Crooked Tree

My best friend and I are starting a business. That’s what Crooked Tree is. I started this blog thinking it would be a record of the ins and outs, ups and downs and general excitement of opening a coffee shop. Surprised even myself that I haven’t mentioned it until now. Current life is never as poetic as the past or the future. But don’t get me wrong, just because its not poetic doesn’t mean I’m complaining about where I am right now. Its just hard for me to write about without getting caught up in technical details about POS systems, the size of under counter fridges, and requirements for grease traps.
This time last year I was putting in my two months notice at the bank. My dreams of the coffee shop were still in the “let’s explore the idea so at least we can say we tried” phase. In between the projects my boss was dumping on me before I left, I was inadvertently searching the internet for commercial property for rent in the area and using our spreadsheets to plug in numbers that might or might not be typical sales figures for the average independent coffee shop. But it was still a pipedream. I was also looking into alternative certification programs for teaching high school students. You know, cast the net far but bring a snack along just in case.
Here I am a year later with both feet in this thing. I am never confident about anything. I can’t even be certain I’ve picked the right restaurant for dinner, the entire way there I’m looking around to make sure I didn’t rule out any options that might have been better. I won’t go into what that says about me and relationships. But I am sure about the coffee shop. Along the way we have run into so many delays and headaches and issues and difficult people and more delays, but never once have I doubted whether I should do this. I feel grounded in the reality of it all. I don’t think any of it is going to be easy. But I genuinely want to do it. I am so excited about the ways it is going to stretch me and keep me growing, the potential the place has… ways to contribute to the community and be a part of efforts going on all over the world.
Of all the hiccups so far the delays have bothered me more than anything. Whenever I talk to anyone about starting a coffee place, the first thing they ask is when it is going to open. In October I would have responded December. In December I would have responded March. Now that its March, its obvious it won’t happen until June at the earliest. I hate telling people something that is not true. Even though these are not intentional lies…there is this unbelievably strong fear in me of being unreliable. I’d almost rather be anything but unreliable.
I also hate these delays because my life is a case study on learning patience. Its kind of a cruel joke to build into someone this innate inability to wait on anything and then constantly give her situation after situation that requires enduring patience. I guess its discipline, like training a dog to race by making an electronic rabbit that runs one step faster. Just when I think I can’t wait anymore or I will burst, someone informs me it will be two more weeks. I go to my jar of oil to find that sure enough there is an adequate amount for today.
So here we are. Starting April with plans for construction, picking out equipment, furniture, food, logos, countertops, bathroom tile…oh yeah, and coffee. We have the house where it will be. Its sitting there empty and waiting. I go there sometimes just to look around again and envision what it will be like. Also, I think, so that it will sink in that this is really happening. The whole thing just seems too big for little me. But just when I’m starting to feel daunted, I get this feeling in my gut. I recognized the feeling the other day and tried to name it…then it came to me…one word…ambition. Its been a while since I have felt it, nothing was really worth it to me. And I look at the old house and sense that it is feeling it too. It was built in 1920 and has lived many lives already. Because it is in the Historic District, it will be preserved. Its pretty old to be starting something new, but I think its ready. I know I am.

The Road

I live my life teetering on the brink of being proud that I’m more emotionally put together than almost anyone I know and being a complete mess, stupefied that I still can’t figure life out. The last week or so the mess side of me must have eaten a few too many twinkies because I’ve stayed there a lot longer than normal.
Spent the weekend with my “accountability group” talking about our life stories and the road maps that led us to where we are now. I put “accountability group” in quotes because most of us in the group are uncomfortable with that title. It sounds too Joshua Harris or Elizabeth Elliot to be an acceptable title for us. We just eat dinner together once a week and drink wine while we talk about things we want to change about our life but don’t have the courage to do on our own.
I love it. Its real community, you know. Like just people living life side by side and letting each other into the raw realities of who we are. I love it, that is, until the day comes. Then I get annoyed. Why do we have to do this every week? Why do we have to cook, can’t we just get take out? I don’t have anything new to share…the same thing every week and nothing ever changes. All five of us feel the same way. But we all show up every week. One of us cooks and we all sit at the table laughing and telling stories about the week. Then one by one we get into each of us…some sharing more, some less…but we know each other’s weaknesses, the things we dwell on, the thought traps we get into. And I love it again.
This weekend, though, I delved into my past. What growing up was like for me, where my insecurities began, relationships made and lost, high school, college, London, China. I love talking about myself and remembering things, so I thought this would be a breeze. But it was strange as I took all my broken up memories, the pieces of myself that seemed to be so many different people rather than one person, and pushed a needle through them and strung them up together in a line. The pouring out of all those times and places, ebbing and flowing, rhythmically and in meter making up the whole of who I am has been swimming through my mind and haunting my dreams.
I spent at least the first half of my life believing we were all essentially the same and everything was black and white. I’m so thankful to discover the opposite, but confused by it nonetheless. We are individuals with different personalities, tastes and dreams. Life is organic. So I can’t make a combination of decisions and get a certain result. Not studying + early drug use + sexual promiscuity = suicidal overweight trailer trash. Physical exercise + purity + social involvement = gorgeous husband and stable family. Results vary as you input different variables, but they are consistent and predictable. But its starting to feel more like a slot machine and I put my two cents in, pulled the lever and I’m waiting while it spins and spins. The first one seemed to have stopped and I’m staring at it in wonder while I wait for what in the world the next two will uncover.
I know we are accountable for much of what we get out of this life. I still believe in absolute truth and that there is a purpose and reason for everything. I attribute much of the good things in my life to good choices I made and blame myself for many of the consequences I’ve had to experience. But life is looking more organic than I ever imagined. It feels so right to embrace that, and so freeing to know that I am not so in charge of my life. But I’m left wondering…what in the world is next for me?

The Brink

There are no hills where I live. The good thing about it is that if you get out to the country you can see for miles and miles. I don’t live in the country so I can’t see much from where I am. Sometimes I go visit the hill country and I wonder how in the world those hills aren’t called mountains…they look so huge to me.
On my way home from work there is a part of the road where you curve out of a neighborhood and a scene opens up because there is a slight slope. The view on top of the slope allows you to see almost the entire lake with the city skyline in the background. It occurred to me one day that the view is to the west. I go to a parking lot there sometimes now just to watch the sunset.
I pulled up into this parking lot the other day and I was a bit perturbed that there were other cars there doing the same thing. I’m glad that people are taking time out of their day to watch God paint something new moment by moment instead of watching the nightly news or Seinfeld reruns, but they were in my peripherals. Something in me wants to go to the edge…get as high as I can and right on the edge…nothing to the right or left just beauty and majesty as far as I can see. It makes me feel like Elizabeth Bennett. I didn’t get to experience that the other day but I was surprised at how much I could feel that desire burning inside me.
I’ve never been one to fear heights. It exhilarates me to be at the peak or the top of something. Two of my favorite places as a child were on this cliff at the lake where they put a giant cross and this tower on top of a hill on Papa’s ranch. I would go up there by myself on holidays and sing and pray that nobody below could hear me sing. Its probably why I learned to fly, but I realized that having a giant piece of metal surrounding me takes away from the effect I was looking for.
There were small mountains (probably hills) surrounding the lake in the city where I lived in China. One day some friends showed me the trail to the top. We walked up there and climbed onto a giant rock that jutted out from it. You could stand up there and see the whole lake with all its islands and little pagodas sticking up everywhere and a giant city surrounding the entire thing. So mystic and eastern. The smog swept over the lake in wisps of fog…just for effect.
I knew I had to come back by myself early in the morning and watch the sunrise. So, a few weeks later, I hopped on my bike at 4:30 in the morning racing the sun and hoping I could make it to the top of the mountain in time to see it peak through. Unlike driving, when you are trying to get somewhere quickly on your bike you inevitably get the Wizard of Oz wicked witch song in your head. I locked up my bike and set up the trail. I was surprised how many others were there. Mostly pretty old people… I might even say elderly. As my legs ached I wondered how in the world these old people could do this all the time. But more importantly…why? I got to my rock and sat down on the edge with my walkman and journal. Soon after an old man hopped onto the rock with me…in his underwear. (different culture…you get used to it) I was frustrated with the distraction, but it soon became more distracting as he started stretching and flailing his arms. Then it came..a giant, bellowing yell. He began to yell from his gut out into the openness. More than an ahhhh…it was an ohhhh hohhhh…if you can imagine. He would take a stance, a deep breath and just let it go. It occurred to me as I looked out at the tree-covered mountains to my right and left that there were people all over yelling. What were they yelling at? How did I not know that this goes on? How can people be so weird and different? Why do I want to join them so badly?
Since I was a missionary at the time, I imagined they were crying out for a savior. Like they woke up to an aching body, feeling every bit of their humanness, pushed it to its brink…beat it up to prove that it wouldn’t get the better of them…that there is something inside that is stronger. And when they get to the point that only creation is limiting them to go any further, they suck in the air and cry out to God. “Why?!” “Is this it?!” “Why does it hurt so bad?!” “Do you even care?!” “Save me!”
I wish I was the kind of person who could stand up at that moment and yell like I wanted to. I had some things I wanted to yell at the Lord. But I didn’t. I sat there in my three square feet of American culture listening to Shane and Shane and writing in my journal. I went back a few weeks later with some friends so that we could yell together. We took turns yelling while videotaping it on our digital cameras. Needless to say, the authenticity and emotion were sucked right out of it. I thank God that I have a culture that I can identify with and feel at home in, but sometimes it makes me a little nauseous when I get a glimpse of it from the outside.
I’m on the brink of something big in my life right now. Maybe that’s why I feel like running and running and climbing to the edge and screaming out. I want to physically express what I’m feeling inside. We ache for the brink, that’s why we keep pushing ourselves to do things. When we get what we’re looking for, its never satisfying, but we are all deluded into believing that there’s something else that will satisfy. Its on the brink that we have all our hope stored up. We think its only the beginning of something even better but what if it doesn’t get any better than the brink? As fatalistic and negative as that sounds, I believe its true, but I believe at the core of it is the fact that we were made for something so much more than this world or this body could give us. We get to the brink and we taste it, we hope for it, it resounds with our souls, but the product is worldly and limited. The thought that death is the consummation of all our soul desires makes it feel a lot less scary and though I am on the brink of something so exciting in my life, it helps me to honestly sing along with my fellow believers, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come.”

London III

Right after graduating from college I jumped on a plane heading for China. There were two teams of fifteen of us from my church that were going to spend the next six weeks together. I knew one girl from my sorority and one guy from my high school. I knew neither of them well. I went because I knew if I didn’t I would probably never go on another mission trip. I had no idea what life after college held for me, but being a missionary was never one of my career options and I needed to put my two cents in before it was too late. Plus I was certainly going to meet my husband right away and start having babies and life was going to be too hectic to think about running off to other countries.
That six weeks was life changing for me in ways that I still have trouble articulating. I learned that I could be very happy even when I am very uncomfortable. For some reason, as Americans, we are so afraid to be uncomfortable. It is the one thing we are constantly guarding against. I was hot all the time and I had to sleep under a mosquito net and sit in a class for four hours straight every day and eat some things that I didn’t know were edible. But I didn’t die and I was very happy at times. I learned that being the first person to speak the name of Jesus to someone is just as profound as leading them to Christ. I learned that being friends with people from another culture is very difficult and it takes a lot of work, but is so worth it. I learned that people who live overseas…missionaries…are just normal people that live in another country. I learned that I was just a few decisions away from being one of those people.
When I got home I was pretty confused about what life had for me and why in the world I got a visa to go live in London. But I went. What else was I going to do? Once I settled in with my new roommates I found a church down the street that was a few hundred years old. It was beautiful. The church is mostly dead in England…that’s what they say…but at this church people weren’t afraid to sing like they are here. People sang their guts out…not in emo charismatic style…but in sophisticated “I have been trained in the art of singing” style. They also had assigned people to come and read the passage of scripture…like reading scripture is a special ceremony and not something you use to prove your point. They would slowly walk up to the pulpit and when there was an eerie silence they would begin with their rich British accent reading slowly allowing the audience to soak in each word. I liked to go when John Stott would preach. He is pretty old and he wore these giant glasses and he had good natured eyes like Gandolf or Santa. Sometimes he would lose a word and there would be a long silence while he searched for the right word. About the time my cheeks were getting pink he would pick up and move forward just as eloquently as before.
My roommate and I decided we wanted to get more involved in this church while we were there. We went to a newcomer’s class to learn more. They split us off into groups and in my group there was a young Chinese girl named Cathy. Cathy explained that she came to the class because a friend told her that she should go to church. She didn’t know anything about Christianity but thought she might want to be a Christian. Talking to her afterwards, I found out that she went to the same university in China that I visited a few months before. For those of you who aren't good with Geography...China is a very large country with many large cities and a population of over a billion people. Just by the way. The next day she called me to come over and make sushi with her. Over the course of the next month we hung out some and she agreed to go to a class at church for people with questions about Christianity. But only if I attend with her. After the first night they announced sign ups for their annual retreat. Cathy said she would go if I did. I got someone to cover my shift and we were off to the retreat that weekend. So there I was in a tiny car with one of the young pastors driving, Cathy next to me and a few other people heading to a castle where the retreat was to be held. The castle was unbelievably beautiful. It was close to Christmas and we were on a hillside overlooking a little village that could be minimized and placed on the mantle in my house on some cotton. I wish I remembered more about that weekend other than being really uncomfortable with a bunch of complete strangers but for some reason the one thing that sticks out in my mind was a fascinating tree in the yard. It was transported from Lebanon as a gift. I wish I had taken a picture of that tree.
I was amazed at Cathy, that God put her in my life. I was praying about whether to go back to China for a year or two. Meeting Cathy in London, when I was ready to let China go, somehow brought me back to the world where China was a possibility. It reminded me that I loved meeting Chinese girls…even when they decide they don’t want to believe in my God. It reminded me that God is working all over the world. People are never too far away to have their hearts joined together, if only for a time. He is working in people’s hearts, teaching them truths about him through other people and in spite of other people. I sat in the internet café near my flat in London and downloaded the application to work in China for a year, filled it out and turned it in. So it was settled. I was going to China via London.

London II

It was during this time, through this six months in London, that I began slipping out of the fog of my identity crisis and started learning things about myself. I learned that I was passionate about some things…like music…I started going to see shows and I bought a guitar…and books…I spent entire days reading Jane Austin novels and Charles Dickens and Sherlock Holmes…anything British to enhance my cultural experience… tea, going to movies alone, journaling, great views. I learned there are things that I don’t enjoy…most museums, Guiness beer, Tube strikes, people who don’t tip and possibly worse… people who tip only a few cents (or pence), personal space infringement, people who smack.
I waited tables for the first time. I was never allowed to work while I was in school, so my only job experience thus far was summer camp counseling and life guarding. I had images of myself waiting tables, being busy and tired and funny and earning every penny I got. This was mostly my experience but in my vision I was never bad at it. Real life proved different. Being the only Tex-Mex restaurant in London, people loved to order Corona beer to get the authentic Mexican flavor of the place. While not a bad choice of beers, we always served it with a slice of lime stuffed in the top. When the lime is squeezed through the neck of the bottle it mixes with the flavor of the beer and creates a unique Mexican taste. That wasn’t my problem with Coronas. My problem was that the bottles were so tall and the limes were so heavy. I spilled these Coronas on so many people during my days of waiting tables that I would tear up when anyone ordered one. “Let me get this right, you want five..sniffle...Coronas?” Negro Modello is also a Mexican beer that we stuffed lime slices in, but they are pyramid shaped, as if the friendly bottler knew the bane of my waitressing existence.
It was also my first time to interact daily with pagans. And what I mean when I say pagans is people who live their lives with no regard to God. In the Bible Belt there were plenty of people who lived what we would call “lives of sin,” but they did it either in rebellion against a God they knew or apathy to Him. These people might never have had any sort of encounter with Christ. What surprised me most about these people is that I really liked them. My three favorite people I worked with were a girl named Bronwyn from South Africa, Grant from New Zealand, and Maggie from Devonshire. Bronwyn was a gorgeous blonde with a hoarse voice that would sweep into a room and kiss everyone dangerously close to their mouths. I had to pep talk myself into having the maturity to handle her kissing me and not running out the back door. She loved everyone and made you feel like you were one of her best friends while you were around her, then she would just jet and be off somewhere else. I wonder if she ever let anyone close to her. Grant and Maggie lived together. Grant was in his late 30’s and gay. His Kiwi accent was entrancing and once we became closer friends he too would greet me with a kiss. Sometimes right on the mouth. One night we were working very close to Christmas and we annoyed the rest of the staff by obnoxiously singing carols opera style. He was so snobby, but he liked me so it didn’t bother me. Maggie was an aspiring actress and she looked like Catherine Zeta Jones. She was in charge of training me at the beginning and did not seem in the least like she was a fan of the job. She made it clear that I was a pain in the neck and would never be able to handle the really busy tables. Not by anything she said, but by saying nothing at all, and giving me these cold expressions when she chose to admit that I existed.
Some days I would work for thirteen hours straight and forget to eat anything at all. Many nights we wouldn’t finish until 2am. Some of the staff would stick around and have a few drinks together. I didn’t. First of all, why would I want to stay at work when I am not being paid? Second, I was so used to being the one to set the example, abstaining was almost a habit for me. Do you want to stick around for a drink? Just say no…always. One night I was so tired I couldn’t even think about walking back to my flat so I agreed to one beer. At this point in my life I had only allowed myself to drink when someone who could hold me accountable was around. I had to cover all my bases…God forbid I actually do something wrong or make a mistake. I sat in a booth with Grant and Maggie while the two Irish bartenders served us Tecate and called me funny pet names like cupcake. We laughed and talked way too loud and Maggie’s stony exterior melted as she interacted with Grant and slowly warmed up to me. I began staying after work more often and grew to really adore these people.
This was a turning point for me. To have friends outside the Christian bubble I created for myself. I’ve had times where I’ve looked back on those nights drinking beer with those friends and wondered if I should have made a more concerted effort at introducing them to Christ. But that’s the thing…I had spent my entire life making everything a project and everyone an assignment. How do you love people when they are objects…or objectives? It always bothered me in Sunday school when they asked me to think of someone I knew who wasn’t a believer in Christ and I couldn’t think of one. Its like I’ve been on a quest to find people who are missing that element in their lives and make them better. And when they don’t care or don’t accept it I feel like I need to change my technique or I didn’t do a good enough job. What if it’s not my job? What if I’m missing out on loving people because I’m trying to fix them? Is there a chance that Christ is more present when I am being myself and loving deeply than when I am strategizing my next play to win over their soul? Just a thought for the void.

Trees

I love my house. I love where I live. I told someone the other day that my house is my favorite thing about life right now. I was immediately embarrassed at how materialistic that sounded. I hate when I make bold statements that aren’t true. It makes me feel like one of those people that you know you can never trust what they say. My house wouldn’t mean much to me without my roommates or the dinner parties or the movie nights or the rich conversations we have there.
But I do love my house. I never tire of running down the same streets and looking at the old houses with the giant old trees towering over them. I have secretly named some of the trees marking the path that I regularly run. Each tree has its own personality, jutting out here, winding there, knobs, dangling limbs, firm and strong at places, appearing to defy gravity in others. Leaves are falling now, marking the stage of life this year is in. The trees have seen so many more years than I have. All from the same spot, the same perspective. Like one of those videos where the camera is set in place for hours and hours. Played in super-fast forward you can see the gradual change of things as they happen. The things we are too limited in our humanity or impatient to watch. And the things that go by quickly are a blur. I think this is how trees see things. They could care less about the cars driving by, or the runners…they care about the things that are going to stick around. The flowers that bloom, the grass that fades and turns green again, the children who grow up and move on. I think trees love children, even when their rope swings dig into their branches. Maybe especially when they are injured by rope swings. They forever carry these injuries with them, proudly displaying them like a battle scar, holding memories that only they and the grown children know.
My house has been there for almost seventy years. When they built this neighborhood they really knew how to make houses. They are all small because people knew back then that we all need to be close and more space only makes us more lonely. They made each house different and unique because they know how bored we get with what we see. Some are made of stone and look like little cottages and some have siding with shutters on the windows and some are made of brick with roofs that peak like a gingerbread house. They have great yards, though few of them have swimming pools. Just lots of birds, beautiful gardens, hanging plants and squirrels. They are starting to tear down some of the homes in my neighborhood to build new houses. I don’t have a problem with the houses they are building, but nothing in me wants them in my neighborhood. These houses look like something you would find in any other neighborhood in the suburbs. They are monstrosities taking up what was a large backyard with lots of trees to add a few extra bedrooms and a kitchen with a wraparound counter. Like the rest of the city, uniqueness and quality are being swallowed up by big, pretentious and generic.
Another thing that makes me sad is a phenomenon that is so common where I live. People are re-doing their houses. That’s not what makes me sad. My house was redone beautifully. And with all the home makeover TV shows these days, who doesn’t want to make their life more full by refurbishing old furniture or changing the color of the dining room walls? What makes me sad is that almost every time I see a house improve drastically, a For Sale sign inevitably follows. They don’t fix it up to live in it, they fix it up to sell it. There are so many parallels to life that I could draw from this, but I will spare you. But it does make me think about the areas of my life that I do this. What mediocre and dilapidated things am I living with every day? What am I putting off for some future day that I could be doing now…living now to the full?
I want to be like those trees, taking in life, letting it become a part of me, showing the scars and loving the memories. Not big, pretentious and generic, but solid, knobby and unique. I want the passing things to be fleeting thoughts and to really care about the things that are going to be around for a while.

Thanksgiving

Went to the ranch for Thanksgiving. Its not the same ranch we grew up going to. Its across the highway from that one, much smaller but still very much adored by our family. The Frio River runs through it. It was really full this time, due to the floods during the spring and summer. The water is almost fluorescent blue, flowing over the road that crosses it. Legend has it that this crossover was the same one used by Santa Anna when he took the Alamo. Right there on our land. I heard that for the first time this Thanksgiving.
I spent two days there and got to see my entire family. I got into my car to head home and immediately started crying. What is it about being with family that makes me feel more alone than anywhere else in the world? My immediate family of six…my parents and four kids…has blown up to sixteen now that everyone has families of their own. I have seven nieces and nephews ranging from six months to 14 years old. I love getting to hold babies and having all the kids running around.
I was looking forward to seeing everyone so much before I left. I am completely baffled that I was so disengaged while I was there…avoiding conversations, engrossing myself in a puzzle as if it were the boyfriend I never get to bring to family gatherings, always so sleepy. When I get with family I feel like every bit of energy is sucked out of me taking my entire personality with it. Then I leave wondering why I feel like no one really knows me.
I used to blame it on the tryptophan in the turkey, but recently found out that I would have to eat an entire turkey in one sitting to have the sleepiness attributed to it. So I think I will have to admit that there is some stress, however unconscious it might be, that is related to being with family. They say stress manifests itself in different ways. Some people get panic attacks or high blood pressure. It seems I tend more toward narcolepsy and binge eating. Like when I used to get overwhelmingly sleepy during finals at school or when it was time to sit down and do a research paper. All of a sudden that leftover piece of cake in the fridge is calling my name and I’m pretty sure if I just go to sleep now and get up early the next day I will have much better clarity of mind to write an entire ten-page paper.
I am so happy to be where I am in life. I think I can truly say that. I like being on this side of my identity crisis. I feel much more secure in who I am and the flexibility that comes along with that. I know that my personality is not set in stone, will continue to change over time and in fact changes daily depending on my work schedule or the weather or any other number of variables. I am finally comfortable with it, like a worn out sweatshirt or running shoes. The people who know me best find me predictable at times, which makes me feel sane and irritated at the same time. The people who know me best like me for me, I can finally accept that. They know how corny I can be, that when I say certain things I really mean something else, that when I’m really sweet its usually because I’m angry and when I’m sarcastic, I’m having the most fun. The people who know me best are not my family.
I think there’s something about being the youngest that makes that pretty hard. I grew up as a spectator. My siblings are some of the most amazing people I know and I got to grow up watching them become the unique people they are. The four of us are so different. We aren’t just in different places, we are the four directions on a compass rose with arrows that point to the never-ending expanse that separates us. I went to countless basketball, baseball and football games, studying them and keenly aware of everything. I didn't study them like I studied for my finance tests. More like the way we study a hobby...or the way American culture studies movie stars. I watched in awe as they prepared for their proms, walked across the stage during graduation, got married, had children. I soaked it all up and it was part of my identity. Since I was young, I have had this way of losing myself around my family. I remember being asked a question once at a family function and before I could answer I had to remind myself that I existed and was actually present in the room.
My family loves me. I have never doubted that. But sometimes I wonder if they love some version of me that doesn’t really exist. Often they ask me questions and don’t stick around for the answer. I don’t blame them. I mostly feel that their lives are so much more interesting or pressing than mine, how could they be expected to stick around? I think my singleness and my lifestyle are an enigma to them. They don’t understand it, and so they aren’t comfortable with it. I can’t possibly find the words to explain to them what life is like for me. I can’t open for them the amazing personalities of the people I do life with or give them glimpses into the dinner parties we have, laughing around a table. I visit their lives, they don’t visit mine. That would just be silly.
Birth order is an interesting study. I don’t think older siblings are as wrapped up in each other as the younger ones. I left the ranch while they were all still there. They’re parents now and so they are distracted. I got fleeting goodbyes as they ran after kids or fed babies. I felt so alone when I got in my car and headed down the road. The first two of the six hour drive were a pity party. The closer I got to home, the more normal I felt. I talked to a few friends on the way and realized that my life is very full. In fact, I love my life and I am blessed. I just can’t take it with me on holidays.