Uber Marianne

So once again this ball of rock has ventured around this big blazing ball of gas to mark the twenty ninth year of my life. Way to go, cosmos. Everyone played their parts beautifully.

So what exactly does all this mean, eh? A year older, a year . . . dare I say it? Wiser? Certainly a year poorer but that’s probably another story. So what exactly has been so great about these past three hundred and sixty five days? What have I learned? What have I found? Shall I itemize?

I shall try. Here are my lessons:

1. God is sovereign, sustaining, and wonderous, and His plan is full of surprises.

2. Natalie is the beautifullest baby of all time.

3. My mother has provided for me, even when she isn’t here to see it.

4. YouTube isn’t actually just an amateur porn site and is a great place to find Doris Day clips.

5. People change. For better or worse, they do.

6. Sometimes it isn’t people who are changing-sometimes instead it’s me.

7. Back windows in my apartment not be left open.

8. National City bank is just doing it’s job, ma’am, just doing it’s job.

9. The world is a messed up and devouring kind of place, but when all seems hopeless, see Lesson #1.

10. Veganism is FUN!

And that’s all I can think of now because I have a delicious bath waiting for me in the next room. Thanks to Stephie for the Lush! :)

Not to go all “Papa Scott” on anyone, but I watched this video and felt pretty freaked out.

It’s the story of a boy! A girl! And a galaxy!!!

Wait . . .  that’s Star Wars.

What I meant to say is, “It’s the story of a tyrannical corporation that doesn’t care if it kills everyone in agony from horrible diseases-so long as it makes a buck!” I guess I wouldn’t be very good at PR.

The point of the matter? Is that this is super freaky. And that this information is some that you can probably get from a lot of sources. My recent documentary lust has brought up some of this already, a la The Corporation and The Future of Food. The way that we’re all being screwed with a smile is enough to turn my stomach and make me never want to eat again. What’s also super troubling is that unless you think to look for it, you wouldn’t know. And so a lot of this could sound like the mad ravings of, say, a comic book worshiping, software engineering, middle aged conspiracy theorist . And, honestly, who’s really down with spending a Friday night hooked up to informational films (Besides freaks like me.)?

(As an aside? If you are a freak like me? Hook me up with some good documentary titles!)

So I hope everyone is enjoying paying their exorbitent prices for organic foods. I know I am. Enjoy them while they last!!!

Below is another film about genetically modified crops. A little less information maybe but somewhat more user friendly to watch.

For anyone who hasn’t heard, my apartment was broken into a couple of weeks ago and I thought that my bank account information was compromised. So I set up a new account. Obvious, right?

Well, I couldn’t actually close my account because apparently there were some transactions outstanding. So I left a little money in there and waited. I canceled all my bill pays and set them up on my new account. I waited some more. I checked my account and nothing was pending to post, so silly me, for some crazy reason I thought that, well, nothing was pending to post. How ridiculous. I was wrong though. Apparently a payment that I canceled and set on my other account miraculously appeared as a charge-and was pre-dated back to the beginning of the month! So, while this divine gift was being shafted upon me, I had spent the little money left in the compromised account that I wanted to close in the first place and surprise, surprise, got four overdrafts for amounts like seven to ten dollars at the high priced tune of thirty four dollars a pop. That’s a hundred and thirty two dollars in case you’re not in the mood for quick multiplication. And of course, when I called to straighten it all out, the charge was backdated so it most certainly couldn’t have been the widdle-biddy-baby bank’s fault. And so, “Sorry, lady”, “Sad to hear it, ma’am”, but “Them’s the breaks”.

I hate National City Bank.

I’m getting my money and getting out.

So, being the raging insomniac I am (you remember me mentioning that about thirty thousand times, right?), I spent a while tonight going through some old emails. Ostensibly it was to refresh my memory about a long past relationship but, as is my custom, I took a few side roads along the journey. And it seems to me that some people are impossible to get rid of, some are more searing than they know, and some don’t want to be found.

I’ve tried to be honest in the past year or so, to move to a place where what I say is what I mean. I’ve tried to say what is, with all its backbending weight, with all its airy weighlessness. I’ve tried to say what I mean even when a question hasn’t been asked. I’ve tried to be transparent.

And so it becomes even more dismaying when I come face to font with the way  that I used to be. I tried to keep my hands clean. I was purposely vague in the hopes of not having a confrontation. I was vague and wanted to be misconstrued in a way that would undermine my virtue while letting me retain my innocence in the whole matter. I’m really very embarrassed about the whole thing.

But God creates value in the valueless, and so He can use these things that never should have been to create something wonderful.

I can relate. It’s finally become summer, in all its fury of high temperatures and escalating humidity. And all I can do is throw myself into an ice bath and when I get out again, sigh.

(Come to think of it, I sigh alot. One of these days I’ll probably hyperventilate on accident.)

Still, August has it’s good points, not the least of which is that it marks the anniversary of the spewing forth of life into the world of me.  I’ve been thinking of having a shindig, maybe. But, then, I also have to move. And my birthday is at the end of the month so I don’t know if I should move beforehand and not have anywhere for my guests to sit, or afterwards and make my new landlord deal with  the whole bother. Also, I don’t know if my new landlord actually would deal with the whole bother.

These are the judgment calls that occupy the mind of a Virgo on a late summer evening.

It’s nine in the morning and I haven’t slept yet. I can’t seem to sleep for anything lately. I know what the reason is. It’s that even though I’m trying not to pay attention, even though I put it out of my head, somehow my body is recognizing that this . . . is coming up on a year since it happened.

My body is making me think about my mother.

I look around me and see all these nice, kind people who are certainly as entitled as anyone would be to their families and suddenly it all seems so grossly unfair. It feels grossly unfair that some people get to have grandchildren. It feels grossly unfair that some people get to have parents. It feels grossly unfair that my daughter will never get to know my mother. It all just seems so terribly unfair.

I know it isn’t. The Lord is sovereign. I know that. And part of me can look at this and be pleased that she isn’t suffering anymore, not only in her illness but with any of the discomforts of just being human. She’s never tired anymore, or achy, she’s never hungry or cold-that makes me grateful. But sometimes I feel awful and rebellious and broken wondering why she had to be sick at all, and for it to be then, and to have to die that way. I know there’s purpose in it. I take comfort in that. To trust the Lord in one thing requires trusting Him in all things and I do, really. I just have these moments sometimes.I am having quite a few lately.

I keep thinking that these rushing feelings of loss will dissipate. And they have in some ways-in frequency if not in form. Sometimes I feel so sorry for myself it’s pathetic. And the Lord is patient in that, which is so gracious. He has yet to give me the supernatural talking to that Job got, although reading through it I see that it still applies.

I feel like a cavern. I feel like empty space. My heart aches.

And so I did something foolish. I reached out to someone in an inappropriate way because I wanted to heal my heart too quickly and with the wrong medicine. In the blush of morning, I am blushing myself. The truth is a boy can’t fix this. The truth is I already knew that, though part of me still wants to be held.

It’s an awkward thing to admit, but there it is. The truth is also that I don’t know how to be interested in anyone anymore. These things, the adoption, the death of my mom, the loss of my friendship with Simon, they’ve all taken a toll on me and have apparently manifested in simply not being able to have my head turned by anyone. I’m disappointed about it. But at this moment, perhaps the cavern is too deep to be filled no matter who might try. Perhaps the Lord is telling me to let Him heal this first.

I am sighing with the breeze. The morning is growing stale. I will try my hand at sleep once more.

That about sums it up.

That is one of the worst examples of a sentence that I could come up with. It’s a fragment, it ends in a preposition, and perhaps most importantly it fails to grab the attention of the reader in either a real or imagined way. I knew all these things when I wrote it. And yet I wrote it all the same.

As this afternoon slides into evening, I’m in the kind of mood that might’ve been featured in an “edgy” style film of the late 1950’s. That is, if my present life were made into a moving picture, I would most likely be the lady spilling my cocktail, completely hammered, slurring my words  and having trouble holding up my head. I’d be indoors but wearing a coat of some sort although it would be falling off my right shoulder, not in a sexy bedroom-y way, but as if it’s perfectly sober and can’t keep up with my fast fading equilibrium. I’d talk too loud and everyone would be looking at me with expressions of blended embarrassment and horror as I lay down the truth with wild, wide armed gesticulations, truths that all these hypocritical asses around me wouldn’t admit to themselves, much less anyone else. I’d include myself guilty in my tirade and then collapse into a chair, looking around  as though realizing for the first time where I was, and then go all mopey and reflective, mumbling how I know they don’t approve of me when I’m like this.

I am not, as a matter of fact, drunk however and there is no one around to shame. What I am is tired, and worn out from both the inside and the out. My apartment was burgled earlier this week, and although I really like the sound of the word “burgled” it turns out that the reality is much less enjoyable. Not much was taken, but some things have been taken, and there is still something unsettling about that. I need to clean up the crime scene, aka my bedroom. It’s bad enough to have to put your laundry away after you’ve washed it; it’s quite another thing to have to put it away because some creepy unknown was rifling through it with his dirty, villainous hands and shoes.

That sounded almost poetic.

The other reason I’m tired is because I’ve been staying late and getting up early. I guess I should have really be expecting that one at least.

Ok, ok, so I was whining last night. Well, early this morning. It’s unbecoming and also it’s fairly useless. So I don’t have what I think I want-there is always Purpose, God is always Soveriegn, and He was gracious enough to remind me this afternoon of all the things that I have been ignoring that are so valuable.

I read a newsletter from Nightlight wherein I learned that four new women are now working there instead of selling their bodies on the street, thanks to the prayers and support and ministry of Ron’s aunt and uncle’s organization. And then I came across an email from Freedom Church praising God for a boy who has been healed. And it seems to obvious, doesn’t it? That wanting for myself is even smaller than I thought, and that the reason I am here is for a much bigger purpose. As in, bringing glory to the most high God.

I was reading last night, ironically enough after moaning about some version of relationship that I term “love”, in Corinthians 13. As will surprise no one since it’s pretty well known, especially if you’ve been to a wedding in the past decade, it’s all about True love, real love, the love that is inspired by the Holy Spirit. And I realized that . . . I need to work on it. I do need to learn to love people better and in the Truth. I can be so lazy when it comes to that. I can “do no harm” for my own part, but still not do any good at all.

So pray for me, folks. I need it. I need a lot of things, but the deepest and truest of them all is the alignment between myself and the character of God. And lucky for me, He is faithful. Luckily for me, He is the Great Physician who can heal heart troubles as much as anything else.

I was thinking of making some excuses. I will not make any. This is What Is.

So it seems that I’m the only one of my friends who’s single these days. What is it about this stupid season? All that crap about birds and bees and flower blossoms is apparently at least somewhat true. No wonder Ricki Lake was able to have all those shows about Summer Fling Reunions. No wonder the VD clinics get such a boost at this time of year.

Not that I envy Ricki Lake guests or clinic patients . . .

Anyhow, the truth of the matter is that this is all a hopeless, hopeless case. That’s the real disappointment. As I was telling my brother when I was going through the submissions on an online dating site I was a fool to let my ex set me up with: all I want is a gigantic Christian. Is that so much to ask? Apparently. All the giant people aren’t down with Jesus and all the Christian boys are small. Who knew fulfilling two characteristics would be such a big freaking deal? Well, even if not a big freaking deal then at least seemingly impossible.

Sigh.

The trouble is what the trouble always is, and it’s that I want something specific. I can’t be satisfied to take up with just anyone anymore. It’s the worst possible idea to take a time when the sources are drying up and become even more picky than you’ve ever been before. But that’s the way of it. Especially when you’ve decided to quit trying to run your own life and instead look to what the Lord wants more than what you do. Because what hope do you have if you don’t?

What I am inclined to is usually not at all what I need. I’m headstrong. I’m distracted and misguided. I get bored with being on my own sometimes. And then I watch the scourge of the screen, Anne of Green Gables, and it’s enough to make me want to mope till the morning light. Still, it’s better for this kind of mood than Persuasion. What I don’t understand is . . . why I should even care. This isn’t the time, right? If it were, wouldn’t it just happen?

We should pray in faith. But what to do if what you have faith in isn’t panning out? Do you continue to lament to the Lord of hosts that you don’t have what you’re pretty sure you should? Like this:

Me: “God, I want this.”

God: “Not right now.”

Me: “Maybe I forgot to mention it, but I want this.”

God: “That’s not what I have for you at the moment.”

Me: “Ok, uhh, maybe I didn’t make myself clear: This is what I want!”

God: “What are you? Daft?! You can’t have IT!”

Embarassingly enough, this scenario has played out more often than I care to admit.

The truth of the matter is that this is another of those little things. This is the little thing that nags until it seems much bigger than it is. I’m not saying I’m one of those desperately lonely spinter ladies who just sit around sighing for a man-friend. That’s not really it. There were and will be and for all I know, are, possible man-friends around. But how to find the right one? When your ideas seem so specific?

It is enough to be with myself. Really, it is. And perhaps still my wounds are mending and my heart is getting itself back in working order. Maybe it’s just not the moment. I can’t deny that there have been tragedies. There have been heavy blows. There have been aches brought to me that still twist sometimes when I least expect it. There are still moments when what has transpired in and of itself seems like far too much. And perhaps even now being in relationship with another person could be too much of a burden or too much of a crutch. I can’t say. And I must admit also that I don’t want to say it. It seems all so silly. But it is what I’m feeling in this single moment.

I could do it right this time. I’ve been taught how. Only now there is no one else on the other side of the plus sign.