Contentment breeds...contempt?

I was driving home from work the other day and pulled into my hometown and was hit with this amazing sense of happiness. Contentment. When I pulled into my driveway, I was so, so happy to be home. It wasn’t even because I was tired from the commute – 45 miles each way, Monday – Friday – because while I am generally tired OF the commute, I am not usually tired FROM it. In fact, I enjoy the drive home most days. Perhaps it is because I am ON the way home, but often I think it is because I can crank up my iPod and often roll down the windows and just drive really, really fast. Uh...I mean, drive within the proper boundaries of the posted speed limits because I’m a law-abiding citizen. Yeah. That’s what I mean! So while I greatly resent having to DO the commute, I can generally do it without too much issue, except when people just refuse to put their foot on the gas and DRIVE YOUR DAMNED CAR!! But that’s a story for another day…

My happiness in arriving home was a bit of a surprise because my house has been on the market for a year now and my plans are to sell it – maybe, eventually, someday!! – and move closer to work. Don’t misunderstand me; I happen to love my house. It’s a great old house, although it’s really too big for me. I have rooms I never use. My house is great for hosting parties and while I wish the yard was smaller and there was a porch on either the front or the back, it’s really a great house. If I could pick it up and move it closer to where I now work, I’d do it for sure. Especially because I detest the idea of having to pack my life into boxes again and move it somewhere new.

The location is great – I can walk to the community theatre in about 2 minutes which was especially nice when I actually had time to participate in shows – and nothing in town is really that far from anything else. The neighborhood is nice for taking long walks, which I do more for my mental than physical health. I also love that when I’m out walking (or at the grocery store or even stopped at a traffic light), I can easily run into people I know. I don’t necessarily know my immediate neighbors, but I know a lot of folks who live in my neighborhood. There is comfort in the familiarity of everything.

And that scares me. I think I fear the contentment. I fear that it will lead to complacency and stagnation and eventually contempt. Contempt for what I will have become. For what I will have been able to accept. For you see, there is nothing left for me in that town. Nothing that I can see at least. While my father is there, he is not a young man and if I stay put for him, what happens when he is gone? My house is great, but there are other great houses in the world. My job isn’t there and while the theatre is still there and I love and adore that place, I no longer have time to give to it to nurture that love. When I AM there, it makes me sad that I can’t be there more often. I do have some friends there, but again, most of those have fallen away in the past year or so. It really started before I got my current job, but my lack of time doesn’t help. I honestly haven’t figured out how people do a long commute and still have a life. Maybe it’s because I am single and am not used to juggling having another person in my life or having children who take priority over things like sleep. All I want to do when I get home is eat dinner (the eating is frequently optional) and then get as much sleep as I can so I can start the long day all over again.

It makes me sad that I can’t figure out a better balance and how to have a life. I need some resolution to what is going on in my life. This is one area I’ve been praying about for a while now and the only thing that God has said is, “It’s not going to be that easy.” As in, if my house was going to sell and I could just pack up and move to another house in another city, then that would have happened already. But God says it is not going to be that easy. Oh great. You mean it’s going to get harder? More challenging? Fun. Just what I wanted. But God doesn’t always give us what we WANT, He gives us what we NEED. And those two things don’t always correspond.

When I arrive home tonight, I’ll be glad. Happy to be driving through my town; happy to be walking into my house where everything is familiar. But I still wonder if deep inside of me a small part of my soul isn’t dying. Or at least crying. I could stay – WOULD stay – for the right reasons, but I’m not even sure what those reasons might be (or more, I refuse to give voice to them - I can think of several things). Maybe that is all part of the challenge I feel coming my way. God said it’s not going to be that easy and I believe Him. It’s not that easy NOW. I just hope it’s going to hurry up and get here.  I'm ready to move forward.

This One's For the Girls...

This blog is for my female friends, so if there are actually any men out there reading this, stop now or shut up about TMI. It’s my blog and I’ll talk about whatever I want to. And today, I’m talking about bras.

More specifically, why is it like the torture of the damned to go bra shopping? I am convinced that bras are really only made for women with small breasts who are trying to put them up and out and make them appear bigger. And as someone who already has big boobs, well, only being able to find smaller bras is really amazingly UN-helpful.

As it is, bras are some kind of medieval torture device. They are ridiculously hard to get on. Why is that? Why is it so freakin’ hard to put a bra on?? It’s a production! A little poking, a little prodding. Stuff this in that compartment and that in the other. Shift around. Jiggle around. Smush it if need be. And then, for the love of God, don’t bend or move the wrong way during the day or you have to run to the restroom and shift it all around again. *sigh* It’s like a workout all in itself.

It’s not like they are the most comfortable things in the world to wear all day either, although I will confess that I did buy some new ones recently and one of them – they are all the same, oddly, but this literally only applies to one of the three I purchased – is amazingly comfy. I would tell you what brand and style it was, but then I would actually have to take it off and read the tag and, as previously established, it’s a fight to get that thing back on. Suffice it to say, however, that if I could wear this one particular bra every day, I would. It’s heavenly. (And I can totally find the tag later if anyone actually wants to know the brand and style.)

Trouble is, by the time I need to buy some new bras, they will have discontinued that style!! It happens every. Single. Stinking. Time. Without fail. I find a bra that – glory be! – fits and fits well. It makes The Girls look good and keeps ‘em comfy at the same time. So I buy several, but eventually I need new ones and then I can’t find those anymore! Then the hunt begins and I just detest bra shopping. I put it off until a few weeks ago when things were desperate and after many failed attempts, I did finally find the 3 that I bought. I should have bought 900, but these babies aren’t cheap either!

*sigh* I miss the 36Cs I had in college. I think they might even have been perky then, without the underwire! (I think underwire is about the only thing that can make 40DDs perky…) Oh the good old days! Yeah. Right now if I could just have a little lift I think it might offset some of the torture of the whole bra shopping experience. Or at least The Twins would be back where they started in their glory days. Uh…I think they had glory days. I’d probably have to ask someone else for confirmation on that. Maybe that’s just a Bruce Springsteen song…

I also want to know why it’s hard to find decent fitting underwear!! What’s up with that? I do not want to wear a thong, people! My butt is the size of Nebraska (Ok, maybe it’s more like Montana, but I’m being kind to myself today. Work with me on this.) and a thong is never, ever going to be flattering. And besides, they look damned uncomfortable. And what the hell are “boy shorts”? If I was a BOY that might be fine, but I don’t want boy shorts. I want ladies underwear that is comfortable, covers my ample ass, and is also at least reasonably attractive. I mean, no one sees it but me (that’s a whole other blog we’re not getting into today), but still. Is attractive underwear too much to ask for?? I think not. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to Victoria’s Secret for it either. I’m a big girl. I was not made for the scanty panty I’m afraid. So please Victoria, share your Secret with, say, Fruit of the Loom so I can find some affordable undies in my size with a tad more material than a couple of scraps of lace and some elastic. The world would be a much better place. I assure you!

(Not Necessarily Such) Great Expectations

I was having a conversation recently with someone about expectation versus anticipation.  From simply reading the words, I see a slightly negative connotation to the former and a more positive one to the latter.  I realize that they are virtually synonymous terms, but to me, to expect something is more like having to do your homework or taking out the trash or, say, getting up at 4am to work out before going to work entirely too early in the morning. If I am anticipating something it’s more along the lines of what I see as more positive stuff, like cake on your birthday or a hot shower after the expected nastiness of mowing the lawn. That sort of thing.

So for a couple of weeks I’ve tossed those words around in my brain and this morning finally locked in on something. Part of my problem (ok, I have many problems, but today we’re just dealing with one of them!) I s that I think I expect too much. From basically everything and everyone in my life. Wow. That’s a biggie for sure.

Every day when I start out my drive to work, I take advantage of the time and the quiet to pray. I have the 5 things I’m praying about for the next year, but I also pray for the prayer requests I know about – friends and family and even strangers who need to be lifted up. Or sometimes I just let my train of thought jump the track because if no one else in the world can keep up with me, I know that God surely can. He made me, after all.  He knows my mind even when I do not.

My mind is always going 90 miles an hour which really drives me insane.  And others I am sure.  Am I the only one who can’t seem to make their brain slow down? Like, ever?  I think that’s part of why I don’t always feel rested in the mornings.  I know I wake up at least twice during the night, but when I do my mind wants to instantly jump back into thinking a thousand thoughts and I hate it. It’s so hard to control.

Anyway, to get to the point… This morning I was praying about the “usual suspects” and sometimes I pray more in-depth for my 5 things and others times it’s more of a hitting the high notes because God knows what I need and He knows what I want and He’s going to do the best thing, the right thing, for me regardless of what I want or think I want.  And I gave those 5 things up to go because I knew I could not do anything with them and that He had to take over.

As I am driving alone my commute, I clearly hear a voice in my head saying, “"Oh honey, you are not in control of anything that is going on right now! But you are so cute for thinking that you are!" And then I swear I felt God pat me on the head and laugh. *sigh* At least He said I was cute. *pouting*  But this is not actually the point. Merely a little side story. 

The point – going back to my original train of thought – is that I had a realization that I tend to have expectations about things and that are never fulfilled.  So maybe I need to toss those aside for a while and just go with some anticipation.  And maybe not even though in the end.  This is usually my favorite time of year. The weather turns cooler, the leaves turn the most beautiful colors. My birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all roll around (I got no use for New Year’s Eve though).  What happens with it all, however, is that I expect all of those things to be something greater than they are. I always, always expect my birthday to be something special and it always, always falls flat. Always.  I can’t even tell you what it is that I want from my birthday, but I never get it.  So this year I decided to change my perspective and I no longer have any expectations about having this amazingly, fabulously wonderful birthday.  Quite a few weeks ago I decided to take the day off of work and made some plans for how to spend my day. Just me. Doing exactly what I want to do.  That way I can anticipate the plans I have made and have no special expectations of anything else or anyone else.  I’m really looking forward to my birthday next week because of that and hey, if anything else comes along to add in to my day, then that’s great. But if not, then I already have something to look forward to.

I decided this morning to apply that idea to the rest of the holiday season that is coming along. I always – for some reason that I can’t fathom – want some big Hallmark holiday to happen and it never does. And it’s not like it was that way when I was growing up, so maybe I’ve watched one too many Lifetime movies or something. LOL  I can’t necessarily even say specific things I want or ways I want those days to be, but they are always sorely lacking. So I’m putting away any expectations I have on what those holidays are “supposed” to be like.  Instead I’ll just anticipate the changing of the seasons and then holidays and take them as they come.  Well, at least that’s what I’ll try to do.  And if it doesn’t work out quite right this time around, it’ll just be good practice for next year.