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Posted by on Oct 23, 2017 in Books I love, Everyday Life, Young Adult Reads | 0 comments

Turtles All The Way Down

Turtles All The Way Down

Turtles All The Way Down by John Green

Turtles All The Way Down by John Green

If love consisted of paper, words, author, and characters, then John Green would easily be the knight in shining armor in any plot twist. He is mystical. Like a unicorn mystical. He just gets it. He understands it. He becomes it. He describes the stuff that everyone else leaves a void because it’s too hard to breathe life into saying.

Obviously, I’m a huge fan. For good reason. Take his latest book, Turtles All the Way Down. The main character, a high school student named Ava, suffers from severe anxiety. If it exists in the universe, she worries about it, but especially germs. Her eccentric best friend, Daisy, stumbles upon an adventure when she hears an announcement on the radio that the authorities are looking for a disappeared businessman that is wanted for fraud. He mysteriously disappeared the night before his mansion was raided. The reward for finding him? Try a hundred grand. Along the way of the crazy adventure the girls set out on, Aza finds her first love in Davis, the billionaire’s son, and the simplicity of their complex relationship ends up helping Aza to discover much more about herself than she ever bargained for.

The edge of the book though is the way Green dives into Aza’s anxiety soaked brain and digs around and goes into the corners that are uncomfortable and very hard to reconcile. Wrap that up with a beautiful lesson privilege, and you have a deep, raw, and inspiring story that will leave your head spinning. It does have some language including the f bomb, so I definitely would recommend this book for mature readers, but don’t let the language stop you. You’ll miss all the best parts if you do.

As I read this book myself, I found myself thinking about all of the middle school or high school students dealing with mental illness, feeling alone and misunderstood. While we may never completely understand nor be able to grasp mental illness, attempting understanding and willingly providing compassion rather than judgment is important.

And you know, I really should leave the comment section of articles alone to burn under their own fuel, but sometimes I go where I shouldn’t. Then I can’t hardly turn around without exploring a little of where I’ve ended up. So I ended up reading the comment section of a review of this book. And my heart shattered. For Aza. For people like Aza. That mentality is exactly why the mentally ill feel isolation is their only friend. Sad. And unnecessary.

So, I encourage you to read this book. As with all of John Green’s books, this book is bigger than just a cover and a couple hundred printed pages. It’s understanding. It’s compassion. It’s learning.

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Posted by on Oct 23, 2017 in Family | 0 comments

Meet My Family

Meet My Family

My Family

I have one brother, Brad, who lives in Chicago with his wife, Elaine. Brad is an economist for the University of Chicago and his wife is an engineer. They have one dog, my fur niece, Star.

My parents split their time between here, there, and anywhere that looks attractive.

My family is splattered across the United States, which means my natural habitat includes an airport. My mom’s family is in Buffalo, New York and in Arlington, Texas. My father’s family is in upstate New York and California.

Lucy

Lucy

And last but not least, I have two of the most adorable, sweet, mischievous dachshunds. Lucy is the brains of the operation. She earned the nickname of Amish Sheriff because she hates hugging and she is head of household security. She’s also earned the nickname of Loucillini because well-isn’t dachshund German for dictator?!

Annie

Annie

Annie, I am convinced, was a beauty pageant contestant in her former life. Annie is beautiful, but there’s not a whole heck of a lot going on between those beautiful ears. She’s Lucy’s minion and follows every order less she face the consequences.

With my Great Grandmother

With my Great Grandmother

My great grandmother and I have a unique bond between us that transcends life and death. She was my Jesus in human form. I feel her presence with me when I pray, when I drive, when I’m uncertain. My grandmother and I are just two old souls who exist in the same space. I love the remembrance we can create talking about my great grandmother and the wonderful person that she was.

With my Grandmother

With my Grandmother

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Posted by on Oct 23, 2017 in Everyday Life, Reflections | 0 comments

The Journey of Empathy

People say I’m loud but my voice was taken and I took it back.

I might be clumsy but that’s probably because of all of the hard steps forward I found the gumption to take.

I have a habit of being so anxious I forget to breathe, but I’ve had to learn to question motives and adjust my turtle shell.

My views definitely take the road less traveled as a result of what I’ve endured through my own version of body positivity discovery. Now it’s take me or leave me because I’m done punishing myself.

I’m told daily I’m stubborn since I’ve learned to take up for myself.

So. I might be different, loud, stubborn, and say too much of what should be kept on a hook on my tongue. But I am who I am because of what I’ve made of my brokenness and that makes me smile.

The world lives in a shallow tupperware container with the lid so tight it can’t expand, grow, or even see the light of day. Those who choose to be in that box, well, I do pray for them everyday to emerge from that box and see a whole new light of day. The world is too small and life is too short strawed to live life unimagined and in a container made for storing leftovers, not your entire existence.

The journey of wearing myself inside out, as if a costume for someone to inspect and to fabricate, is very raw and full of loss-loss of friendships, loss of those that turn their backs, loss of your former ideas of how things should fit and how things should be. The journey however is the only way to come out on the other side realizing that you weren’t all the way outside of the box yet. Outside the box is where the journey begins. Hope reveals itself. Life blooms.

My father and I had a conversation the other day about gay people. He mentioned he felt that they were the best people he knows and that they understand empathy. I would say he’s right. But I’d also say he’s wrong. Respectfully. Anybody who has suffered to be who they are and was judged, ridiculed, and dealt with shame has learned what it is to know empathy. Empathy blooms where struggle is born. Empathy grows best where the scars run deep and open and wide and free. Empathy is learned because of those who have had to suffer to learn it. Once you begin a journey of being ashamed of who you are and wanting to be anybody but, you get it. Once you come out on the other side, the very Bible says that once you know better, you do better. You can’t be who you once were. You move forward.

And I realize not everyone would necessarily agree with me, or understand what I’m trying to say. But chew on this: find your truth, be your truth, and be brave enough to live your truth. My truth has just begun to be, and even though it took me a long time to reconcile with it and live inside of it, at the very least, it’s much more comfortable to be inside out than it is hidden inside of a tupperware container.

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Posted by on Oct 23, 2017 in Heart Clutter, Reflections | 0 comments

Let Our Words Be Few

Let Our Words Be Few

Let our words be few

Let our words be few

On November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln rode in a carriage to the site of the Battle of Gettysburg to deliver a speech. He was invited as an afterthought to deliver appropriate words to consecrate the battlefield.

The speaker before him, Edward Everett, spoke for more than two hours before Lincoln ever took to the crowd’s attention. In a time of national chaos, for fifteen minutes and packaged in 272 words, Abraham Lincoln managed to deliver a message to act like a buffer, a memory lapse of anger, a remembrance of brotherhood that Americans had long forgotten in their selfishness. In fact, there’s only one blurry picture of Lincoln giving this speech because the photographer thought he had more time.

Nobody remembers a word Everett spoke. May our words be few, may our actions be a light, and may our hearts be a holder of that light.

 

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Posted by on Oct 23, 2017 in Devotions, Everyday Life, Reflections | 0 comments

The Whole Fire

The Whole Fire

Collette Werden

Collette Werden

In an interview, I was asked about my strengths. Sitting with two other women in the same interview, my brain was a flat tire; as useless and deflated as the rubber the tire was made of. I closed my eyes and centered my insides and after everything I’d put myself through to be at this interview, I knew I had to open up a storage container and start an American Pickers rerun.

So I told the interviewers that my strength was the hard years. The years that almost cost me more than I had to pay. The days that were so bad, I couldn’t even cry about them. The walks home from middle school when I’d carefully pack away the bullies, the friends that were simply for show and the shame in not having the strength to admit it, and manufacture the strength to say that my day was fine and pray to God I could shelf the rest of the conversation. The exploded friendship that had a detonator of needing someone to blame. The aftermath of the shrapnel that still affects me today.

The interviewer, probably expecting a robot response, stared and asked me why.

I answered simply that although I got knocked down, with the strength it took to get back up the reflection looking back at me is just a little bit truer than it was before. That I try and repurpose my hard days into strength for the kids that I teach. That they might feel a little less alone. A little less uncomfortable. A little more expensive. A little more courageous.

The room stood in suspension, sort of in a thick pause before the rainstorm rains. I could’ve taken scissors and cut ribbons with the silence.

And finally another interviewer smiled and wrote something down and went to say something and stopped.

As I left, I heard a muffled, I like her.

I cried the whole way back from that interview, mostly because I was exhausted and stressed and drained. That was okay. In that moment I took a piece of my power back from the thieves who stole my sparks and it felt like I rose like the whole damn fire.

And that, God tending my heart and giving me grace, that collision is where my fire flames.

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