My Lonely City

So my phone, which is my alarm clock – which I’ve cleverly begun putting in the bathroom, to make myself get up to turn it off, and thus make myself much more likely to get up when it goes off – went off an hour early this morning. Not because I’d mis-set it, but because the police – yes, the police – were trying to get hold of my husband. Before this goes in all sorts of wrong directions, it was because the garage door was open at our office, and our cell phones were the only listed numbers they could find for people with our last name in the area. Um, my last name is Morgan. It’s pretty common. Hm. Anyway, 4:00 a.m. To tell us about a garage door five miles away. Here’s the (funny, to me, now) exchange:

Phone: bzzz, bzzz …

Me: (in my twisted little mind) Gah! Giant retail hanger-fetcher poles trying to disassemble the universe! (waking up a bit more) Mmm… morning … WTF, it’s four o’clock – I have another hour, you stupid phone (out loud) Um, hello?

Official-but-pleasant-sounding Lady: Hello. This is (something-something), with the Moore Police Department; I’m looking for Jared Morgan.

Me: …. um, he’s asleep right now?

OBPS Lady: Does he work at (our office address, or perhaps an address in Timbuktu for all I knew)?

Me: Yes? Um? (picturing twenty-foot-high flames engulfing our office, the CAD prints I’ve been falling asleep over reduced to gratifying flakes of ash … )

OBPS Lady, with considerably more patience than I probably deserved: Could you wake him up please?

Me: Okay?

(wake up my husband, give him the phone, let the cats in, turn the light on …

Jared: The garage door. At the office. It’s broken.

Me: Okay.

Us: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……………..

I’m exhausted. I just spent an extremely intense week as a camp counselor at a children’s camp for kids who have been abused or neglected. Oh. My. God. I may be able to sift my thoughts into something coherent over the next few days or weeks, but there’s no chance tonight. So I’m going to talk about something else (or rather, something only loosely connected).

I spend a lot of energy and focus on things that don’t matter. Or rather, that don’t warrant the time that I spend on them. I need to focus on the things that _do_ matter: loving God with all my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength; and loving others as I love myself. (And perhaps I need to work on taking care of, and loving, myself, too.)

I’m rapidly falling asleep. But I’m going to SLEEP IN tomorrow, so it’s okay. ^_^

Yes, I finished Harry Potter. (Mwah hah hah hah – sounds like I kilt him, doesn’t it?) And yes, it was great. A satisfying experience and a fun ride.

But it – and the other book I read yesterday, which was also satisfying and fun – have been seriously messing up my dream life. I’ve had multiple, vivid, vaguely disturbing dreams every night since finishing The Deathly Hallows, but I don’t remember enough of them to write down.

Hm.

But speaking of writing. My ramble of the day (or at least of the morning):

To write is to create. To capture, to examine, to explore. To memorialize, to crystallize, to preserve for scrutiny or praise. To give shape or definition, to distill, to expand. To communicate, to connect, to explain. To write is to be heard, even if only by oneself. This is what I mean by my theory that the work of heaven will be to write our book of God, just as he has written his Book of us.

And there I go again, talking about religious stuff in every post. Gah.

So my Best Friend (at least since 8th grade, which seems like forever ago, so the term actually almost applies, scary as that is) has had a spot of trouble with snoopy out-laws lately. No need to go into the details (nor would I be at liberty to do so even if there was a need), but I got to thinking. I might as well be considerate and save any similar nosies some trouble, if they take a notion to snoop in my direction.

I drink, but I don’t smoke. I curse like a sailor, depending on the company. I don’t do any drugs that have not been specifically prescribed to me by a doctor, and I never have. Except for occasional speeding and an illegal u-turn or two, I have never broken the law. Unless you count jaywalking. I didn’t drink alcohol until I was twenty-one, even when I was in countries (Mexico and New Zealand) whose drinking-age laws would have permitted me to do so. The worst thing I have ever done was made out with a boy who was engaged – engaged! to someone else! what was I thinking?! – on the way back from my senior trip.

I didn’t have sex until after I got married. (Yes, really.) I have never cheated on my husband. I love him very much, and love sharing my life with him. Most of the time it’s easy to love him; sometimes I love him because I promised him I would. Marriage is harder than I thought it would be, but it’s also more rewarding.

I sometimes hate spending time with my family – immediate-ish and extended – because I feel we have very little in common. I spend time with them anyway, because it’s the right thing to do.

I love God but Christians piss me off. I’m a vegan, feminist social critic with dozens of radical, half-formed ideas and almost no-one to bounce them off of. I complain a lot about being lonely and having no-one to talk to, but I don’t seek out any new relationships because I’m a lazy fraidy-cat a lot of the time.

I volunteer. I tithe. I pray. I read the Bible semi-regularly, though not as often as I ought to. I try to understand how God wants me to apply what I read to the way I behave. What I keep coming back to is this: Treat others the way you want to be treated.

I tip. I sing loudly in the car by myself. I sometimes preach sermons to people who are not, physically, present with me. I pick up paper towels that bastards in public restrooms throw on the floor. (Sometimes.) I wear underwear when trying on swimming suits.

I have a concealed-carry permit (somewhere). I enjoy shooting bottles and targets, and I’m pretty good at it. I doubt I could shoot a person, though, because I don’t want to be shot. Even in self-defense.

Sometimes I carry insects and spiders outside when they get in; sometimes I kill them. I don’t feel guilty. My cats are both declawed – though I wouldn’t make that decision again.

I lost my first child this year – a missed miscarriage six weeks after conception, discovered around four weeks later. It tore my world apart. I’m getting used to the pieces floating around, and I’m not trying to fit them together yet.

I think too much. But I’m okay with it.

Satisfied?

I’m going to be a counselor at a summer camp for children in my county who have been abused or neglected.

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh! I’m so excited and nervous and scared and elated … and surely other things, too. :o) My mother-in-law was the music director last year, when a body from her then-church held the camp under the organization and leadership of a national – indeed, international – organization. She returned full of stories and emotions; I was fascinated and moved. From what I heard her say, and what I heard from the leadership in their informational meeting, the people and the organization are doing a great thing, and doing it well. What impresses me most at this time is their careful rejection of the idea of “saving” or rescuing the children, and the deliberately narrow focus of creating good memories for the kids who attend.

I think what resonates with me about this strategy is that it is a positive, rather than negative, approach to the problem of child abuse. I mean, I think it’s easier to focus on, and perhaps drown in, the overwhelming statistics, the grief and fury, the images and stories of people who rape, beat, torture, and neglect the children in their care – easier than it is to do what I can with what I have.

I can’t reach everyone who is suffering, child or adult. Even if I could, I couldn’t end all the suffering in the world; I’m not wise or resourceful enough for that. But I can listen, and learn, and work. I can go out of my way to make things better, for a little while and for a few people and animals.

Creating a society in which all children are safe from harm, respected as people, and emotionally & intellectually equipped to live lives of fulfillment and meaning is a long-term project. Not impossible – nothing is impossible – but I doubt I will live in such a society this side of heaven. But here, now, I will do what I can with what I have.

I’m both excited and apprehensive, right now; I’m excited because giving and serving are exciting to me. That’s who I am. I get to serve children who matter to God. I’m apprehensive because I’ve never done this before. I don’t have any younger (or older) siblings; I haven’t spent a lot of time around children. I’m eager and willing to learn how to be an effective counselor, but I don’t know what to do yet. And if you know me, you know that I like … knowing. But, God’s grace is sufficient for me, and his power is made perfect in weakness, eh?

I was going to send individual e-mails to everyone, but I realized I would just be writing the same thing over and over again. So how are you? Anything new and exciting? Keep me posted on what’s going on in your life. ~Christina (05/18/2007)

Hey Christina –

Things are pretty good. I miscarried our first baby three weeks ago, so they could be better, but there you go. I’ve just left one job (an administrative assistant for a Realtor in South Oklahoma City) and will be starting another – as a tech with Jared’s Dad’s telecommunications company, SKShemor – on Monday. I’m excited, but a little nervous, about that. Jared’s doing well & staying busy. His tag-printing business may be expanding later this year depending on how the state legislature rules on some pending temporary used car tag legislation. He’s not doing custom websites anymore, for the most part. We’re still on the board of CAM, helping prep for this year’s summer camps (the eighth year, can you believe?). I realized yesterday that I graduated high school six years ago. That was a jolt, rather; I’d thought I’d be … further along, you know? I’m not sure exactly what I expected from myself then, but I feel like I haven’t quite lived up to it, whatever it was. But things are good. I’ve become a vegan, which is something new and different (and I like new and different – I’m also finding that I like cooking, which is odder still). My closest friend since High School is moving to Texas with her fiance. And I’m thinking again, as I usually do when the weather starts warming up, about finding a hobby besides piddling on the internet and putting off doing dishes. How are things with you?

Yours,

Melissa

“You know that tea’ll kill you,” Dan says, stirring his coffee.

“Everything will kill you, eventually,” I reply, smiling.

“Ain’t that the truth?”

“I figure, you might as well enjoy life while you can – ” I say.

“– because life’s so short,” he agrees. “You don’t know that yet, but – ”

“Oh, I figure it’ll be too short sometimes …”

“Uh-huh; have a good one!” he says, walking away.

“… and too long other days.” Then back to the office, to stare out the window at this beautiful rain today. Sigh. Well, down to work.

I want so much right now to go home and write and draw things that I feel good about. But it’s only 1:45, and I leave at 5:00. And we have dinner with my folks tonight.

Grrr!

…won’t you let me go home? Wherever home is.

So I was listening to the radio on my way to work on Friday. I know, I know; I should know better. It only puts me in a bad mood. But anyway, BobFM’s dumbass morning DJ #1 was being ripped to shreds by dumbass DJs #2 & 3, as well as various callers, because – wait for it – he took his daughter out of school for an afternoon to buy her a bicycle and spend some time with her.

“We don’t always get to do what we want,” a caller said. “There are things we have to do every day. We have to go to school every day; we have to go to work every day. And you’re telling her she doesn’t have to.” “The next thing you know,” said dumbass DJ #2, “she’ll be in middle school, shootin’ heroin and getting tattoos.”

So parents justify their decision to foist their children off to the seven-hour-per-day governmental babysitting and indoctrination service that is the public school system by telling themselves, repeatedly and with loud voices, that the schools have more of a right to their children’s time than they do. That, essentially, parents spending time – during the school day – with their children is actually doing them a disservice. As Austen says, how quick come the reasons for approving what we like.

In high school, I was captain of the academic team, I took all the advanced math courses that were offered, made straight As, attended college concurrently to get a head start, and was generally unslackerish. I graduated valedictorian , after I broke the school’s ACT score record when I was a junior. I went on to graduate from university magna cum laude. I’m not saying that school isn’t important.

Oh, wait. Yes I am. Drat. I’m miserable anyway. Oh, well.

I had an open house yesterday. I put signs in the yard, and at the intersections to let people know there was an open house. Pulling them out of the ground (the signs are on stakes) made me feel like I was pulling Excalibur out of the rock. Of course, I felt somewhat less like a superhuman when I threw them in my trunk on top of the lawn chair. Oh, well; take what you can get.

It’s funny; I was talking with Jared today about how, even though today was/has been/still is much more stressful than the last time I blogged, I feel better about my work today. Maybe it’s because I’m seeing it draw, hopefully inexorably, to a close. Or, more precisely, to a closing.

Mom called to see how things were going. It was a relief to talk with someone rather sane.

I should really examine my life and my perception of the universe sometime. But not now.

I’m office-ing from the actual office now. It’s interesting; my little cubicle is in the far back corner of the room, and it’s dark wood laminate, so it looks and to some extent feels like a cave. It’s also cold in there, which doesn’t help. Nonetheless, it’s been far more productive to do that than officing from home, even in these first two days. When I’m here, it’s just all too easy to get distracted and to spend my time doing home-type things rather than work-type things. This is not so much distressing, however, as discouraging. Also, it’s very hard to make myself call people right now. I think I’m battling my inner hermit. Oh, well; in the words of Fezzik, “I hope we win!”

Yesterday was definately the most stressful day of my new career. I wrote my first contract, and there were a few issues that came up just as we were finishing, and dealing with those things was quite frustrating. And I had to ask for help, which was freely and graciously given, but we all have our faults and I think the one I’m working on right now is pride, so it was difficult admitting that I had very little understanding of what was going on and what I ought to do. The funny thing is, probably quite predictably, that now I feel so much more confident and capable of doing this, of being what I’ve set out to be, because I’ve dealt with a very difficult situation and it didn’t make me quit. And I know that there are people who will help me. After it all happened, I talked with my Team Leader (an angel, I now think) and she was so encouraging and helpful, as were the people to whom I had applied for help. And I talked with my Mom, and she (of course!) said all the right things. And (I know, this is so incredibly sappy – but get over it, this is my blog and I can say what I darn well please) now I feel like I can do it because these people whom I respect and trust are behind me. And last night I dreamed that I was a Realtor. That sounds weird, because of course I am, but I’ve never dreamed from that perspective before – my dreams are … well, that’s another entry. And something funny: on Bible Gateway (biblegateway.com) they have this Verse of the Day thing which I don’t usually pay much attention to (doing my own thing, you know) but today it’s from James 1:2-3, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perserverance.”