little miss sunshine

If you're planning on seeing Little Miss Sunshine, it's worth the 9 bucks. I went by myself the other night while David was volunteering at a youth center. Yes, it was one of the few nights alone since I've been married. I didn't know what to do with myself. It was sad. So I went to the mall, hoping not to run into anyone I knew because I wasn't wearing any makeup and hadn't washed my hair (ahh, the life of a freelancer). I bought my small popcorn and diet coke, snuck into the dark theater, and sat in a middle seat. I was wanting an escape, some inspiration, something. Maybe I was feeling sad because I was alone. Or maybe it was just my darned depression that seems to pop up from time to time. whatever it was, I was hoping little miss sunshine would at least let me escape my troubled mind for a few hours. It takes a lot for me to laugh. Little Miss Sunshine made me laugh, and is an interesting commentary on our success-driven culture. It made me laugh. It made me think. And I managed to escape the mall without seeing anyone I knew. It turned out to be a pretty darned good evening, even though i was solo.

leaving corporate america

This is my second month away from corporate america, where I lost my soul for five years somewhere in the land of beige cubicles. So I made some money, piled up a lump of cash in my 401K, wrote some cool brochures for my portfolio, and made what I think are life-long friends (photo of our writing team above) but was it worth it? In the meantime I lost a sense of who I am. I stopped writing about things that were really important to me. Instead it was all about products and branding and coverages. Sure, it was moving words around on paper, so my writing didn't suffer too much. It was my soul that suffered. And, yes, in the end my writing suffers. Because what am I to write about if I have lost my soul? So the past two months have been about getting in touch with who I am again. In some ways it's excruciating, because I have to deal with the fact of 5 years of lost time.

So I am back to writing about things I care about. But what do I even care about anymore? I'm starting at square one. It's a new day. I can't look back. I'm forging ahead.

It's always been a struggle, as a writer, to figure out how to make money....to provide for myself, and to write about things I care about. It's always the corporate jobs that suck the life out of you that pay the most. The life-giving assignments typically pay crap. So if anyone out there has figured it out, let me know.

on death and dying

After a long blogging break, I'm finally feeling the urge to write again. We'll see how long it lasts.

Pain tends to prompt me to put pen to paper. Or, more accurately, fingers to the keyboard. This time it's about losing friends to breast cancer -- two within two months. As I've observed these friends battle this disease, I've been struck by how difficult it has been. For my friend Leslie, it was a 4-year search to find God in the struggle. So many times she doubted God or couldn't make sense of it all. But in the end she grew more and more peaceful. I saw her a few days before her death and as the cancer made her mind grow foggy, she became childlike and she would point to things in the room the rest of us couldn't see. It was as if she was in the passageway between two worlds...moving toward something so much better. I found a strange comfort in that. It made me less afraid to die, because she was so peaceful after 4 years of fear, doubt, and pain.


My other friend, Sara, died this past Friday. She was married 10 months ago, and she borrowed my wedding shoes. When I dropped off the shoes we sat in her living room and talked . She had no hair -- whole brain radiation for the treatment of her brain tumors had killed off her remaining hair follicles. She would never grow hair on her head again. But she didn't care. She looked beautiful that day. For Sara, the cancer had helped her see God more clearly...about how joy and suffering go hand-in-hand, and her wedding was a huge celebration for the joy one can experience in the midst of pain. The last few months of her life there was a large tumor that moved from her liver toward her lungs. Her liver started failing and fluids made her legs and torso swell. Still, she told her husband that even now, she wanted to become more Christlike. Surely she was identifying with Christ in her suffering. Let this cup pass from me, I'm sure she thought in those last excruciating months. But I'm also confident she was saying "not my will, but yours."

Ever since my mother's death almost 6 years ago, I have been struck by the resurrection that happens after death. Death is conquered...not only for Leslie and Sara, but for us as well. "In the midst of ruin, there treasures will be found", says the poet Rumi. And author Nicholas Woltersdorff says ""I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see." Our grief changes us. Gives us an urgency for life that we wouldn't have otherwise. Teaches us compassion. Give us life. I'm not sure I like the price, but I am looking for resurrection stories now, in the lives of my friends who were close to Sara and Leslie.

The horrors of being 25 and single

David and I had coffee with a friend who is 25 and single and experiencing the horrors of dating. Yes, she's been seeing this guy for a few months and figuring out that he's not "the one" and now she has to let him know that he's not the one and she's very sad that she has to hurt him. She's also afraid that she'll never find "the one" and that she'll be alone for the rest of her life. Ahhh, I thought while she was sitting there sobbing, try being single for another 15 years, then we'll talk. But, of course, I didn't say this and I felt her pain....remembering what it was like to be 25 and not know if you'll find someone to spend the rest of your life with. I think that was the hardest part of being single for so long. The unknowing. If God would send little memos down from on high that say something like "Ok, i know it's hard being single, but just so you know, I have this great guy in mind for you. But he's not quite ready yet, and to be honest, neither are you, but you'll both be ready when you're 32. So hey, you should just enjoy being single for now and go on trips with your girlfriends, and grow up a little bit, it's all going to work out in the end." But no, on topics like this God is mum. And I think there's a good reason for this. I think it's so we will seek him and learn a few things. Because we get to the point where we realize we have very little control over our relationships...or our lives. We wrestle with the unknowing. We lose sleep trying to figure out how to love another person and how to be loved. We hopefully figure out, through all of these failed relationships and broken hearts, how to be honest...how to treat another person with respect and kindness even if they're not "the one", and we are forced to trust God. For some of us, this takes a lot longer than others.

For some of us, it's through this painful journey that we come out the other side ready and willing to love someone unconditionally. And on the other side, we can sit down with our 25-year-old friends and show them, "see....it will all work out in the end, one way or another. It may look different than what you had hoped. But God is good. He hasn't forgotten you. And through the dating horror you will become the person he has created you to be."

What we cling to.

I find myself being clingy these days. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, and the older you get the more you realize that things go away. Friends move away or get cancer. Parents die. Buildings get demolished. I think if I just hang on tight enough, everything will stay the same.

David and I went to Iowa in June for the last wedding hurrah. My sister hosted a reception at her sprawling mansion and lots of relatives and old family friends showed up to wish us well and nibble champagne cakes and tour my sister's house. I suspect they were more interested in the latter than in chatting with us. But still it was nice to know that childhood family friends were still around. In Iowa, roots run deep. When I moved to Chicago 15 years ago I was startled at how transient it felt. Young people (Like I was at the time) moved to the big city for jobs, then a few years later got married and moved away. In Iowa, people seem to plop down in one spot and stay there for generations.

My dad still owns the plot of land my ancestors bought when they emigrated from Scotland 150 years ago. It's 80 acres of hilly land with a stream and view of the Des Moines River valley. A few years ago my dad planted the whole parcel with native prairie grass. David and I went there and sat at the top of the hill, feeling the hot Midwestern sun on our cheeks and listening to the crackling of the grass in the wind. New houses are sprouting up all around, and I'm hopeful that this 80 acres of prairie will stay the same forever. But I doubt it will.

I want the things and people around me to make me feel secure. I want to hang onto something solid and unchanging. That's why I get frightened when it all seems so slippery. But when I feel things sliding through my fingers like water from the bathroom fawcett, I am reminded to trust. And have faith in the one who never changes.

How to measure success

I had my "checkpoint" meeting with my boss today. The rating scale is as follows:

1. Unacceptable -- results do not achieve one or more expectations set in performance plan.
2. Fair -- results achieve some expectations set in performance plan.
3. Successful -- results consistently achieve most or all and occassionally surpasses come expectations set in performance plan.
4. Outstanding -- Results usually surpass expectations set in performance plan.
5. Exceptional -- Results consistently surpass expectations set in performance plan.

But what they don't tell you is that really the only way to reach "exceptional" is if you work 18 hour days and make the corporation and marketing the entire meaning of your existence. This I will not do. So just so you know....I will never be "exceptional" in the eyes of the big corporation. Oh, well.

Ivy seems to have risen from the dead. After five days of not eating and getting weaker and weaker, she is now eating again, and purring a lot. The prednisone my vet prescribed is helping her appetite, but we know it's just a temporary solution. So we wait and enjoy each day we have with her.

Since there is a new (easier) way to post photos, I will now select a random photo to insert here (just because I can!).

It's been a while

I feel like a blogger failure. It's been over a month since I've updated this blog. I assume most readers have given up and no one is reading anymore. There's a certain freedom to that -- if no one is still reading this, I can say anything I want and not worry what people think. And I don't have to try so hard to be profound.

So I'll just say what's on my mind. My cat is dying. Really, she's been dying for almost three years. Two tumors removed. But this latest tumor, diagnosed in November, is inoperable and we thought we would have to "put her down" last fall. But she bounced back and has been enjoying life for the past several months -- eating like a horse, playing fetch with a paper clip, begging for treats, exploring the condo deck and munching on the neighbor's plants. I guess we were hopeful that maybe a miracle had happened and she was cured. But the vet told us the large tumor in her abdomen is still there, and recently she hasn't been eating and mostly just lays on the chair. She did eat a few bites of tuna this morning. But I'm afraid the end is near. (Although I've said that before and she seems to keep going.)

She has been a good companion for the past 10 years. I adopted her from a farm when she was a little furball. Only a few months old. It was a time in my life when I was depressed, and coming home each night to have her greet me at the door was the highlight of my day. She's seen me through some tough times. The death of my mother, painful relationships. Lonely nights. Having her purring on my lap or lick away my tears with her sandpaper tongue was just the sort of comfort I needed....even though it didn't cure the pain. She's been a sort of grace in my life. A gift. And she has taught me much about unconditional love and how to have more compassion. Pets will do that, I think.

But at some point, probably very soon, I will have to let her go. What happens to pets when they die? For that matter, what happens to us? I believe in heaven, but what does that look like? What does it all mean? When I think of the suffering of my cat, and the suffering of two of my friends who have cancer (very serious forms, I might add), that's the question that keeps popping into my head. What does our suffering mean? What good can come from this? What really happens when we die? My faith remains intact. I believe in God's goodness. I believe that all things work together toward his purposes. But there are so many unanswered questions.

But there's hope that each day brings us closer to understanding. As Anne Lammot says about writing: It's a lot like driving at night. You can only see a few yards ahead, but you can see far enough ahead to take the next step. Or, as U2 sings, "One step closer to knowing...."

So I wake up each day with more questions. But I embrace the small moments. When my sick cat rubs her head against my ankles and purrs. When she takes a small bite of tuna, telling me she's not quite ready to go yet. When my husband brings me coffee and kisses me good morning. I take the next step. And trust.