What I learned from the laugh

Why is all that important? Why does that story of Ward saying that and Dave letting that laugh out matter to me? Because when Dave let that little laugh out, it showed that he believed all those ridiculous stories I had told for the last four years. That was cool. I admit some of those stories, I would not believe if I was not there myself. No matter who I play with or who is looking at the cards, every single time, there is a handful of cards that get picked out every time that everyone asks about unless that were actually present for that event.

Again why does this matter? Because have you ever noticed that after a while you remember things but even your memories of the events seem to mellow out. My friend, TJ, has told people the story of how I crashed his prom so many times it’s lost its outrageousness. Don’t get me wrong T, I’m not saying stop. I’m just as proud of it today as I was then and I still love having been at your prom very much. I love the story every time you tell it. It also makes me smile that it meant enough to you that you tell it to people. It’s just my mom found an old pack of pictures from when we always carried a disposable camera with us everywhere we went and they surprised me.

We used to go through disposable cameras like water. It was before every teen had a cellphone, let alone a cell that could take pictures! We always had the camera and my video camera.

For those of you who were there it was the day TJ borrowed Matt’s baseball hat, and my beloved trench coat and walked around impersonating Silent Bob. (And we used someone’s eye liner for the beard.) For those of you who were not there I am sure you are figuring it out. I remembered this day. I knew this story pretty well. It was the other things going on in the pictures. The subplot of the pictures that I truly found amazing. I knew we were trouble makers but really! There was just pure ridiculousness going on behind this masquerade in December.

My mom and dad were both still sitting in the room with me as I looked at these pictures. I found myself pulling the pictures close. (Like there isn’t a statute of limitations on this stuff!) As I looked at these pictures the first time in most likely a decade, which were 99% of me and TJ, I realized I didn’t know the two kids in the pictures anymore.

At least that’s how I felt the first time I looked through them anyway. The first time I looked at them I thought I didn’t recognize either of us. I didn’t recognize the kids who were loitering in a Mickey D’s for the past few hours. The real life stoner was smoking a cigarette and impersonating one of the most famous stoners after Cheetch and Chong. The girl in pictures had short hair. She had lost her hair after she had cut it off in a fit of rage which she was prone to having at the time because that girl had a nasty temper. At first glance those are the things I noticed about them. I saw their faults at first.

But for some reason I couldn’t put those pictures down. I just kept looking at them and looking at them. When I looked at the pictures the other friends in the photos I saw seeing the same things, I was seeing the negative aspects of them.

I showed them to my boyfriend. I don’t know why, he wasn’t a member of the group. Since our group was together for years he asked how I knew these pictures were ten years old. And was even about to pin point them to the exact month. I showed him little things like garland in the background at the mall and my hair length. But when I realized they were taken in December of 2004, I looked at the photo that had the guy who is getting married on the 27^th in it. This picture was taken six months before he met the women who was going to be his wife.

He wasn’t going to meet her for another six months. Then they would spend nine years together and continue on after that in marriage. I still had the picture, but more importantly, I still had the friendship.

My best work as an artist

When I was a senior in college I had to have a senior review where all the art professors came looked at all my most recent work, what I was currently working on and what I was planning to do for my senior exhibition at the end of my senior year. I remember being so nervous. I had my hoodie rolled up in a ball because it was too hot to wear but I made sure that out of all the marvel characters on it, Nightcrawler was on top so he could give me support. I was proposing to do something new and experimental that had never been done at Keystone College before and I was terrified of being ripped apart.

One thing my friends and I used to do all the time was play board games. I was posing designing and making model board games. All I had for my senior review was an extremely rough prototype of what would be the keynote game of my exhibition. At the time of the review, it didn’t even have a title.

The bases of the game was set though. It centered on cards and dice. Each turn you got a card. On the card was a one or two sentence story. Some were illegal, some were funny, and almost all of them resorted in a good time. You rolled the dice to see if one of three things happened to your playing piece. You could get completely away with whatever the card said and move a large number of spaces, you could just barely get away and only move one space or you could get busted and have to move backwards.

I had many of these cards written out and spread out on tabled during my review. At that about sixty cards at that time. I remember two young female professors that I had had several times just pouring over the cards and having a lot of fun looking at everything on each card. I remember the former head of my department suggesting that I should see about the new 3D printer the department had just gotten but no one had used for any projects yet. I had been a student in the class of every one of the professors in the room (at least once) except for the current department head. Since I knew the other’s tastes and had presented work to the others before I was still nervous but less of them because I knew them at least a little. I knew very little about the department head and that scared me.

The best memory of that review was when he was looking at the cards. When he was scanning everything that was on the cards he complimented me. He commended me on being about to think of ideas and situations that where fitting to teens and young adults today. My graphic design professor had been standing behind me and I almost lose my composure when I heard him lose his under his breathe. That’s right, Dave! I hear that little laugh under your breath. ;-)

Wedding Ceremony Finished

Well tonight I am happy.
Today with less then 10 days to spare I have finished. writing the wedding ceremony for the wedding I am officiating at the end of the month. I had everything all written for quite a long time except for the opening remarks in the beginning. You know, that part where I am supposed to talk about love, marriage and all that jazz. I've had what I wanted to say for weeks but I was having trouble getting it down on paper the way I wanted it. Now I have it and I couldn't be happier. I actually have two versions to chose from. I have one version that only goes on for about four minutes and another that goes on for adds another two minutes in the middle. I don't know which I like better yet but it will most likely be the short one. I would post them on this blog but I don't was to spoil it for the bride and groom.

Strengthening the vision?

Okay so the vision is supposed to be: ~somewhat~ Working with children. In working with children they find a strong happy place inside themselves and in those around them. As they grow, they grow up strong and confident. If they get lost or scared they feel a connection to the Lord because in those times is where they learned this strength.

I do not want them to remember who taught them this lesson. Remembering me is not something I want. What I want them to remember is feeling safe and confident inside the walls of the church. This way when something inevitably bad happens in their lives that throws them off their balance they will remember where to find safety and confidence instead of going down a path of self destruction.

In the vision casting books, I am currently reading; they tell me that sometimes things come up in life that look like they are stepping stones to our visions but they are actually things that help us put them off. That is not what I want to do. I have been at jobs before, like the day care that zapped all the self esteem out of me. I was broken, beaten and literally bleeding everyday when I left that place. I had very little self worth. What kept me going then were two things: the first was that I know if I did not come in there were certain times of the day where I was the only standing in the way from some of those children and the other children that would physically harm them and second was that I was going to Youth Connection in Bloom. Even with everything that was happening at the day care, all the things my boss said and accused me of, I never full on cried.

On Friday at the post office, I sunk into a corner and I cried. I broke down. That to me feels like it will hurt my vision more then what I want to do. How am I to help children, teach the to feel safe and secure in situations when suddenly I am in a corner baling my eyes out? (I cried at the church a few months ago when something happened there too). If I am not feeling safe in these places how can I lie, and teach these kids to be?

Currently, it's the off season for children's ministry at church so I am at a bit of a stand still with that anyway. I think as I pray, reflect and plan on the children part of my plan I need to do something else too. I have to make a new active effort to get a new job outside of the postal service (hopefully in my field). If I don't feel safe and confident, I can't teach others to be right? God doesn't want us to stay in places that cause us harm right? Is this putting off my vision or is this going to strength it? If I have more confidence in one area of my life, like my job, that would translate into other areas as well, like my ministry, right?