Today when walking into work, I saw that I have a screw in my tire. Yep, the front driver’s side tire. I have had a light on and off over the last few weeks indicating that my tire pressure was low. And then I would fill my tires with air (and by that I mean that my boyfriend would fill my tires with air), and several weeks later – the light would come back on.

           And I suppose that today I angled my tires just right, because when I walked past my car, I suddenly puzzled together my tire pressure mystery. There it was, shinny, warn, and flat – from weeks of driving – a screw head, mocking me with its Philips head practically calling out to me “See, here I am, just to make this Monday just a little bit more shitty.”

             Now those of you that keep up with my professional life know that I am an executive admin. Which essentially means that I am professional at doing “executive bitch work.”  Yes, people will walk past the fax machine to stop me from a project to ask me to fax something for them. I will be asked to spend my afternoon stapling pieces of paper together. I have spent 30 minutes on hold with an airline, demanding that my Senior Director get put on that flight – only for them to change their mind 20 minutes later and have me alter their entire trip. And for a person who is not really the “admin type” (i.e. “Good morning sir I’ve been up since 5 am, I’ve been to the gym, I’ve read and responded to all of your emails, your 8 am is waiting and by the way here is your dry cleaning….) Yes. You can imagine how there are days where the very nature of my job would rub me the wrong way. I’m really more of a 10 am kinda girl  – with a “don’t talk to me until I’ve had at least one pot of coffee.”

Yeah…right      

            Last week I was in the waiting room for the doctor’s office, when I saw a poster that had a little story on it. Now that morning was a particularly good morning, but more because my appointment was just at a time where I could miss a morning at work, take it slow and roll in after my appointment was over. But that’s not the point here. What I am getting at is what this poster had to say.

          It explained a Native American fable where a grandfather was explaining to his grandson that there were two wolves that live in his heart, and they are constantly at war. One wolf was vicious and angry, treacherous and cruel. The other wolf was kind, gentle hearted and loyal.

              Upon hearing this, the grandson asks his grandfather, “Which wolf wins the battle?” To which the grandfather responds,

Whichever one I feed.

        Now this gets me thinking, probably back into thoughts that I have had many times before. Probably even thoughts that I have written about before. And that essentially is: happiness is a choice. It always is. It always has been.  As much as I hate to admit it – no one gets a perfect life. The stars never line up in a way that make us have the perfect boyfriends, husbands, children, apartments, roommates, marriages, careers, friends. Once things have gotten straight in one area of life, you can bet your retirement fund that they are about to fall apart in another. And if you manage to get to a place where things seem altogether perfect for any stint of time – hold your breath and take an emotional picture, because it is doubtful that things will ever be that good again.

       As I said, this is a thought that I know well. But it surprises me how many times in the passsing days that I have had to remind myself ”I do love my job. This particular thing does suck – but that doesn’t mean that it will always suck or that I should walk around running my mouth. I am grateful that I work with such amazing people.” In some ways it is almost like I am convincing myself that I do like what I do. Or rather – that I am convincing myself of what I already know to be the truth.

Funny how it happens, that seems to be a pattern lately…

     I am convinced that this is simply life. Knowing one thing. Acting like you believe another. Maybe this whole pattern is so hard to keep straight is because when you’re really honest, you do believe the evil wolf. You feed it because you think that in some ways, life is out to get you. That screws consciously find their way to your tires, just to make you upset. But then I do have moments, where the light shines, and I realize  that my life is glorious – screws and all. That I do have a great job that I make great money at, I have a great boyfriend, and perfect friends. And yes it all drives me crazy – but I think its the part where you keep it in perspective. The part where you make an effort to continuously feed the good wolf.

The intersting thing is, the events can happen to a person over and over - and it can either be the worst case of “The Monday’s” that ever came to be – or I can realize that it really is all about who I choose to feed, and I can have a great Monday.

So flat tires, work plans, travel arrangements changing, all of a sudden are carrying a new meaning….

hungry??

In my life I have one friend that I have known longer than any other. My friend and I have known each other since we were eight. And unlike most childhood friendships, we weren’t merely forced to play with one another because our parents were friends. We were in the same summer camps, winter camps, bible studies, choir groups, Junior High Retreats, High School bible studies, Small Groups, College Groups (can you tell that we both grew up in the church?)

The thing about my friend – is that she was home schooled…and perfectly  fit the bill for a home schooled girl. Quiet, had some quirks, extremely religious, ULTRA conservative.

Ok excuse the stereotyping…but you catch my drift…

And I suppose, over the years, it seemed to us that life would always follow the same path – her being a sheltered and conservative child, growing into a conservative adult with a conservative husband and conbservative children. But as things go…life will happen to a person. And it did. Especially to her and her family. In our Sophomore year of college some catastrophic events came colliding into her family and her life…for all intensive purposes we can say that her world fell apart. She went from being sheltered and happy to being suddenly forced to dealing with particularly difficult circumstances - and being the oldest of two other sisters, you can imagine that her duties were lined up for her.

For a few years after it all happened, she remained incredibly responsible. She dropped out of school and got a job, trying to go back part time, while keep in touch with her professors. She ensured that here sisters had jobs and places to live. She was scraping just to get by, and ensured that her sisters were scraping by as well.

It seemed suddenly to me that her life took a turn.  Her sisters were a bit older. She no longer needed to hold it together for them…and an opportunity came along for her to move to New York for her dancing. And she packed up her life and went.

She packed up her life and went.

I talked with her this weekend, and I’ve realized that now that she is no longer under the pressures of her life, she has much decided to become a different person. The once Theology Bible College student is now a cocktail waitress at an Irish Pub in the Bronx, and running with characters that usually you see on TV…on Crime Shows. She’s finding that she no longer feels the same way about alot of things….money, alcohol, sexuality, men, religion, God.

She’s finding that she no longer feels the same way about alot of things….money, alcohol, sexuality, men, religion, God.

Now, here’s the part that lands her in my writing. We talked very openly and frankly about the changes that she had decided to undertake in her life. And I of course, it was sad to hear that such a good friend of mine was deciding to make some arguably dangerous and risky decisions. But at the same time, upon knowing her life and all that has happened to her…I wasn’t at all shocked. I understood. There have been times in my life, where if I had been a different person, I would have found anyway to party, drink, sleep around, strip, tattoo, race cars, travel, take drugs, or whatever I could get my hands on to get away from God and the Church. The thing was…I never could find my way to New York or any of those other things. So I stayed right where I was…in the church.

I hung up the phone with her feeling great. Glad that we could have such a good conversation, and glad that I could be so open not only with accepting where she was at – but also giving her fair warning that she was playing with fire. She ave assured me that she knew at some point that she would return to God – she knew too much to completely abandon everything…but just that she wasn’t ready yet. I told her to not be afraid to come bounding back the second she was ready – but in the mean time, to have a buddy, a designated driver, a condom, and some street smarts.

That was Monday morning, And to be honest, the thoughts lightly rolled around in my head for the past few days, until they suddenly hit me like truck – last night while standing alone in my boyfriends bathroom. It was as if 50 tons of grief was poured over my head like cement, gluing my shoes to the very spot on the floor. And as I stood frozen, the hot tears began to pour from eyes as I sobbed uncontrollably. And all the while I am thinking “Absolutely perfect, my new boyfriend is now going to be CONVINCED that I am crazy.”

Crazy or not, what it was not her bad choices that had struck me so deeply. It was simply a deep seeded grief that her life story included tragedies to a degree that bad choices would even seem appealing in comparison. I had no judgement for what she was doing, instead rather it seemed to me like a car speeding down the freeway, and someone had thrown a rock through the windshield. Undoubtedly the car would spin out of control, smash and topple into everything in its path. And it would be no fault of the driver…it would merely be the reaction in the wake of such events. And the idea that we lived in a world where rocks smash through windshields of our close friends was enough to make me feel like I’d been punched in the gut.

And then the words came to me like they’d been spoken right into my ear:

For as much as you are grieved by her life, that much more I am, your Father God grieved for her life? And Jenni, if I am grieved by her bad decisions… how much more is this true of you? Don’t you see that the dark parts of your past is not something that I see as years of streaking shame and filth, but instead as a deep tragedy that happened to you, and your best attempts to deal with the repercussions that left you spinning out of control?

If I hadnt been crying before, I was certainly crying now. And if my boyfriend didn’t think I was crazy before, he certainly thought I was crazy now. Sticking his head in he asked with a bewildered look on his face “Um, are you ok…?” I managed to choke out some lame version of my friend and being sad about her…doing nothing close to justice of the colossal voice that had just been spoken inside of me.

And as the next week has come and gone even, I do not find that I have stumbled upon more clarity to upack this striking truth. During a season where I’ve spent much of my time trying to remind myself of who I am – purely – who I am without my past, my sad stories, my sometimes shameful memories, or even right out lies about my identity, these words have echoed inside my soul. My boyfriend has said it to me before, “Jenni I would love for you to get to a place where you see your life story is something that has happened to you – not something that defines you or defiles you…” Makes me cry everytime.

He’s right on with that thought, and so was God with his ground breaking ideas about the way that he sees my sin and shame. Of course it makes him sad. Yet at the same time – how much does he love talking to me, asking me questions, and seeing me through right in the midst of it? And how is it that he can see right into my heart – not only to see the wrong choices I am making, but the deeper issues that make those choices appealing to begin with? And how can it be that even in the midst of sometimes betraying his love for me, he says “Jenni I am so grieved that we live in a world that causes you pain – pain to the point of sin and self destruction. More than anything I want to weep for the hurts you’ve had to endure.”

Maybe this is something that only reverberates within my own soul. Maybe this is a messages that misses all of you. Maybe I am one of the only ones that lately really has had to struggle and fight to find who I am really and and what I am really defined by.  Maybe I am the only one who thinks that if anyone really knew all of me – even the dark parts of me, that they might leave me. 

Maybe I am the only one who thinks that if anyone really knew all of me – even the dark parts of me, that they might leave me.

Whether or not this even makes sense to you – I can tell you one thing. God seems to have a differing opinion about me and the life I have lived. He doesn’t seem to fall for my rhetoric about who I am and what the world has to  say about me. In fact, this idea seems to be rather important to him. Apparently, He believes this difference is important enough that He had to bring me to my knees in tears one random Wednesday night, while standing alone in my boyfriend’s bathroom.