a bitter pill

I think so many people reject the notion that "happiness is a choice" because accepting that truth means accepting that you've chosen to have crappy life experiences at times. It means owning that some or most or all of your awful periods in your life were of your own making.

And I guess it takes an unusual amount of personal responsibility and bravery to face that and truly accept it. An amount of responsibility and bravery that is not instilled in most people these days and is not the social norm.

hard things going on lately

These days, when horrible things happen in the world, we also get to see the horrible things that go on inside the minds of others, thanks to social media and the modern convention of hyper-oversharing. 

I’ve taken several steps back from social media in the past few years for that very reason. I've lost friends over gun control debates that were fueled on Facebook. With the recent news about race issues and the events that have occurred as a result of Mike Brown’s death and Tamir Rice’s death and Eric Garner’s death, I saw more and more ugly things from people who I otherwise like very much. The hardest part for me has been seeing that ugliness come from people who, like me, call themselves Christian.

 

This isn’t something new, we all know that people who call themselves Christian are often guilty of some of the ugliest, most un-Christlike behavior. It’s human.  But lately….it’s been killing me inside that I have to be identified with them. It kills me inside that no Christians stand up and say “Hey, this is wrong!” It’s killed me inside seeing the complete and utter lack of compassion and empathy that has been poured out into the world. It makes me depressed and angry and scared to admit that I am a follower of Jesus.

I admit it’s gotten to me a lot, maybe too much. I’ve avoided church. I’ve quit Facebook. I’ve isolated myself more and more because it’s too much, it’s too ugly, it’s too overwhelming.  All I can do is look at those pictures of those boys and think about them laying in the street for hours like a spectacle and their mothers……….oh my God, what their mothers must be going through. To know their baby just got murdered like an animal in the street and was treated with about that much respect? Those mothers.  I just can’t even imagine.  My heart breaks every day for these mamas, and I know my pain is a minute fraction of the pain they feel.

Anyways………..today I went for my walk at lunch and as I tend to do, I hooked myself up to the newest sermon from the Village Church. The title is Racial Reconciliation, you can find it on their website.

I braced myself when I opened my podcast list and saw that title. Matt Chandler sometimes says very very conservative (albeit Biblicaly sound) things that often make me bristle. I braced myself for his white-man take on the events of late.

What I came away with was a wave of relief so big that I found myself with tears running down my face walking around the perimeter of the State capital at lunch hour. I’m sure some of the people who saw me thought I was crazy.

I think EVERYONE should listen to this message….believer or not. But in case you don’t, let me give you the biggest take away I got from it:

 

As believers in the Gospel, we are bound to mourn with those who mourn. That is the way God made us.  That is how God meant for us to behave with others. Period.

If you’re inclination is to throw out facts, to run from the empathy that God created within you……..you are sinning.

It is a sin to condemn the mourning.

And I’m going to take this a step further than Matt Chandler did. Here is my interpretation of the Word;

When you post #SupportOfficerWilson or links to “Blue Lives Matter” rallies or talk about how “Well, Mike Brown shouldn’t have stolen those cigarettes” you are sinning. You are acting against the Gospel.

 

Maybe you aren’t a believer, so that is meaningless to you. But...if you are a believer…….take a minute next time this comes up. Take a minute next time you want to post some inflammatory hashtag or link or an article…..who’s message are you furthering? What example of God’s grace and mercy are you showing?

Matt Chandler talks about how we had a chance when all this happened…..and we blew it, big time. And I agree. America will surely be shown to be on the wrong side of history once again when our great grandchildren look back on this embarrassing chapter in history. What’s honestly so upsetting to me is how many people who  claim to love Jesus will be on the wrong side of history.  I don’t understand how someone can read the Bible and want to follow it…….and treat other humans so horribly. I know, I know…it happens all the time. I maybe will never understand it.

As hippy/new agey as it sounds…..we are ALL created in His image. So let’s treat each other like it.

 

If you are a Christian and if this strikes a chord with you, pray for God to soften your heart. And pray for God to heal the hearts of those families who have lost someone unjustly.  And ask God to heal our country, because I really believe that only He is capable of fixing this mess.

living the dream

About once a day, I have the realization that I'm living the dream life I wanted and envied in others when I first moved to this town 15 years ago.

When I moved here, I was a single mom, on welfare, struggling to finish college, working a part time job in a restaurant. I lived in this utter shit hole 1 bedroom apartment, and my car had blown up on the freeway on the move here. I didn't have any friends here. 

Going to campus, I would drive through the "fancy" neighborhood and see these put together moms out jogging in cute work out clothes, pushing their kids in cute strollers, and I'd look at their nice cars and huge houses and I really wanted that life. 

And now I live in that neighborhood I would drive through, and I have a big huge SUV and a big family and a wonderful husband and I am that mom sitting at soccer practice and running around the neighborhood on the weekends. 

It's just.......really surreal sometimes. 

I'm so so appreciative of my life and all that God's grace has given me.

Maybe it's life or getting older or achieving a "dream", but it also has made me realize that it's stupid to envy other people. Because I still have problems. Sure I live in this neighborhood, but it costs me a bajillion dollars and I'm almost always broke. And, yeah, I drive a giant SUV  but...I kind of have to. Four kids and all. Living here doesn't make life wonderful, it doesn't magically change anything like I thought it would 15 years ago.

I'm  not complaining. I'm also grateful for the insight, I'm grateful to know that my happiness doesn't depend on my car or neighborhood or work out clothes. 

gone

My high school buddy, Jeremy, died last night.

We used to be close, but haven't been as much in the last few years. Through no reason other than life and getting old.

He was truly such a good heart. When I got pregnant in college and when I moved to this city when I was a new mom, he went out of his way to always tell me "You can do this". He used to take me out to bagels most Saturdays because I was too broke to take myself. He would always say some variation of "You got this, Lopez. You're gonna be a great mom."

Like........just a million percent supportive.

And now he's gone, which feels...........so weird that he's not in the world anymore. I mean, really? He's just gone?

My brain is just in a fog. I feel...........gross and indecisive. I arrived at work and had a moment where I contemplated just going to a bar and drinking till I passed out. I get that feeling now. Nothing can fix this, so maybe I could blur it out for a while?


But of course, a much bigger part of my brain flashed big red flags and reminded me what a horrible, horrible idea that is.

So I'm writing a blog instead. Still kind of in a fog, with my brain not really wrapping itself around the idea that Jeremy just isn't here anymore.

wonderful kids

Our family has a weekend breakfast tradition. On Saturdays, I make pancakes and on Sundays we go out for donuts. It's a lot of carbs in our house on the weekends.

A few weeks ago, I found a recipe for whole wheat pancakes with oats. I drug my laptop into the kitchen to look at the recipe, whipped em up, and served them to the kids. They gobbled their food  down and I proudly re-pinned the recipe with a smug little comment about how I got my kids to eat whole wheat pancakes and they didn't complain or even seem to notice the deviation from the standard Bisquick pancakes I normally make.

The following weekend, I went to make pancakes again. As I was pulling out ingredients and going to the living room to fetch the laptop to get the whole wheat recipe again, my 6 year old stops me and says:

"Mama, I want you to make the pancakes you know how to make. Don't make the ones you don't know how to make."

And now each Saturday, I hear "Mama, you're going to make the pancakes you KNOW how to make, right?"

But don't tell him I generally sneak in oats anyways.

100 words - "Sing" by Travis

The older you get the more you realize you don’t know.

But, I think I’ve learned a couple truths in my 38 years.

One of those is that clichés are often true. One of the truest is “You can’t love someone else until you love yourself”.  If you are self-loathing, or don’t respect yourself…it’s just not possible to love another.

Another truth I’ve learned: you have to share it.  If you love yourself… it’s going to die if not shared. You can’t love another if you don’t love yourself, but you MUST love others if you DO love yourself.  Truth.

 

 

My contribution for 100 Word Song, hosted by My Blog Can Beat Up Your Blog.
Inspired by the song "Sing" by Travis.

In Defense of My SUV

I was car-free for nearly 3 years.

I was able to do this because all the stars aligned just right and it was easy for me. I worked at home. My kids went to school just a few blocks away. I live in the center of a busy, large city where I was just a few blocks from groceries, a pharmacy, a couple of Targets, and four hospitals. And I had access to the services of ZipCar and Relay Rides when I ever really needed a car or just felt like getting out of town.  Despite what many people thought, it was quite easy and a significant reduction of stress on my resources and myself.

 

Then I got married and started a job in the real world. And suddenly my house had four kids and two adults going off to school and jobs each day.

That’s not to say we couldn’t still be car-free. Yes, we could. However, for us, the logistics of two working adults and four school aged kids made the trade off of convenience versus money leaned more and more towards convenience every day.  

So we bought a Suburban.

Yes, the giant, gas guzzling SUV that is probably the biggest SUV out there, aside from a Hummer.

We looked at smaller SUVs but realized that 1)they get about the same gas milage and 2)the whole point of “going big” was so that we could do things like all go places together, go camping and have room for family AND stuff, and so when we were in a car for longer than 10 minutes, it wasn’t uncomfortable a cramped. Again, all things that we of course could live through if we had to…but we didn’t.

We had a finite number of dollars, and it wasn’t practical or realistic for us to finance a new car. So with our finite dollars we had to find something that fit the criteria we wanted that was also within our budget. Hence, the older model Suburban that now sits in my driveway.

Why am I explaining myself so much?

Well, I’ve found that I get treated a lot differently driving a giant SUV than I did driving a tiny economy car. Other drivers and pedestrians seem to automatically assume I’m going to drive like an asshole or be an asshole and the only difference I can see is my car. I get honked at A LOT more. Maybe it’s because I drive worse in my SUV, but honestly, it’s not that hard to drive. And I’m a pretty conservative driver.

I am actually still primarily a bike rider. So I like to think I’m pretty aware of pedestrians and bikes when I’m out and out. I don’t speed. I park way out in the boonies of the parking lot. Generally, as I always have, I try to be a safe driver.

But I get dirty looks and honks and people yelling “watch it!” at a much higher rate. Does my SUV really look that scary?

Recently, I woman I know and like very much, who also happens to be a very vocal advocate for bike riders in my city, twittered that her new neighbor owns a Hummer and she “doesn’t think she’s going to like him”.

Because of what he drives.

Now, I admit that, I too judge Hummer drivers because it seems like a huge excess of money to spend to have one. I just could never justify that, but then again I’ve never had that kind of disposable income.  

But I don’t know that I could ever tell you for sure that I would most certainly dislike someone PURELY based on what they drive.

And maybe I’m a little defensive because I now drive one of those hulking behemoths.  I’d like to think I’m a nice person, concerned with my community, and just trying to do my best with what I have.  You can’t tell any of that about me when I’m behind the wheel of my car, though. Why would you think you could anyways?

If I had a gajillion dollars, I’d buy a brand new Tahoe with the FlexFuel option, but I’d keep an electric car of some kind for most of my driving. I’d own a fancy-pants Madsen cargo bike and all my kids would have expensive bikes too.

But I don’t have that money so I don’t have those options. I needed a car that fit my whole giant family of 6 for a really tiny dollar amount.  It is what it is, man. Why does that make you a better human than me?

 

As I’ve been mulling this over the past week or so, I had a scary thing happen to me yesterday. I was riding home through the city center and noticed a smallish pup running down the street I was biking down. He was running straight towards a very busy through street that feeds onto a highway…..so traffic is usually going along at a nice healthy 50mph clip. I tried to coax him to me but he was skittish and ran. He turned the corner, and a pedestrian was approaching so he did the scariest thing and ran dead into speeding traffic as I watched in helpless horror.

Two small cars barely missed him, but only by the grace of God, as both drivers were not paying attention and one was texting. And then the pup barreled into the path of a giant black Tahoe. And the driver screeched to a stop. And the pup tried to divert his path but ended up running himself into the screeching rear tire. He bowled over, yelped, and then got up and hauled ass down the side street. The Tahoe driver pulled over, obviously shaken. But no one else did. No one else even slowed down.

A man on a bike came tearing around the corner behind me, screaming for his dog and the Tahoe lady and I both yelled at him and pointed out where he could follow his dog, and he took off.  And the Tahoe lady looked at me and looked pretty sad, and got back in her car and got back on her way home.

 

The only obviously nice person there yesterday was the SUV lady.

Maybe most people who drive SUVs are jerks. I don’t know. But I like to think I’m not a total jerk. And I just saw a stranger who very obviously wasn’t one.

So, really…..judging a human being as worthwhile or not based on what you happened to see them get behind the wheel of? I just don’t know about that.