“There’s a crosswalk here…” and other things I finally had to say

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking across the street when I was almost struck by a car. I don’t mean in the funny haha exaggerating kind of way that I normally blog. I was seriously almost hit by a car. It was less than a foot from my femur when I heard the brakes squeal and I looked up at two blank-faced individuals who had been, up until that moment, speeding through campus and now looked right at me like I might be one of those Looney Toon-style mirages that Daffy Duck is always seeing in the middle of deserts. Part of me thought I should let it slide. After all, they didn’t hit me. They weren’t the first drivers to ignore a crosswalk. Who hasn’t made a mistake like that? Another, bigger, louder part of me did not agree. Guess who won.

“There is a crosswalk here!” I shouted, gesturing dramatically at the boldly white painted lines beneath my feet. I stood there in the middle of the road for another 5-8 seconds, giving the most serious death-glare I could manage at the driver who was now staring with fascination at his steering wheel, his glove compartment, and rearview mirror. Slightly ruffled but with as much quiet dignity as I could muster, I walked deliberately the rest of the way across, thinking maybe I had overreacted. Maybe.

But here’s the thing. I’m not sure I did.

One of the things I have been recently realizing is that I let all kinds of things slide. I think that’s actually probably a pretty good thing. Pick your battles, says my mom/your mom/every mom ever. They’re right. There’s no point in getting your back up about every little thing that happens.

But I’ve noticed that lately I’d been letting things slide because I have somehow felt that I didn’t have the right to say that I didn’t like what was going on. I didn’t like feeling bullied or attacked every time I posted a status on Facebook, for example. Side note: I can’t be the only person who’s noticed that Facebook seems to have become the breeding ground for the unsolicited argument. If I posted that the sky was blue, three people would observe that I didn’t mention how fluffy the clouds were, two would berate me for not also commenting on smog levels, and one person would just flat out disagree (“Actually, Elizabeth, the sky is more of a cerulean depending upon the time of day and your relative latitude/longitude. Here’s a link to an article: www.iamrightyouarewrong.website.net”). And all I had set out to do was say that the sky was blue. When did Facebook stop being a place to stalk your ex-boyfriend, untag yourself in hideous college pictures, and start becoming a place where the mere presence of a Facebook status requires some seal of approval or systematic vetting/debunking by any and every person you have ever friended online? It’s not that I can’t debate well. I can hold my own. But that’s not why I’ve kept my Facebook account for this long. I started to notice how angry and tense just logging in was making me. I had, seemingly, four choices: 1) Argue back. 2) Let it slide. 3) Unfriend a lot of people/delete my account. 4) Just say directly what I had been really wanting to say. I noticed that I was letting a lot of people run right over the crosswalk. Facebook was starting to feel like a bizarre warzone which I kept willingly entering, hoping no one would engage me in battle. It’s a horrible feeling.

So I went with 4. I decided to just go ahead and SAY exactly how I wanted to be treated. Do you want to see what I said?

I hate passive aggressive FB statuses as much as the next girl so I'm going to be as straightforward about this as possible. I am only keeping my Facebook account to stay in touch with my favorite people, the people I love, love, LOVE, to see the pictures of their cute babies and celebrate their many joys and life successes. I'm not interested in having one more political/ideological//intellectual debate via Facebook. Have something you need to say to me? Get on a plane and come see me. Call me on the phone. Skype me. You might disagree with me. "That's not fair, Elizabeth. You can't post things if you don't want people to respond to them honestly!" Guess what? I don't care. Don't like it? Unfriend me. Bam.

Do I always get it right? Am I always one hundred percent fair when it comes to my online or real-life interactions? Heck, no. Somehow, though, this little thing – this calling a crosswalk a crosswalk – makes me feel more emotionally safe. I feel like I have taken charge of creating some safe space for myself in a world that is not always so safe.

What about you? Do you have a crosswalk you need to call a crosswalk?

love, elizabeth

Coffee

I think my husband is kind of like coffee. Kyle tells me that being a barista is like being a bartender with coffee and I totally get that. And I think he is the best barista anyone could ask for because he really loves his customers. He remembers their names and their favorite orders and he really wants to know about their days, about their families, and their lives. He loves to come home and tell me the craziest stories about the people he meets all day long. “People aren’t paying $4 for just a cup of coffee,” he tells me. “They can get that at home. People want to come to a coffee house to feel like someone cares about them, like they have a community, a place to go.” He’s right. I think people are really lonely for each other. And when he comes home at night and I get to bury my nose in the collar of his shirt, I can smell the coffee. So now whenever I smell coffee, I think about Kyle. Sometimes when he’s not home, I sniff his work shirts. (Do NOT tell him.) Kyle is kind of like coffee to me. He’s calm and wise but he’s also warm and gets my heart racing. He smells good and makes me feel safe and reminds me of home. You guys…I really love coffee.

love, elizabeth

“Will you make fun of me if I admit I got us lost?”

I asked finally.

“No…but we are definitely going the wrong way.”

“Yeah. I think you’re right.”

Feeling safe enough to admit you’re wrong is like hitting the marriage jackpot. Until I learned to really trust Kyle, I was afraid of being wrong, of screwing up, of being less than perfect. But I can say now, with a sigh of relief, that it’s okay if I’m wrong. It’s okay if I get lost. Because my husband isn’t going to laugh. And he’s not going to be mad. He’s going to help me get turned back around. With Kyle, I can finally say I’m learning to love being wrong.

What about you? What do you feel safe enough to do in your relationships?

love, elizabeth

Periphery: the colorado massacre

“Elizabeth, I’m really sorry to wake you up but I think you need to see this,” Kyle’s hand was on my arm and I shot up in bed and stared at the clock. 6 AM.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, my heart already in my throat. I texted my brother in a blind panic: “Ben, please tell me you didn’t go to the Dark Knight premiere.”

“I didn’t. But I know about the shooting.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too, sis.”

I don’t like to be one of those people that jumps on a tragedy bandwagon.This horrible thing is not about me. It didn’t happen to me. It didn’t even happen near me. Physically. And it’s like my dad says, there is no safer place than the arms of God.

And yet I find myself somehow in the periphery of the mass shooting in Colorado today since it happened about five minutes from my parents’ home, the home I grew up in, at the movie theater I visited almost weekly in junior high and high school. I am so thankful that the people I know who live and work near that theater are safe. I am thankful for the law enforcement and emergency crew who responded to the scene. I am thankful that they have the shooter in custody.  I am thankful for God’s mercy.

But I am shaken. I spent so much time in that particular theater. I took my brother to a midnight showing of the first Batman movie there a number of years ago. I had my first real date there. I held hands with a boy for the first time in that movie theater. Even now, I can see the inside of that building in my head. I know the layout, the feeling of that carpet under my feet, even which games are in the corner arcade. I was there just two weeks ago.

The pain of this for people who were there, who had loved ones there…that has to be unbearable. For me, it’s just on the edges of my mind where I can’t really see it in focus. Watching the coverage on the television and seeing that Century 16 sign, I just can’t even process it. I can’t read any more about it. I don’t want to see pictures. I don’t want to hear the 9-1-1 calls or look at the mug shot of James Holmes who is my age and a PhD student and I don’t want to see it or know it.

I guess I’m just sad. It’s staggering how far away “hitting close to home” can actually be.

love, elizabeth

kyle is my calm

I was distracted. I was stressed. I was exhausted. So I wasn’t paying attention to the drinking glass teetering precariously close to the edge of the counter until…it totally fell and smashed dramatically into a thousand tiny dramatic pieces all over the kitchen floor.

Before I could cry or scream or react, there was Kyle on his hands and knees beside me, gingerly picking up shards of glass and telling me not to move until he’d swept. And watching him…I was just hit by this overwhelming sense of calm. I held the dustpan for him and all I could think was, “Oh, yeah. I forgot we’re a team. I forgot that when stuff breaks, we deal with it. Together.” And remembering that was like taking in a big, clean breath after not breathing for a long time. I don’t have to figure everything out alone. I always wonder why the stereotype of manliness is in enormous outward displays of strength and bravado. For me, there is just nothing sexier or more manly than watching my husband clean the kitchen floor or check the soles of my feet for broken glass. Thank you, God, for Kyle.

Where are you finding your calm this week?

love, elizabeth

Holding Hands in Church

When I was a little girl, I used to watch the married couples sitting in the church pews in front of me. Sometimes he would have his arm around her shoulders. She would lean into him. They would share a hymnal. There was something so safe and protective about that image. I remember thinking, That’s what it means to be in love. Holding hands in church.

Source: crushculdesac.tumblr.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

 

To be perfectly honest on a typical Sunday, about 75% of my attention is on the sermon and the other 25% is mostly on Kyle’s hand covering mine. I don’t know that there is a place or time in the universe where I feel safer than on Sunday morning, my hand in Kyle’s, both of us tucked securely inside the hands of God.

love, elizabeth

ICE, ICE, Baby

A few years ago, a British paramedic came up with the idea of an ICE, or In Case of Emergency, contact in people’s phones. It’s recently become more popular in the United States. Some cell phone companies even provide an automatic listing in your cell phone contact list but if not, I encourage you to take 2 or 3 minutes and enter the phone numbers/address of your emergency contact and list them under ICE. Then, if emergency personnel is called and you are unconscious or unable to give them this info, they know who to get in touch with…

Source: google.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

 

What things do you do in preparation for emergency?

love, elizabeth

DIY: Valentine’s Day Decorations

Like I said, Valentine’s Day is kind of one of my favorite holidays…and this year I had fun making my own decorations.

I wrapped some strips of newsprint around plain glass votives and tied them with ribbon.

This is a recycled metal rose that Kyle bought me at a renaissance fair a few years ago…

I glued five or six white and black hearts together and hung them staggered in the living room window.

It’s interesting how things connect in our brains. All the heart shapes and images that have shown up this February have stuck with me.

Sometimes I’m not sure who can be trusted with my heart. I have lots of wonderful friends and family and I love them all. But I think sometimes that I open myself up too much. Am I too trusting, too careless with my heart? I only have the one very vulnerable, very young heart and sometimes I worry about giving too much of myself away.  I wonder about this and I wonder about my fear and I wonder about the wisdom of really being yourself fully and totally in this world.

It’s important to let people in. But maybe I do this too easily, too much. The fact is, not everyone deserves my whole heart. Only a few, in fact. I also want to be sure that I’m the kind of person that can be trusted with the hearts of others. It’s not every day someone hands you their heart.

What about you? Who do you trust with your heart, your deepest, most personal thoughts and feelings and self? Do you always feel safe doing that? Have you ever regretted it?

love, elizabeth

Black Friday: Shop Safe, Sane, and Sensational

1. Give yourself plenty of time to park.

Nothing is more frustrating to the harried holiday shopper than the endless searching for a parking spot outside the crowded mall, outlet, shopping center, big box store, or downtown. And while walking from the outer regions of Siberia where you parked your car may suck, nothing will ruin your Black Friday like one of those fender bender/side scrape run-ins with the gigantic SUV parked too close to you.

2. Budget earlier in the week and stick to your plan.

Remember that 42” plasma screen isn’t really a good deal if you weren’t planning on buying a new television, at all. Buying something that isn’t on your list doesn’t actually save you any money. And sometimes all the hustle and bustle and good smells and cheerful music make us emotional.

3. Dress for comfort.

You know those incredible boots that make your calves look fantastic but your feet want to fall off? Leave ‘em home and stick to cozy sneakers for those long, long lines you’ll be waiting in. Layer for warmth and leave the heavy coats in the car. Those department stores get toasty fast!

4. Scan ads before you plan your day to get an idea of prices and deals.

Here are two of my favorite online sources for Black Friday ads: HERE and HERE. It’s easy to get lost in the rush and if you’re looking for something specific, you may wind up frustrated and disheartened.

5. People first, things second. Always.

Courtesy and kindness are always the way to go! We all hear the horror stories of pushy shoppers trampled to death in a mad rush to get whatever amazing deal is being offered to the first 8 people in line. But if you have to risk your humanity, your sanity, or your personal safety to score the bargain, consider the true cost before you dive into the fray. No thing is that important. After all, it’s Christmas.

I mentioned a few posts ago that my family is exchanging books only this year so most of my shopping is done but I AM making a short Black Friday trip for some stocking stuffers and a couple Secret Santa gifts.

So lay it on me. Are you a Black Friday fanatic? What are your shopping traditions? Any tips and tricks to share?

love, elizabeth

Don't Laugh.

But sometimes....(cough) sometimes I pretend I'm...a vampire slayer. Okay, before you say, "Aaaaaand I'm done" and click the little red X to get the heck out of this blog...hear me out.

There's no denying it. I'm a Buffy fan. I could probably write a book about why I think Buffy is so awesome. She's tough, beautiful, witty, loves fiercely, fights fiercely, has found her higher calling, and does it all in a flawless wardrobe (okay, "flawless" in the year 1999). Buffy subverts the attitude that women need to be rescued, that women need men to find their purpose.



Source: google.com via Valya on Pinterest

So sometimes...when it's late at night and I have to walk to my car in a dark parking lot or through a neighborhood that's a little less than safe, I actually imagine that I am Buffy and that I'm hunting vampires. It sounds ridiculous, I know. But it's really hard to be scared when you start walking around like you might have to kill a demon at any moment. It makes me feel a little braver and it definitely gives me an attitude when I'm walking that says, "Don't mess with me or I'll have to stake you through the heart."

Source: None via Kyle on Pinterest

There's no substitution for pepper spray or, you know, a friend to walk with, but in a pinch, I still pull out my best slayer moves.

Source: redbubble.com via Kyle on Pinterest

"If the apocalypse comes, beep me." -- Buffy

What about you? What makes YOU feel tougher?

love, elizabeth

PS: I'm going to assume any remnants of cool I possessed have disappeared with this post. Oh, well. And have you entered this giveaway, yet?

Gas Leak: A True Story

Source: ffffound.com via Danielle on Pinterest

 

I bet you’re wondering what this post is going to be about.

Last night, I got home about 6 pm. I opened the front door, set down my purse and keys, greeted the squirming ball of fluff that had run to meet me. About 20-30 seconds later, I knew something was wrong. Was it my Jedi-keen reflexes or my Buffy-like sense of awareness? Yes.

That and the overwhelmingly pungent, sickly sweet smell of gas.

I immediately woke Kyle, grabbed Madigan and the keys, and walked out to call the emergency maintenance line for our apartment complex.

At first, the maintenance man didn’t believe me.

Probably the acetone finish we use when we’re remodeling empty units. Does it smell real strong, like nail polish?

“Uh, no. It smells like gas.”

Gas, huh?

“I don’t know what to tell you. It smells like a filling station in our apartment!”

And when he brought his fancy-pants gas detector into the house, the thing went crazy. It wasn’t a big leak (some of the connecting piping in the back of our gas stove had worn out and he was able to replace it) but still, a little disconcerting.

Source: screaminglobster.tumblr.com via bethany on Pinterest

 

So here’s what I’ve learned about gas leaks…

If you smell something weird, DO NOT:

-flip any light switches

-turn anything on

-plug anything in

-light a match or any kind of flame (um, duh)

If you smell something weird, DO:

-open all the windows (unless doing so will cause you greater harm)

-get out of the house

-call emergency maintenance or your gas company immediately

 

Anyone ever dealt with a gas leak or something similar in their own home?

love, elizabeth