The life of Mary

I attended the funeral of my husband’s grandmother last Saturday. It was one of the most celebratory funerals I’ve ever attended. Rather than lament the death of the 93 year old woman, family and friends gathered to celebrate her life. Stories were told, fond memories exchanged, and it became clear she had had a tremendous impact on everyone around her.

Sitting there, listening to stories and laughing along with memories I did not share, I realized how many small things never make the history books. I watched one of Rob’s cousins telling a story none of the others had ever heard, and it made me wonder how many things about her would never be revealed. The evening of reflection made me realize that much of the life of a person is hidden behind the milestones. The mundane goes unremembered. And I think that is sad.

I can never fully understand the everyday battles and triumphs in the lives of those who have come before me. But I still think they’re worth remembering. I guess now that I’m nearly over the egocentricity of my youth, I want to know people as people. I would like to get to know earlier generations for who they were, not what they did. And learn from them small lessons in living. My mom always told me one day I would realize my generation doesn’t know everything…

So although I didn’t know her, I have the life of Mary to thank for this realization that has finally come.

Connecting eyes across a busy street and thoughts of crushing death

For the first time in a long time, I got out of bed at 6:45 this morning without the usual despair that accompanies the realization I’m heading to work. For me, this is rare. I headed to the shower, noticeably undreadful (I say noticeably because I actually noticed the lack of dread). Everything was fine, nothing particularly interesting happened, and I finished my morning routine without incident.

On the way out of the apartment complex, a young driver in a shiny white pickup stopped to let me in front of him. I thought it was overly nice, so I waved a little and smiled. But as he turned out in the opposite direction, a tan Buick LeSabre moved leisurely in front of me.

I try (not very hard) to be (occasionally) sympathetic to teenage drivers. But this one had a cheerleading bumper sticker on the back window, a multi-colored plastic lei hanging from her rearview, a chatty friend in the passenger seat, and was driving like a 90 year old woman. 25 in a 35 zone. Talking, talking, slowing down for no reason and swerving into my lane. I honk as she cuts directly in front of me without looking or signaling and she raises her hands at me like she can’t understand my consternation. Because she’s only 16 or so, I don’t flip her off, but I want to.

Then I inhale, relax my furrowed brow, and take a moment of Zen to realize it doesn’t matter. Traffic is backed up, people are angry and tense, but in my car, all is well.

The teenager recklessly switches lanes and is gone.

As I’m looking around, calm now, traffic parts oddly as though showing me something. I look over and a small Mexican man in a giant blue truck is looking around too. Our eyes meet curiously as if wondering how, across three lanes of traffic traveling in opposite directions, we should happen to look in the same moment of clarity. Traffic crawls again and we snap back to attention, but before leaving the moment entirely, we glance back, checking to make sure the other is real.

I smile slightly. Traffic resumes motion and I drive a bit, thinking about the man, wondering if the young man in the cowboy hat next to him was his son. Wondering if he is a first generation immigrant, whether he speaks English, whether he’s Mexican at all or maybe Peruvian or Hawaiian.

The light ahead turns read, the car in front of me brakes again and I stop under an overpass. I can hear the tires of the speeding cars above me and suddenly I’m in a movie. The heavy concrete overpass collapses, cars and pandemonium everywhere, blood, dying and I’m crushed. The Mexican man stops and runs back toward us to see if there is anything he can do. His son dials 911. But I’m suffocating now (because I wouldn’t die from the impact; I’m the heroine). I look over to one of the concrete columns and see #39 spray-painted in blue. I will be the 39th person to die if someone doesn’t find me soon, and time is running out…

The light turns green and the overpass snaps back into place. I make the left-hand turn onto the highway and drive the rest of the way to work.

What I’m looking for in a job

The job I have right now is fine. I get to work on projects that interest me, many of the people I work with are cool, it’s not overly stressful, and I have good benefits. So for those things, I am truly grateful.

But I would really like to be able to use a stronger adjective than fine.

I’ve been here two years now, and I think the main reason I’m looking for something else is because the work here is never finished. It’s a never-ending monotonous cycle of busywork. I research public policy, and because politicians will never fully understand the issues, there will always be something else to research. I finish one policy brief and move on to the next, never knowing if the hours I put into researching and writing will ever accomplish anything. Right now, each day is a lesson in futility, and I can’t believe someone actually pays me to do this.

So instead, I would like to place an order for a creative, fulfilling career. I would also like a side of challenge smothered in tremendous reward.

The funny thing is I have no idea what I want to do for a living. And what’s more, I don’t care. I just know that I want to spend my days working on something I believe in. Something that will affect people, move people, help people. Something that doesn’t bore me, allows me to travel, makes me want to get out of bed in the morning… Something that makes me deliriously happy.

Three months from now, I want to be sitting at my computer writing a different kind of post about my new job. I want it to read “thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you!” And I would like to be able to say with wonder and excitement “I can’t believe someone actually pays me to do this!”

Amen.

Rhetorical questions for christians

I don’t get it.

I mean, I get that people need to feel as though they belong to something. Everybody does. We’re social beings. And I get that some people need to believe in something or else why are we here? (More on that later…)

But what makes you walk through life so blindly? Without ever questioning anything? Or if you question, accepting that when questions go unanswered by religion, blind faith is the answer?

Why disbelieve science and research in favor of a book written hundreds and hundreds of years ago then translated then edited then translated then edited then translated then edited ad infinitum? The history of the bible is more fascinating than the book itself, so why not learn it?

If god is so perfect, why is yours imbued with imperfections (jealousy, anger, judgment, wrath and hate, to name a few)? Why do you make god in your own image?

And what’s all this about “saving” people? Your religion is the only answer? There is only one answer and everyone must find it or be condemned to hell for eternity? What about people living on remote islands or on top of mountains in distant countries where christianity couldn’t possibly reach? Are they going to hell because they never “accepted Jesus Christ as their personal lord and savior”? What about people who believe in other things just as fervently? Is yours the only way? If not, why try to force it on people?

Why are you people so afraid of gays? How could two people loving each other possibly affect you? It’s love. You may not understand it because you’ve never bothered to try, but it’s love, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you.

Where is the list of bad words you shouldn’t say? Does god really prefer “a-hole” to asshole? “F-you” to fuck you?

Why is alcohol bad? Gambling? Music? Sex? Etc?

Why to answer these questions will you look to a preacher/priest/pastor? Why not think for yourself?

I say these are rhetorical questions because I already have the answer: you’re scared. Scared to look inside yourself, scared of being human, scared of messing up, scared that you’re not as perfect as you’d like to be, scared you aren’t enough as you are, scared, scared, scared…

So is everybody else.

I write this post not out of anger toward christians, but because I genuinely don’t understand why these questions aren’t also raging in your minds. Or if they are, why you ignore them.

Life is so much better when you’re not scared all the time. Look inside yourself. Travel. Go outside. Climb a mountain. Get to know people you would otherwise condemn (gays, muslims, feminists, atheists, etc.). Become familiar with other cultures. Get to know people and get to know yourself. Live.

Then I have a feeling you will find god. Not in a stuffy church or dusty old book, but in the eyes and smiles of other people and the warmth of the unfamiliar.

Hello world!

I didn’t change the default title because I like it. So I will leave this as my first post and take its opportunity to introduce myself to you, the world. Interesting what that allows me to do and who it allows me to be. I can be anyone to you because you don’t know me. I can create myself here…

First and foremost you should probably know that I am a female human, not a cyborg. The fact that I know what a cyborg is and can use it correctly in a sentence should also indicate to you that I fell off the dork branch of the life tree. To further attest to my dorkiness, I play Dungeons and Dragons with my husband and his friends, I love video games (especially RPGs), and school is one of my favorite places on Earth. I’m not too worried about being a dork, though. The awesome thing about twentysomethings is that dorks are the new cool. So as part of my introduction to you, I would like you to know I’m very cool.

Now that we’ve established my humanity (however dorky-cool it may be), you should also probably know I’m a humanitarian. And for some reason, humanitarianism has gotten a bad rap and become politicized, so while we’re talking politics, you should also be aware that I am very liberal. We could have a liberal-off, but I’d win.

I would also win a belching contest.

In fact, here is an abbreviated list of things I would win versus you: most daring city driver contest (riding ass is my specialty), thinnest fat person contest, most profound drunken wisdom contest, best bad-memory-for-a-person-under-the-age-of-thirty contest, etc… I could go on, but I don’t want to embarrass you.

With that, there is just one final thing I will explicitly tell you about myself (the rest you’ll have to pick up on your own, she says mysteriously)… People sometimes find me arrogant. Gasp! I usually think it’s funny because I’m really not arrogant at all. But I know I come off that way to lesser beings. Actually, I merely possess a superior sense of humor that affords me the opportunity to make ironic claims to awesomeness others mistakenly perceive as delusional. This is my cross to bear. Sigh.

So anyway, that’s me. Meggan. Hello world!