525,600 Minutes

About 525,600 minutes ago (actually closer to 525, 576 because tomorrow is the official day), on a Thursday, I started a blog. I had the idea for it two days before and felt like it was a big decision that would require intensive thought and decision-making. I was planning on letting the idea stew in my brain for a while (a while being longer than two days). But then, that Thursday before math class, I wrote up a little blurb (about an eraser) and made a blog and then it was there. My very first post on my very own blog.

It's probably silly to write a whole entire post about my blog. It seems a little redundant. But it's what I'm doing today.

This is trivial, but when I clicked "create," it was kind of a big moment for me. I was admitting that I like to write, and inviting the world to read what I wrote. It turned my writing thing into more of a real thing. People had never really read my words before, outside of schoolwork and my senior project and letters to pen-pals and text messages, so it was kind of a big jump for me to, on purpose, give people access to my words. They could like them or hate them or not read them, but my words were there for the reading.

Having my words out there for people to potentially read feels kind of like throwing up in front of friends: you can try to control it, but it has to come out, and then you're all just there in that weird moment of limbo and you're waiting to know if they are going to be your friends still or if, now that they've seen the inside of you come out, they're done. And you want to run away but you're still there for some reason. (I speak from experience in this department, having thrown up in front of a bunch of people in the science hall my senior year of high school, but that's a story for another day).

However, unlike throwing up in front of friends, having a blog has been a good experience. I've learned some stuff - 

I've learned about deadlines. When I started my blog, I made rules for myself and one of them was to post once a week. I've done that so far, but it's been hard. It's helped me to prioritize and manage my time productively and effectively.

I've learned about writing for your audience. Some things are appropriate for the internet, and some are just not. I've learned that when blogging, the way to get the most Facebook likes is to post on Thursday mornings, which is incidentally the time that works the best for me to post. So that has helped my vanity. 

I've learned that I need to write. I already knew that I liked to and that it was good for me, but since I've been making myself write once a week, I've noticed how much of a necessity it is for me. It's important for my mental health.

I've learned that I'm really cheesy. I've written a bunch of posts about the inanimate objects in my life, and now I'm writing a post to celebrate a year of that happening. Definitely cheesy.

I've learned how much of the Gospel is engrained into my heart and mind. Sometimes when I'm writing, verses or hymns come out of my fingers without me even trying to get them to come. It's a wonderful thing.

Writing is a major thing that I want to continue to do with the rest of my life. I was afraid that having a blog and letting other people read my words would make me hate writing or show me that I'm actually awful at it. But neither of those things happened. I still like to write (probably more than I did before) and I am an adequate writer. I am proud of myself for throwing my words out there into space for better or for worse. 

So here's to that. 365 days. 525,600 minutes.

Love,
Lauralicious

Oh to be a Bumblebee

Life isn't black and white, and decisions are really tough. Being a person is hard. That's why I wish I were a bumblebee. 

If I were a bumblebee, life would be easier. Bumblebees have an explicit job in life: to help out the queen. If they feel threatened, they sting whatever they feel is threatening them. If they sting something, they die. It's as simple as that. They aren't hanging around afterwards wondering if they made the right decision and feeling uncomfortable every time they see certain people. Either they sting something and die, or they don't. And if they don't, it's just a matter of time until they do. 

But I'm not a bumblebee. I'm a person. I have to deal with the attributes that come with being a person: having eyebrows, eating cookies, learning psychology, etc. However, here's a benefit to being a human: the chances of me being squashed by an angry person are much, much lower than they would be if I were a bee. 

Still, decisions are hard to make and that makes me feel miserable sometimes. Any decision I could make comes with endless consequences that will follow me for an indefinite amount of time after a decision is made. 

And so I'm jealous of bees. If I were a bee, I would get to spend most of my time with flowers and then I would be colorful and happy and smell good all the time. I would get to contribute to honey-making in a major way. I would know that I was needed by the colony, and I would know how to do my job. I would never feel aimless or unsure of how to go about things if I were a bee, because each bee only has one job. Humans would be afraid of me which, in a way, would give me control over them (until they squished me).

I know that I don't get to be a bee, I get to be a person. And so, in trying to encourage myself in this, I have decided that I do get to contribute as part of a huge community, only in this community we don't make honey: we make disciples. My most important job daily is to praise my King, in all the ways that I can: in waking and sleeping, in eating and fasting, in walking and running. I do all of those, but not at the same time.

Bees have wings and I don't, and that's another point of contention for me. It would be really neat to be able to fly. It would certainly be much less expensive than riding in airplanes. 

Jesus has wings, and in the Psalms, it is mentioned over and over again that we are safe in the shadow of His wings. I am used to singing that in church but one day I read it and realized how amazing it is. By not even touching His wings, but being in the shadow of them, just being near to them gives me safety. He is so holy. I would rather be safe under His wings than to have my own and not know how to work them. 

And so, I must conclude that I should live the life I was called to live instead of the life of a bumblebee. Take one look at me and you can tell that I can't be a bee. I'm much too big and I don't buzz nearly enough. I also own more pairs of shoes than the average bee.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4:1 that I am to "walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called," and I have been called to a life that entails me doing more than buzzing around. I have been given a brain that is bigger than that of a bee's, and the things that I can do for God's kingdom are so much more numerous and in-depth than what a bee can do. So I will rejoice in that and lean on Christ to get me through my days.

Love,
Lauralicious

The Story Girl

I love stories. It's why I played with Barbies until I was in middle school and why I so much love to read. I enjoy having an imagination. I enjoy reading the stories that others have created, and I enjoy creating my own. Stories come naturally to me. 

When I was in middle school, I rode the bus home from school with my very bestest friend every day. We rode past this one little bitty house every day, the owners of which were always in the yard. So I named them. I gave them a story and a life (disclaimer: they already had their own story and their own life, but I didn't know what that was, so I made one up for them).

The old man was Noah, Noah Peabody. His wife was Bernadette, and they were high school sweethearts. They had spent their whole lives in Central, SC. Ever since they were married right out of high school, they had lived in that little house that my bus drove past every day. The town changed a lot since they were married, and they watched it change from the comfort of their front porch with a glass of sweet tea. 

Noah and Bernadette had one daughter, whose name was Bridget. She went to the same middle and high school that I did, just like her parents had. She left Central as soon as she was old enough to and she only came back one time since, to drop off her baby girl, Penny, with her parents, who took care of Penny when Bridget went back to the city to do her thing. She was just one of those people who couldn't handle life in a small town. Noah and Bernadette were glad to take care of Penny. Bernadette hadn't been the same since Bridget left and she loved having little Penny around to dote on.

Noah's brother, Charlie, also lived with him and Bernadette. He smoked cigarettes at the same time every afternoon on the green two-seated swing in the yard. Charlie didn't have a car and I guess Noah didn't like sharing his, because sometimes (at times other than the daily after-school bus ride) I saw Charlie walking on the sidewalk by the highway. I usually figured that he was walking to Ingles to buy more cigarettes. He also had a beer belly. 

Noah and Bernadette had a quite interesting house/yard area. Their house was jam-packed full of stuff. Just stuff. The porch had one of those blue plastic rocking horses on it, along with a lot of other knick-knacks from Penny's babyhood. Sometimes if I drove past their house at night, I could see inside the kitchen, which was old and classic. The cabinets were green and there were droopy lacy curtains around all the windows. The house leaned a little to the right, from the weight of all of the stuff it contained. I decided the reason for all of the stuff (which was really just junk) was because Bernadette was afraid to throw anything away, just in case Bridget ever came back. She would want to be able to show Bridget that she kept everything: that she had never forgotten about Bridget, not even for a second. 

There was a small red barn behind the house with no animals in it, just some hay. Behind the barn was a field with a few cows in it, but the cows were old and tired, just like Noah and Bernadette. 

Noah was a very small man. He was short and, unlike Charlie, had no belly to speak of. His little head was round and white on top. Bernadette always wore dresses and she was also quite petite. She wore her hair in a tight bun on the very tip top of her head, but I imagined that when her hair wasn't in that bun, it was really long and a little stringy, but in an endearing way if that's possible.

And then there was Penny. She was adorable. Bernadette braided her hair up into pigtails every single morning, and her hair was copper, which was why her name was Penny. She was about four and the whole family loved her. After Charlie was done with his afternoon cigarette(s), Penny liked to sit on his lap and bounce around. She brought joy to everyone. 

I had a lot of time to read books in middle school. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. Instead of hanging out in the cafeteria before school like most people, my three friends and I went to the library every single morning to read. I picked out two books for each day, and I would read those two books in that same day. In each of my classes, I finished my work as quickly as I could and as soon as I was done, I read. I read on the bus up until we got to Noah's house, then I would stare at it and try to absorb as many details about it as I could, to help me elaborate the story in a more detailed manner. I would think about his story for a bit and then go back to reading. When I got home from school, I watched Arthur, the best show ever, then I did my homework and read until it was time to go to bed. I read a lot.

I found myself often annoyed with the characters in these books. They were always so "special" and I felt left out. They had cool characteristics that made them who they were. They had obvious starting and ending points for their stories, whereas every time I tried to think of a distinguished story from my life I got frustrated because there was so much background involved in telling any story from my life. I was jealous of characters because they each had something to clearly define them: a sport or a hobby or an extremely unusual life situation or being psychic. And I knew that I was just that girl with glasses and braces and a mousy Daisy dollop of straight brown hair. 

I wanted to be a story but the stories showed me that I didn't have what it took. I even tried: I narrated my life in third person for a year straight. Still I felt like I was too boring to be a story and that made me mad. So when I decided to take this old man  who I saw in his front yard every afternoon and assign him a life story, I decided to make him more of a normal person than the people I read about every day. I gave him a story that I thought was fitting for Central, SC. I made him how he was because I wanted to prove that a character doesn't have to be an exceptional person; a character just has to be a person (or sometimes a frog, but in this case, a person). 

I took this old man and he became Noah, Noah Peabody. If you take the "ah" from his first name and the "Pea" from his last name, he becomes "Nobody." I did that on purpose. I was feeling bitter at all literature for making all of its characters so dang unique, so I made mine a nobody. I gave him a cool story and a simple, contented life. And it worked. 

And I reached a conclusion: People are stories, even if they're real people who haven't done cool things in their life. And I was a story girl. 

Love,
Lauralicious 

Dear Brother I Love You

Dear brother/brethren/brotato/broseph/A”bro”ham/Jack –

The straight-up, hard and cold, honest fact is just this one: grown-ups aren’t usually very close with their siblings. There are exceptions, but generally, they’re just not. And we’re both more grown-ups than we are kids (how did this happen? I did not give anyone my approval on growing. I wasn’t done being innocent and crazy and playing in the woods after school, but then again I never would be if they let me go back). I’m scared of not being close with you because I like you so much.

I get kind of anxious every time I think about how close we were when we were little and we shared a room that we never ever cleaned and had feet fights and weren’t allowed to say “stupid” or “shut up” and sometimes wore matching clothes and played pretend games (you always wanted your name to be Zack, which is silly because it’s your own name with just one letter changed) and had the same friends and blamed things on each other and weren’t allowed to drink soda. I don’t get anxious because of the memories; I get anxious because I don't want to forget them and I’m afraid of not making new ones.

It took one and a half years of me being in college and separated from you and our house (and the rest of our whole family too!) for me to realize that this is our new normal. I thought that me being gone at school was just a temporary thing because everything is just the same whenever I’m at home. But you visiting me yesterday in my college world made me realize that this is us. You’re going to college next year and we’ll be together on breaks still but this is the part where we have to go be grown-ups. Key word: go.

We have to leave our house (I had to leave first and you had to stay alone in the basement but your turn is next) and learn how to take care of ourselves and manage money (so that we don’t run out of gas all the time because I did that last weekend and it was not very pretty) and eat food that has nutrients in it and be civil to people who are sometimes jerks. From now on, we’re only going to see each other sporadically. It will be a joyous occasion every single time we are reunited, but still, we will probably never see each other as often as we did when we rode to school listening to mega-hipster music together in high school or when we watched Scamper the Penguin on slow summer afternoons when I was eight and you were six. And that makes me sad.

The same people hoped for us and prayed for us and let us live in their house even when we ruined all of their stuff (remember when you carved your name into the coffee table and told them that I did it and they didn’t even believe you? Yup, me too). We turned out the same but different. We have the same eyes and we say the same weird things sometimes and we both like mangoes a whole lot.

Even if you live in Alaska or Michigan or New Zealand (all somewhat realistic options) and I live in the southern part of the US (I must be warm) or somewhere happy in Europe, you’ll still be my brother. Even if we only get to see each other every ten years (which is a really long time to go without seeing each other), technology exists, which is convenient for people separated by long distances, and we’ll always have the same blood in common.

Even if we run out of things to talk about, we can just make some tea and then I can breathe into it and make my glasses be foggy and then we can laugh about it together. There’s always that.

I enjoy all of the minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years that I get to be with you. I enjoy that you like to make pterodactyl sounds at night in the car with the windows open and that you sometimes paint my nails for me and that you sleep with your eyes open and I really just like you as a person. You’re a cool one even if you are sometimes dumb. I like that we’re both blind in one eye, because it’s really cool and really weird. I think maybe we should quit real life and go be pirates. I love you.

Love,
Lauralicious