I’ll always love my momma

She is, indeed, my favorite girl. 

It’s 2:30 a.m., and I just woke up about fifteen minutes ago thinking about her. And now with the sound of my downstairs neighbor’s snoring vibrating throughout my bedroom (imagine your cell phone set to vibrate laying right next to you constantly going off; no, I’m not exaggerating in the slightest), I don’t think I’ll be able to fall back asleep for a while.

So, what’s got me all bright-eyed, you’re wondering? A slight panic attack. For the last two days, I have been trying to plan a small afternoon tea for today for my mom’s birthday. Being as though, I am not in possession of my mom’s friends’ phone numbers, I’ve been just trying to invite who comes to mind. Well, at about 2:15 a.m., the names of everyone I’ve forgotten to contact suddenly began to fill my brain, and now it’s pretty much too late to let them know. Oh, no.

Now it will be bothering me all day long. I just want things to be perfect for my mom’s birthday. I always want things perfect for my mom.

Believe it or not, her happiness so often means more to me than my own. But this early morning as I started praying that things will be perfect for my mom, I realized just how little control I have of her happiness. From this distance, all I can really do is pray that she’s happy, which is exactly what I imagine she does for me.

There’s just so much that we have total control over in our lives. But happiness, I suddenly realized, is one of those things. Yeah, things happen to us that aren’t always fair and aren’t always the happiest. But how we respond is totally up to us.

After living in Virginia Beach for about a year and a half now, I have yet to find myself well-adjusted. I haven’t even figured out where I fit into this place. 

And while I don’t imagine I will figure all of that stuff out once the sun comes up, I think I can manage to still be happy in the meantime.

Thought I’d see Ashton

So, I’m sitting at my desk awaiting Ashton Kutcher’s arrival. Seriously. He just has to be out in a van parked in my school’s parking lot, just listening for a reaction.

The clock on the wall doesn’t work. One of my students took it down and set it on the first day of class, but it still doesn’t work. Before, I thought the battery was dead, but now I think I know the truth. Ashton’s up to his shenanigans. It must be rigged with a camera to listen and see my reactions.

Well, at least part of the joke’s on him. I lost my voice, so he wouldn’t be hearing anything. But then, no one’s even stopped to ask me anything for me to say anything, anyway. I can explain.

It all started about an hour ago. One of my co-workers peeked in my classroom and asked if my class was over. Well, seeing as though I was the only one sitting in the classroom, one would only assume, right? But, I suppose she reached that conclusion on her own because she left before I could grunt out an audible response.

Then, the next thing I knew, two women came into my room with boxes and bags of sodas and food.

“We’re just leaving this for a bridal shower,” one woman told me and left before I could labor to get out any questions.

Whatever, I shrugged. Just as long as it’s not in the way when my students come tonight.

But then, as I continued on with my work, two more people came in dropping off stuff, and then more people came in with streamers, flowers, and balloons.

So, for the last two hours, my classroom has turned into a party scene without anyone saying anything to me or even stopping long enough to notice that I can’t talk.

Apparently, this seems to be something the whole school’s known about, yet no one’s even as much as mentioned it to me.

I’m surrounded by chips, chicken wings, cake, and pizza in my room, yet I’m not even a part of the celebration. When nobody’s looking, I should fill my purse up with wings. Take that, Ashton. Won’t that make for good footage?

But I’m not going to touch the pizza. See, two students of mine are extremely ill, and I was just about to sanitize that desk—the one with the pizza and all on it—where my one student was sitting at before he dashed out of the classroom to vomit.

Well, you’d better hurry, Ashton. I’m clocking out in five minutes…

It’s time for me to leave now, Ashton. Where are you? Haven’t I been Punk’d?

I found it on Craigslist

You know that little paper I used to work for? Link? You know. It was the free daily publication from The Virginian-Pilot that was filled with news, entertainment, and loads of snarkiness. Well, if you didn’t know (and have been living under a rock or outside of Hampton Roads), Link published its last issue on Dec. 19, and its staff—including me—was laid off.

The news didn’t come as a surprise to us. We’d been told of the possibility early November. And it that same week, before my future was completely known, I applied for a new job.

So, in my panic of figuring out what I was going to do with myself, I went on Craigslist and looked for new jobs. And on that first night, I found a listing for an English instructor at a local career college. Not knowing much about the school or the requirements, I put together a cover letter, got my grad school transcript, and faxed my stuff off to the unknown—never, I thought, to hear anything.

And I didn’t hear anything for a very long time.

“Forget them,” my best friend suggested after I hadn’t heard anything back from them and, at this point, knew my days at Link were numbered. And so, applying for a new job every day, I did forget them.

But as I was driving around with my mother, right before Christmas, I got a call from the college asking me to come in for an interview on Jan. 5.

So, I went in for the interview on Monday, and by Wednesday, I was offered and accepted the job.

And now, my new adventures begin this Monday. For the first time ever, I will be teaching two English composition classes  to college students. Plus, I get my own classroom! I am really excited. Stay tuned for updates on my first days on the job.

With childlike faith

No, that’s not me above. This is a photo I got off of That Black Girl Site. But I promise I was just as adorable when I was that age.

I was such a happy child with no inhibitions or limits. As a child, I thought that skin color was just something that could be interchanged with a big bucket of long-lasting paint. Underneath it all, there was no difference being red, yellow, black or white. And girls could do anything boys could do, except pee standing up. There was nothing I could not one day do. 

After seeing Mary Lou Retton and Diane Durham perform when I was little, I decided that I wanted to start training with Bela Karolyi once I was eight and become the next gold-medal gymnast. My parents never discouraged me and instead fed my gymnastics dream. But once I reached age 8, I had moved on to some other big-time dream.

From a very young age, I was always told I could be whatever I wanted to be, including princess of the world. See, after one Thanksgiving, I beat my dad in that turkey wishbone thing (though I’m sure he let me win). He told me that the winner’s wish would come true. And so I believed that I was the princess of the world. But that tiara dream was crushed when all of my unloyal preschool subjects refused to heed my commands.

The thing is, as a child, I kept dreaming and believing that greatness would find me throughout my life. As a child, I never worried about growing up and having a career, husband, and family. I just had this faith that everything would always be provided.

I think that’s how God wants us to continue to be like even as adults. Yet, I find myself almost in constant worry as an adult, never possessing such childlike faith.

I’ve been thinking about childhood a lot in the last week. A few of my friends on Facebook have even started a group that focusses on going after your childhood dreams.

Lately I’ve found myself overwhelmed with the great job search—feeling inadequate in a society that too often defines us by what we do—and bombarded with inquiries into what I’m going to do next. I don’t know. I don’t know where to even truly begin.

Yet recent advice from a family member and a good family friend has really gotten me thinking. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been lacking such fatherly advice, but their words of love and encouragement meant a lot to me.

Listening to me talk about losing my job, my cousin (after thoroughly making sure everything was running right with my car) asked me what my ultimate dream for my life was. Without limits, what would make me the happiest, he asked.

I dream of having this comfortable suburban home filled with a doting husband and my adopted kids. I want to be a soccer mom that bakes cookies and cooks dinner on most nights. But I also want to have my own office to retreat to and write stories, articles, and movies from. And I want to travel. While I know the husband and kids stuff is out of my control now, there’s no reason why I couldn’t be doing the other stuff.

And then I shared with the guy that’s always been like a second father to me how nervous I am about my interview Monday for being an English instructor. He told me I was a natural. He said that he remembered way back when I was a little bitty thing how I’d play school with his son and my baby brother. 

Living in this so often cruel, impersonal world, it is always so comforting to find people to tell you they believe in you and encourage you to take on the world, just like you thought you could do when you were a child.

Food for thought

If you’ve been keeping up with this blog, it’s no surprise to you: I love Panera Bread. Honestly, I don’t go there regularly, but picking up lunch, breakfast, or a quick snack for me is such a little treat. And this afternoon, I felt like treating myself.

So after paying my rent, I was off to Panera to refuel myself and prepare for grocery shopping.

The long line of late lunchers didn’t seem to bother me. After spending the whole day indoors yesterday, I was just happy to be around people again—to feel like a normal person in society. As I admired the girl in front of me’s eye make-up, I became engrossed in her conversation. Apparently she worked at Panera and was just getting off of work and her friends had met up with her for food. She and the guy she was with in line were have a casual conversation about nothing really when the guy mentioned that her boyfriend’s car had been just broken into while they were at the mall. She began to pout as he talked about all of the stuff that was stolen: the GPS system, his iPod, the radio. Fighting back tears, the girl stated that she’d bought all of that stuff for him. The guy with her kept talking about how they were meeting at Panera to try and figure out how to get the stuff back. They’d called the cops, he said, but now they were trying to figure out if they could track down the thief with through the GPS. As he talked about it, her face started getting red and she fought back tears as she asked him if he knew what he wanted from the menu. As calm as the guy standing next to her was, this girl seemed to be overly upset over her boyfriend’s losses.

I tried to look away from them, but her watery eyes made my own begin to slightly tear. I felt really bad for how upset she’d become. I wanted to give her a hug and tell her it was going to be alright, but I imagine I’d freak if some stranger did that to me. But as they approached the next register and she was now apparently crying to the point that her co-workers where wondering what was going on, I grew a little upset with the guy she was with. Why hadn’t he hugged her and consoled her? What kind of friend is he?

But now it was my turn to order and forget about what had just transpired.

Now sitting at a table too big for just me (but it’s the only free table in the place) with a piping hot sandwich and sweet tea (yeah, everything’s sweet in the South) before me, I started picking up bits and pieces of conversation from the family sitting across from me. The parents were talking about their kids going away to college and were asking them if they’d stay in church or not and other questions about Jesus. Again, I wanted to step in on the conversation.

It all made me think about one of my all-time favorite books, The Coffeehouse Gospel.
In the book, the author just writes about everyday conversations he’s had with people all over the country and how he’s used them as his ministry. Instead of drilling into people’s heads about how they should believe in God, he just talks and listens to folks and sets an example of what Christians (and honestly, everyone) should be like.

Man, I wish I was brave enough to just go up to strangers and make friends. I think that’s why I miss working at the coffee shop; it gave me an excuse to talk to people I probably wouldn’t normally without them thinking I was crazy. I remember how attached we got to the regulars that would come in. It was almost like they were friends instead of customers.

Maybe I just need to find that welcoming hangout place to go and work and meet people. I haven’t found one yet. So, I’ve discovered my new adventure: finding such a place. I’ll keep you posted.