Nutella on the Light Switch

Do jerks know they're jerks? Like, when someone does something really awful and mean or stupid or lazy, do they know it whether or not they admit it? And let's say they deny it. They deny that they said something mean or did something stupid. Is it up to us to let them know that we know even if they won't admit it? Is it up to us to call them out? Because will they really be receptive to us? I say no. Because if they were receptive to us then they would be self-aware enough to know that acted like jerks in the first place. 

Calling them out is a waste of time. Maybe it will make us feel better in the moment but it does nothing to change them or their behaviour. Only they are in charge of their choices; we can only control our reactions to them. If they're ever going to admit they screwed up it will be on their own clock, not ours. And ironically, by us calling them out, we tend to delay any chances of them changing anyway.

I have a guilty pleasure. I love it when Callum wakes up in the middle of the night to nurse because then I can come downstairs in the peace and quiet, sit at the table and have a snack. When he sleeps through the night, I'll wake up in the morning and feel a bit ripped off that I didn't get the chance to have that secret alone time. I usually have a bowl of cereal or some yogurt and granola but last night I had a plate of crackers and Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread). This morning I went into the pantry to grab some stuff for breakfast and I noticed a smear of Nutella on the light switch and it made me think of what I was saying before about when people are jerks. That whatever we do, however we act and whatever we say always comes back around. We think just because we deny that we did anything wrong, that it must mean that we didn't do anything wrong. That if we eat Nutella in the dark, that when morning comes it will be as if it never happened.

But both always leave a mark.

Little Roots

There's a scene in the movie "Black Sheep" where Chris Farley slips and starts to tumble down a rocky mountainside, head over heel over head over heel and at one point he lucks out and grabs onto a bit of shrubbery. And he pleads, "hold on, little roots...stay strong!" right before the roots give way and the shrub and Farley continue rolling down the mountain at lightening speed. His bleeding and broken body finally comes to a stop at the base of the mountain and he picks himself up, looks back up from where he came from and exclaims, "what in the HELL was THAT?!?"

I relate.

My rocky mountainside has been a lot of things. Life will be going along as is and then wham! One misstep takes me careening down a brutalizing path of sharp edges and hard knocks. Grace is found in those little roots that seemingly pop up out of nowhere. Sometimes the roots keep us from falling completely to the bottom and other times they just give us a chance to catch our breath but either way, they're a break. That's what grace is: a breather. A break. Respite. A chance at renewal. A bit of healing happens where we can regroup, self regulate, chin up, and keep going.

May your humble little roots hold you for a while, long enough for you to catch your breath, so that even when you find yourself in a puddle at the foot of the mountain, you'll still be able to get back up to see where you came from, and where you are now going.

Happy Easter.

Heads Up

As I get older and grow in maturity and strength (HA!), I notice that I am able to control my thought patterns a bit more than I used to. Where I would once spiral into an anxiety-ridden mess, I now rein it in and keep my footing.

I had that medical procedure done last week and now I have to wait for the results. While I was running this morning I started to worry about what might be wrong with me and thirty seconds later I was taking mental notes of where my friends and family would sit at my funeral. What kind of food will they serve? There will be a chocolate fountain, for sure, and a giant bowl of ketchup chips beside the guest book. Everyone will sign their names in rainbow-coloured scented felt pens. As you can see, I lost my footing a bit this morning.

Remember that scene from Tommy Boy where Chris Farley is doing the lifesaver demo on the airplane? He puts the inflatable thingie around his neck and blows it up while David Spade informs everyone that "there's no point in learning how to use one of these because if the plane is going to crash into anything, it's going to be a mountain." And everyone gasps in horror.

That's what I was doing this morning--I was focusing on the wrong thing! If I'm going to die anytime soon, chances are it will be from being nailed by a truck while I'm running along the side of the road. But even so, why would I spend my energy worrying about death when I could spend that energy actually living?

I may lose my footing from time to time, for sure. And I really hope that there isn't an open mike at my funeral. But as long as I keep getting up and moving forward, keeping my focus on living and loving fully, then chances are, I won't hit a mountain.

Extraction

I often wonder why we are born with things like an appendix, wisdom teeth, foreskin, moles and gallbladders if all that ends up happening is that we get 'em yanked, snipped, and cut out.

Or maybe these lovely little items are indeed planted in our vessels for a purpose of some sort, to serve a greater good?

I have my wisdom teeth, but holy sweet mother of Farley, they're huuuuuge. If God wanted me to masticate spinach and alfalfa all bloody day long, he certainly gave me the tools. It takes me forty-five minutes to brush those beasts. My parents, because they care about whether or not I would fit into society, footed my orthodontic bill when I was a tween because a) I looked like Nancy Kerrigan that got the baseball bat in the face, not the shins and b) I realllllly wanted braces, or so I thought. I had braces for a solid 800 years. At one point I had my 12 year-old molars removed to make room for my wisdom teeth. Lucky me. I swear my wisdom teeth each have 7 corners.

We are all born with (or develop very early on) stuff that seemingly has no purpose. Maybe we have a gargantuan amount of pride, or obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Or maybe we are overly sensitive, crumpling under the smallest pressures. What are we supposed to do with these characteristics? Do we always have to yank them?

I'd like to think not, but maybe that's just the hippie in me. I think pride creates hard workers. I think obsessive-compulsive tendencies give birth to people who are goal-orientated and driven. And I think we need overly sensitive people to balance out the asshole factors of the prideful and obsessive-compulsive people.

What do we end up with? Balance. Our lives become surrounded with people of all types, from all walks of life, each giving a piece of themselves for the sake of life and love. Some of us are gay, some of us have our gallbladders. Some of us are vegans who cradle the wounded (vagans always cradle the wounded!) and some of us are meat-eating conquerors, but we all deserve to wear our crowns. There is no need to take them away, if we can use our teeth for wisdom.

The Gospel of Farley

Jake has been pestering me to fill out his high school registration form and because I am a) in denial that my baby Jake is going to high school and b) because I'm in denial that my baby Jake is going to high school, I'm putting it off for as long as possible. Instead, we sat down together tonight and watched the best of Chris Farley, Saturday Night Live.

One of my favourite scenes is during the "Chris Farley Show" (a spoof, naturally) where he interviews Paul McCartney and comments on one of his quotes: "The love you take is equal to the love you make." Jake and I talked about it for a bit and interpreted it as that we need to love as we want to be loved. We need to treat others the way we want to be treated. We can't expect the world to lick our wounds while we keep walking into the fire.

The kids know that I am easy-going and all-loving, and sickeningly so, but they also understand that if there's one thing on this earth that makes me homicidal, it's when someone parks in our designated reserved parking spot outside of our home. When we pulled in yesterday, I found a white domestic car parked in our spot, and I proceeded to furiously scribble a nasty note onto a piece of slurpee-stained napkin to leave on their windshield, but when the suspected assholes started walking toward their car I tucked the sticky napkin into my pocket and then went all like, passive-aggressive on them, killing them with majorly loud body language.

Did I feel better after that?

No.

I don't need to accept the bullshit that this world has to offer but I certainly do not need to seek it out, either.

It was a gorgeous sunny day out today and everyone was in a great mood. We piled into the van with skateboards and scooters and bikes and headed to the park but just as we were loading up the van, the same people from yesterday pulled in and parked beside us, in the regular parking spots. I gave them a sheepish smile and they nodded a graceful look in return and I knew that all was okay. Not just with us, but with the world. Because love doesn't merely exist with us, but in spite of us.

The love we make is equal to the love we take, true. But it's not a transaction or it wouldn't be love. Love is a gift. Love is grace. We accept it undeservedly and we give it unreservedly. But if we keep walking into the fire with the expectation that the world will keep licking our wounds then we will get burned. And we will lose our parking spot.

Vroom

There is no doubt that I have annoyed everyone who knows me with repeated quotes from the movie "Tommy Boy" starring my favourite actor of all time: Chris Farley. At one point he is trying to sell brake pads to a dealership and the guy who might buy them keeps hesitating because the box that contains the brake pads aren't stamped with a guarantee of some sort. Farley makes a point that a guarantee is nothing but that: a stamp. He says to the man, "If you'd like, I can take a shit in a box and stamp a guarantee on it but at the end of the day all it would be is a guaranteed box of shit."

There is very little in this life that is guaranteed and people who have lost much are the ones who will nod their heads most fiercely to this statement. In a split second we can go from plenty to pathetic. Married to divorced. Life to death. Paradise to devastation. Words are empty without the accompanying actions. The only way to know if our risks are worth it is by taking that step of faith and choosing to put the brake pads on, and hoping for the best. Have faith, choose love, put the brake pads on and drive. If we don't, we will be sitting cross-legged on the cold garage floor for all eternity holding a box filled with what we are convinced of is shit.

Imagine all of the things we would miss out on if we never left the garage floor.

"He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being." -Paul Tillich