting to get out or goals left to accomplish that they won’t be happy until they achieve?  Mainly, did they truly feel content or satisfied, or I suppose, settled in their lives?  And not that they had settled, but that they were settled; they had a peace about their lives.  Maybe I’m the only one who’s never satisfied with where I’m at?

Striving

That heading about sums it up.  It could be the perfectionist in me or the administrator, or the part of me that hates inefficiency, but I feel like there’s always room for improvement – in myself and in my surroundings.  So that’s what I do; I continuously strive to do better, be better, look better, write better, get fitter, save more, find a more efficient way, etc.

I know the word striving has it’s negative connotations, but I don’t necessarily see striving as a bad thing.  After all, it just means ‘to make great efforts to achieve a goal‘ and there’s nothing wrong with that!  However, I question whether I’m striving because I’m naturally more inclined to due to my personality, or if I’m really just striving to compensate for the areas where I feel that I lack.

The Purposeless Driven Life

When I look around me, I see a bunch of people doing amazing things.  Friends that have always had great aspirations and are actually accomplishing those things.  Lawyers and fashion designers and police officers and business owners.  Creatives and crafters and driven people!  I have a friend who’s a missionary and I have friends who might not think they’re doing anything special, but they are husbands and wives or fathers and mothers and they are cultivating loving homes and raising the next generation.  Their lives all have purpose!  And then I look at my life and wonder what the heck I’m doing here!

Unlike most, I never had great aspirations.  I honestly and naïvely thought I’d get married right out of high school and I guess I assumed that’s all there was to life; graduate and get married.  That was the path everyone I knew had taken, so why would I need other aspirations?  I never even considered things might not work that way for me.  (The fact that no boys were interested in me should’ve tipped me off though!)  I guess the only real plan I had was to go with the flow until I met my husband.

So, with no career goals in mind, I got a job at Kmart after high school and when they went out of business, I worked for my dad.  And when my dad’s boss retired and sold the company to new owners, they laid me off because they wanted to bring in their own staff.  When that happened, the original owner offered to pay for me to go to business school and it didn’t matter if I wanted to or not, my parents told me – you don’t turn down free education!  Nearing that graduation, the school would fax your resume to company’s looking to hire, which is how I got the job I still have to this day, so I didn’t even pick my career, it picked me!  I did take a small hiatus in the middle to pursue a few careers of my choice, but they didn’t pan out as I thought.

A solid 20 years went by before I started to grasp the reality that this marriage thing I was waiting for, legitimately might never happen for me!  If only for the survival of my heart, I decided to let go of that dream as best as I could (but obviously not entirely).  That’s when plan B surfaced.  A plan I am now striving towards.  It’s a new dream and a new goal and if I can achieve it, it might make me feel like I have purpose and validate my worth in all of the areas I feel that I lack.  It would pacify all of my fears of living an ordinary life and never being satisfied!

…but…what if it doesn’t?

Insatiable

What if this dream doesn’t become a reality?  What if I never end up with plans A or B?  Can I be content with neither?  Would I even be content if I had both?  Will I ever feel satisfied or will I always be striving for more?

Everything is wearisome beyond description.  No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied.  No matter how much we hear, we are never content.

– Ecclesiastes 1:8 (NLT)

I’m honestly not sure how to reconcile the possibility that my life may never reflect what I hope for and if that happens, how do you find contentment or satisfaction when you always feel there’s room for improvement?  And if you have to choose to be content, rather than actually being content, are you, in a way, just settling?  Or should we view the stirring in our souls as a nudge to keep striving towards a goal?  Maybe the dissatisfaction means we haven’t arrived yet and we need to keep working?  Maybe there is still more in store?  Who can know?!

Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in it’s mothers womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.

Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another – or maybe both.

– Ecclesiastes 11: 5-6 (NLT)

Decisions Decisions

/ Roxie / 1 Comment

Here’s the situation: We make so many decisions a day without even thinking about it, because most of them seem insignificant.  But did you know that every choice you make and the habits you’re forming right now actually play a larger role in your future than you might realize?

If I had to identify with a TV character, it would unfortunately be one of the crazy ones, like Annie from Community or Leslie Knope from Parks & Rec.  They’re anal, organized and they love their binders!  Since I was engaged once, I’ve dabbled in a little wedding planning and I too had a binder!  It was ‘Martha Stewart’s Keepsake Wedding Planner’.  It had different tabs and dividers for dresses and flowers, and special pages to write out your guest list and plastic inserts to hold business cards, etc.  One of the pages was a checklist.  Martha gurl, you are speaking my language – I LOVE LISTS!  At the top, you wrote your wedding date and below was a list of everything you needed to have done 6 months before the wedding, 3 months before the wedding, 2 weeks, 1 week, the day before, the day of…you get the picture!

This backward design process is actually how I plan most things in my life now.  If I want to save a specific dollar amount by a certain date or if I’m leaving for a holiday in 2 weeks and need to get a bunch of stuff done before I go; I always look ahead to the goal and plan the steps to get there in reverse.  Doing things this way keeps you on track and saves you from forgetting anything or running around like a maniac at the last second!  I never used to be like this though.  Why would I plan for the future when it was so far away?

I YOLO’d Before YOLO Was Cool

The acronym ‘YOLO’ really only became a thing in 2011, but long before people were making poor decisions and passing them off as “you only live once”, I was making poor decisions and passing them off as “being in my 20s”.  I was raised in a Christian home and went to a Christian school, blah, blah, blah.  It was as boring as it sounds, so when I finally became an adult and could make my own decisions (whilst hiding those decisions from my parents because I still lived at home and they were scary!), I decided that partying was way more fun than church, so that’s what I did. 

When one of my best friends and I first met, we bonded quickly once we realized how much we had in common!  We had the same cultural background and were familiar with the same traditional foods.  We discovered our moms actually grew up in the same province, in towns 10 minutes apart.  We learned that we’d both been raised in Christian homes, but not just that, we were raised in Christian homes, but neither of us were living as Christians for the time being.  We were young, on the cusp of emerging from lengthy awkward stages and ready to paaaartaaaay!  We moved out of our parents houses and in together and from there we started to kick @$$, take names and break hearts!  Over the years we talked about how we knew we’d go back to church…eventually…but not quite yet, because we were having too much fun!

‘Eventually’ came when we all started to age out of the club and my friends were getting into serious relationships.  I figured that was a good time to get my life back on track so that I could meet that Christian man I’d always wanted, but knew I wouldn’t find at the bar.

That’ll Teach Ya!

Years after being back in the church but remaining single, I wondered if God hadn’t been withholding from me.  Perhaps if I hadn’t quit going to church…?  Perhaps if I didn’t party so much…?  Perhaps if I hadn’t done      (whatever)     , things would be different?  Instead, God must’ve been punishing me for my past; there was no other explanation for it! 

While other Christians know a loving and gracious God, I feel like I’ve always known “lesson God”.  Perhaps you’re familiar with Him too?  The God who lets you fall on your face to learn.  The God who will delay something you really want to teach you patience.  The one who will give you a physical ailment to show you that you shouldn’t judge others or to teach you humility.  I know these things can happen, but purposeful spite isn’t a characteristic of God, and as much as I’ve matured in my faith over the years, when things don’t work out the way I’d hoped, my default always goes back to wondering what God is punishing me for this time, or what lesson I’m supposed to learn now.  (I’m still a work in progress people, get off my back!)

I think it’s because of this, that I feel responsible for some of the delays in my life and now that I’m older, I really strive to make the best decisions for my future and not hold up the process any longer!  Let’s say that my 20s did, in fact, affect my 30s.  How is what I do today going to affect me a week from now, a year from now or even 35 years from now?!

Papa Don’t Preach

When I was a kid, my dad would go to the mall every Saturday morning as soon as it opened and head straight to the lottery kiosk to check his tickets and buy new ones.  This is the routine he kept as far back as I can remember.  He was also an avid “donor” to our local fundraising lotteries.  You know, the ones where a portion of the ticket goes to charity, but more importantly, you have the chance to win a brand new home or other prizes!  (Spoiler alert, we never won the lottery!)

Around 8 years before he died, he started showing signs of confusion.  I would go to my parents house for a visit and he would ask me a question and a few minutes later, ask the same question again.  I found it rather annoying because I just assumed he hadn’t been listening.  One summer he decided to do a cross Canada road trip to visit his family back home, a province he was very familiar with.  On this trip however, he got lost multiple times, followed another vehicle for about 6 hours in the wrong direction and I could swear someone told me he ended up on a private military base and got in trouble for it.  It was at a doctor’s appointment during these years that the words “early onset dementia” were first mentioned.

About 2.5 years before he died he was officially diagnosed with dementia.  Until that time my mom hadn’t shared any details with me about what had been happening at home; probably not to worry me.  I would eventually come to find out that my dad had been pulling garbage out of the garbage can in the middle of the night and flushing it down the toilet.  Or forgetting to take his diabetes meds throughout the week, then taking a week’s worth in a day.  His temper would flare and he’d slam doors or threaten to jump out of the moving vehicle if my mom wanted to drive.  He would pay bills twice or miss payments altogether and he would lose money; either actually physically losing cash or spending it and not remembering where.  Because of this loss of awareness, now when he went to buy lottery tickets, he would buy all the tickets or spend double the money he would’ve had he still had his wits about him.

I often think about this.  Even as the rest of his mind was failing, the habit of buying lottery tickets was so well ingrained, that it was that part of his routine that stayed in tact, and to the detriment of my parents finances.  It really makes me consider, or reconsider, any habits I may unknowingly be forming right now!  If I want to have the best future possible, what steps can I plan in reverse to achieve that?

Choose Wisely

We live in a YOLO culture, that has become addicted to instant gratification.  People act on every emotional whim and we encourage it with inane sayings like “follow your heart” and “live your truth”.  Depriving ourselves of anything or practicing self control is so contrary to the norm, that it can feel like the wrong choice!  Why would we deliberately subject ourselves to something that doesn’t make us immediately feel better?  Unfortunately, every decision we make today will affect our future in some way, we just don’t often think about that!  I know I never used to!

When I quit my job to go back to school, but continued to spend money like I was working, I didn’t think about the debt I was racking up!  How could I have known it would take me 8 years of tight budgets and hard work to pay off?  I never considered that while I was out “being in my 20s”, the Christian man I hoped to one day find, was probably already in church finding someone else.  Or that when I’d go back to church, my options would have greatly dwindled because I wasted all of that time!

The saying is true – you do only live once, so how do you want to live?  I want the next half of my life to be better than my first.  I don’t want to be 60 years old and winded after walking up a flight of stairs because I didn’t bother to get in shape when I was actually physically capable to do so.  I don’t want to carry a bunch of emotional baggage into my future because dealing with it made me too uncomfortable.  I don’t want to look like a piece of leather when I’m older because I enjoyed the sun too much when I was young!  (That’s shallow me talking.)  On top of all that, I’ve waited so long to find someone, that when I finally do, I want to give them the best years of my life, not make them deal with my dying decrepit years!

The past is in the past and we can’t do anything to change that.  The consequences of those actions might long be set in motion, but we can instantly redeem our future by considering our decisions today!  So think about where you are, where you want to be and how you plan to get there.  And for the love of all that is holy, make good choices!

make-good-choices

21 Questions

/ Roxie / Leave a comment

Here’s the situation: I like results.  I’m the kind of weirdo who wants to see how much comes out of the vacuum canister after I’ve cleaned or look at a wax strip once all the hair has been ripped from my flesh.  If I’ve been working out, I want to see changes in my body or if I’ve been saving money, I want to notice my bank balance go up.  I just want the assurance that the work I’ve been putting in is getting results and I haven’t completely been wasting my time!

If you’ve been single, or a Christian, or a single Christian for any length of time, you’ve probably been on the receiving end of some of the most annoying comments and/or unhelpful advice people like to give.  I’ve often thought of writing a book one day filled with these things to help prevent anyone from repeating them in the future!  I know they come from a good place and I appreciate everyone’s desire to try and encourage, but you should know, your words aren’t doing me any favors.  Here’s a sample of what I’m talking about, with a glimpse into what goes through my mind while I’m blankly staring at you and politely smiling:

You need to get married, it’s so awesome!
Right, ok, I’ll just pop out and do that because it’s super easy and I haven’t been trying to for 20 years!

Your story will encourage others one day!
Oh gee, I’m so happy I could go through this to make someone else feel better…

Then there’s these 2:
God’s more concerned with your growth than your happiness.  /  Focus on your eternity instead.
Wow, so encouraging, thank you oh sainted one!  How could my human nature possibly be thinking about wanting to enjoy this life, when the idea that there are rubies awaiting my crown in heaven should be enough to tide me over another 40 years?!

Hey man, nobody said what goes through my mind was mature!

Last, certainly not least, but possibly my least favorite:
BECOME THE PERSON, THE PERSON YOU ARE LOOKING FOR, IS LOOKING FOR
Insert eye roll here.  I didn’t use to dislike this one as much.  In fact, I used to think it was rather brilliant, but now it just seems to be a Christian cliché.

The Becoming

As a *cough*orty something year old, that line does nothing more than create frustration in me, whereas when I first heard it in my late 20s, it was encouraging.  After a series of unsuccessful relationships, it shifted my focus and gave me a project, and since I’m task oriented, I love a to-do list!  Plus, it seemed like such a simple formula.  Put in the work and get your desired outcome!  If, by chance, I was the common denominator that made every relationship not work, I was ready to get my crap sorted out and get this show on the road!!  The sooner I became, the sooner I would be found!

And so, armed with my revolutionary new mindset, I went to work.  I listened to messages about healthy marriages and watched couples interact so that I knew what to model myself after (or not).  I asked people around me if they saw an area in me that I needed to work on, but had overlooked.  I worked on getting my finances in order, because debt isn’t cute!  And since I was going to become this amazing wife that someone would be looking for, I figured maybe I should learn how to cook!  Over the years I built a simple, but tasty, repertoire of meals, not to mention my recent feat of becoming Suzy FREAKING Homemaker with the jams and the perogies and the cinnamon buns!

It’s now been at least 12 years since first taking the steps towards “becoming the person” and still nobody is buying what I’m selling!  Does that mean I still haven’t become that person yet?  Seriously, how long is this process?  Ok, don’t answer that, because I know what you’re thinking – we’re always in the process of becoming Rox!  Yeah yeah, I get that, but I know some jacked up people who didn’t have to “become” anything, so if I’m being required to, how jacked up am I?  How come it seems that some of us have to spend all of this extra time in the oven, when others are served raw?  And it’s not all frustration about “becoming” for a relationship.  Sometimes it’s the frustration of “becoming” for the future whatever-I-may-need-to-be.

milkshake

Purpose Driven Life

The frontal lobe of the brain is responsible for reasoning, motor skills, emotion and language and I’m pretty sure, like most, my reasoning and emotions are in a constant battle.  My reasoning side is what you may call a pessimist, but I call a realist.  It’s unnecessarily logical and always pointing out the facts.  My emotional side is like a dirty hippie named Starflower, who wants to run free, dance like no one is watching and believes dreams actually do come true!  In my case, reasoning usually muscles out Starflower and that might be a good thing most of the time, but unfortunately, it also gives me an overwhelming need to know WHY.  Why did certain people come into my life?  Or leave for that matter?  Why did [this] or [that] happen, or work, or not work out?  I need to rationalize, make sense of, or justify things in order to be satisfied with the answer.  I don’t know that I believe in coincidences, so there has be a purpose behind it all and I want to know what it is!

Everything Happens for a Reason

A few months before I bought the condo I’m in, I had actually purchased a different one.  It had my 3 requirements: it was in the neighborhood I wanted, it had underground parking and it had in suite laundry.  Bonus – it was also significantly below my budget!  I was so excited to have found such a cute little place!  I immediately started to plan out everything in my head; how I’d set up my room, how I’d decorate and what color I’d paint the place as soon as I moved in – I was thinking grey.  Of course, the place had some flaws, but no deal breakers.  The appliances were older and a few of them would likely need to be replaced within a year, plus the laminate was installed poorly and an ugly brown, so I knew I’d eventually want to change that too and I already knew what I’d go with!  While I was busy mentally moving in and entertaining guests, the lender was busy denying me.  The sellers had accepted my offer, I had a downpayment and I had a perfect credit score, how could I be denied?!  I was told that it had to do with the lender requirements of how the building was constructed of all things and none of it had to do with me!  It was completely out of my control!  The sale fell through and I was crushed.  How would I ever find something so great again?!

Fast forward 3 months to the place I’m in now.  It was a bit more money, but still under my budget.  It didn’t have my 3 requirements either, but it was only 5 minutes from where I wanted to be, it had the exact flooring that I would’ve chose for the other place, the appliances were brand new and it was already painted the perfect shade of grey (and if you’ve ever tried to find the perfect grey, you know it’s not easy!).  When I moved in, I didn’t have to change or update anything, or even plan to change or update anything in the future!  It also gets way more natural light than I would’ve at the other place, which I’ve come to realize is very important to me and even though I didn’t get my in suite laundry, there are 3 washers and dryers just down the hall from my unit and I can finish all of my laundry in under 2 hours – who else can really say that?  Oh yea, did I mention I have access to a tennis court and an outdoor pool too?  (Even though an outdoor pool is completely unnecessary in Canada!)

When You Haven’t Found That Reason Yet

I love to trace back and see what got me to where I am.  It’s that assurance that what I’ve been doing hasn’t been a total waste.  It’s that full vacuum canister!  On the other hand, when your path seems to have led nowhere and you don’t have answers to your questions, it can make the present difficult to accept.

By now, it’s no secret that I always wanted to get married.  To be a wife and take care of a spouse and live in suburbia with my husband was the apex.  I never wanted to birth babies or really raise young kids for that matter, but I always thought when I was older, it would be nice to have a family (of grown children).  And if I was going to be a mom, I wanted to be a young mom, however that ship sailed a loooong time ago!  Over the years I dated a number of guys who already had kids and I thought – if this works out, I get to skip the steps I never wanted to do, but get that grown family in the end, so this path checks out!  As you know though, things didn’t work out that way.  Or any of those ways actually, leaving me to try and reason why.  Why did the good Lord give me the desire to be married if I’m just going to be single forever?  He could’ve left that little part out of my DNA and I’d be none the wiser.  Why did I spend all that time preparing to be an amazing wife or learning how to cook if it’s only ever going to be for me?  I had no problem with my lack of kitchen skills or my sad diet of salad and rice cakes with melted cheese!  Plus it kept me way thinner!

As the aforementioned dream slowly died over the years, I had to find a new one!  In fact, the cookie cutter life that was once the goal, now seems too small!  Yes, I do still hope to get married one day, but living an ordinary life has become my greatest fear!  With the vision of my new future in mind, I can look back and recognize instances that would’ve been preparing me for where I’m headed.  There’s a snag though.  That new dream is nowhere near the realm of anything I’m capable of and far, far, far outside of my comfort zone.  So why did my original dream have to be replaced with something even bigger and more impossible, when I couldn’t even accomplish the small one?  Why does it feel like the path has been leading me to a place I can see, but am not sure I’ll ever reach?  And why is the person I need to be for that future, not the person I actually am?

Don’t Place a Period Where God Put a Comma

Here’s what I know.  I know nothing!  And I’m learning just how little I know, more and more every day!  I’m also s l o w l y learning to be ok with not knowing or being able to figure it all out.  Things (do) have a way of working out (in time).  Look at the condo; the second one turned out to be way better than the first, so I guess I don’t really need to understand everything, I just like to.  And all of those relationships that didn’t work and the impossible dreams that grew and the “becoming” I’ve been going through – the WHY’s will be clear one day and I’ll look back, as with everything else in my life, and see that there was a purpose in it all.  But for now, we wait!  …and we try to wait patiently, even though we feel we might be over baked…

Game Changer

/ Roxie / 6 Comments

Here’s the situation: I never thought finding love would be one of life’s challenges.  As I get older and it continues to evade me, I’m starting to wonder how anyone has ever successfully accomplished it.

Rom-coms.  The story lines are predictable, unoriginal and recycled every few years, but it doesn’t matter, I still love ’em!  Specifically Adam Sandler ones; I can’t explain.  My head’s not so far up in the clouds though that I can’t see how far fetched, implausible and unhealthy they actually are!  Have you ever kept track of the timeline in a romance movie?  Generally from when the couple meets until they are professing their undying love for each other, maybe 2 weeks have passed.

If movies were true to life and you had a friend telling you about their new love interest, which reflected the plot of some of our favorites, you’d likely question their overall stability.  And if you were a good friend, you’d probably give them some unwanted advice!  Let’s look at Titanic, Pretty Woman, The Holiday and Romeo and Juliet (the version with Leonardo DiCaprio is the only one I’ll watch, of course) – Rose cheated on her fiancé with Jack.  Vivian is a hooker.  Graham knocks on the door of Amanda Woods, a total stranger, and an hour later they have sex and Romeo kills himself over Juliet, then Juliet kills herself over Romeo.  Shakespeare tells us Juliet is 13 and guesses are Romeo would be around 16.  This is not romantic, this is crazy!  These people make terrible life choices but for some reason we lose all logic and wish our love stories were that magical.   (Until the person who cheated on their fiancé with you, cheats on you with someone else…)

Bad Boys, Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do?

Another popular plot is that of the bad boy who changes their bad boy ways for a girl.  Ryan Gosling did it for Emma Stone in Crazy, Stupid, Love.  Barney Stinson did it for Robin in How I Met Your Mother.  Heck, even Dexter, who is supposedly devoid of human emotion, with no interest in romance, fell in love with 2 women.  Ok so he’s the exception and didn’t change his murderous ways for them, but he’s not supposed to be capable of love and even he fell in love!  We love these story lines!  If you ever watched The OC, you can’t tell me you weren’t hoping that Volchok would become a nice guy when he went to the prom with Marissa!  It’s what we root for!  Guys often wonder why girls date jerks or are attracted to bad boys, or why any woman would seek after a man in prison.  I think the misconception is that women want to change men, but I’m more convinced that women idealize the notion that a man would change for her.

Da-Na-Na-Na, Da-Na-Na-Na (Ch Ch)

I think it was Beverly Hills 90210 that made the bad boy appealing to me.  Of all the years I watched, one scene still stands out, because I remember thinking it was so romantic.  It giphyshouldn’t surprise you that I own seasons 1 to 5 on DVD, so because I have half of the show at my fingertips, I did some digging to find that scene.  It was season 1, the original air date was January 3, 1991 and fittingly enough, the episode was titled Isn’t It Romantic?

Brenda and bad boy Dylan blow off a movie and go back to his place, which happens to be a hotel suite, because it’s Beverly Hills and that’s where people live apparently.  He’s surprised to find his father back in town and hosting a business meeting “at home”.  His dad pulls him into another room and you can hear the muffled yells of an argument.  Dylan comes out of the room, walks to the bar to pour himself a drink and Brenda says “you don’t drink do you?”, to which Dylan wittingly replies “only at family reunions.”  Brenda pleads “c’mon don’t, you’re driving me home!” and a brooding Dylan rasps “come on, let’s get outta here.”  He storms out of the hotel with Brenda in tow, clapping back as she tries to appease the situation.  They end up in a screaming match, he breaks a flower pot and she runs away.  He chases after her, grabs her and holds her tight, all the while apologizing.  She exclaims “you’re scaring me” and with remorseful tear-filled eyes, Dylan calms down, they embrace, then share their first kiss.  A week later he’s a changed man and they’re a full blown couple.  Isn’t it romantic?  Hmmm, not really actually.  29 years later I can see the red flags more than the romance, but as a preteen, it seemed like such a romantic gesture!  Dylan liked her enough to chase after her.  Dylan liked her enough to tame his bad boy ways!

I was personally afflicted with the bad boy bug for many years for a few different reasons; low self esteem, finding ‘safety’ in someone who other people wouldn’t mess with, etc.  I had no intention of changing them, but I certainly enjoyed the idea that maybe they would and it would all be because of their love for me!!  *sigh*  Looking back I think I was more interested in the story that could-be, than the guys themselves.  And spoiler alert – they never changed.  Not for me at least.

MythBusters

Sometimes our own conclusion about why things didn’t work out makes it easier for us to swallow.  But then we see what didn’t work for us, work for someone else and our theory gets blown out of the water.

I can say with all certainty that being a Christian has largely contributed to why I’m still single.  It’s always been a deal breaker.  A guy may be interested and he may even know I’m a Christian, but after finding out that I actually live like one, there’s a guy-shaped hole in the door – he can’t get out fast enough!  Any boyfriends who were willing to come to church with me, promptly broke up with me and sometimes even just male friends who came quit talking to me within the week.  I became afraid to tell any guy I liked just how Christian I was, since I knew it started the countdown to the end of the relationship.  I know at least 5 girls though, who successfully and non-intentionally “missionary dated”.  The guys who were willing to go to church with them, became Christians, had their lives radically changed and went on to marry those girls.  (And if you’re wondering why I don’t just date Christians in the first place – it’s my preference and I try to, but it’s hard finding one!)

For many years I assumed I was single because I wasn’t attractive enough.  You might remember me telling you about two guys in particular who made me feel this way; the one who wouldn’t date me because I “wasn’t his type” and the other one who “only dated models”.  When I found out they were married, naturally I assumed their wives would be stunning.  I mean, they must’ve married the hottest girls.  Thanks to the magic of Facebook, I’ve seen pictures of their wives and you know what?  They’re super plain!  Nothing that would stand out in a crowd, certainly not models and if I’m being completely petty, I think I’m way more attractive!

I went on a few dates with a guy who turned out to be a total player.  I quite liked him but he told me he didn’t want a girlfriend, because he just wanted to “get his rocks off”.  That player got married and had kids.  A different guy I was interested in, met one of my friend’s coworkers at a work event.  I was very threatened by this.  This girl was beautiful, young, fun and confident.  She’s the kind of girl that girls want to be and that guys want to be with.  I knew if she was also interested in him and he was given the choice between the two of us, he’d pick her.  To my surprise, he didn’t like her.  (He didn’t like me either.)  After spending a brief amount of time with her, he had some legitimate problems with her character and expressed to my friend how disinterested he was.  Seven days later though, he started spending all of his free time with her.  Whaaa?  Did I miss something here?!

I’m really happy that none of those relationships worked out for me, but it still leaves me to wonder – what made all of those guys change their minds or change their ways for those girls?

The Secret

A deep, healthy or even mutual love has been so far from my reality and seems so far from my reality, that when I hear other people’s love stories, it’s almost a foreign concept to me.  Like – that happened for you, in real life?!  A guy you’ve known for a month moved across the country to be with you?  I can barely find a guy in the same city who stays interested for a month!  A guy said “I love you” to you and didn’t later tell you he never meant it?  You mean to tell me you went on a holiday for a week and your boyfriend didn’t dump you via text message so he could have sex with a girl and not feel guilty about it?  Dang gurl, you hit the jackpot!

My friends have told me stories about something their spouse did that wasn’t overtly romantic, but showed how deeply they were loved.  I’ve seen the Valentine’s posts and anniversary messages of guys on social media bragging about how their wife/girlfriend is the best thing that ever happened to them.  Or more recently, about how there’s no one they’d rather be quarantined with.  I’ve known real life bad boys, jerks, womanizers, hot messes and Slutty McSlutterson’s and seen them change, soften, commit and care for a girl in ways you would never think possible, given their persona.  It’s all the things you’d expect at the end of a good rom-com.  Maybe movies aren’t always so far fetched and unrealistic?

So how does anyone ever successfully find love?  Is it just luck?  Is it right time/right place?  “When you know”, do you really just know?  WHAT’S THE GAME CHANGER?

I met a girl and she is a game changer.

– Ryan Gosling, Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)

Raise the Bar

/ Roxie / 1 Comment

Here’s the situation: I’m getting annoyed watching so many people settle for less than what they want or deserve!  Keep your standards high and let people rise up to your level, rather than bend down to theirs!

People are waiting longer and longer to get married or start a family.  The reasons range from things like wanting to establish a career first, traveling while they’re young and free, or waiting until they’re financially ready for a wedding and a baby.  I have a lot to say about this and not much of it is in support of waiting as long as people do, but while I could argue the pros of settling down younger, the fact that I wasn’t able to, makes me appreciate this shift in culture!  Where I would’ve once been considered a spinster, now I’m just an empowered woman!  It has become much more acceptable to be where I’m at in life, which hasn’t always been the case, especially not in church culture!

“Normal”

My mom comes from a family of 14 children, most of whom had 4 to 5 kids of their own, so to say I have a lot of cousins would be an understatement.  Growing up, I had a picture of life; you graduate, you meet someone and you get married.  That was normal.  It’s not a message that was pushed by my parents, but rather something subliminal I picked up on from hearing about my many cousins who did just that.  In fact, one of my cousins was also my best friend and she met someone in high school, graduated in June and married in October.  She was 18.  I was 16 and a half.  I assumed by the time I turned 18, I would follow the footsteps of all those cousins before me, but that didn’t happen.  By my own definition, I’m not normal!

Party Like It’s 1999

I vividly remember being 17 and wanting a boy to like me so badly, but they didn’t.  You read about how I was a late bloomer in The Pursuit of Perfection, so guys weren’t even interested in me until I was 19, already putting me a year behind schedule.  The only reason guys started to like me was thanks to their beer goggles, but I didn’t care, I was finally being noticed!  I had quit attending church in high school because it wasn’t “cool” and I wanted to fit in, so if fitting in at 19 meant going to the bar with my friends and a side effect was having drunk guys look my direction, I was perfectly ok with that!

From about 19 to 25 I spent every weekend partying with friends, or “just going dancing”, as I told my mom before I moved out at 22 so she wouldn’t know what I was really up to.  I could regale many a tale from those years – they were a blast!…but I knew the days were numbered and that I’d eventually end up back in church.  As much fun as I was having, I still just wanted to be “normal” and get married, but I also knew I would never marry a non-Christian.  You don’t exactly cross paths with too many Christians while partying, and if you do, they miiiiight not be as Christian as they say (or if they are, perhaps they shouldn’t be interested in you).

As my friends and I aged out of the bar scene, they met guys and settled down and there I was; able to attract men now, just not the kind I actually wanted.

Prodigal Son

When I’d finally had enough of living the same weekend year after year after year without any forward momentum, I headed back to church.  Were my intentions pure because I loved Jesus and wanted to get right with the Lord?  No.  Hardly.  I wanted to find that Christian man.  Little did I know that at 26 years old, I was long past my prime in the church world!  You see, Christians used to get married (extra) young!  A lot of them met someone in youth group or they attended bible college right out of high school, aka, bridal college, so if you made it past 23 unwed, 1) something must be wrong with you and 2) you missed your window of opportunity because all of the guys were already taken!  When I did have a couple of “Christians” interested in me, I couldn’t afford to turn them down!  And so, for many, many years, I lowered my standards and tried to settle.

Oh Honey, No

I can always rant about The Bachelor, but this season in particular has me wondering – are these women extra awful or am I finally aging out of this BS?  And Peter?  He might be the worst bachelor since Juan Pablo.  This season is terr·i·ble!!  Peter aside, watching these women makes me sad for our gender and how low our bar seems to be set!

Being a pilot, it would only be fitting that Peter takes a group date to “Flight School”.  For the sake of love, the girl who gets motion sickness allows herself to be spun about in a machine that simulates turbulence.  A real metaphor for love, amirite?!  (Bachelor fans will understand.)  After she’s unstrapped, she heads to the washroom, feeling nauseous.  Peter goes to check on her and brings her a bottle of water.  She can’t believe what a gentleman he is.  Seriously?!  A guy brings you a bottle of water when you don’t feel well and you swoon?

It’s not just young girls on The Bachelor either.  Let’s talk about Dirty John.  Debra Newell, a successful business woman, falls for a guy she meets online.  If you’re unfamiliar with the rest of this true story, do yourself a favor and go listen to the podcasts (or watch the Netflix show based on the podcast).  Without spoiling too much, John turns out to be a psycho con artist and somebody dies.  Who and how you can find out for yourself.  Point is, Debra first fell for Mr. Crazypants because when they went on dates he would ask her questions about herself.  That’s it?!  Are we really that desperate or starved to find a good man that that’s all it takes to fall for one?  A man who asks you questions?!  This does not reflect well for men or women!

I can’t fault these women without also faulting myself!  One day a bad boy I really liked and had been seeing off and on for years without ever actually being his girlfriend, got a fish tank.  I swooned.  “Omigosh, he’s taking care of living creatures!  He cares about something!”  Seriously Rox?  Yes, he cares about fish but not you, you dummy!  Or there’s the guy who was rude to me, my family, to strangers, he only had 1 friend, no vehicle, no furniture and owned 2 cats.  (Never trust a single guy who owns cats.)  The only reason I gave him a chance was because he was “Christian” (he wasn’t) and he liked me.  Sooooo, that’s all it took to win me over?  Unfortunately yes.  I got engaged to that guy!  (To my credit, I did later break off that engagement!)

So why do we do that?!  Why do we allow ourselves to settle when we know we deserve better?

Tick Tock, It’s Freak Out O’Clock

I can’t speak for you, but if you’re a woman over a certain age (particularly a Christian woman and maybe even some men too), you’ve probably sensed the judgment of others or felt the pressure to find someone.  Maybe it’s entirely pressure you’ve put on yourself because the timeline you planned has passed or the ticking of your biological clock is a countdown for panic to set in.  I imagine I’m not the only one whose allowed fear or frustration to lead me into relationships with people I never pictured for my life.  You know, like the fear that if [this] person wasn’t interested in you, maybe nobody else would be?  Or if you upheld your standards and convictions, maybe nobody would ever meet them or you’d be left without any options and stay single for a really long time, possibly forever.  There comes a moment when you figure, you better take what you can get!

plenty-of-fish

And just because I’m a Christian doesn’t mean I don’t get super pissed off at God from time to time too.  He claims that He’ll give me the desires of my heart, but that hasn’t happened and I’m supposed to trust His timing, yet He’s sure not in any hurry!  Doesn’t He realize how old I’m getting?  In fact, this frustration perpetuates a cycle for me.  I get broken up with and after the crying has subsided, I decide that I’m going to keep my standards up and trust God for my future relationship.  After all, He’s God and must have someone in mind for me, so I’ll hold out for that, since everything I’m trying hasn’t worked.  After a couple of years of random dates with no success, my patience wears thin and I start to lower my standards again because keeping them up proves to be a lost cause.  The thing I’ve learned about myself, is that once I’ve allowed someone in my heart, even a little bit, I will start to like them, whether they’re the kind of person I’ve been holding out for or not.  I am a settler.  (Hello!…engaged to the rude cat guy!)  Unfortunately (and fortunately!), as many times as I’ve tried to settle, something deep within me has never allowed it…

Settle Down Now

Maybe recognizing my cycle was the first step to not being caught up in it again.  Unfortunately, I’ve known too many girls over the years who have successfully settled.  The wrong guy was interested in them now and they didn’t want to wait for the right one later.  At the time I was really jealous of these girls, because they seemingly got the dream, but looking at it now, when you have to lose who you are in order to get that, I don’t think it’s much of a dream anymore.  If I have to compromise my beliefs for the sake of a man, no thanks.  I’ll continue to hold out for the one I won’t have to do that for!  I finally like myself enough to keep my standards up and I’ve made it this late in life single, I don’t know why I would settle now!

Maniacal Laugh

There was a time when I was super bitter about being single and I would think – one day I’ll show you!  I’ll show all of you!  Everyone who told me I was too picky and everyone who told me to lower my standards.  I’ll get the best man out of anyone and prove that I knew what I was doing all along and that this is what you wait for!  …  But I can’t prove that yet.  And maybe I’ll never be able to.  So, how can I tell you to value yourself, hang on to what’s important to you and never settle because it will all be worth it one day, when I don’t have the success story to back it up?

Here’s what I do know though.  The girls who settled… The girl who moved in with her boyfriend in hopes that it would bring him closer to marrying her.  She’s still living with him all these years later, but not married yet.  The girl who told me she wanted a Christian but said they were too hard to find so she settled for “a decent guy”.  She’s not happy.  In fact, she might be the most unhappy person I know.  Or the girl who wanted a man to fill a void and give her value.  She got a man, but he didn’t fill that void or give her value so a man didn’t solve the problem.  So yes, I may be single.  I may not have the”normal” life I wanted and I may still be hoping that one day I can prove to myself that my wait hasn’t been in vain, but I can honestly say, I am more content with my life right now having never settled than I would be had I successfully done so!

Remember, it’s easier to set your standards higher before you meet someone, than trying to raise them after the fact.

The Unknown

/ Roxie / Leave a comment

Here’s the situation: I find the uncertainty of my future as a single, exciting and terrifying at the same time.  I both look forward to it and dread it equally.  What a fun little dichotomy!

At the start of each new year, I take inventory.  A look back on the previous year to see what of my written goals I have accomplished, in 5 separate categories: personal, relational, financial, spiritual and miracle.  Though the success rate is usually 60%, I’m still left feeling more discouraged than encouraged.  I had 365 days to accomplish big things, but what in my life looks any different, except my collagen and elastin continuing to succumb to age?  There were 365 days left wide open for miracles to happen.  But again, they didn’t.  And now, as I write out new goals, I have to muster up the faith to believe that even though every year prior seems to prove that miracles don’t happen, at least not for me, maybe 2020 will be the year to change everything?  And so, I enter another 365 days 361 days of the unknown.

Set the Thermostat to Tropical

My favorite thing about being an adult is the moment you realize you are an adult and you are in charge.  For me it was a little thing like – hey, I don’t have to eat the yellow Skittles!  I hate lemon flavored candy and I can throw them out if I want, I’m a grown @$$ woman!  Or after my first roommate and I moved out of our parents houses so many years ago, we realized that we are in control of the thermostat!  When I lived at home, my parents turned the heat down for night.  Why?!  I hate waking up in a cold house!  It makes it 10x harder to get out bed and leave the warmth of my duvet behind.  Every parent paying to heat a house must have a default “put on a sweater” setting built in to their DNA.  Well, no I will not!  I’m an adult now, I want to be comfortable in my own home.  If I have to pay a little bit more each month so that I can stay warm, I will!  I’d rather wear less clothes around the house than have to pile on the layers while INSIDE!  I’m not used to being consistently cold anymore and after spending 3 days at my cousin and her warm-blooded husband’s house at Christmas, my body temperature slowly dropped to where I think my brain function began to shut down and I started talking crazy.  I said to her, “I don’t know if I want to get married anymore.  I don’t want to give up my thermostat!”  I even went so far as thinking that those of us who have stayed single this late in life might actually be the lucky ones!  (Who am I when I get cold?!)

tropical

I first saw the picture above over 10 years ago.  It’s from a book titled Porn For Women, in which, photos of men doing household chores are paired with captions catered to what appeals to women.  If I die and someone goes through my Google search history, I was only looking to find this image!!

Serious as a Heart Attack

I’m an only child, raised by parents who stayed married until death did they part.  Romantic right?  Nope.  It became two people who coexisted for the better part of their lives.  My mom, Christian of all Christian’s, is almost too saved, so divorce was not an option.  This is a tenacity that few possess in relationships anymore and though there are legitimate, biblically acceptable reasons to get divorced, I was raised with the mindset that you did not do it.  Because divorce wasn’t an option, and as much as I can help it, I would still prefer it not to be in the future, I take relationships seriously.  I date with intent and from the moment I have even an ounce of interest in you, I’m paying attention.  Attention to the things you say, the things you do, how you act or react, your character, if I can hear you breathe or chew…  If things were to get serious, marriage is for life and life is a long time to spend with someone!

I’m Like a Vault Baby, Locked Down

When I was in my 20’s, watching all my friends find love and get married, I thought – as soon as I get married, the hard part will be over.  No more awkward first dates, no more wasting your time getting to know someone only to have them dump you.  NO MORE HEARTBREAK!  In my mind, once I was married, a man wouldn’t go anywhere and that had always been the problem; they were free to leave, so they did.  Therefore, if I could just lock one in, I’d never get hurt again!  [And all the married people laughed and rolled their eyes.]  Yes, yes, I know…  I’ve learned that a ring and some vows are no guarantee that you won’t ever be hurt again.  Not only that, but I’ve come to realize that getting hurt or heartbroken is actually a whole lot easier when you’re not locked in with someone!  And, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve vetted someone beforehand, you have no idea what the future holds!

Where Are They Now?

Ever take to Google to see what your favorite teen idols look like now or find out what they’re up to?  Some have maintained their careers and still look good.  Some, not so much and some you’d probably pass in the street and pay no mind because they look so normal.  It’s interesting to see how people change over the years, even the people you know.

Guys I’ve had crushes on in the past who were sooooo dreamy, I’ll see now and think, meh – they look like an average guy in their 40’s, because most of the time, they are an average guy in their 40’s!  Or there are the girls my age who I compare myself to and wonder if I’m holding up better or worse than.  And if I do think it’s better, I question if my self perception is totally warped.  Looks aside, there are people who used to be full of joy and have a lust for life, but they’ve become hardened and cynical.  Or those you figured would amount to nothing, but went on to do great things.  I’m constantly trying to improve who I am – how come some people share that drive, while others give up?

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.

You Can Lead a Horse to Water

Do you know what scares me now about potentially meeting someone?  Realizing that when you get married, you have no idea how your spouse might grow or change over time.  I’ve talked with numerous married people over the years and none of them could’ve predicted their future would turn out the way it has.  Some of them, surprised it is better, but some of them, trapped and unhappy because it’s much much worse.  There are silly things like the phases of bad fashion and awful trends we all go through and might have to put up with in someone else, but the serious stuff…the unknown…

You could marry someone who matches your energy and exercises and meal preps with you, but develops an illness that robs them, and you, of those things you did together.  You might have been drawn to someone spontaneous or a social butterfly, but they lose their adventurous spirit and become a hermit or depressed.  What about the well put together spouse you were so attracted to who lets themselves go or the spouse who vows to be faithful and breaks their promise?  What if you marry a dog guy and he turns into a cat guy?!  (Definite grounds for divorce.)  What happens when the going gets tough and the tough abandon their beliefs and turn their back on the faith you once kept at the center of your relationship?

My dream has always been to get married.  I’ve made a point of not settling, yet even if I met the person of my dreams or my “soulmate” (PS, soulmates don’t exist), people are always evolving.  I can’t control that person or how they feel or what they do.  I can’t predict the future.  The idea of finally finding what I want, only to later be unhappy or feel trapped…it’s a paralyzing thought!  I don’t want to regret my decisions.  I don’t want to be jealous of people living my old life.  I don’t want my answered prayer to become my next prayer request.

Look Into My Crystal Ball

If you had the choice to find out what was going to happen in your future, would you want to know, or not?

I don’t really like surprises.  I think it’s because I don’t like being unprepared.  I want to know what I’m getting into, in advance, so that if I need to, I’ll pack the right stuff or wear the appropriate clothes or at least have time to wrap my head around what is going to happen.  You might call me a control freak, but I just like details!  Mainly, I don’t like to go into things blindly, because I don’t want to end up looking like a fool.

In spite of my dislike of surprises, aka, my fear of the unknown, if given the choice, I don’t think I’d want to know my future.  I think it might be too overwhelming or too disappointing and if I knew what was going to happen, I wouldn’t need faith and I’d most certainly quit making and pursuing goals, especially if I knew it was all for naught.  The fun, as much as it isn’t sometimes, is in the anticipation.  The thrill of the chase.  So you know what?  Lets put on a brave face as we walk into an unknown 2020.  Lets hope that what we’re doing now will get us the results we want later and if we look like a fool, well then, I guess we look like a fool!

And cheers to us old singles who haven’t found ourselves trapped in an unhappy marriage yet.  …and hopefully not ever!  We just might be the lucky ones!  (And my brain has thawed, so that’s my sanity talking!)

2020

Offended

/ Roxie / Leave a comment

Here’s the situation:  Everybody is offended lately.  Well maybe I’m offended that you’re offended!  Ever think of that?

People are endlessly looking for the secret to a happy life and I’ve discovered it!  Don’t pay attention to the news!  Ignorance is bliss!  I hear about 2 minutes of news a day on the radio as I get ready and that’s enough to keep me up to date without my world being infiltrated with negativity.  I get that it’s good to be informed, but the news and Facebook feeds and media in general are so frustrating!  Every day there’s something new about someone saying or doing something that people are offended by and it’s gotten to be ridiculous!  There isn’t a band-aid big enough to cover everyone’s hurt feelings!

Sometimes I wonder if I’ve just gotten old and crotchety.  Like, if I had a lawn, maybe I’d be outside shaking my fist and yelling at kids to get off of it.  That kind of crotchety.  But really, I think the world has gone mad and I can’t handle it!  Who are these people who get so offended and when did everyone get so sensitive?

Ugly Duckling

Hal – I would never believe a girl this beautiful could have such a great personality.

Mauricio – Ugly duckling syndrome.

Hal – What?

Mauricio – She probably didn’t get pretty ’til high school, thus the personality had to develop out of necessity.  It’s an evolutionary thing.

Hal – You know what, I bet you’re right.  She’s way too pretty to be so nice.

Mauricio – Sometimes they’re ugly so long, when they finally turn pretty, they don’t even realize it; it’s like the ugly self image is so well ingrained.  That’s a real find.

– Jack Black & Jason Alexander, Shallow Hal (2001)

When you are [still] in your awkward stage at 19 and don’t have looks to rely on, you have to develop a personality in order to win people over (namely boys).  Along with a personality, you observe what is going to fly and what is not, and then you make sure to be laid back, so as to not give anyone reason to dislike you.  In my experience, being a prudish, offended, prissy girl was cause for mockery, so if you wanted to fit in, be accepted and have boys think you were cool, hearing crude jokes or inappropriate comments and not being bothered by them was just part of the territory.  This talent to brush things off came in handy since I went on to work in the construction industry and have for some 20 years now.  I still hear things daily that would make my mom’s head spin!  I might not want to hear everything anymore or be talked with like ‘one of the guys’, but it’s not often that I get truly offended by inappropriate comments.  Heck, most of the time I’m flattered someone would still make them to me!  I think my early training in not being offended has made me a little more calloused towards our PC culture than many of today’s precious little snowflakes.

‘Tis the Season to be Offended, Fa La La La La La La La La

We recently passed Halloween, which, as a Christian, you will hear many stances for or against.  My stance?  I actually haven’t cared enough to look into the root of it, because I’m always ok with free candy!  My problem with Halloween in 2019 though, is there are so many costumes deemed offensive.  If a guy puts on a dress and ugly make up, it’s offensive.  If you put on the traditional garb of another culture, it’s offensive.  If you dress up like a celebrity who is deceased, it’s disrespectful.  What about people who dress up like Mr. Clean?  Are neat-freak bald guys offended?  Or girls who dress up like a slutty cat.  What do the actual slutty cats think?  Yes, there are some costumes that do cross the line, but half of the fun in Halloween is dressing up so you don’t look like yourself.  Besides, didn’t imitation used to be the greatest form of flattery?

Now we’re 2 days away from Christmas and heaven forbid you wish someone a Merry Christmas.  That would be forcing your religion down someone’s throat!  Let me remind you that the only reason you get the 25th off is because it’s a religious holiday.  Maybe we should stop allowing people who don’t believe in Jesus to take time off?  Sorry, there goes your Easter holiday too.  How do you think that would go over?

What about the Christmas song that they want to ban from radio, ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’?  It’s an innocent flirty Christmas song, it’s not some dark ode to date rape.  Rather than taking it out of context, why not research it?  If you did, you would learn it was composed in 1944 by Frank Loesser, who originally wrote it as a playful call-and-response duet for him and his wife to perform at their housewarming party while their guests were preparing to leave.  Ooooh, menacing hey?

Let’s not forget about the controversial Peloton ad that had the internet up in arms this year.  A husband gave his wife a piece of exercise equipment for Christmas.  How sexist!  What is he saying?  Is he body shaming her?  Must she stay in shape to please him visually or sexually?  Is this a form of coercive control?  Everybody take a breath.  It’s a commercial from a business trying to sell a stationary bike.  That’s it.  Why must we read into everything?!

That’s the 2019 mindset though.  Everything has an underlying message of ill intent.  Not true.  We think if we ban something or boycott something else, we’ve solved the problem.  Not true.  Just because we lock something away doesn’t mean we’ve fixed anything.

Do I Offend?

I was telling a friend about a guy I knew, who jokingly messaged me “marry me!” after he found out I was watching his favorite sport on TV.  I laughed about it and of course, didn’t give it a second thought.  I knew the guy was joking and found it amusing.  My friend however, found it offensive that he would say something like that to me.  I tried to understand how it was at all offensive, but couldn’t and to this day, I still can’t, yet my friend was really bothered by it!

offend

In another instance, I was telling a boyfriend about a guy friend who would always toss out a degrading greeting when he would see me or his other female friends.  I knew the guy was joking and didn’t actually think these things about us.  I also knew that what he said about me wasn’t true, so it didn’t bother me; it held no weight.  This is just how the guy is – a bit of a douche bag.  My then-boyfriend was super offended by it though and wanted to confront the guy to defend my honor.  Ummmm, no.  That friend had been around longer than that boyfriend and if I was really bothered by it, I would’ve handled it myself, but I wasn’t.

These sorts of situations, and the scads of offended people making news every day, lead me to wonder – how many times are we offended on behalf of other people when the person who rightfully should be offended, isn’t?  Are we just fighting a battle to make ourselves look better?

You Can’t Say That

I recently called a friend to ask that very question and more.  As a blonde haired…ok fine…as a dyed blonde haired, blue eyed, white girl living in Canada, I haven’t faced things like racism.  My friend however, could be subject to it.  He is, stay with me now, Indian/Native American/First Nations/Aboriginal/Indigenous.  I told him how I’d used the term Native American before and was quickly corrected that I couldn’t say that anymore, because it was offensive – it was Indigenous now!  I wanted to ask him if one was more offensive than another because it has changed so many times over the years or if they were even offensive at all to someone who could be/would be offended by it.  His answer?  It all just depends in which context they are being used.  That goes with most things, I suppose.  What stood out to me and goes with my point above is that the person who corrected my faux pas was not Indigenous, they were white!  Again I wonder, are we just trying to save face?

Do I dare enter into this next segment?…

Tread Lightly Rox!

Freedom of speech.  Great concept, however it seems like you only actually have freedom of speech if you’re in the majority with your ideals.  Anything counter-culture and people are quick to call you out.  Buy your wife a Peloton and you’re sexist.  Stand up for your beliefs and you’re a bigot.  Question someone’s life choices and you’re shaming them.  There are some heavy racism accusations getting tossed around so frequently and so flippantly lately, I think the weight of what you are actually labeling someone has been lost.

Racism is believing you are superior to someone else, based on race.  Unfortunately not every situation or friend group is going to be as diverse as a 90’s United Colors of Benetton ad, but we have to remember that that a) doesn’t make someone a racist, b) isn’t necessarily on purpose and c) we shouldn’t make anyone feel guilty for it.

An author I enjoy recently faced backlash after she booked a speaking tour featuring about 3 other Caucasian speakers.  People were calling her a racist and she had to issue an apology.  Touring with white people doesn’t make her believe her race is superior to others.  Maybe they were the only speakers available for those particular dates?

What about the uproar from The Bachelor never having a black male lead?  Let’s break it down logically for a minute.  It’s a TV show which thrives on ratings.  Those ratings are driven by viewers.  The viewers are predominantly white women (stats show about 80%) and producers generally pick a male/female lead based on viewer popularity.  If the larger demographic of viewers are Caucasian and they are attracted to Caucasians (which doesn’t make them racist either), then the producers shouldn’t be faulted for picking a Caucasian lead.  It’s a business; they want ratings.  I work with a Chinese girl and we’ve discussed attraction to other races before.  She has told me flat out she’s not attracted to white men.  Does that make her a racist?  No, she’s just not attracted to white men.  There are plenty of white men that I’m not attracted to either!

I Will Cut You

One tweet at the fingertips of someone with a little bit of influence can turn the whole world against you.  The problem with the power of social media is that is there are two sides to every story but once one side has been heard, we don’t often allow the other side to be told.  We are passionate about social justice but continue to handle it incorrectly.  If someone does something we don’t agree with, we want to cut them down, cut them off or cut them out, and immediately.  We’re quick to rally against someone for the sake of our cause.

And why do we feel the need to go out of our way to make an example of someone we don’t like?  So we don’t like a celebrity or a political figure; can’t we just do that in silence?  Why do we feel warranted to dig into their past to ruin them?  There’s a statute of limitations on crimes, there has to be a statute of limitations on how far into a person’s past you can judge their actions.  People change!  Am I the same person I was 20 years ago?  Not even close.  What about 10 years ago or 5 years ago?  Similar, but not the same.  Have I said or done offensive things in my past, maybe just because I didn’t know any better?  Oh for sure!  Will I continue to say or do offensive things into the future?  Oh for sure!  Does that give anyone the right to have me fired or defame my character?  And why don’t we give out warnings anymore?  When did it become 1 strike, you’re out.  Perhaps it’s time to give people the benefit of the doubt and extend a little grace.  After all, we’ve all had grace extended to us and are given second chances daily.  People do change.

Who, Moi?

When we get offended, we tend to think it’s other people who are the problem.  After all, we would never have done that or said that, but we don’t often realize that offense is rooted in other things; insecurity, self righteousness, pride, grudges.  When we give in to offense, we elevate ourselves above others.  We have made ourselves the judge and jury as to what is correct and what isn’t, but that’s merely just our opinion, it isn’t necessarily fact!

The bible says that we shouldn’t be offended or that we should overlook offense.  It also says that pride is a sin, so who is actually in the wrong here; the offender or the offendee?  Perhaps the next time we are offended, we should look at ourselves to see why it bothered us so much.

Proverbs 19:11 (NIV)  A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.