I Can Empathize with Tierra

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If you’ve watched The Bachelor at all this season, you know who Tierra is and the trail of ill-willed comments and feelings she induces. Many are vehemently opposed to her. I was one of them – telling friends who weren’t watching this season that they needed to tune in to specific shows to see Tierra’s “sparkle.”

Then on tonight’s show, “The Women Tell All” show where all the jilted bachelorettes come back for one last stab at each other and at their betrayer (Sean), something turned around for me watching Tierra face her nemeses. All those women taking their best shot at her, some trying to be “helpful,” others just laying it out so they felt better, like by telling her she’s delusional. Regardless of her actions, I suddenly felt differently toward her.

I was the girl in high school who would drop everything for whomever I was dating, including my friends. I admit it. As awful as it is, I was that girl. I preferred the committedness of a relationship (however committed high school relationships can be) far over the fair weather that sometimes followed friendships. I had good friends and had many good times with those that were able to look over this ‘flaw’ of mine, so I consider myself lucky in that respect. But I was also often ridiculed and offerred ‘advice’ on what I needed to do to be a better person/friend. That was hard. And when I saw Tierra trying to process and possibly justify her actions, I knew exactly how she felt.

Now, there’s one giant, glaring difference here – I was in HIGH SCHOOL when I was acting this way – Tierra is 24. I would like to think that while I have never been perfect, I did up my game – mature a little – and managed to make some real lasting friendships in college. So the logical conclusion? The bachelorette house that becomes home for 25 women competing for one man’s attention = makeshift all-girl high school, regardless of age. Tierra said a mouthful tonight when she admitted that she came into the situation scared, not knowing what to expect or how to handle everything and that she probably handled it badly. Well-said, and probably a gross understatement, but man it showed that maybe she had walked the line, graduated from all-girl high school hell. Should she begin an interview with Chris Harrison by saying things like “I light up a room when I walk in and if people don’t let that light shine, I get upset.” Um, no, probably not, and I by far wouldn’t condone or put up with half the crap she dealt out on the show. But she possibly does see the error of her ways, maybe just a little.

Tierra might just need a little bit more time to grow up, take some blows, spend some time by herself. I realized I might have been a lot like Tierra at 24 had I not taken some hits, had a few broken hearts, spent some time alone, fostered some friendships, and accepted a whole lot of God’s grace along the way, and thankfully at 24, I was planning a wedding. All of that helped me to grow past some of the drama I’m prone to, some of the insecurity that caused me to be on the constant defensive. That’s where Tierra seemed to live on the show – at the corner of Dramaville and Defensetown. So maybe she’s just a late-bloomer and will grow into her “sparkly” personality and learn to temper it where it needs some toning. Or maybe she’ll find a really, really, really patient man that will tend to her drama. And they will live happily ever after.

The Harlem Shake and Other Musings

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I love pop culture, aside from the fact that my love for pop culture was almost ruined by a certain horrific WKU professor who not only thought HER thoughts on the topic were superior and thus automatically CORRECT (so much for broadening the mind) but who almost failed me after “losing” one of the two papers required for the semester, causing me to drop from honors status for graduation. But I’m over it. Whatever.

Nonetheless, my love and following of hip trends in music, film, etc., are alive and well and only fueled by the easy access we have through social media. I love when a new meme takes hold and everyone is suddenly doing their own version of “Call Me Maybe” or “Gangnam Style” or now, the 30-second featurette of the “Harlem Shake.” I think it’s partially my affection for homemade limelight, but there’s also something uniting about 50 students joining together in choreographed silliness for a piece of history forever stored on YouTube (as seen in the most recent edition from my high school alma mater, seen below.) And even though the craze is dying out, I still have a deep longing to be part of a flash mob. Whoever started that phenomenon is a darn genius.

I feel the need to insert a disclaimer – just because I love pop culture doesn’t mean I’m trendy or “hip.” Um, far from it. I would never want to set such a precedent or notion of myself. I enjoy that pop culture happens, not that I’m an instigator or even participant. Too much pressure.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become quite the award season afficionado because it is a sure-fire, quick  way to find out what/who is ‘trendy,’ and sadly, to see just how behind-the-times I’ve fallen. But this year, I felt like I was really on top of my game. It’s probably the last year that’s going to happen as I attribute most of my current pop culture awareness to spending much of my pregnancy last year firmly planted on the couch watching movies, listening to music, etc., and because my knowledge of what’s happening on Sprout and Disney Junior is growing more proficient by the day. I always enjoy the Grammys, if for anything that it is a celebration of music, but this year, I knew most of the artists (although I’m still confused as to who those Alabama Shakes people are…) and was happy to see some of my favorites like Mumford and Sons, Fun., and The Lumineers as nominees/winners. Not to mention Justin Timberlake made his return, which I could not be more enthused about and thought he did a stellar job at not seeming like an old man trying to be cool. I may have to hang up my old JT poster some where. The Grammys also solidified my idea that it seems there is a real “folksy” trend going on right now with music – lots of full band, almost Bluegrass-inspired instrumentation and song structure is very popular and evidently, successful. (Which is just fine with me since I’m fairly certain bluegrass music is my worship language – I am moved EVERY time I hear “I Will Wait” by Mumford and Sons. It may not be intended as ‘Christian,’ but to me, it IS. Lyrics of “raise my hands, paint my spirit gold, bow my head, keep my heart slow” sure seem praiseworthy. Mercy.) And I must say, it was nice to have a Grammy celebration without Justin Beiber.

The Oscars were equally as satisfying – I knew who Seth McFarlane was (he’s such a pretty man – not a fan, but I love his smile), I had seen or have intent to see most of the “Best Picture” nominees, and Kentucky gal Jennifer Lawrence is easily my favorite actress right now. I loved that they played the “Jaws” theme when the acceptance speeches started to run too long. Plus, the night was dedicated to ‘music in movies’ so that was an added bonus. Just about every other commercial break was preceded with music from Les Mis and gave me chills every time. (Interestingly enough though, I chose not to see Les Mis in the theater and may not see it at all – I can’t stand Russell Crowe’s shout-singing and would grow increasingly annoyed with it as the movie progressed and she may have well-deservingly won for her role, but Anne Hathaway overacts the part. I’m sorry, but it’s true. My love for the music and the fact that there’s enough action to satisfy Michael may drive us to see it eventually. Maybe.)

Award shows are fun. I may have to break down one year and host an ‘Oscar-viewing party’ or ‘Grammy-fest.’ I always envision what I would say and who I would thank if I ever had the pleasure of accepting ANY award. Brevity is not my forte, as my college roommate put it, so I’m pretty sure I’d be a victim to the music. That’d be okay though, as long as it was the theme from “Jaws.” OR, maybe I could leave the stage doing the Harlem Shake.

Something’s Gotta Give

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So, I haven’t been able to think straight for about a month now. Maybe longer. I truthfully thought it was just part of being a new mom. (Can I still have the title “new mom” now that she’s over 6 months old?) I had convinced myself that I was just not feeling well with all the changes we recently dealt with and suffering through this half-winter we’ve had. Not to mention I managed to give myself a vicious cold after irritating my nose from disinfecting everything with bleach water. Read: I made myself sick trying to prevent illness. It’s a gift.

Anyway, in the midst of all my justifying, I realized: I’m 32 years old. I shouldn’t feel like I’m 92.

Talking with Michael one night, I recalled that I’ve cried going to bed every night for the past several weeks just because I “felt bad.” Achy. Not flu achy, just achy. I actually physically hurt. Pain medicine was useless. The pain hadn’t gotten better – it actually may have been getting worse. I realized I have had ZERO energy and was staying so tired despite the blessing of a baby who sleeps all night. But I had no explanation why any of this was happening.

I must be going crazy.

Then I started having dizzy spells that made me feel like I spent all day on the teacup ride at Disneyworld. Taking care of Elly became a real chore – trekking up and down the stairs with her was taxing. I started losing things, forgetting if I had paid bills, getting confused easily – none of which is normal for Mrs. Type A. It all started to weigh me down not only physically, but mentally too. I was more depressed than I could remember being in a long time. I was so frustrated and disheartened – despite everything I was trying to do, nothing helped.

I continued my justification that I was crazy because there was nothing specific I could go to a doctor and say, “this is what is wrong – fix THIS.” With no definitive symptoms, I could just imagine that I would get the same response from doctors that I’m used to getting which is a shaking head and shrugged shoulders. I didn’t want to face that again.

And then I blacked out.

So, a couple of doctor visits later (forced to go with no choice at this point) I’ve been told I’m severely anemic. An answer! And hopefully something to treat that will make me feel better.

So I’m not crazy?

Thankful and relieved that my physical symptoms were real and not something I was causing, I could immediately think clearer – and start praying like a madwoman because this year hasn’t had the best start.

I’m hoping that the less-than-desirable happenings (a rash of migraines, dad being in the hospital for 11 days, Michael’s erratic work schedule, and now this surprising diagnosis) of the last two months are not the standard for 2013, and that with the turn of a month tomorrow, maybe even the turn of the seasons on the 20th, that things will begin to bloom happy for us. We need some good news this month, some answers to a four year battle. I’m praying that the “sun shines brightest after the storm” cliche holds true for us.  I need some bright, bright sun.

And maybe I can get through this month without convincing myself I am in fact crazy.

Fresh Start

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I was told in school never to fall in love with your first draft.
I always did.
Even still, I learned a valuable lesson – sometimes it takes a few tries to get it right. (Sometimes more than a few.)
For me, that’s exactly the case with this “blogging” thing.

I started in 2010 with a heart and mind full of stories, a husband who worked late, and inspired by the movie “Julie and Julia,” so I started a blog. I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew I wanted somewhere to publicly air what was on my mind in a less-invasive, and more appropriate way than a Facebook status or email. Being a creative outlet by nature, I thought “how hard can this be?” Little did I know, blogging was an art form and community all its own, complete with rules, etiquette, and even cliques. Even though a blog is supposed to be your own and completely open to the creative expression of the writer, there is very much a protocol. I’m a sucker for protocol, yet I hate it all the same. I did in fact want a place for my own creative expression, but maybe I wanted to do what everybody else was doing, too? I was lost.

I was most impressed with baby blogs at the time. People would make these cutesy little corners of the internet all about their pregnancies and babies and it was really precious. Except I wasn’t pregnant and didn’t have a baby at the time. Okay, there were plenty of other things I could write about, right? Sure. I was certain I had enough thoughts to fill page after page of internet dialogue, which I did, but it turns out over the next few years those thoughts would be more in the form of controlled rants about the status of our economic pitfalls, infertility, and general angst over life not going as I had planned. Not exactly the enticing prose I was shooting for. Yet, I thought I needed to at least attempt to keep up with what I liked so much about the other blogs – sweet little scattered “scrapbook”-style collections of the writer’s life including blow-by-blow documentation of daily/weekly events, recipes/favorite restaurants, product reviews, fashion updates, musings on current events and life events, and pictures, pictures, pictures. Okay, easy enough.

Wrong.

Right off the bat, I broke the cardinal rule of blogging: thou shalt post often. I was horribly inconsistent in my blog posting. Painful horrible. I would spend half of my posts apologizing to my four readers for being absent for so long. That made it impossible to do any sort of “This weekend, we…”-type posts. Doing any sort of fashion-ish post was way out of my league since I still own clothing I had in high school. Recipes? Unless you consider the directions on how to heat up a microwavable dinner or “how to place a takeout order” a ‘recipe,’ then I’m out. Product reviews would make me nervous because I wouldn’t want to offend anyone and would probably never end up using the product to begin with in fear of deviating from my old standards. And pictures? Of what, our dogs? The new color of nail polish on my toes? I didn’t have much going on in the form of what I thought were interesting pictures at the time. And on top of that, I’m horrible about loading the pictures off my camera anyway – I have to purposely force myself to “clean” my memory card once a month. I was equally bad at importing pictures from the web because 1, I didn’t know how to position them in the post the way I wanted, and 2, I certainly didn’t credit them and their internet location appropriately, so it was only a matter of time before those things started “disappearing” or I got nailed for using copyrighted material. And I didn’t want that. I was rapidly making blogging way more difficult than it should be. Shocker.

Part of the reason I was so inconsistent was because I hated posting just for the sake of posting. For the most part, aside from the aforementioned not-so-fun life issues we were dealing with at the time, our life was insanely boring. I knew people would be just as excited to read “Tonight I got home from work at 6:00, Michael got home at 7:00. He brought home take-out from “O’Charley’s.” I had potato soup and a fried chicken salad and it was good. We watched “Survivor” and some reruns of Friends and went to bed.” about as much as I would enjoy writing it. Plus, I had learned the hard way (after collecting boxes and boxes of scrapbooking material) that “scrapbooking” as a function is only fun and worthwhile if you enjoy what you’re working on, not doing it because you feel like you have to, which is what I had done to myself with blogging. I also felt an odd obligation to make blog posts, even though I didn’t have a crowd of readers, just to ‘keep up.’ Sure, occasionally there would be something I would want to post, but would be so overwhelmed with how long it had been since my last post or how random the topic was that I would often even talk myself out of that. It was a vicious cycle.

So after a respite from blogging altogether and a lot of thought on what I want my blog to be, I’m letting go of the self-inflicted pressure to be like every-other-blog-on-the-block. I accept, enjoy, and applaud those scrapbook-y, baby/mommy, recipe, homemaker, etc. blogs for being everything my blog isn’t. Believe me, Pioneer Woman, you’re not coming off my Favorites list for a long time. But as for me, this blog is just me. All original. I’m not writing for an audience anymore. I’m sure the posts here will follow the seasons of my life – probably including a lot of material about Elly most of the time, or rants about how ticked off I am about something (I tend to get ticked off a lot.) And I unapologetically may take planned or unplanned blogging hiatus from time to time. Everyone needs a break sometimes.

So if you’re reading, thank you. I pray you’ll come back. Maybe I’ll have something interesting to say.

Or not.