Family

This evening I came to a strange revelation; ok, it's not really all that strange or that deep but whatever. I worked at SPU for 15 months and while at times it was hard, difficult, frustrating and painful I loved it. I loved every second, even the seconds where I wished it would stop. I never once woke up in the morning thinking "I don't want to go to work today, I wish I didn't have the work ethic that makes me go in". I never once thought "I should just quit" or "I need a new job." Not once. Finding a job like that is a once, maybe twice in a lifetime thing and I walked away from it. Granted I had the best reasons in the world to walk away from it, but it still aches that I'm not there anymore. Like how my bad knee aches when it gets cold and damp outside. Every time I wake up thinking "I don't want to go to work today" it aches.

It's not just that I liked my job, because there were a few large chunks that I didn't like doing, rather it was that OSS was home and the officers were brothers, student workers were younger siblings with Cheryl and Vic at the helm. I felt more at home there than I ever did in our little apartment in Lynnwood. It was the people as much as it was what I was doing. I felt like I was a part of something, something good that was real and tangible. I saw every day how what I did effected other people and helped people. I watched and I helped when things went down, when things went wrong, when things went right. I planned and had ideas that were implemented and praised. I knew I worked hard and did a good job, but I guess I didn't realize how much a part of things I had become. When I left people told me "I'm so sorry you're leaving, you did such an amazing job - we've never had anyone like you." I wasn't really surprised by this, I knew I worked hard, but I didn't realize that people noticed - I was just doing my job.

It's so hard now to go from being a fairly independent worker who was in charge of two programs in addition to basically being the office manager to bottom of the food chain doing a job that requires little to no skills where none of my potential is being used. I know I've only been at my current job a few months and I believe that it will get better in time. But at the same time it's so hard because while my first two months at SPU were HARD they were so good. I got dumped into a position and told "go!" and I did. Where I am now there is little respect for the abilities that I've cultivated, partly because I know, and they know, that this is not what I am suited for.

I don't want to say that I am destined for greater things, because that's not it at all. I want a job that is more rewarding that does something good - that stands for something, that stands for someone. I'm not sure what that is, but I hope I find it soon.

Part of this not so grand realization that I had tonight was that it had to do with what we (SPU and OSS) were doing, but most of all the people that were there. If the SPU campus were to burn to the ground or get swallowed up by an earthquake or the sea you could gather all survivors and transport them to another state, to another country, and it would still be the same. It is the people there who made it a great job, not just the job itself. I'm sure with the wrong people it would have been an awful job full of migraines and ulcers, but it wasn't. I hope that I'll find another job that I love doing as much as I loved being at SPU.

Holy Sonnet XIV

John Donne

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Quick Story

Due to the lovely weather outside today (65-70 degrees) I decided I to wear a skirt and heels to the office. I got in and my office manager made normal female remarks about what a cute skirt I was wearing. As we were chatting about skirts and shoes Sean walked in and said “hey, you look all girly today.” This was far too good for me to pass up. “What do I normally look like Sean?”
“uhh… I was just saying that you look nice this morning”
“Are you saying that I don’t normally look nice?”
“n-no. You always look nice, you just look girly today.”
“Do I not look like a woman the rest of the time?” by this time he was starting to sweat and looked extremely nervous
“uh... umm… you always look like a woman and you always look nice?” it came out sounding like a question rather than a statement. I didn’t say anything for a few seconds, just enjoyed the look of pure terror on his face.
“relax Sean, I’m just messing with you.”
“You are such a brat, you know that? I should make you wash my car for doing that.”
“Sorry Sean, I don’t do Paris Hilton impression.” He sputtered a bit at that before making a hasty exit. I have no doubt that he will find some way to make up for the lost ground.

Voice from within the Boundary

*note: due to the perturbation of a now unnamed person, all personal identifiers have been removed from this post. (1/17/09)

I had two interesting conversations last night that intersected in my thoughts this morning as I drove into work. While I am quick on my feet thought wise, mulling things over this morning seemed to connect the two separate conversations. My first conversation revolved around boundaries and how each of us discovered our voice and why we react as we do to having our boundaries pushed. My other conversation revolved around rumors in high school and suppositions from incomplete information. I think what first connected these two separate ideas was that they both involved high school. I personally would much rather not do high school again; there were parts of the experience that I did enjoy and had fun in, but overall the experience was not enjoyable and the memories I have of it are hard (hard as in tough with rough edges, not hard as in hard to think back on). During the first conversation my friend asked me if I had found my voice in high school, looking back I think I found part of my voice in high school, but most of it I had learned long before.

I have good boundaries; I rarely let anyone push me around, I know how to tell people “no” and I can change my mind when I know I’ve been wrong. What I’ve found out about myself isn’t my boundaries that are the problem, it’s how I react when someone violates them. If my boundaries are like well marked property lines, if someone crosses them or attempts to cross them I don’t come out on my porch and ask nicely “hey, you’re on my lawn, could you please leave” or “next time use the driveway, don’t hop the fence.” Instead I have a tendency to grab a double barreled shotgun and give someone 30 seconds warning to get the hell of my land before I gun them down for trespassing. I think that this is because in my family, if you don’t have strong borders you get run over – a lot.

Going into High School I had these borders set up and was ready to run people down (and I did that to a few people who really deserved it and a few that didn’t). But as I was talking to my other friend and how she tried to ask me about rumors she had heard and believed (without actually asking me about them) it made me realize something. In high school I did learn a new voice; I learned not to care about the lies and the suppositions. I learned to care about the truth, about justice, about equality that comes from who you are, not what you look like or don’t look like. I never understood why people talked about me. I wasn’t the smartest or the prettiest, I wasn’t even the most talented at anything. I never understood, and still don’t understand, what it was about me that people wanted to destroy. I had few friends in high school, but they are the rare sort of people who are friends with everyone simply because they like them – not because they want something from people’s friendship.

The first time I was called a whore I was 12 and had to look it up in the dictionary. I had to ask my sister what “stuffing” was 3 weeks later. When I was 14 I had to punch a boy in the nose because he had heard that I did blow jobs for $20 and propositioned me. When I was 16 it was going around that I was easy and free, but by that time I had stopped caring what people said – most of the time I never heard what people were saying anyways. If I cared about the un-truths, the exaggerations (a kiss in the hallway turned into a half naked make out session in the bathroom), and the outright lies and smears then I was letting them win. So I learned to care about the truth, about justice for middle schooler with scoliosis that was teased and smacked around every day; justice for the outcast who got her hair pulled out and nails raked down her face by a girl who did it to get a boy to laugh. I learned to care about equality; to show people that “better than” is determined by the person you are rather than how popular you are, how pretty you are, or how rich your parents are.

The more I thought about these things, the more I have come to realize that these too are boundaries. That I expect people, especially close friends and family, to understand these things and become impatient when they don’t. But these aren’t just boundaries that I have set for myself; they are boundaries that I have set for other people – especially other Christians. I expect Christians to be better people, to understand what to me is Christ’s main message: love and respect all even those who are different, especially those who are outcasts; every life is sacred; every person is a child of God.

Joss Whedon in a script for one of his shows wrote about Champions out to save the world – helping the helpless, but I think he was writing about Christians (who also ought to be helping the helpless) when he wrote “Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It's harsh and it's cruel, but that's why there's us. It doesn't matter where we come from, what we done or suffered or even if we make a difference. We live as if the world was what it should be, to show it what it can be.” We live as if the world was what it should be, what God intended the world to be, what Christ intended us to be as His followers; to show it what it can be – we give hope because without Christ there is no hope, without His love and sacrifice then we would have nothing, we would be nothing. We are to be a light, a city on a hill that refuses to darken the lamps, refuses to stifle hope and always striving to be His hands and feet to prostitutes, IRS agents, Wall Street executives, homeless drug addicts, legal and illegal immigrants, family and the people next door. There is no one who escapes the notice and the grace of God; it’s up to us to extend it the best that we are able.

2008

So it's the end of another year and instead of doing a traditional New Year's Eve post reminiscing about the past year, I wanted to do something a little different. This year I've decided to to put songs to people who have been prominent in my life this year and songs that have characterized my time with them. Without further ado:

Ryan: Love Story - Taylor Swift; Whatever it Takes - Lifehouse (Ok, Ryan actually gets two songs because he's special)
Seth: Candyman - Christina Aguilera (Seth, you will always be my Candyman ;D)
Patti: Twenty Something - Jamie Cullum (a jazz song that references Shakespeare, how can that be passed up?)
Carrera: Keeps Getting Better - Christina Aguilera (You'll always be my SuperBitch/SuperGirl)
Mom: Down to the River to Pray - Allison Krauss (Classic Mom song that I can hear her singing as she's doing house work or thinking through some complicated medical problem)
Dad: Main Title - Braveheart Soundtrack (Bagpipes, that's all I really have to say)
Cheryl: Driving with the Top Down - Ramin Djawadi (From the Iron Man sound track, if Cheryl had a theme song during emergencies this would be it)
Vic: Devil Went Down to Georgia - Johnny Cash (This reminds me of all hours I spent in Vic's office listening to his fabulous stories instead of working)
Shaun: You Know My Name - Chris Cornell (Ellingson, Shaun Ellingson; shaken, not stirred)
Hannah: Dandelion - Testimony (lyrics are classic Hannah and remind me of the look she gets on her face when she talks about her nephew)