in love?

A little local drama has inspired a lot of thinking about that “in love” feeling. Someone walked away from a marriage, claiming that they weren’t in love anymore. I have a feeling that said person really has no idea what love is.

Sure, the “in love” feeling that comes for an initial time period at the beginning of a relationship is a lot of fun. It brings a rush of adrenaline like little else can. I can see why people get a bit addicted to it, so when it simmers down in their current relationship, they head out to find it again, thinking that the existing relationship is washed up. They could not be more wrong!

They lose the depth that comes with longevity of a relationship. My husband and I have been married over twelve years. We had all the twitterpated feelings you would expect – more perhaps as they were elongated by a twenty-two month long distance courtship. But the truth is, I would NEVER trade our relationship now for what we had back then.  In fact, you know how smug newlyweds are because they think that no one has ever been in love as much as they are? Looking at it from the view of twelve years of excellent marriage, they seem almost comical! They have no idea how good it’s going to get! Talk to happily married people and see if they want what they have now, or those initial feelings….

I’ve been thinking that a person who constantly seeks out an “in love” feeling also cannot be in a deep relationship with the Lord. If you were in a relationship with the Lord that has gone beyond initial feelings to a deeper trust and intimacy, you would understand that since our relationship with the Lord is compared to a marriage, a deeper level of intimacy, trust, and enjoyment should be achieved and continue to grow. The “feelings” with the Lord will come and go. As in a marriage, sometimes you don’t feel.  But you know, that deep down, that relationship is strong. Growing. It sustains you. You can’t imagine life with out it.

Memory Lane

It’s amazing – the small things that can trigger a memory! I opened up a Christmas card from a lady at work tonight – she had put a few goodies inside, among them, a spearmint chapstick. Instantly, I was taken years back - to time with my grandmother, whose signature lip balm of choice was spearmint chapstick. My Dad’s mom – she lived with us for several years around the time that I was 12 or so – about the age that my daughter is now. Our home had an apartment, and this was modified so she could navigate it with her arthritis. She was a very unique character (but we won’t go into a lot of that – we don’t have time!). Because she wasn’t able to move around much, she kept a large table covered in green felt next to her recliner, and this was where she kept everything she might need in the course of a day. She always wrote with a green fine tip pen, always used spearmint chapstick, and always had a knitting project at hand.

She loved The Price is Right and 100 Huntley Street. She had a TV in her apartment, and we didn’t have one, so it was a great treat to be allowed to go watch The Price is Right with her in the evening.

She introduced me to Gene Stratton-Porter and extolled the virtues of the McGuffey Readers.

From her, I learned to love day-old popcorn and Almond Roca.

I can still remember the smell of her apartment. Tonight, when I opened the spearmint chapstick, it brought so many memories flooding back.

She’s been gone for years. But tonight, when I smelled her again, it was like a present – a moment to remember my Grandma.

Cleaning up my act….

If you read this blog much at all, you know that I am constantly endeavoring to eat more healthily. However, at this point, I have not made much effort to change what I put on my skin. Your skin absorbs between 45% and 100% of the substances applied to it, depending on the chemical and the site to which it was applied. Your face absorbs 2-6x more than your torso, for example, and your underarms and private parts are believed to absorb nearly 100% of what is applied to them.

That being said, what are we putting on our skin?  More and more medications are being applied transdermally, which proves that the scientific community is getting more clued into the fact that stuff goes THROUGH your skin.

A few weeks ago, I had a Jordan Essentials home party. Jordan Essentials is a skin care company that uses no alcohol, parabens, sulfates, petroleum products (such as mineral oil), DEA, or aluminum…and all for very reasonable prices!  It concerns me that as soon as people get cancer, they are told to stop all body products with chemicals that are cause for concern. Why are people not warned BEFORE they get cancer?!?!

Something to think about….

Daydreaming….

One day….I need to see the Alhambra.

Talking My Ear Off….

I have a seven year old boy. Have you ever had one of those? Oh, my word. He talks CONSTANTLY. There is a non-stop stream of chatter about Star Wars, his paper airplanes, the latest Lego plan, and how he just climbed the magnolia tree and saw a huge bug. The commentary about his falling-out teeth, his big sister, why he doesn’t want to drink milk, and how his bangs make him “cute” starts as soon as his feet hit the floor in the morning, and don’t stop until he’s conked out in bed at night.

I know it’s an important time for language development. I love that his vocabulary and diction are precocious and varied. I love the funny little things he says, and the way he interprets everything around him. I love to watch his logic develop and change.

BUT….there are days when I just want quiet. When I just want him to be quiet. But I can’t tell him to be quiet. Even when I’d love a minute of quiet, I don’t want to tell him to be hush. I know that in just a few short years, he’ll be a teenager, and I’ll be straining to get basic sentences out of him rather than mere grunts. Maybe I’ll be fortunate, and my teenage son will keep talking to me. But I’m afraid that the stream of chatter will dwindle to a trickle, and on some days, stop altogether. So, I’m listening to the 100,000 words a day….storing up the memories, and cherishing this time. Because, most likely, it won’t last….

Keep Calm and Carry On

Have a friend in Edmonton, Alberta, who operates a charming little jewelery business called Lilac Lane (check out her page on Facebook). Her summer collection featured a little necklace with a pendant inscribed “Keep Calm and Carry On.” This motto, utilized by the British government in 1939 to raise morale during WWII, is beginning to be a creed of mine. (I had to have the necklace, and it arrived in the mail today – hence this post.)

Think about how our society glorifies  “drama queens” and “divas.” The paraphernalia inscribed with those titles could (and should) fill more than one landfill. Since when have we been taught that it is womanly to overreact and whine and pitch fits when things don’t go the way we want them?

What about when we’re not having tantrums over things not going our way, but just being bowled over by life? Have you seen someone get completely carried away into drama over something that is not even happening to them? I’m not talking about compassion or empathy here – I’m talking about histrionics – deliberate displays of emotion simply to draw attention to oneself . It is SOOO unbecoming!

This saying reminds  me of the disciples’ drama over the tempest that blew up on the Sea of Galilee while Jesus was asleep. Matthew 8:25 says,
“And his disciples came to him and awoke him, saying, Lord save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.”  When I read about Jesus and the disciples, it seems like they were often fretting about something – who was going to be the greatest, who healed whom, how the money should be spent, or the fact that Jesus was surrounded by children or unsavory women…and Jesus spent a great portion of his time calming them and the other people around him.

How can we say we have Him with us, while acting all the while as though He is not?

Now, I realize that some people are more easily overwhelmed than others, and that everyone has different coping skills. That’s fine. I understand that. Nor am I professing that I never struggle to be calm. (Why else do you think I bought the necklace! I need the reminder, too!) But when drama over an issue totally eclipses coping and surrendering it by faith to the Lord we claim to trust, we have a problem. It is neither womanly nor dignified. A childish lack of coping skills are what I expect from children, not women who have been through a few things and claim to walk with the Lord. The drama does not become you, ladies.  You bring only negative attention to yourself and shame to your testimony. Please, keep calm and carry on!

Vignettes

Anyone else out there have a busy life?

I’ve been thinking about the seasons, and how quickly they are passing…not only spring, summer, fall, and winter, but the seasons of my children’s lives…and my own. Sometimes life is such a whirl that I’m afraid that I’m missing it.

Take summer, for instance. I was so looking forward to this summer….having some time free of the demands of homeschooling, several projects to undertake, enjoying time in my little garden, the availability of fresh flowers and produce…you know, all the wonderful things about summer. But my life is busy enough that if I don’t stop and take a minute now and then to enjoy these things, I’ll miss them, and winter will be upon me before I have time to realize that summer is gone.

So, I’m learning to enjoy little moments. I don’t have time to pick berries for days on end (like I might like to) or spend days sitting by a pool watching my children splash. We might only have a few hours to enjoy these activities once per summer. My seasons, therefore, are composed of vignettes – moments or small blocks of time when I realize, “This is what __________ is about.”

If I can capture a few of those moments with every event, then I have the memories that I need to enrich my experience. I find it makes me more content with my life to enjoy these small snippets of time for all they’re worth, rather than bemoaning the fact that I don’t have the opportunity to spend hours or days or weeks with a particular activity that I enjoy.

Speaking of which, I had a lovely 4th with dear friends….picnicing, s’mores, hiking, eating out, and fireworks. It was a fabulous vignette for my summer montage; one I know I will never forget…

Reprieve

Haven’t been blogging much lately, as you may have noticed. Odd that after several months of not blogging, the first thing I write about is the reasons why I haven’t been blogging. Truth is, there really aren’t any. I use the blog as an outlet when I have something on my mind. I don’t know if my mind has been especially void of deep thoughts for the last couple of months, or if things have just been extra busy to the point that I haven’t had time for serious retrospection.

            It HAS been busy. We’ve been trying to wrap up the school year (difficult when we practically school year-round), we renovated a bathroom, I went toLouisianawith the children for a week, and celebrated Mother’s Day with my mom (as an extra –special treat!). I went part-time at work, which means we’re broke, but happy. One night less per week gives me back two days, and makes a huge difference in how I feel about life, love, and the universe in general. I wasn’t complaining, but it was hard working full-time and juggling homeschool and caring for a house and a family.

            Don’t get me wrong. I have been thinking. This Curlett brain is never idle. I’ve planned new projects, examined the motivations behind my prayers, started spending a lot of time in James 1….I just haven’t felt like writing about it. What does that mean, do you think? But I miss it. So, I’m starting again. Be prepared!

Latest Best Read…

          Read a really great book from cover to cover in a single sitting the other day… The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Written for teens, this first book in a trilogy had my husband and I both hooked – he had read it in its entirety the night before (‘til 4 am!) I read it cover to cover in the car during a road trip the next day. A few weeks later, we finished up the series by reading the sequels: Catching Fire and Mockingjay. Wow. I won’t go into the plot – I’d rather you read the books. Can’t remember the last time I couldn’t put a book down…or three books, rather. Plus also (in the words of Junie B. Jones), clean (recommended by squeakycleanreads.com).

             I am an avid fan of Shannon Hale (the definitely blog-worthy author of Burning Enna, Princess Academy, and others) and was so struck by the similarity to her style of writing and plot construction that I was convinced by the end of the book that Suzanne Collins was a pseudonym for Shannon Hale. In fact, it took me some internet research to prove otherwise. Sorry, ladies, if that offends either of you, but the similarities were too striking to ignore…a heroine who just isn’t like anyone else, a setting somewhat familiar to the world as we know it – but with twist, an overwhelming challenge, privation, and a young man or two to keep the heroine on her toes. I know that doesn’t sound all too new or different, but their style of writing is so similar that it’s uncanny.

Anyhow, read the books. You won’t regret it.  

These are the Best Years of Your Life….

         I had a few rough years when I was a teenager. My dad left our home when I was 15, plunging our family into chaos (but that’s a story for another blog). I went to a small church that frowned on relationships outside of the congregation resulting in profound loneliness through years in which companionship is crucial. There was no dating or any relationships at all permitted with the opposite sex – primarily because there wasn’t a suitable fellow (religion-wise) for 1000 miles.  While these things are not totally traumatic (I’m not claiming to have had the worst teenage experience in the world), they were troubling enough that there were times I was pretty depressed…

            One day, a well meaning person made the statement, “These are the best years of your life!” I nearly croaked. To me, if the teenage years were the best years of my life, I wasn’t going to enjoy the rest of it very much at all.

            To make a long story short, the teenage years were not my best years. They were my worst. But I’m really grateful to the person who made that statement, because I have thought about it at length for years….and I’ve decided that these are the best years of my life. Not my thirties, but the years I’m in NOW, whether I’m in my twenties getting married,  having my first children, or in my early thirties homeschooling and going to nursing school, or in my mid-thirties juggling being a wife, mama, teacher, nurse…

            The point is that NOW is the best time, whenever now is. You have to think this way. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t times that are difficult, but if you take the attitude that now is the best time, it helps reduce trials to the blips in the screen that they are, and re-focus your vision on the big picture. I would be so discouraged if I thought that the best years of my life were passed. How can they be, when my character is growing, when I am changing for the better? The older I get the more life becomes about things internal rather than external – as the external advantages “fade” as I age, the internal ones will be maturing into what they should be. How can that not be the best? I can only look at life as improving as it goes along, rather than worsening…

            There are always hard things happening. I could have made this a litany of the challenges I have faced through the years since my teens. Those are irrelevant. You can be facing trials constantly and still be enjoying the best years of your life. It’s possible that on the heels of this blog will come something that will make me want to rescind what I have written. But I don’t believe it will….