O:9:"MagpieRSS":19:{s:6:"parser";i:0;s:12:"current_item";a:0:{}s:5:"items";a:10:{i:0;a:12:{s:5:"title";s:55:"What do you call that thing that’s not a coincidence?";s:4:"link";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=233";s:8:"comments";s:46:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=233#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:19:42 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:7:"Kristin";}s:8:"category";s:71:"Belief, doubt &amp; hopecoincidencefriendshipGodmysteriouspay attention";s:4:"guid";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=233";s:11:"description";s:324:"
Photo by Gaetan Lee
Yesterday afternoon, I set out on foot to take care of some errands, wanting to soak in the sunshine and relative warmth.
As I walked, my mind wandered, as it is prone to do anyway, and even more so when I&#8217;m walking. I must have subconsciously recognized a small aching emptiness in me—one [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:6249:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/193227170_2f7ce35a61.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-234" title="193227170_2f7ce35a61" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/193227170_2f7ce35a61.jpg" alt="" width="459" height="345" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 330px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/gaetanlee/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Gaetan Lee</a></h5>
<p>Yesterday afternoon, I set out on foot to take care of some errands, wanting to soak in the sunshine and relative warmth.</p>
<p>As I walked, my mind wandered, as it is prone to do anyway, and even more so when I&#8217;m walking. I must have subconsciously recognized a small aching emptiness in me—one that I identify with my need for female companionship—because I started thinking about my friend Susan. I thought how nice it would be to sit down with her and talk. I even wondered if I should walk by her house on my way home from the post office and bank.</p>
<p>Not two minutes later, about five blocks from my house,  I turned the corner and there was Susan. She was less than half a block away, walking straight towards me, pushing her one-year-old twins in their stroller through the slush.</p>
<p>I was so surprised, that it took me a few seconds to realize it was actually her. It took her a few seconds to recognize me, too, mostly because she was lost in thought, distressed about some news she had just received. We were both heading downtown, so we started walking together, Susan venting, me listening (and the babies doing that great thing babies tend to do in strollers: sitting and staring).</p>
<p>It suddenly occurred to me: <strong>Meeting Susan on that block, at that moment, when we both needed one another, simply couldn&#8217;t have been a coincidence.</strong></p>
<h4>Why do these non-coincidences happen?</h4>
<p>Lots of people have experiences like this. It seems we&#8217;re simultaneously awe-struck and a little freaked out when we reflect on something perfect that happened, but could so easily have gone a different way. Sometimes it&#8217;s a small gift, like running into a friend at the moment you most need one.</p>
<p>Other times it&#8217;s a bigger message delivered at a bigger moment. A friend of mine was in Costa Rica about a year ago when he found out his mother had died. As he was walking the beach with his wife and son, processing his grief, he was compelled to walk toward the water&#8217;s edge, pause, and pick up a very ordinary-looking twig. On it, in blue ball point pen, someone had written—in English, mind you—&#8221;There is no love greater than a mother&#8217;s love for her child.&#8221;</p>
<p>Why was that stick there, on that deserted beach? Why was he there? And why did he see it, and bend down to pick it up?</p>
<p>OK, let&#8217;s pause here. Are any of you starting to feel a tiny bit nervous? Like any second I&#8217;m going to start talking about angels or destiny or something?</p>
<p>You can relax. <strong>I really don&#8217;t know what to think of these stories, or what to call that &#8220;thing&#8221; that mysteriously happens in our lives from time to time.</strong></p>
<p>All I can do is review the few things I do and don&#8217;t know about these moments, and see if any of you have thoughts and ideas to add to the mix.</p>
<h4>What I know:</h4>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- In case you were wondering, I do happen have more than one friend in town. For some reason, at that moment, I was thinking about Susan (who happens to be someone I only get to see once a month or so).</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- There are numerous routes I can take from my house to the business district, about 10 blocks away. There are many routes Susan could take from her house to the bakery, where she was headed. There are many hours in a day, when we each could have set out on our errands. I could have easily decided I had too much work to do, and Susan could have decided it was too much trouble to bundle her babies up for an outing.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- <strong>Clearly, I believe there&#8217;s something bigger going on—it&#8217;s not luck or coincidence doing its random work in our lives.</strong> You can point to &#8220;the stars&#8221; or thank &#8220;the gods&#8221; or call it &#8220;serendipity,&#8221; but something seems to orchestrate these moments in our lives, from time to time. I happen to think it&#8217;s God with a capital G, so that&#8217;s how I&#8217;ll reference it. If that makes you uncomfortable, feel free to swap in something else. I don&#8217;t want to lose anyone in the conversation.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- Even though he could, God doesn&#8217;t make us do certain things, or make us walk in certain directions. In other words, I don&#8217;t believe this life is one big puppet show.</p>
<h4>What I don&#8217;t know (well, there&#8217;s plenty, but here&#8217;s a taste):</h4>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- If God is in the business of making our paths cross with friends, and strategically placing message-delivering twigs, how does he decide when to make something like that happen, and when to not bother?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- <strong>How are we supposed to feel about a God that steps in and takes care of things so perfectly at some moments, but seems to leave us hanging at others?</strong> Or about a God who seems to disproportionately make poetic things happen for some people more than others?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- Do we have a role in ushering in these moments? Is it possible that moments like these are always on the brink of happening, and we just need to be awake and respectful of the nudgings? Could it be our responsibility to be open, and pay attention?</p>
<p><strong>That&#8217;s all I&#8217;ve got right now. Which is why I really need you to chime in. What do <em>you</em> think?</strong></p>
<h5>For more posts on similar topics, see:</h5>
<h5><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=200" >Striving to be less intentional in 2009</a></h5>
<h5><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=28" >An endless trail of crumbs</a></h5>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:47:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?feed=rss2&p=233";}s:7:"summary";s:324:"
Photo by Gaetan Lee
Yesterday afternoon, I set out on foot to take care of some errands, wanting to soak in the sunshine and relative warmth.
As I walked, my mind wandered, as it is prone to do anyway, and even more so when I&#8217;m walking. I must have subconsciously recognized a small aching emptiness in me—one [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:6249:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/193227170_2f7ce35a61.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-234" title="193227170_2f7ce35a61" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/193227170_2f7ce35a61.jpg" alt="" width="459" height="345" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 330px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/gaetanlee/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Gaetan Lee</a></h5>
<p>Yesterday afternoon, I set out on foot to take care of some errands, wanting to soak in the sunshine and relative warmth.</p>
<p>As I walked, my mind wandered, as it is prone to do anyway, and even more so when I&#8217;m walking. I must have subconsciously recognized a small aching emptiness in me—one that I identify with my need for female companionship—because I started thinking about my friend Susan. I thought how nice it would be to sit down with her and talk. I even wondered if I should walk by her house on my way home from the post office and bank.</p>
<p>Not two minutes later, about five blocks from my house,  I turned the corner and there was Susan. She was less than half a block away, walking straight towards me, pushing her one-year-old twins in their stroller through the slush.</p>
<p>I was so surprised, that it took me a few seconds to realize it was actually her. It took her a few seconds to recognize me, too, mostly because she was lost in thought, distressed about some news she had just received. We were both heading downtown, so we started walking together, Susan venting, me listening (and the babies doing that great thing babies tend to do in strollers: sitting and staring).</p>
<p>It suddenly occurred to me: <strong>Meeting Susan on that block, at that moment, when we both needed one another, simply couldn&#8217;t have been a coincidence.</strong></p>
<h4>Why do these non-coincidences happen?</h4>
<p>Lots of people have experiences like this. It seems we&#8217;re simultaneously awe-struck and a little freaked out when we reflect on something perfect that happened, but could so easily have gone a different way. Sometimes it&#8217;s a small gift, like running into a friend at the moment you most need one.</p>
<p>Other times it&#8217;s a bigger message delivered at a bigger moment. A friend of mine was in Costa Rica about a year ago when he found out his mother had died. As he was walking the beach with his wife and son, processing his grief, he was compelled to walk toward the water&#8217;s edge, pause, and pick up a very ordinary-looking twig. On it, in blue ball point pen, someone had written—in English, mind you—&#8221;There is no love greater than a mother&#8217;s love for her child.&#8221;</p>
<p>Why was that stick there, on that deserted beach? Why was he there? And why did he see it, and bend down to pick it up?</p>
<p>OK, let&#8217;s pause here. Are any of you starting to feel a tiny bit nervous? Like any second I&#8217;m going to start talking about angels or destiny or something?</p>
<p>You can relax. <strong>I really don&#8217;t know what to think of these stories, or what to call that &#8220;thing&#8221; that mysteriously happens in our lives from time to time.</strong></p>
<p>All I can do is review the few things I do and don&#8217;t know about these moments, and see if any of you have thoughts and ideas to add to the mix.</p>
<h4>What I know:</h4>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- In case you were wondering, I do happen have more than one friend in town. For some reason, at that moment, I was thinking about Susan (who happens to be someone I only get to see once a month or so).</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- There are numerous routes I can take from my house to the business district, about 10 blocks away. There are many routes Susan could take from her house to the bakery, where she was headed. There are many hours in a day, when we each could have set out on our errands. I could have easily decided I had too much work to do, and Susan could have decided it was too much trouble to bundle her babies up for an outing.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- <strong>Clearly, I believe there&#8217;s something bigger going on—it&#8217;s not luck or coincidence doing its random work in our lives.</strong> You can point to &#8220;the stars&#8221; or thank &#8220;the gods&#8221; or call it &#8220;serendipity,&#8221; but something seems to orchestrate these moments in our lives, from time to time. I happen to think it&#8217;s God with a capital G, so that&#8217;s how I&#8217;ll reference it. If that makes you uncomfortable, feel free to swap in something else. I don&#8217;t want to lose anyone in the conversation.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- Even though he could, God doesn&#8217;t make us do certain things, or make us walk in certain directions. In other words, I don&#8217;t believe this life is one big puppet show.</p>
<h4>What I don&#8217;t know (well, there&#8217;s plenty, but here&#8217;s a taste):</h4>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- If God is in the business of making our paths cross with friends, and strategically placing message-delivering twigs, how does he decide when to make something like that happen, and when to not bother?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- <strong>How are we supposed to feel about a God that steps in and takes care of things so perfectly at some moments, but seems to leave us hanging at others?</strong> Or about a God who seems to disproportionately make poetic things happen for some people more than others?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- Do we have a role in ushering in these moments? Is it possible that moments like these are always on the brink of happening, and we just need to be awake and respectful of the nudgings? Could it be our responsibility to be open, and pay attention?</p>
<p><strong>That&#8217;s all I&#8217;ve got right now. Which is why I really need you to chime in. What do <em>you</em> think?</strong></p>
<h5>For more posts on similar topics, see:</h5>
<h5><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=200" >Striving to be less intentional in 2009</a></h5>
<h5><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=28" >An endless trail of crumbs</a></h5>
";}i:1;a:12:{s:5:"title";s:36:"I want to hold your hand (so sue me)";s:4:"link";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=231";s:8:"comments";s:46:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=231#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:11:16 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:7:"Kristin";}s:8:"category";s:119:"Love, family &amp; communityaffectionBarack Obamachildrenconnectedgrowing-uphand-holdinglocal newslovemarriagereassured";s:4:"guid";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=231";s:11:"description";s:351:"
Photo by Katie Tegtmeyer
Jason managed to get his hands on a &#8220;keepsake&#8221; copy of The New York Times yesterday. When you think of all the powerful inauguration day images the Times had at their disposal, it&#8217;s interesting to see the photo they chose to feature, front and center.
I absolutely LOVE it.
The first thing you notice, [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:6581:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/73056234_80b6273d38.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-232" title="73056234_80b6273d38" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/73056234_80b6273d38.jpg" alt="" width="433" height="293" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 270px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/katietegtmeyer/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Katie Tegtmeyer</a></h5>
<p>Jason managed to get his hands on a &#8220;keepsake&#8221; copy of <em>The New York Times</em> yesterday. When you think of all the powerful inauguration day images the <em>Times</em> had at their disposal, it&#8217;s interesting to see <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/politics/21inaug.html" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.nytimes.com');">the photo</a> they chose to feature, front and center.</p>
<p>I absolutely LOVE it.</p>
<p>The first thing you notice, of course, is the expressions on the faces of Michelle and Barack—particularly how they look in contrast to the serious, grim, white faces around them. (I realize the Obamas have reason to smile, and the secret service people have reason to be serious. It&#8217;s still a nice contrast.)</p>
<p><strong>But my eyes were quickly drawn to what I love best about the photo: the Obamas&#8217; gloved, clasped hands.</strong></p>
<p>Check it out. Olive green and black leather, firmly intertwined. And the way Michelle&#8217;s left hand reaches over to hug the arm of the hand she&#8217;s holding, just for emphasis? *Blissful sigh*</p>
<p>It&#8217;s like a fairy tale to think that our President and First Lady might actually <em>be</em> as in love as they appear to be. They might even inspire a national renewal of loving marriages and affectionate acts—of gazes that take the time to lock, and of whispered words that inspire a smile.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s also something else I love about this photo of the Obamas. I look at it and I think <em>I know what that feels like.</em></p>
<p>No, I don&#8217;t know what it feels like to be the stars of the Presidential Inaugural Day Parade, or to have thousands upon thousands of adoring fans clapping and yelling and even crying as I walk by.</p>
<p><strong>But I <em>do</em> know what it feels like to hold the hand of someone I love—to feel that reassuring pressure that says you&#8217;re all right, everything&#8217;s all right, we&#8217;re in this together.</strong> I know what it feels like to be so in love that you need to be physically connected; and then even after you are, it doesn&#8217;t quite express how you feel, so you hug the arm of the hand your holding, too.</p>
<h4>Mission #1: Converting my man to a hand-holder</h4>
<p>When Jason and I met, he actually had an aversion to holding hands. Let me be clear: Jason is the warmest, most affectionate husband and father around. Remember, he came from the womb of the longest-hugging-mother ever. (You can <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=225" >read about her here</a>.)</p>
<p><span id="more-231"></span></p>
<p>There was something about hand-holding in public, though, that felt uncomfortable to him. It seems to stem from the fact that the woman he dated for a few years before meeting me was anti-hand-holding, in a big way. He was conditioned to think it was silly, so I&#8217;ve had to gradually reverse those effects.</p>
<p><strong>Like the best minor relationship struggles, our hand-holding issue became an inside joke for us. </strong>Once, early in our relationship, when Jason was trying to explain how he felt about hand-holding, he said it would be different if we were traveling and didn&#8217;t know anyone. &#8220;I&#8217;d be happy to hold your hand in Manhattan,&#8221; he explained. (As he recalls, my dry response was &#8220;Don&#8217;t do me any favors.&#8221;)</p>
<p>Now Jason is mostly over this problem, but we&#8217;re still sharing a secret, in a small way, when we hold hands. That&#8217;s why it was extra funny that we ended up holding hands on the local news last week. We actually grabbed hands and started rather exuberantly swinging our arms when we noticed the camera, not thinking the clip would actually be used.</p>
<p><em>(It&#8217;s really not worth watching, but if you must, you can check out <a href="http://www.wicd15.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wicd_vid_44.shtml" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.wicd15.com');">this clip</a>. We&#8217;re crossing the street together, about halfway through, and then I&#8217;m interviewed about how cool it is that our town is getting Zipcars.)</em></p>
<p>It&#8217;s not like we hold hands all the time when we walk. Usually, we don&#8217;t. And, in general, I&#8217;m not a huge fan of public displays of affection. There are certain forms that are clearly over the top.</p>
<p>It never seems to fail, when I&#8217;m working on my computer at a cafe, that some long-lost pair of lovers (who in reality have probably been apart for all of three or four hours) is reunited, mere inches from my elbow. I live in a hormone-raging university town. This kind of thing happens a lot.</p>
<p>But there&#8217;s definitely something special about hand-holding.</p>
<h4>Remembering what it&#8217;s like to be a child</h4>
<p>When I look at the picture of Michelle and Barack, and I think about my own strong desire, at certain moments, to hold my husband&#8217;s hand, it makes me wonder what exactly is at the heart of that impulse.</p>
<p>As is often the case, my children trigger the light bulb in my mind and point me to the truth.</p>
<p><strong>We never forget, it seems, what it was like to feel small and lost in such a big, confusing world. We never lose that deep urge to feel physically connected to someone who loves and accepts us, and is looking out for our best interests.</strong></p>
<p>It&#8217;s something we never grow out of, even as we grow up, and maybe grow out of hand-holding for a while, then begin to see it as a romantic expression. I think as adults, every time we hold a hand we&#8217;re brought back to that same emotional place.</p>
<p>This tweet, which I wrote at 3:15 p.m. on January 16, after walking my girls home from school, seems the perfect closing image:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="entry-content">my kids are growing up so fast. I&#8217;m very glad to at least have one who still automatically reaches for my hand when we walk together.</span></em></p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:47:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?feed=rss2&p=231";}s:7:"summary";s:351:"
Photo by Katie Tegtmeyer
Jason managed to get his hands on a &#8220;keepsake&#8221; copy of The New York Times yesterday. When you think of all the powerful inauguration day images the Times had at their disposal, it&#8217;s interesting to see the photo they chose to feature, front and center.
I absolutely LOVE it.
The first thing you notice, [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:6581:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/73056234_80b6273d38.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-232" title="73056234_80b6273d38" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/73056234_80b6273d38.jpg" alt="" width="433" height="293" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 270px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/katietegtmeyer/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Katie Tegtmeyer</a></h5>
<p>Jason managed to get his hands on a &#8220;keepsake&#8221; copy of <em>The New York Times</em> yesterday. When you think of all the powerful inauguration day images the <em>Times</em> had at their disposal, it&#8217;s interesting to see <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/us/politics/21inaug.html" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.nytimes.com');">the photo</a> they chose to feature, front and center.</p>
<p>I absolutely LOVE it.</p>
<p>The first thing you notice, of course, is the expressions on the faces of Michelle and Barack—particularly how they look in contrast to the serious, grim, white faces around them. (I realize the Obamas have reason to smile, and the secret service people have reason to be serious. It&#8217;s still a nice contrast.)</p>
<p><strong>But my eyes were quickly drawn to what I love best about the photo: the Obamas&#8217; gloved, clasped hands.</strong></p>
<p>Check it out. Olive green and black leather, firmly intertwined. And the way Michelle&#8217;s left hand reaches over to hug the arm of the hand she&#8217;s holding, just for emphasis? *Blissful sigh*</p>
<p>It&#8217;s like a fairy tale to think that our President and First Lady might actually <em>be</em> as in love as they appear to be. They might even inspire a national renewal of loving marriages and affectionate acts—of gazes that take the time to lock, and of whispered words that inspire a smile.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s also something else I love about this photo of the Obamas. I look at it and I think <em>I know what that feels like.</em></p>
<p>No, I don&#8217;t know what it feels like to be the stars of the Presidential Inaugural Day Parade, or to have thousands upon thousands of adoring fans clapping and yelling and even crying as I walk by.</p>
<p><strong>But I <em>do</em> know what it feels like to hold the hand of someone I love—to feel that reassuring pressure that says you&#8217;re all right, everything&#8217;s all right, we&#8217;re in this together.</strong> I know what it feels like to be so in love that you need to be physically connected; and then even after you are, it doesn&#8217;t quite express how you feel, so you hug the arm of the hand your holding, too.</p>
<h4>Mission #1: Converting my man to a hand-holder</h4>
<p>When Jason and I met, he actually had an aversion to holding hands. Let me be clear: Jason is the warmest, most affectionate husband and father around. Remember, he came from the womb of the longest-hugging-mother ever. (You can <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=225" >read about her here</a>.)</p>
<p><span id="more-231"></span></p>
<p>There was something about hand-holding in public, though, that felt uncomfortable to him. It seems to stem from the fact that the woman he dated for a few years before meeting me was anti-hand-holding, in a big way. He was conditioned to think it was silly, so I&#8217;ve had to gradually reverse those effects.</p>
<p><strong>Like the best minor relationship struggles, our hand-holding issue became an inside joke for us. </strong>Once, early in our relationship, when Jason was trying to explain how he felt about hand-holding, he said it would be different if we were traveling and didn&#8217;t know anyone. &#8220;I&#8217;d be happy to hold your hand in Manhattan,&#8221; he explained. (As he recalls, my dry response was &#8220;Don&#8217;t do me any favors.&#8221;)</p>
<p>Now Jason is mostly over this problem, but we&#8217;re still sharing a secret, in a small way, when we hold hands. That&#8217;s why it was extra funny that we ended up holding hands on the local news last week. We actually grabbed hands and started rather exuberantly swinging our arms when we noticed the camera, not thinking the clip would actually be used.</p>
<p><em>(It&#8217;s really not worth watching, but if you must, you can check out <a href="http://www.wicd15.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wicd_vid_44.shtml" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.wicd15.com');">this clip</a>. We&#8217;re crossing the street together, about halfway through, and then I&#8217;m interviewed about how cool it is that our town is getting Zipcars.)</em></p>
<p>It&#8217;s not like we hold hands all the time when we walk. Usually, we don&#8217;t. And, in general, I&#8217;m not a huge fan of public displays of affection. There are certain forms that are clearly over the top.</p>
<p>It never seems to fail, when I&#8217;m working on my computer at a cafe, that some long-lost pair of lovers (who in reality have probably been apart for all of three or four hours) is reunited, mere inches from my elbow. I live in a hormone-raging university town. This kind of thing happens a lot.</p>
<p>But there&#8217;s definitely something special about hand-holding.</p>
<h4>Remembering what it&#8217;s like to be a child</h4>
<p>When I look at the picture of Michelle and Barack, and I think about my own strong desire, at certain moments, to hold my husband&#8217;s hand, it makes me wonder what exactly is at the heart of that impulse.</p>
<p>As is often the case, my children trigger the light bulb in my mind and point me to the truth.</p>
<p><strong>We never forget, it seems, what it was like to feel small and lost in such a big, confusing world. We never lose that deep urge to feel physically connected to someone who loves and accepts us, and is looking out for our best interests.</strong></p>
<p>It&#8217;s something we never grow out of, even as we grow up, and maybe grow out of hand-holding for a while, then begin to see it as a romantic expression. I think as adults, every time we hold a hand we&#8217;re brought back to that same emotional place.</p>
<p>This tweet, which I wrote at 3:15 p.m. on January 16, after walking my girls home from school, seems the perfect closing image:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="entry-content">my kids are growing up so fast. I&#8217;m very glad to at least have one who still automatically reaches for my hand when we walk together.</span></em></p>
";}i:2;a:12:{s:5:"title";s:42:"Why I couldn’t be alone inauguration day";s:4:"link";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=229";s:8:"comments";s:46:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=229#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:04:00 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:7:"Kristin";}s:8:"category";s:101:"Culture, ideas &amp; paradigmsaloneBarack Obamaexhaleextrovertfreelancegatherinaugurationpanictwitter";s:4:"guid";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=229";s:11:"description";s:350:"
Photo by calculat0r
I was really surprised to realize, at about 10 this morning, that I couldn&#8217;t bear to be alone today.
I&#8217;ve written about being alone before. I&#8217;m an extrovert who has gotten pretty good at being alone these last several years. First I took the plunge into freelance writing, which meant working every day in [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:5159:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/3213300392_bb2911064e.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-230" title="3213300392_bb2911064e" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/3213300392_bb2911064e.jpg" alt="" width="349" height="466" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 210px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/calculat0r/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">calculat0r</a></h5>
<p>I was really surprised to realize, at about 10 this morning, that I couldn&#8217;t bear to be alone today.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve written about being alone before. I&#8217;m an extrovert who has gotten pretty good at being alone these last several years. First I took the plunge into freelance writing, which meant working every day in isolation, away from the office interactions I was used to. Then I became a single mom, which translated to many evenings at home alone, after my girls were tucked in.</p>
<p>This morning, I was happy to send the girls off to school (for the first time since last Wednesday, I might add, to give you a sense of just <em>how</em> happy I was). After I kissed Jason goodbye, I was perfectly content to settle down at my computer in the sunny dining room, with the radio tuned to NPR so I could follow the inauguration happenings while I worked.</p>
<p>At about 8:30, I Tweeted this (<a href="http://twitter.com/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/twitter.com');">what&#8217;s a tweet</a>, you ask?):</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="entry-content">feeling SO good. the girls are in school for the 1st time since last Wed., the sun is shining, and what&#8217;s-his-name is on his way out.</span></em></p>
<p>Not surprisingly, it&#8217;s right when you think you have something <em>down</em> that you&#8217;re thrown off. For some reason, it didn&#8217;t occur to me that I wouldn&#8217;t want—no, wouldn&#8217;t be <em>able</em>—to experience the inauguration festivities alone.</p>
<h4>Panic sets in</h4>
<p>As I listened to the reporters do their play-by-play I got restless. And fidgety. To be honest, I almost panicked, as I realized that I. Could. Not. Witness. This. Historic. Moment. Alone. Period.</p>
<p>Especially without a TV (I&#8217;ll explain that some other time).</p>
<p>At approximately 10:30 CST, I Tweeted this:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="entry-content">I feel so excited and antsy and far too alone. this is when working at home sucks. have to go find someplace with people. and a TV. </span></em></p>
<p><span class="entry-content">And then, a few minutes later, this:</span><em><span class="entry-content"> </span></em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="entry-content">OK. can&#8217;t be alone any more. J just called&#8211;I&#8217;m getting in the car now to meet him so we can experience this together.</span></em></p>
<p>As I raced across town (where I live, &#8220;across town&#8221; translates to about an eight-minute drive) I listened to Rick Warren&#8217;s invocation in the car. He was reciting the Lord&#8217;s Prayer as I tried to refrain from muttering obscenities under my breath about the driver in front of me.</p>
<p><span id="more-229"></span></p>
<p>As I parked, I heard Joe Biden being sworn in. I walked into our friend&#8217;s living room, where Jason was waiting, just in time to hear Aretha Franklin sing America the Beautiful, as only she could, wearing a hat only she could pull off.</p>
<p>I sat next to Jason and gripped his hand as we listened to Obama take his oath and give his speech.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="entry-content">finally with people and a TV, feeling overwhelmingly full, tingly, awe-struck. it&#8217;s done. unbelievable. no words.</span></em></p>
<p><span class="entry-content">Well, no words except these, that suddenly crossed my mind as Bush and Cheney left the scene: </span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="entry-content"><em>that big wind you just felt? that was the world exhaling.</em></span></p>
<h4>The collective exhale</h4>
<p>There were so many reasons, in that moment, to exhale. Not just to exhale, but to exhale together, in unison. As Obama said in his inaugural speech:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.</em></p>
<p><em>We gather.</em> Yes. The first, most important thing we must do, starting today, is gather together, or as Rev. Joseph Lowery said in his benediction, <em><span class="entry-content">to turn </span></em><span class="entry-content">to</span><em><span class="entry-content"> each other, not on each other. </span></em><span class="entry-content">Amen. So let it be.<br />
</span></p>
<h5>For more posts about the election of Barack Obama, see:</h5>
<h5><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=133" >Old baggage and new beginnings on election eve</a></h5>
<h5><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=135" >What will our kids remember about election day?</a></h5>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:47:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?feed=rss2&p=229";}s:7:"summary";s:350:"
Photo by calculat0r
I was really surprised to realize, at about 10 this morning, that I couldn&#8217;t bear to be alone today.
I&#8217;ve written about being alone before. I&#8217;m an extrovert who has gotten pretty good at being alone these last several years. First I took the plunge into freelance writing, which meant working every day in [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:5159:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/3213300392_bb2911064e.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-230" title="3213300392_bb2911064e" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/3213300392_bb2911064e.jpg" alt="" width="349" height="466" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 210px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/calculat0r/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">calculat0r</a></h5>
<p>I was really surprised to realize, at about 10 this morning, that I couldn&#8217;t bear to be alone today.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve written about being alone before. I&#8217;m an extrovert who has gotten pretty good at being alone these last several years. First I took the plunge into freelance writing, which meant working every day in isolation, away from the office interactions I was used to. Then I became a single mom, which translated to many evenings at home alone, after my girls were tucked in.</p>
<p>This morning, I was happy to send the girls off to school (for the first time since last Wednesday, I might add, to give you a sense of just <em>how</em> happy I was). After I kissed Jason goodbye, I was perfectly content to settle down at my computer in the sunny dining room, with the radio tuned to NPR so I could follow the inauguration happenings while I worked.</p>
<p>At about 8:30, I Tweeted this (<a href="http://twitter.com/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/twitter.com');">what&#8217;s a tweet</a>, you ask?):</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="entry-content">feeling SO good. the girls are in school for the 1st time since last Wed., the sun is shining, and what&#8217;s-his-name is on his way out.</span></em></p>
<p>Not surprisingly, it&#8217;s right when you think you have something <em>down</em> that you&#8217;re thrown off. For some reason, it didn&#8217;t occur to me that I wouldn&#8217;t want—no, wouldn&#8217;t be <em>able</em>—to experience the inauguration festivities alone.</p>
<h4>Panic sets in</h4>
<p>As I listened to the reporters do their play-by-play I got restless. And fidgety. To be honest, I almost panicked, as I realized that I. Could. Not. Witness. This. Historic. Moment. Alone. Period.</p>
<p>Especially without a TV (I&#8217;ll explain that some other time).</p>
<p>At approximately 10:30 CST, I Tweeted this:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="entry-content">I feel so excited and antsy and far too alone. this is when working at home sucks. have to go find someplace with people. and a TV. </span></em></p>
<p><span class="entry-content">And then, a few minutes later, this:</span><em><span class="entry-content"> </span></em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="entry-content">OK. can&#8217;t be alone any more. J just called&#8211;I&#8217;m getting in the car now to meet him so we can experience this together.</span></em></p>
<p>As I raced across town (where I live, &#8220;across town&#8221; translates to about an eight-minute drive) I listened to Rick Warren&#8217;s invocation in the car. He was reciting the Lord&#8217;s Prayer as I tried to refrain from muttering obscenities under my breath about the driver in front of me.</p>
<p><span id="more-229"></span></p>
<p>As I parked, I heard Joe Biden being sworn in. I walked into our friend&#8217;s living room, where Jason was waiting, just in time to hear Aretha Franklin sing America the Beautiful, as only she could, wearing a hat only she could pull off.</p>
<p>I sat next to Jason and gripped his hand as we listened to Obama take his oath and give his speech.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><span class="entry-content">finally with people and a TV, feeling overwhelmingly full, tingly, awe-struck. it&#8217;s done. unbelievable. no words.</span></em></p>
<p><span class="entry-content">Well, no words except these, that suddenly crossed my mind as Bush and Cheney left the scene: </span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span class="entry-content"><em>that big wind you just felt? that was the world exhaling.</em></span></p>
<h4>The collective exhale</h4>
<p>There were so many reasons, in that moment, to exhale. Not just to exhale, but to exhale together, in unison. As Obama said in his inaugural speech:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.</em></p>
<p><em>We gather.</em> Yes. The first, most important thing we must do, starting today, is gather together, or as Rev. Joseph Lowery said in his benediction, <em><span class="entry-content">to turn </span></em><span class="entry-content">to</span><em><span class="entry-content"> each other, not on each other. </span></em><span class="entry-content">Amen. So let it be.<br />
</span></p>
<h5>For more posts about the election of Barack Obama, see:</h5>
<h5><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=133" >Old baggage and new beginnings on election eve</a></h5>
<h5><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=135" >What will our kids remember about election day?</a></h5>
";}i:3;a:12:{s:5:"title";s:40:"How Frankie Jean left Cali & became Mary";s:4:"link";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=225";s:8:"comments";s:46:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=225#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:19:01 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:7:"Kristin";}s:8:"category";s:131:"Love, family &amp; communityacceptanceangrychicagofamilyfreedomHell's Angelsinspirationmessymother-in-lawrebellionrunawayunexpected";s:4:"guid";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=225";s:11:"description";s:354:"
Photo by Clairity
If you&#8217;ve spent much time here, you&#8217;ve probably noticed that this blog is basically a laundry list of things I didn&#8217;t expect in my life. Luckily all of those things are woven with stories, which is probably what makes the blog worth reading.
Anyway, here&#8217;s something I must add to the list: I didn&#8217;t [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:6388:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/119758983_f37608e4f5.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-226" title="119758983_f37608e4f5" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/119758983_f37608e4f5.jpg" alt="" width="396" height="376" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 270px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/clairity/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Clairity</a></h5>
<p>If you&#8217;ve spent much time here, you&#8217;ve probably noticed that this blog is basically a laundry list of things I didn&#8217;t expect in my life. Luckily all of those things are woven with stories, which is probably what makes the blog worth reading.</p>
<p>Anyway, here&#8217;s something I <em>must</em> add to the list: I didn&#8217;t expect to ever know a former teenage runaway who was eventually taken in by the Hell&#8217;s Angels. I <em>certainly</em> didn&#8217;t expect such a person to be my mother-in-law.</p>
<p>See? I <em>told</em> you in my <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=223" >previous post </a>that my mother-in-law is one-of-a-kind. You thought I just meant she was a talented artist, or she baked amazing cakes, didn&#8217;t you? No, her story is a whole lot more interesting than that.</p>
<h4>How a girl named Frankie Jean became Mary</h4>
<p>I&#8217;ll kick the narrative off by saying that my mother-in-law was not given the name &#8220;Mary&#8221; by her parents, when she was born in Northern California in the 1950s. She was given the name Frankie Jean.</p>
<p>I know—I would change that name as fast as I could, too. But Mary didn&#8217;t change it. The Hell&#8217;s Angels gave her the name Mary when they took her under their wing (nice eh? Angels and wings). They also got her a new social security card, and she&#8217;s been Mary ever since.</p>
<p>Mary had good reason to persist in her efforts to run away from home. She tried several times before she finally succeeded. She is nothing if not determined.</p>
<p>Eventually, she arrived in Chicago and decided to stay awhile. She was spare changing on the street when she met Tim, my father-in-law. He was handing out fliers to an event organized by <a href="http://www.areachicago.org/p/issues/6808/rising-angry/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.areachicago.org');">Rising Up Angry</a>. I don&#8217;t know if Mary thought Tim looked extra fine, or if she just knew she was angry and might as well meet some other angry people. Whatever the inspiration, she went to the event, saw Tim there, and the rest is history, as they say.</p>
<p><span id="more-225"></span></p>
<h4>My husband: a product of sweet rebellion</h4>
<p>Tim has an interesting story in his own right. He grew up in one of Chicago&#8217;s most affluent north suburbs, and went to what&#8217;s still considered one of the best public high schools in the country. About a month before he graduated in 1970, the Kent State shootings happened, and Tim dropped out of school. He couldn&#8217;t see the point of having a degree when everything seemed to be falling apart.</p>
<p>In some ways, I&#8217;m sure that hooking up with a spare-changing runaway was the perfect frosting for Tim&#8217;s rebellion cake, but he and Mary are still married, so there was clearly more than rebellion at work.</p>
<p>Mary&#8217;s life certainly improved after meeting Tim, but it was never easy-breezy, to say the least. They had very little money, even though they had a variety of jobs and Mary made some money arm wrestling in bars (true story).</p>
<p>While Mary&#8217;s body struggled with alcohol and drugs, her heart and mind struggled to reconcile a lot that had happened in her past. She had a baby back in California to retrieve, along with family she had to deal with. Then in 1975, she had another baby—my husband, Jason. Mary and Tim eventually got married, and later had Jason&#8217;s sister.</p>
<p>When Jason was in elementary school, Mary began working on the futures floor of the commodities market in Chicago, eventually working her way up into a career she&#8217;s had ever since. When Jason was 10, his parents were able to move their family out of a moderately dangerous Chicago neighborhood to a modest South Evanston neighborhood with good public schools. They started going to an Episcopal church, too, and Mary hasn&#8217;t had a drink for more than 20 years.</p>
<h4>Just what I needed</h4>
<p>Clearly, I don&#8217;t need to explain why I decided to tell Mary&#8217;s story. It has all the elements of a great story.</p>
<p>But it also intersects with my own story in important ways. I&#8217;m not just talking about the fact that Mary and Tim made this baby who seems to have been put on this earth just for me to spend my life with.</p>
<p>In the years leading up to <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=6" >when I met Jason</a>, in 2005, I was feeling really crappy about myself and my life. Part of me was wanting desperately to be the person everyone seemed to <em>think</em> I was: happy, put together, lucky, and just plain <em>good</em>. Another, even bigger part of me was dying to make peace with who I really was, while worrying, deep down, whether that kind of person could be loved by the people I wanted love from.</p>
<p>So can you imagine what it felt like to meet Jason, and the wonderfully loving, fun, and messed up family he came from?</p>
<p>It felt like love and complete acceptance. It felt like freedom—like nothing I could say or do, let alone anything I had ever done, could shock or upset them.</p>
<p>It also made me really believe something I was just beginning to grasp: that the difficult messes we face ultimately save us, in the end. They save us from being oppressed and silent. They save us from being mediocre and false. They save us from staying where we are simply out of fear, or lack of inspiration.</p>
<p>Which, of course, is why we have to keep telling our stories.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/p1010446.jpg" ><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-228" title="mary" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/p1010446-300x225.jpg" alt="My wonderful mother-in-law, Mary" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<h5>My wonderful mother-in-law, Mary</h5>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:47:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?feed=rss2&p=225";}s:7:"summary";s:354:"
Photo by Clairity
If you&#8217;ve spent much time here, you&#8217;ve probably noticed that this blog is basically a laundry list of things I didn&#8217;t expect in my life. Luckily all of those things are woven with stories, which is probably what makes the blog worth reading.
Anyway, here&#8217;s something I must add to the list: I didn&#8217;t [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:6388:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/119758983_f37608e4f5.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-226" title="119758983_f37608e4f5" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/119758983_f37608e4f5.jpg" alt="" width="396" height="376" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 270px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/clairity/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Clairity</a></h5>
<p>If you&#8217;ve spent much time here, you&#8217;ve probably noticed that this blog is basically a laundry list of things I didn&#8217;t expect in my life. Luckily all of those things are woven with stories, which is probably what makes the blog worth reading.</p>
<p>Anyway, here&#8217;s something I <em>must</em> add to the list: I didn&#8217;t expect to ever know a former teenage runaway who was eventually taken in by the Hell&#8217;s Angels. I <em>certainly</em> didn&#8217;t expect such a person to be my mother-in-law.</p>
<p>See? I <em>told</em> you in my <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=223" >previous post </a>that my mother-in-law is one-of-a-kind. You thought I just meant she was a talented artist, or she baked amazing cakes, didn&#8217;t you? No, her story is a whole lot more interesting than that.</p>
<h4>How a girl named Frankie Jean became Mary</h4>
<p>I&#8217;ll kick the narrative off by saying that my mother-in-law was not given the name &#8220;Mary&#8221; by her parents, when she was born in Northern California in the 1950s. She was given the name Frankie Jean.</p>
<p>I know—I would change that name as fast as I could, too. But Mary didn&#8217;t change it. The Hell&#8217;s Angels gave her the name Mary when they took her under their wing (nice eh? Angels and wings). They also got her a new social security card, and she&#8217;s been Mary ever since.</p>
<p>Mary had good reason to persist in her efforts to run away from home. She tried several times before she finally succeeded. She is nothing if not determined.</p>
<p>Eventually, she arrived in Chicago and decided to stay awhile. She was spare changing on the street when she met Tim, my father-in-law. He was handing out fliers to an event organized by <a href="http://www.areachicago.org/p/issues/6808/rising-angry/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.areachicago.org');">Rising Up Angry</a>. I don&#8217;t know if Mary thought Tim looked extra fine, or if she just knew she was angry and might as well meet some other angry people. Whatever the inspiration, she went to the event, saw Tim there, and the rest is history, as they say.</p>
<p><span id="more-225"></span></p>
<h4>My husband: a product of sweet rebellion</h4>
<p>Tim has an interesting story in his own right. He grew up in one of Chicago&#8217;s most affluent north suburbs, and went to what&#8217;s still considered one of the best public high schools in the country. About a month before he graduated in 1970, the Kent State shootings happened, and Tim dropped out of school. He couldn&#8217;t see the point of having a degree when everything seemed to be falling apart.</p>
<p>In some ways, I&#8217;m sure that hooking up with a spare-changing runaway was the perfect frosting for Tim&#8217;s rebellion cake, but he and Mary are still married, so there was clearly more than rebellion at work.</p>
<p>Mary&#8217;s life certainly improved after meeting Tim, but it was never easy-breezy, to say the least. They had very little money, even though they had a variety of jobs and Mary made some money arm wrestling in bars (true story).</p>
<p>While Mary&#8217;s body struggled with alcohol and drugs, her heart and mind struggled to reconcile a lot that had happened in her past. She had a baby back in California to retrieve, along with family she had to deal with. Then in 1975, she had another baby—my husband, Jason. Mary and Tim eventually got married, and later had Jason&#8217;s sister.</p>
<p>When Jason was in elementary school, Mary began working on the futures floor of the commodities market in Chicago, eventually working her way up into a career she&#8217;s had ever since. When Jason was 10, his parents were able to move their family out of a moderately dangerous Chicago neighborhood to a modest South Evanston neighborhood with good public schools. They started going to an Episcopal church, too, and Mary hasn&#8217;t had a drink for more than 20 years.</p>
<h4>Just what I needed</h4>
<p>Clearly, I don&#8217;t need to explain why I decided to tell Mary&#8217;s story. It has all the elements of a great story.</p>
<p>But it also intersects with my own story in important ways. I&#8217;m not just talking about the fact that Mary and Tim made this baby who seems to have been put on this earth just for me to spend my life with.</p>
<p>In the years leading up to <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=6" >when I met Jason</a>, in 2005, I was feeling really crappy about myself and my life. Part of me was wanting desperately to be the person everyone seemed to <em>think</em> I was: happy, put together, lucky, and just plain <em>good</em>. Another, even bigger part of me was dying to make peace with who I really was, while worrying, deep down, whether that kind of person could be loved by the people I wanted love from.</p>
<p>So can you imagine what it felt like to meet Jason, and the wonderfully loving, fun, and messed up family he came from?</p>
<p>It felt like love and complete acceptance. It felt like freedom—like nothing I could say or do, let alone anything I had ever done, could shock or upset them.</p>
<p>It also made me really believe something I was just beginning to grasp: that the difficult messes we face ultimately save us, in the end. They save us from being oppressed and silent. They save us from being mediocre and false. They save us from staying where we are simply out of fear, or lack of inspiration.</p>
<p>Which, of course, is why we have to keep telling our stories.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/p1010446.jpg" ><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-228" title="mary" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/p1010446-300x225.jpg" alt="My wonderful mother-in-law, Mary" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<h5>My wonderful mother-in-law, Mary</h5>
";}i:4;a:12:{s:5:"title";s:30:"MIL stereotypes seem to be MIA";s:4:"link";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=223";s:8:"comments";s:46:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=223#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:07:00 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:7:"Kristin";}s:8:"category";s:117:"Love, family &amp; communityconsequencesdivorcefamilyhugsmashupmother-in-lawnosystereotypessurveytwitterunconditional";s:4:"guid";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=223";s:11:"description";s:385:"
Photo by Smabs Sputzer
Does anyone know where the conglomerate of mother-in-law stereotypes comes from? Like was there some movie or TV show with a certain type of mother-in-law—the bossy, nosy, demanding, tiring type—and it was funny so it stuck?
Or is there really some complex chemistry inherent in our relationships with our mother-in-laws? It&#8217;s probably something [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:5190:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2751237878_66d6a13c44.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-224" title="2751237878_66d6a13c44" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2751237878_66d6a13c44.jpg" alt="" width="453" height="328" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/10413717@N08/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Smabs Sputzer</a></h5>
<p>Does anyone know where the conglomerate of mother-in-law stereotypes comes from? Like was there some movie or TV show with a certain type of mother-in-law—the bossy, nosy, demanding, tiring type—and it was funny so it stuck?</p>
<p>Or is there really some complex chemistry inherent in our relationships with our mother-in-laws? It&#8217;s probably something Freud could explain. I&#8217;m going to email my friend Nathan, who’s a grad student in clinical psych, and find out.</p>
<p>But in the meantime, I&#8217;m also conducting a highly scientific survey about mothers-in-law on <a href="https://twitter.com/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/twitter.com');">Twitter</a> (although I’m pretty sure Nathan won’t approve of my methods, which is why he’s a psych grad student and I’m not).</p>
<h4>The results are in: Most people <em>really like</em> their MILs</h4>
<p>Here&#8217;s how a handful of people on Twitter responded to my request &#8220;<span class="entry-content">I need some quick help for a blog post on mother-in-laws. what are the stereotypical adjectives/images that come to mind? are they true 4 u?&#8221;</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@wisekaren: <em>My MIL is awesome. She and I are like 2 peas in a pod! I always say Andy married his mom. ;-)</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@jenluit: <em>my mil died three years ago. she was many things, but not stereotypical. She was brazen, funny, sad, loving, and super duper talented.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span id="more-223"></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@Mrs_PJs: <em>I think nosy is a stereotype. I have to be careful what I tell mine (who I ADORE) b/c she tends to spread news quickly.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@mksteele: <em>my friend&#8217;s mother in law is the spitting image of marie barone from everybody loves raymond. critical, passive aggressive, nosey</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em></em>@rharlow: <em>sorry, I&#8217;m in the LOVE category. quick question&#8230; were all you &#8220;love&#8221; responses from guys? I have a hunch they were.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@Wordydiva: <em>I puffy heart my MIL&#8230; with glitter. I know this is not the case for all.</em></p>
<p>Either no one on Twitter dared say anything negative about their own mother-in-law, or the whole mother-in-law schtick doesn’t hold water.</p>
<h4>What makes <em>me</em> a MIL expert, you ask?</h4>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t hold water for me, and I&#8217;m sort of a mother-in-law expert (only by virtue of having had first-hand experiences with <em>two</em> MILs, as opposed to one or none).</p>
<p>There are many consequences of getting divorced and remarried that you never think of when you’re in the heart of the drama. You’re focused on dividing books and art and your best pans and knives, and worried about money and your kids, and how everyone’s going to hold up through it all.</p>
<p><strong>You don’t sit around and ponder what it will be like to lose a whole family. At least I didn&#8217;t. You certainly don&#8217;t let your mind wander down the road far enough to imagine gaining a whole new family,</strong> like I eventually did when Jason and I got married in 2007.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m thinking about all of this, because this weekend we’re heading up to Chicago to see all of Jason&#8217;s family—parents, siblings, an aunt and uncle, cousins, and even dogs (dogs-in-law?). Even though these in-laws have only technically been &#8220;mine&#8221; for about a year and a half, it seems like they&#8217;ve been my family for much longer (in a good way).</p>
<p>My father-in-law is almost a mashup of my own wonderful mom and dad. It&#8217;s a really bizarre and comforting sensation. Sometimes it makes me feel <em>a bit too much</em> like Jason and I grew up in the same house. Eeww.</p>
<p><strong>But then there&#8217;s my mother-in-law to remind me that Jason and I did <em>not</em>, in fact, share the same childhood. </strong>Mary feels like someone I&#8217;ve <em>never</em> known in all my life. Not even in another life.</p>
<p>Mary is a one-of-a-kind, in all the best ways. She surprises me, inspires me, and makes me look at life from completely different angles. Her laugh is joyful, and she laughs freely at herself, which is far too rare a skill. Mary also gives the longest hugs I’ve ever been on the receiving end of, and she generally has a way of exuding unconditional love.</p>
<p>Some day I want to write her whole life story, but for now I&#8217;m going to ask her if I can share some highlights of her story here, next week. Stay tuned.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:47:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?feed=rss2&p=223";}s:7:"summary";s:385:"
Photo by Smabs Sputzer
Does anyone know where the conglomerate of mother-in-law stereotypes comes from? Like was there some movie or TV show with a certain type of mother-in-law—the bossy, nosy, demanding, tiring type—and it was funny so it stuck?
Or is there really some complex chemistry inherent in our relationships with our mother-in-laws? It&#8217;s probably something [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:5190:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2751237878_66d6a13c44.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-224" title="2751237878_66d6a13c44" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2751237878_66d6a13c44.jpg" alt="" width="453" height="328" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/10413717@N08/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Smabs Sputzer</a></h5>
<p>Does anyone know where the conglomerate of mother-in-law stereotypes comes from? Like was there some movie or TV show with a certain type of mother-in-law—the bossy, nosy, demanding, tiring type—and it was funny so it stuck?</p>
<p>Or is there really some complex chemistry inherent in our relationships with our mother-in-laws? It&#8217;s probably something Freud could explain. I&#8217;m going to email my friend Nathan, who’s a grad student in clinical psych, and find out.</p>
<p>But in the meantime, I&#8217;m also conducting a highly scientific survey about mothers-in-law on <a href="https://twitter.com/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/twitter.com');">Twitter</a> (although I’m pretty sure Nathan won’t approve of my methods, which is why he’s a psych grad student and I’m not).</p>
<h4>The results are in: Most people <em>really like</em> their MILs</h4>
<p>Here&#8217;s how a handful of people on Twitter responded to my request &#8220;<span class="entry-content">I need some quick help for a blog post on mother-in-laws. what are the stereotypical adjectives/images that come to mind? are they true 4 u?&#8221;</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@wisekaren: <em>My MIL is awesome. She and I are like 2 peas in a pod! I always say Andy married his mom. ;-)</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@jenluit: <em>my mil died three years ago. she was many things, but not stereotypical. She was brazen, funny, sad, loving, and super duper talented.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span id="more-223"></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@Mrs_PJs: <em>I think nosy is a stereotype. I have to be careful what I tell mine (who I ADORE) b/c she tends to spread news quickly.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@mksteele: <em>my friend&#8217;s mother in law is the spitting image of marie barone from everybody loves raymond. critical, passive aggressive, nosey</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em></em>@rharlow: <em>sorry, I&#8217;m in the LOVE category. quick question&#8230; were all you &#8220;love&#8221; responses from guys? I have a hunch they were.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">@Wordydiva: <em>I puffy heart my MIL&#8230; with glitter. I know this is not the case for all.</em></p>
<p>Either no one on Twitter dared say anything negative about their own mother-in-law, or the whole mother-in-law schtick doesn’t hold water.</p>
<h4>What makes <em>me</em> a MIL expert, you ask?</h4>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t hold water for me, and I&#8217;m sort of a mother-in-law expert (only by virtue of having had first-hand experiences with <em>two</em> MILs, as opposed to one or none).</p>
<p>There are many consequences of getting divorced and remarried that you never think of when you’re in the heart of the drama. You’re focused on dividing books and art and your best pans and knives, and worried about money and your kids, and how everyone’s going to hold up through it all.</p>
<p><strong>You don’t sit around and ponder what it will be like to lose a whole family. At least I didn&#8217;t. You certainly don&#8217;t let your mind wander down the road far enough to imagine gaining a whole new family,</strong> like I eventually did when Jason and I got married in 2007.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m thinking about all of this, because this weekend we’re heading up to Chicago to see all of Jason&#8217;s family—parents, siblings, an aunt and uncle, cousins, and even dogs (dogs-in-law?). Even though these in-laws have only technically been &#8220;mine&#8221; for about a year and a half, it seems like they&#8217;ve been my family for much longer (in a good way).</p>
<p>My father-in-law is almost a mashup of my own wonderful mom and dad. It&#8217;s a really bizarre and comforting sensation. Sometimes it makes me feel <em>a bit too much</em> like Jason and I grew up in the same house. Eeww.</p>
<p><strong>But then there&#8217;s my mother-in-law to remind me that Jason and I did <em>not</em>, in fact, share the same childhood. </strong>Mary feels like someone I&#8217;ve <em>never</em> known in all my life. Not even in another life.</p>
<p>Mary is a one-of-a-kind, in all the best ways. She surprises me, inspires me, and makes me look at life from completely different angles. Her laugh is joyful, and she laughs freely at herself, which is far too rare a skill. Mary also gives the longest hugs I’ve ever been on the receiving end of, and she generally has a way of exuding unconditional love.</p>
<p>Some day I want to write her whole life story, but for now I&#8217;m going to ask her if I can share some highlights of her story here, next week. Stay tuned.</p>
";}i:5;a:12:{s:5:"title";s:36:"Eeking some magic out of a milestone";s:4:"link";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=221";s:8:"comments";s:46:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=221#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Fri, 16 Jan 2009 01:28:08 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:7:"Kristin";}s:8:"category";s:105:"Culture, ideas &amp; paradigms100benchmarksblogcelebrationcommunitydoubtfanfaregrownupmilestonevulnerable";s:4:"guid";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=221";s:11:"description";s:296:"
Photo by John Spooner
Do you remember when you were, oh, maybe 12 or 14, and you honestly thought you&#8217;d be a true grown up when you were 19?
And then how at 19 you thought you&#8217;d be a bona fide adult when you were 25?
But then, at 25, maybe you felt annoyed when you were carded [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:6964:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2173368376_122a67fe20.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-222" title="2173368376_122a67fe20" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2173368376_122a67fe20.jpg" alt="" width="451" height="338" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/johnspooner/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">John Spooner</a></h5>
<p>Do you remember when you were, oh, maybe 12 or 14, and you honestly thought you&#8217;d be a true grown up when you were 19?</p>
<p>And then how at 19 you thought you&#8217;d be a bona fide adult when you were 25?</p>
<p>But then, at 25, maybe you felt annoyed when you were carded at a bar, and when it seemed like you weren&#8217;t taken seriously by the man at the car dealership, or by a senior colleague at the office.</p>
<p><strong>Often, when we finally reach those benchmarks we&#8217;ve been anticipating, we find they&#8217;re nothing like we imagined.</strong></p>
<p>When it comes to getting older, we&#8217;re not nearly as wise and balanced as we thought we&#8217;d be by a certain age—in many ways we still feel like our teenage selves, just in more tired bodies, and with some surprise grey hair.</p>
<p>When it comes to fitness, we might be able to run the distance we set as our original goal, but our bodies don&#8217;t look and feel like we imagined they would by then. And when we finally get a job with the salary we used to dream of, we still feel more financially strapped and stressed than we thought we would.</p>
<h4>The magic number, minus the magic</h4>
<p>This is my 100th published post here on Halfway to Normal. Almost exactly six months ago, when I resuscitated my blog after a several-month hiatus, I wrote my 32nd post. I didn&#8217;t know where this adventure would take me, I only knew I had stories to tell, so I had to give it a try and find out.</p>
<p><span id="more-221"></span></p>
<p>At that point, if I had paused to think ahead to my 100th post (which I didn&#8217;t, but I can pretend), I would have been in awe at the thought of it. I would inevitably know <em>so much</em> about blogging by then.</p>
<p>By post 100, the whole process would be natural and seamless, right? I&#8217;d simply sit down four times a week to write my little observations and tell my little stories. I&#8217;d write quickly and efficiently, of course, baring my soul without a second thought, then clicking the &#8220;publish&#8221; button to send my thoughts out into the world.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the reality (you can guess where this is going, I bet): Even though I <em>have</em> learned a lot about blogging and the so-called blogesphere—I&#8217;m not nearly as lost as I was—I still feel very much like a toddler. Maybe the more accurate analogy is that I feel like a teenager in a very foreign culture. Set loose with just a rudimentary language phrase book, no map and some spare change.</p>
<p>At post 100, I still don&#8217;t have a blog roll published, to share with the rest of you links to the blogs I like to read. I still can&#8217;t figure out how to get the header next to my rss feed button (the orange one that lets you subscribe to my blog) to work like it should. Which reminds me, I have <em>no idea</em> how to find out how many people have even subscribed to my blog, if they were determined enough to find the right button in the first place.</p>
<p>So I&#8217;m not tech savvy. But even when it comes to the actual writing, I&#8217;m still brimming with self-doubt every time I hit &#8220;publish&#8221; on a post that I think might be too sentimental, too &#8220;religious,&#8221; too vulnerable, or simply <em>too something</em>. And I still put far too much weight on reader comments and statistics, as I try to figure out what people like and don&#8217;t like.</p>
<p>In other words, I thought I&#8217;d be at a very different place by the time I reached this moment.</p>
<h4>Celebrate, even if the occasion isn&#8217;t quite what you imagined</h4>
<p>I also thought I&#8217;d be all excited to do something fun and celebratory, like a big birthday bash, or a giveaway. (I guess other bloggers sometimes do these sorts of things when they hit this landmark.) I remember reading <a href="http://writerdad.com/blogging/happy-100/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/writerdad.com');">the Happy 100 post</a> at <a href="http://writerdad.com/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/writerdad.com');">Writer Dad</a>, a blog I really like. He posted a picture of balloons and asked people to leave comments sharing what they like about his blog, or what they think he could do better. I thought it was a great idea and even told him I might copy him when my big day came.</p>
<p>Now that I&#8217;m here, it&#8217;s really tempting to just let the moment pass by without mention or fanfare, like someone who doesn&#8217;t tell anyone its his 40th birthday.</p>
<p>But then, I realized that would be a bit like turning 21 and buying a bottle of wine to drink all alone. Even if 21 isn&#8217;t all that you imagined it might be, it&#8217;s still a milestone. There are still people around you, who care about you and feel like the moment is worth celebrating.</p>
<p>And there&#8217;s lots to celebrate.<strong> Perhaps the most amazing thing about this moment, for me, involves thinking about all of you—the readers who one way or another found Halfway to Normal and continued coming back. </strong></p>
<p>Even though I recently wrote <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=211" >a post</a> about how numbers don&#8217;t always mean that much, reaching this 100-post mark made me curious to see how many people have left comments on my blog in the past six months. Eight-eight different people. <em>Eighty-eight!</em> And only one of them is my mom (although she is, probably, my biggest fan). Most of those 88 people have commented more than once, gradually becoming a part of my community, even if I&#8217;ve never met them in person.</p>
<p>So <em>you</em> are the people I&#8217;m going to have this little celebration with, however humble it might be. It&#8217;s important to mark occasions with others. It makes us more deliberate about looking back at where we were, and feeling a sense of accomplishment.</p>
<p>Marking a milestone, much like the start of a new year, also gets us looking ahead to what&#8217;s next. And just today, &#8220;what&#8217;s next&#8221; for Halfway to Normal pretty much knocked on my virtual door, in the form of a talented blog designer with lots of skills and good ideas. Essentially, I&#8217;m going to mark this milestone by getting myself a present.</p>
<p>I can&#8217;t think of a more fitting way to celebrate, and I can&#8217;t wait for you to be able to enjoy the results with me.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:47:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?feed=rss2&p=221";}s:7:"summary";s:296:"
Photo by John Spooner
Do you remember when you were, oh, maybe 12 or 14, and you honestly thought you&#8217;d be a true grown up when you were 19?
And then how at 19 you thought you&#8217;d be a bona fide adult when you were 25?
But then, at 25, maybe you felt annoyed when you were carded [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:6964:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2173368376_122a67fe20.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-222" title="2173368376_122a67fe20" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2173368376_122a67fe20.jpg" alt="" width="451" height="338" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/johnspooner/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">John Spooner</a></h5>
<p>Do you remember when you were, oh, maybe 12 or 14, and you honestly thought you&#8217;d be a true grown up when you were 19?</p>
<p>And then how at 19 you thought you&#8217;d be a bona fide adult when you were 25?</p>
<p>But then, at 25, maybe you felt annoyed when you were carded at a bar, and when it seemed like you weren&#8217;t taken seriously by the man at the car dealership, or by a senior colleague at the office.</p>
<p><strong>Often, when we finally reach those benchmarks we&#8217;ve been anticipating, we find they&#8217;re nothing like we imagined.</strong></p>
<p>When it comes to getting older, we&#8217;re not nearly as wise and balanced as we thought we&#8217;d be by a certain age—in many ways we still feel like our teenage selves, just in more tired bodies, and with some surprise grey hair.</p>
<p>When it comes to fitness, we might be able to run the distance we set as our original goal, but our bodies don&#8217;t look and feel like we imagined they would by then. And when we finally get a job with the salary we used to dream of, we still feel more financially strapped and stressed than we thought we would.</p>
<h4>The magic number, minus the magic</h4>
<p>This is my 100th published post here on Halfway to Normal. Almost exactly six months ago, when I resuscitated my blog after a several-month hiatus, I wrote my 32nd post. I didn&#8217;t know where this adventure would take me, I only knew I had stories to tell, so I had to give it a try and find out.</p>
<p><span id="more-221"></span></p>
<p>At that point, if I had paused to think ahead to my 100th post (which I didn&#8217;t, but I can pretend), I would have been in awe at the thought of it. I would inevitably know <em>so much</em> about blogging by then.</p>
<p>By post 100, the whole process would be natural and seamless, right? I&#8217;d simply sit down four times a week to write my little observations and tell my little stories. I&#8217;d write quickly and efficiently, of course, baring my soul without a second thought, then clicking the &#8220;publish&#8221; button to send my thoughts out into the world.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the reality (you can guess where this is going, I bet): Even though I <em>have</em> learned a lot about blogging and the so-called blogesphere—I&#8217;m not nearly as lost as I was—I still feel very much like a toddler. Maybe the more accurate analogy is that I feel like a teenager in a very foreign culture. Set loose with just a rudimentary language phrase book, no map and some spare change.</p>
<p>At post 100, I still don&#8217;t have a blog roll published, to share with the rest of you links to the blogs I like to read. I still can&#8217;t figure out how to get the header next to my rss feed button (the orange one that lets you subscribe to my blog) to work like it should. Which reminds me, I have <em>no idea</em> how to find out how many people have even subscribed to my blog, if they were determined enough to find the right button in the first place.</p>
<p>So I&#8217;m not tech savvy. But even when it comes to the actual writing, I&#8217;m still brimming with self-doubt every time I hit &#8220;publish&#8221; on a post that I think might be too sentimental, too &#8220;religious,&#8221; too vulnerable, or simply <em>too something</em>. And I still put far too much weight on reader comments and statistics, as I try to figure out what people like and don&#8217;t like.</p>
<p>In other words, I thought I&#8217;d be at a very different place by the time I reached this moment.</p>
<h4>Celebrate, even if the occasion isn&#8217;t quite what you imagined</h4>
<p>I also thought I&#8217;d be all excited to do something fun and celebratory, like a big birthday bash, or a giveaway. (I guess other bloggers sometimes do these sorts of things when they hit this landmark.) I remember reading <a href="http://writerdad.com/blogging/happy-100/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/writerdad.com');">the Happy 100 post</a> at <a href="http://writerdad.com/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/writerdad.com');">Writer Dad</a>, a blog I really like. He posted a picture of balloons and asked people to leave comments sharing what they like about his blog, or what they think he could do better. I thought it was a great idea and even told him I might copy him when my big day came.</p>
<p>Now that I&#8217;m here, it&#8217;s really tempting to just let the moment pass by without mention or fanfare, like someone who doesn&#8217;t tell anyone its his 40th birthday.</p>
<p>But then, I realized that would be a bit like turning 21 and buying a bottle of wine to drink all alone. Even if 21 isn&#8217;t all that you imagined it might be, it&#8217;s still a milestone. There are still people around you, who care about you and feel like the moment is worth celebrating.</p>
<p>And there&#8217;s lots to celebrate.<strong> Perhaps the most amazing thing about this moment, for me, involves thinking about all of you—the readers who one way or another found Halfway to Normal and continued coming back. </strong></p>
<p>Even though I recently wrote <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=211" >a post</a> about how numbers don&#8217;t always mean that much, reaching this 100-post mark made me curious to see how many people have left comments on my blog in the past six months. Eight-eight different people. <em>Eighty-eight!</em> And only one of them is my mom (although she is, probably, my biggest fan). Most of those 88 people have commented more than once, gradually becoming a part of my community, even if I&#8217;ve never met them in person.</p>
<p>So <em>you</em> are the people I&#8217;m going to have this little celebration with, however humble it might be. It&#8217;s important to mark occasions with others. It makes us more deliberate about looking back at where we were, and feeling a sense of accomplishment.</p>
<p>Marking a milestone, much like the start of a new year, also gets us looking ahead to what&#8217;s next. And just today, &#8220;what&#8217;s next&#8221; for Halfway to Normal pretty much knocked on my virtual door, in the form of a talented blog designer with lots of skills and good ideas. Essentially, I&#8217;m going to mark this milestone by getting myself a present.</p>
<p>I can&#8217;t think of a more fitting way to celebrate, and I can&#8217;t wait for you to be able to enjoy the results with me.</p>
";}i:6;a:12:{s:5:"title";s:38:"Sherpas, outdated technology and souls";s:4:"link";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=219";s:8:"comments";s:46:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=219#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:10:29 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:7:"Kristin";}s:8:"category";s:77:"Belief, doubt &amp; hopechurchfrenzylistensherpaslowsoulwaitingword processor";s:4:"guid";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=219";s:11:"description";s:315:"
Photo by ilkerender
The other day I heard the phrase &#8220;Let your soul catch up with you&#8221; for the first time.
You know those moments when you see or hear or taste something for the first time, and you know right away it&#8217;s new and special? It was like that for me. &#8220;Let your soul catch up [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:5328:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2493920959_5fda2dbfb8.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-220" title="2493920959_5fda2dbfb8" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2493920959_5fda2dbfb8.jpg" alt="" width="333" height="500" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 210px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/ilker/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">ilkerender</a></h5>
<p>The other day I heard the phrase <strong>&#8220;Let your soul catch up with you&#8221;</strong> for the first time.</p>
<p>You know those moments when you see or hear or taste something for the first time, and you know right away it&#8217;s new and special? It was like that for me. &#8220;Let your soul catch up with you&#8221; resonated immediately, even before I had time to think about what it really meant or how it might translate in my life.</p>
<p>I realize that this phrase has the potential to turn quickly cheesy. Imagine it, for instance, printed on an inspirational poster and hanging in the office of a Christian counselor, or as the title of a self-help book, written in an outdated font across a badly designed cover.</p>
<p>But I heard the phrase in church, as spoken words coming out of the mouth of Jim, one of my favorite pastors. He was talking to us about listening to God—why it&#8217;s important, what keeps us from doing it, and how we can each find methods to help us to do it better in our own ways. <strong>I instantly realized that I am way too far out ahead of my soul, submerged deep in the white noise of life.</strong></p>
<h4>Letting my words catch up with my ideas</h4>
<p>The first image this phrase brought to me, strangely enough, was the sensation of working on those old word processor/typewriters of the late 80s and early 90s. Remember those? They looked like an electric typewriter but they had those little readout screens, and didn&#8217;t actually print out the section you had just typed until you hit return.</p>
<p><span id="more-219"></span></p>
<p>I have been an ultra-fast typist since taking typing class in high school (this seems like something random enough to safely boast about, right?). I distinctly remember working on those word processors, knowing exactly what I wanted to say, my fingers flying to keep up with my mind. And then I had to wait, as the words I had already typed eventually appeared on the little screen, waiting for them to catch up, like an echo of my thoughts.</p>
<p><strong>Waiting was important—I didn&#8217;t want to get too far ahead of myself and end up making mistakes. </strong>The thoughts might take flight from my mind in an impressive fashion, but that didn&#8217;t mean they&#8217;d land properly or ring true once printed in black and white. When you hit return, after all, it was still ink on paper, just like a typewriter—making edits took some effort.</p>
<p>So I waited for all of those ideas to catch up to me. I checked them against my heart and let them begin to settle in, before hitting return and picking up where I left off, ideas and fingers flying.</p>
<p>At the time, I despised the word processor&#8217;s leisurely pace. I hated waiting, and felt sure that being held up in this fashion would set me back in some important way down the road.</p>
<p>Now I can see that I&#8217;ve lost a lot of good along with whatever shreds of care and patience I had back then. Today, even a moderately slow computer or internet connection drives me batty. <strong>There are plenty of annoying interruptions in my day, but there isn&#8217;t anything forcing me to practice slowing down and waiting—not in my writing, and certainly not in my soul.</strong></p>
<h4>Learning to be more like a sherpa than an old word processor</h4>
<p>As Jim shared with us in his teaching Sunday, the phrase &#8220;Waiting for your soul to catch up&#8221; is actually rooted in Himalayan sherpas, not in outdated technology. (Isn&#8217;t it amazing how our minds naturally gravitate toward the analogies we can relate to?)</p>
<p>The story is that sherpas, who spend a lot of time encouraging, pushing and pacing their climbers toward the summit, will suddenly stop climbing and put down their equipment, as if they&#8217;re waiting for something or someone.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, this seemingly random break is very disconcerting for many Westerners. When they ask why they&#8217;ve stopped climbing, the sherpas&#8217; reply is &#8220;We are waiting for our souls to catch up with our bodies.&#8221;</p>
<p>I move too quickly. My thoughts fly and swirl, and I can generally relate to the word &#8220;frenzy&#8221; far more readily than to the word &#8220;calm.&#8221; I try to push through big ideas and major life changes in record pace; if they don&#8217;t resolve themselves quickly, my impulse is to simply abandon them and move on.</p>
<p><strong>But I don&#8217;t want to get too far ahead of my soul, any more.</strong> I certainly don&#8217;t want to think of my soul as a clunky, antiquated, annoying old word processor that I&#8217;m forever waiting on.</p>
<p>Instead, I want to be like the sherpa—to take in the view, to allow my racing mind and body to rest, and to respect the wise pace of my soul as it catches up.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:47:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?feed=rss2&p=219";}s:7:"summary";s:315:"
Photo by ilkerender
The other day I heard the phrase &#8220;Let your soul catch up with you&#8221; for the first time.
You know those moments when you see or hear or taste something for the first time, and you know right away it&#8217;s new and special? It was like that for me. &#8220;Let your soul catch up [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:5328:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2493920959_5fda2dbfb8.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-220" title="2493920959_5fda2dbfb8" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2493920959_5fda2dbfb8.jpg" alt="" width="333" height="500" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 210px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/ilker/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">ilkerender</a></h5>
<p>The other day I heard the phrase <strong>&#8220;Let your soul catch up with you&#8221;</strong> for the first time.</p>
<p>You know those moments when you see or hear or taste something for the first time, and you know right away it&#8217;s new and special? It was like that for me. &#8220;Let your soul catch up with you&#8221; resonated immediately, even before I had time to think about what it really meant or how it might translate in my life.</p>
<p>I realize that this phrase has the potential to turn quickly cheesy. Imagine it, for instance, printed on an inspirational poster and hanging in the office of a Christian counselor, or as the title of a self-help book, written in an outdated font across a badly designed cover.</p>
<p>But I heard the phrase in church, as spoken words coming out of the mouth of Jim, one of my favorite pastors. He was talking to us about listening to God—why it&#8217;s important, what keeps us from doing it, and how we can each find methods to help us to do it better in our own ways. <strong>I instantly realized that I am way too far out ahead of my soul, submerged deep in the white noise of life.</strong></p>
<h4>Letting my words catch up with my ideas</h4>
<p>The first image this phrase brought to me, strangely enough, was the sensation of working on those old word processor/typewriters of the late 80s and early 90s. Remember those? They looked like an electric typewriter but they had those little readout screens, and didn&#8217;t actually print out the section you had just typed until you hit return.</p>
<p><span id="more-219"></span></p>
<p>I have been an ultra-fast typist since taking typing class in high school (this seems like something random enough to safely boast about, right?). I distinctly remember working on those word processors, knowing exactly what I wanted to say, my fingers flying to keep up with my mind. And then I had to wait, as the words I had already typed eventually appeared on the little screen, waiting for them to catch up, like an echo of my thoughts.</p>
<p><strong>Waiting was important—I didn&#8217;t want to get too far ahead of myself and end up making mistakes. </strong>The thoughts might take flight from my mind in an impressive fashion, but that didn&#8217;t mean they&#8217;d land properly or ring true once printed in black and white. When you hit return, after all, it was still ink on paper, just like a typewriter—making edits took some effort.</p>
<p>So I waited for all of those ideas to catch up to me. I checked them against my heart and let them begin to settle in, before hitting return and picking up where I left off, ideas and fingers flying.</p>
<p>At the time, I despised the word processor&#8217;s leisurely pace. I hated waiting, and felt sure that being held up in this fashion would set me back in some important way down the road.</p>
<p>Now I can see that I&#8217;ve lost a lot of good along with whatever shreds of care and patience I had back then. Today, even a moderately slow computer or internet connection drives me batty. <strong>There are plenty of annoying interruptions in my day, but there isn&#8217;t anything forcing me to practice slowing down and waiting—not in my writing, and certainly not in my soul.</strong></p>
<h4>Learning to be more like a sherpa than an old word processor</h4>
<p>As Jim shared with us in his teaching Sunday, the phrase &#8220;Waiting for your soul to catch up&#8221; is actually rooted in Himalayan sherpas, not in outdated technology. (Isn&#8217;t it amazing how our minds naturally gravitate toward the analogies we can relate to?)</p>
<p>The story is that sherpas, who spend a lot of time encouraging, pushing and pacing their climbers toward the summit, will suddenly stop climbing and put down their equipment, as if they&#8217;re waiting for something or someone.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, this seemingly random break is very disconcerting for many Westerners. When they ask why they&#8217;ve stopped climbing, the sherpas&#8217; reply is &#8220;We are waiting for our souls to catch up with our bodies.&#8221;</p>
<p>I move too quickly. My thoughts fly and swirl, and I can generally relate to the word &#8220;frenzy&#8221; far more readily than to the word &#8220;calm.&#8221; I try to push through big ideas and major life changes in record pace; if they don&#8217;t resolve themselves quickly, my impulse is to simply abandon them and move on.</p>
<p><strong>But I don&#8217;t want to get too far ahead of my soul, any more.</strong> I certainly don&#8217;t want to think of my soul as a clunky, antiquated, annoying old word processor that I&#8217;m forever waiting on.</p>
<p>Instead, I want to be like the sherpa—to take in the view, to allow my racing mind and body to rest, and to respect the wise pace of my soul as it catches up.</p>
";}i:7;a:12:{s:5:"title";s:36:"Learning to call a mistake a mistake";s:4:"link";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=215";s:8:"comments";s:46:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=215#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:45:53 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:7:"Kristin";}s:8:"category";s:134:"Culture, ideas &amp; paradigmsadmitcarelessdefinitiondisappointmenterrorexpectationhumilitymediamistakesPresident Bushpress conference";s:4:"guid";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=215";s:11:"description";s:350:"
Photo by Charles Thompson
This morning, President Bush held what is most likely his last press conference of his presidency. As always, plenty of what came out of his mouth simultaneously maddened and mystified me. (For instance, when he said, &#8220;I never sold my soul for popularity.&#8221; That&#8217;s clear. Too bad he sold it for other [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:6020:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2585275184_e91b991fc1.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-216" title="2585275184_e91b991fc1" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2585275184_e91b991fc1.jpg" alt="" width="444" height="296" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 270px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/charlietphoto/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Charles Thompson</a></h5>
<p>This morning, President Bush held what is most likely his last press conference of his presidency. As always, plenty of what came out of his mouth simultaneously maddened and mystified me. (For instance, when he said, &#8220;I never sold my soul for popularity.&#8221; That&#8217;s clear. Too bad he sold it for other reasons, like greed and revenge.)</p>
<p>But what got me worked up more than anything else was his response to the question &#8220;What mistakes did you make in office?&#8221; Bush completely rephrased the question, substituting the word &#8220;disappointments&#8221; for &#8220;mistakes&#8221; in his response. Discovering there actually were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, for instance, was a &#8220;disappointment.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Since when is &#8220;disappointment&#8221; a synonym for &#8220;mistake?&#8221;</strong></p>
<p>Apparently since Bush claimed that it&#8217;s so, and the media blindly reported it that way. Most of today&#8217;s headlines on this matter say pretty much the same thing: <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090112/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_newser_mistakes" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/news.yahoo.com');">&#8220;Bush cites mistakes, disappointments.&#8221;</a> The verb is just switched out from one headline to the next—some say &#8220;discusses,&#8221; some use &#8220;lists,&#8221; and I even saw a &#8220;concedes.&#8221; But always &#8220;mistakes, disappointments.&#8221; What&#8217;s with that comma?</p>
<h4>Mistakenly using the wrong word has consequences</h4>
<p>I totally get why an outgoing president would want to avoid talking about mistakes. George W. Bush isn&#8217;t the only outgoing president who has tried to sidestep the &#8220;mistake&#8221; question. (If anyone out there knows of an outgoing president who honestly owned up to mistakes and called them mistakes, please let me know who it was!)</p>
<p>But when you look at the true definitions of those two words, and you look at some of the things that have come to pass under Bush&#8217;s leadership, his use of the word &#8220;disappointment&#8221; is offensive.</p>
<p><span id="more-215"></span></p>
<p>A <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mistake" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/dictionary.reference.com');">&#8220;mistake&#8221; is defined as</a> &#8220;an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disappoint" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/dictionary.reference.com');">&#8220;Disappoint&#8221; is defined as</a> &#8220;To fail to satisfy the hope, desire, or expectation of.&#8221; (And &#8220;disappointment&#8221; is simply &#8220;the state or feeling of being disappointed.&#8221;</p>
<p>So I might be disappointed by the meal I ordered at my favorite restaurant, or by the customer service at a nice shoe store. But is it right to say the abuses at the Abu Graib prison were disappointing? Particularly if I was, at the time, the world&#8217;s most powerful person, with all the power necessary to put an end to those abuses?</p>
<p>It&#8217;s true that the words &#8220;mistake&#8221; and &#8220;disappointment&#8221; can go hand in hand. I can make a mistake, which is generally thought of as an unintentional error, and can feel disappointed in myself and the results. But for me to focus immediately on my disappointment, skipping over the important process of admitting error and apologizing for it, is a dangerous, slippery slope.</p>
<p><strong>I know, because I&#8217;m not very good at admitting my mistakes</strong>—my errors in judgment, my carelessness, my tendency to make hasty conclusions. Thank goodness I&#8217;m not the president of the United States!</p>
<h4>Most of us could do better at admitting mistakes</h4>
<p>I am a wife and mother and daughter and friend, though, so it&#8217;s important that I become better at this. Being able to say &#8220;I made a mistake, and I&#8217;m sorry about how it affected you&#8221; matters a lot to the people I care most about. It can also have a powerful ripple effect in my broader community. For starters, the more I learn to do this, the more likely my children will be to do the same in their lives, which will make it easier for their friends to follow suit.</p>
<p>When it comes to so many of the people of the world who have real power—the CEOs and senators, and even the pastors and school principals—I&#8217;m saddened and frustrated by your lack of humility and strength, and in your failed leadership in this area. Yes, you&#8217;re human, just like all of us &#8220;normal&#8221; people sitting around me in the cafe as I write. And how do we so often define being &#8220;human?&#8221; That&#8217;s right: We say (perhaps too defensively) &#8220;I&#8217;m human, I make mistakes.&#8221;</p>
<p>If the rest of us are saying we know you&#8217;re not perfect—it&#8217;s OK to <em>make</em> mistakes—why is it so hard for you powerful people to <em>admit</em> to those mistakes? And how different would the world be if you did?</p>
<p>It might be a day of lasts for George W., but today marks a first for me: I&#8217;m actually going to thank our 43rd president for something—for making me think more carefully about the meaning of words, and for helping me see the importance of calling a mistake a mistake.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:47:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?feed=rss2&p=215";}s:7:"summary";s:350:"
Photo by Charles Thompson
This morning, President Bush held what is most likely his last press conference of his presidency. As always, plenty of what came out of his mouth simultaneously maddened and mystified me. (For instance, when he said, &#8220;I never sold my soul for popularity.&#8221; That&#8217;s clear. Too bad he sold it for other [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:6020:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2585275184_e91b991fc1.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-216" title="2585275184_e91b991fc1" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2585275184_e91b991fc1.jpg" alt="" width="444" height="296" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 270px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/charlietphoto/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Charles Thompson</a></h5>
<p>This morning, President Bush held what is most likely his last press conference of his presidency. As always, plenty of what came out of his mouth simultaneously maddened and mystified me. (For instance, when he said, &#8220;I never sold my soul for popularity.&#8221; That&#8217;s clear. Too bad he sold it for other reasons, like greed and revenge.)</p>
<p>But what got me worked up more than anything else was his response to the question &#8220;What mistakes did you make in office?&#8221; Bush completely rephrased the question, substituting the word &#8220;disappointments&#8221; for &#8220;mistakes&#8221; in his response. Discovering there actually were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, for instance, was a &#8220;disappointment.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Since when is &#8220;disappointment&#8221; a synonym for &#8220;mistake?&#8221;</strong></p>
<p>Apparently since Bush claimed that it&#8217;s so, and the media blindly reported it that way. Most of today&#8217;s headlines on this matter say pretty much the same thing: <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090112/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_newser_mistakes" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/news.yahoo.com');">&#8220;Bush cites mistakes, disappointments.&#8221;</a> The verb is just switched out from one headline to the next—some say &#8220;discusses,&#8221; some use &#8220;lists,&#8221; and I even saw a &#8220;concedes.&#8221; But always &#8220;mistakes, disappointments.&#8221; What&#8217;s with that comma?</p>
<h4>Mistakenly using the wrong word has consequences</h4>
<p>I totally get why an outgoing president would want to avoid talking about mistakes. George W. Bush isn&#8217;t the only outgoing president who has tried to sidestep the &#8220;mistake&#8221; question. (If anyone out there knows of an outgoing president who honestly owned up to mistakes and called them mistakes, please let me know who it was!)</p>
<p>But when you look at the true definitions of those two words, and you look at some of the things that have come to pass under Bush&#8217;s leadership, his use of the word &#8220;disappointment&#8221; is offensive.</p>
<p><span id="more-215"></span></p>
<p>A <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mistake" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/dictionary.reference.com');">&#8220;mistake&#8221; is defined as</a> &#8220;an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning, carelessness, insufficient knowledge, etc.&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/disappoint" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/dictionary.reference.com');">&#8220;Disappoint&#8221; is defined as</a> &#8220;To fail to satisfy the hope, desire, or expectation of.&#8221; (And &#8220;disappointment&#8221; is simply &#8220;the state or feeling of being disappointed.&#8221;</p>
<p>So I might be disappointed by the meal I ordered at my favorite restaurant, or by the customer service at a nice shoe store. But is it right to say the abuses at the Abu Graib prison were disappointing? Particularly if I was, at the time, the world&#8217;s most powerful person, with all the power necessary to put an end to those abuses?</p>
<p>It&#8217;s true that the words &#8220;mistake&#8221; and &#8220;disappointment&#8221; can go hand in hand. I can make a mistake, which is generally thought of as an unintentional error, and can feel disappointed in myself and the results. But for me to focus immediately on my disappointment, skipping over the important process of admitting error and apologizing for it, is a dangerous, slippery slope.</p>
<p><strong>I know, because I&#8217;m not very good at admitting my mistakes</strong>—my errors in judgment, my carelessness, my tendency to make hasty conclusions. Thank goodness I&#8217;m not the president of the United States!</p>
<h4>Most of us could do better at admitting mistakes</h4>
<p>I am a wife and mother and daughter and friend, though, so it&#8217;s important that I become better at this. Being able to say &#8220;I made a mistake, and I&#8217;m sorry about how it affected you&#8221; matters a lot to the people I care most about. It can also have a powerful ripple effect in my broader community. For starters, the more I learn to do this, the more likely my children will be to do the same in their lives, which will make it easier for their friends to follow suit.</p>
<p>When it comes to so many of the people of the world who have real power—the CEOs and senators, and even the pastors and school principals—I&#8217;m saddened and frustrated by your lack of humility and strength, and in your failed leadership in this area. Yes, you&#8217;re human, just like all of us &#8220;normal&#8221; people sitting around me in the cafe as I write. And how do we so often define being &#8220;human?&#8221; That&#8217;s right: We say (perhaps too defensively) &#8220;I&#8217;m human, I make mistakes.&#8221;</p>
<p>If the rest of us are saying we know you&#8217;re not perfect—it&#8217;s OK to <em>make</em> mistakes—why is it so hard for you powerful people to <em>admit</em> to those mistakes? And how different would the world be if you did?</p>
<p>It might be a day of lasts for George W., but today marks a first for me: I&#8217;m actually going to thank our 43rd president for something—for making me think more carefully about the meaning of words, and for helping me see the importance of calling a mistake a mistake.</p>
";}i:8;a:12:{s:5:"title";s:15:"Remind me again";s:4:"link";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=213";s:8:"comments";s:46:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=213#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:07:57 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:7:"Kristin";}s:8:"category";s:66:"Belief, doubt &amp; hopebrokenforgethoperememberremindedstorywhole";s:4:"guid";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=213";s:11:"description";s:347:"
Photo by atomicjeep
I&#8217;ve encountered some important reminders this week.
First I read this article, which reminds me that numbers don&#8217;t always mean what you first might think, and that not every brand of success can even be measured in numbers. Being reminded of this inspired to write the post When small is big and numbers are [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:4382:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/331179811_9ed79b86bf.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-214" title="331179811_9ed79b86bf" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/331179811_9ed79b86bf.jpg" alt="" width="414" height="274" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/atomicjeep/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">atomicjeep</a></h5>
<p>I&#8217;ve encountered some important reminders this week.</p>
<p>First I read <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010503341.html?wprss=rss_print/asection" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.washingtonpost.com');">this article</a>, which reminds me that numbers don&#8217;t always mean what you first might think, and that not every brand of success can even be measured in numbers. Being reminded of this inspired to write the post <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=211" >When small is big and numbers are nothing.</a></p>
<p>A couple of hours after writing the post—which in large part was meant to comfort and distract me from my worries about blog stats and Twitter numbers—I received an email from a stranger. I asked her if I could share it here:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I just loved your entry about your turning point &#8212; when you bought your house.  It made me cry, literally.  I have been at a similar turning point for a while now in my life, but unable to make that turn, probably because I only knew what I wanted to turn from, but not what I wanted to turn towards.  I think your story just gave me a warm, gentle, and much needed push on my back to have the courage, take the leap. so, thank you.</em></p>
<p>This email, arriving out of the blue, reminds me of the primary reason I bother writing in the first place: I love the interaction and conversation. I love knowing that I&#8217;m not alone, and that my stories are touching someone else in small and sometimes even big ways.</p>
<h4>Remembering where I&#8217;ve been</h4>
<p>It also reminds me of where I&#8217;ve been. The post this reader is referencing—<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=26" >A turning point with a street address</a>—is about what was happening in my life in early 2005, a very difficult time for me. I was clinging desperately to all the wrong things, and found myself feeling hopeless as I faced many important decisions.</p>
<p><strong>I don&#8217;t want to forget that critical moment in my life.</strong> It says so much about who and where I am now, and about God&#8217;s grace in my life, and his ability to redeem my biggest messes.</p>
<p><span id="more-213"></span></p>
<p>Another reminder of this came in the form of a reader comment on the post <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=204" >Retracing my steps to the original idea</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>A final thought: look at your life the last 4-5 years. Are they not only picture of God’s grace but also your willingness to be open and less intentional? How else would you have made it to where you are now? It’s quite a story.</em></p>
<p>It <em>is</em> quite a story. Jason and I have shared it with others and marveled over it together, repeatedly.</p>
<p>But like all stories that aren&#8217;t told and retold, with consistent enthusiasm and urgency, I can see how it is gradually fading. My life has been so good, for more than three years now—it&#8217;s easy to take it all for granted and to forget  where we were, and how far we&#8217;ve come.</p>
<p>Which is why we need to be reminded.</p>
<p>Here are a few of the stories from back when I first started my blog. I just took some time to re-read them and remember their place at the crux of my bigger story, of brokenness being made whole.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=6" >Love in unexpected places</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=8" >A road trip with my husband&#8217;s ex-wife</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=11" >Worship in a warehouse</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=26" >A turning point with a street address</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=32" >Two girls with all kinds of parents</a></p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:47:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?feed=rss2&p=213";}s:7:"summary";s:347:"
Photo by atomicjeep
I&#8217;ve encountered some important reminders this week.
First I read this article, which reminds me that numbers don&#8217;t always mean what you first might think, and that not every brand of success can even be measured in numbers. Being reminded of this inspired to write the post When small is big and numbers are [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:4382:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/331179811_9ed79b86bf.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-214" title="331179811_9ed79b86bf" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/331179811_9ed79b86bf.jpg" alt="" width="414" height="274" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 300px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/atomicjeep/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">atomicjeep</a></h5>
<p>I&#8217;ve encountered some important reminders this week.</p>
<p>First I read <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010503341.html?wprss=rss_print/asection" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.washingtonpost.com');">this article</a>, which reminds me that numbers don&#8217;t always mean what you first might think, and that not every brand of success can even be measured in numbers. Being reminded of this inspired to write the post <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=211" >When small is big and numbers are nothing.</a></p>
<p>A couple of hours after writing the post—which in large part was meant to comfort and distract me from my worries about blog stats and Twitter numbers—I received an email from a stranger. I asked her if I could share it here:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I just loved your entry about your turning point &#8212; when you bought your house.  It made me cry, literally.  I have been at a similar turning point for a while now in my life, but unable to make that turn, probably because I only knew what I wanted to turn from, but not what I wanted to turn towards.  I think your story just gave me a warm, gentle, and much needed push on my back to have the courage, take the leap. so, thank you.</em></p>
<p>This email, arriving out of the blue, reminds me of the primary reason I bother writing in the first place: I love the interaction and conversation. I love knowing that I&#8217;m not alone, and that my stories are touching someone else in small and sometimes even big ways.</p>
<h4>Remembering where I&#8217;ve been</h4>
<p>It also reminds me of where I&#8217;ve been. The post this reader is referencing—<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=26" >A turning point with a street address</a>—is about what was happening in my life in early 2005, a very difficult time for me. I was clinging desperately to all the wrong things, and found myself feeling hopeless as I faced many important decisions.</p>
<p><strong>I don&#8217;t want to forget that critical moment in my life.</strong> It says so much about who and where I am now, and about God&#8217;s grace in my life, and his ability to redeem my biggest messes.</p>
<p><span id="more-213"></span></p>
<p>Another reminder of this came in the form of a reader comment on the post <a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=204" >Retracing my steps to the original idea</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>A final thought: look at your life the last 4-5 years. Are they not only picture of God’s grace but also your willingness to be open and less intentional? How else would you have made it to where you are now? It’s quite a story.</em></p>
<p>It <em>is</em> quite a story. Jason and I have shared it with others and marveled over it together, repeatedly.</p>
<p>But like all stories that aren&#8217;t told and retold, with consistent enthusiasm and urgency, I can see how it is gradually fading. My life has been so good, for more than three years now—it&#8217;s easy to take it all for granted and to forget  where we were, and how far we&#8217;ve come.</p>
<p>Which is why we need to be reminded.</p>
<p>Here are a few of the stories from back when I first started my blog. I just took some time to re-read them and remember their place at the crux of my bigger story, of brokenness being made whole.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=6" >Love in unexpected places</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=8" >A road trip with my husband&#8217;s ex-wife</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=11" >Worship in a warehouse</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=26" >A turning point with a street address</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=32" >Two girls with all kinds of parents</a></p>
";}i:9;a:12:{s:5:"title";s:39:"When small is big & numbers are nothing";s:4:"link";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=211";s:8:"comments";s:46:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=211#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 08 Jan 2009 15:42:47 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:7:"Kristin";}s:8:"category";s:168:"Belief, doubt &amp; hopeCulture, ideas &amp; paradigmsactivistchurchChurch-of-the-Savoirfacebookhumblinginspiringnumbersparadigm shiftpopularrankingssuccesstwitterworth";s:4:"guid";s:37:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?p=211";s:11:"description";s:316:"
Photo by Procsilas Moscas
Numbers mean a lot to us. We are driven by them, because we measure success and worth by them.
I, for instance, occasionally fret about how many followers I have on Twitter (about 150). The number means something to me because I can compare it to scores of others who have over 1,000 [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:5706:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/11314489_a7c52be257.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-212" title="11314489_a7c52be257" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/11314489_a7c52be257.jpg" alt="" width="426" height="320" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 270px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/procsilas/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Procsilas Moscas</a></h5>
<p>Numbers mean a lot to us. We are driven by them, because we measure success and worth by them.</p>
<p>I, for instance, occasionally fret about how many followers I have on Twitter (about 150). The number means something to me because I can compare it to scores of others who have over 1,000 and even as many as 30,000 followers. The other day I heard someone complaining about Facebook&#8217;s arbitrary friend limit (5,000) because he was rapidly approaching it. I had no idea there was a friend limit. Why would I? It isn&#8217;t likely that I—or any of my 240-some friends—need to worry.</p>
<p>Before you start to wonder, I&#8217;m not about to be that kid in high school who pretends she actually doesn&#8217;t <em>want</em> to have more friends, because being popular really isn&#8217;t that cool anyway&#8230;. Of course, numbers <em>do</em> measure and mean something, in certain circumstances. People with that many Twitter followers and Facebook friends are clearly some combination of smart/interesting/kind/entertaining (along with savvy and determined, and most likely sleep-deprived).</p>
<p><strong>But the opposite isn&#8217;t necessarily true. Smaller numbers, comparatively, do not always indicate the presence of all that&#8217;s dumb/boring/mean/humorless.</strong> I&#8217;ve been trying to remind myself of this and keep things in perspective as I build the kind of network a writer needs to get any attention in today&#8217;s world. It&#8217;s a steady, messy inner battle involving ego, reason, patience and humor.</p>
<h4>What we can learn about numbers from a church</h4>
<p>Today I read an article that was both inspiring and humbling, in unexpected ways. It did more to put the idea of numbers in perspective than anything I&#8217;ve heard or read in a long time. Check out these numbers:</p>
<p><span id="more-211"></span></p>
<p>For 60 years, the 91-year-old Gordon Cosby has been preaching at Church of the Savior. Since it was formed 6 decades ago, the church has been known throughout Washington D.C. as an activist powerhouse, starting dozens of organizations that serve thousands of people. Just to give you a sense of the scope, last year one of those organizations found jobs found for 800 people, while  another found 325 units of affordable housing for families in need.</p>
<p>Sounds like the work of a mega church, doesn&#8217;t it? Actually, Church of the Savior is an anti-mega church. How small is it? When Cosby preached his final sermon last Sunday, about 70 people gathered to hear him speak.</p>
<p>Why, when I read that, was my first though &#8220;How sad!&#8221;? Because <strong>I am blinded and fooled by numbers. Numbers are on the surface. To get what&#8217;s really behind the numbers—or to get past the numbers completely—you have to go deeper.</strong></p>
<h4>Staying small has made their impact big</h4>
<p>In this case, going deeper meant reading the rest of the <em>Washington Post</em> article, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010503341.html?wprss=rss_print/asection" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.washingtonpost.com');">Activist D.C. Church Embraces Transition in the Name of Mission</a>. This is where the humbling and inspiring part kicked in.  Listen to just a few of the very cool things about this church:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- The article describes the church&#8217;s basic philosophy like this: &#8220;A commitment to serious, inward contemplation as well as ambitious social justice work. No spectators. Action over institution.&#8221;</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- The church has what the article calls an &#8220;aversion to bigness.&#8221; (I&#8217;ve always heard this called the &#8220;daughter church&#8221; model.) &#8220;In the mid-1970s, the church broke more fully into different groups. And in the late 1990s, Cosby rattled many church members by proposing that they go further: legally become separate entities and eventually dissolve the Church of the Saviour, the umbrella structure.&#8221;</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- The article quotes 91-year-old Cosby as saying this: &#8220;&#8216;We&#8217;ve got to move from believing so deeply to doing,&#8217; he preached. <strong>&#8216;We&#8217;ve got to keep in mind the discrepancy between belief and embodiment.&#8217;&#8221;</strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- And then there are these amazingly inspiring paradigm shifts: &#8220;After decades of bringing white, middle- and upper-class people into neighborhoods around Columbia Road and Adams Morgan to serve the poor and lecturing to seminarians and faith leaders, <strong>Cosby has concluded that societal change might go in the other direction.</strong>&#8220;</p>
<p>Wow. Talk about turning it all on its head. It kind of reminds me of something someone said about the last being first and the poor being rich. And for some extra irony, get this: &#8220;[Cosby] noted that megachurches, now struggling to manage their size, have come to the church for guidance on how to be small.&#8221;</p>
<p>I love it. I&#8217;m inspired. I&#8217;m ready to see the world differently.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:47:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/?feed=rss2&p=211";}s:7:"summary";s:316:"
Photo by Procsilas Moscas
Numbers mean a lot to us. We are driven by them, because we measure success and worth by them.
I, for instance, occasionally fret about how many followers I have on Twitter (about 150). The number means something to me because I can compare it to scores of others who have over 1,000 [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:5706:"<p><a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/11314489_a7c52be257.jpg" ><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-212" title="11314489_a7c52be257" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/11314489_a7c52be257.jpg" alt="" width="426" height="320" /></a></p>
<h5 style="padding-left: 270px;">Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/procsilas/" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.flickr.com');">Procsilas Moscas</a></h5>
<p>Numbers mean a lot to us. We are driven by them, because we measure success and worth by them.</p>
<p>I, for instance, occasionally fret about how many followers I have on Twitter (about 150). The number means something to me because I can compare it to scores of others who have over 1,000 and even as many as 30,000 followers. The other day I heard someone complaining about Facebook&#8217;s arbitrary friend limit (5,000) because he was rapidly approaching it. I had no idea there was a friend limit. Why would I? It isn&#8217;t likely that I—or any of my 240-some friends—need to worry.</p>
<p>Before you start to wonder, I&#8217;m not about to be that kid in high school who pretends she actually doesn&#8217;t <em>want</em> to have more friends, because being popular really isn&#8217;t that cool anyway&#8230;. Of course, numbers <em>do</em> measure and mean something, in certain circumstances. People with that many Twitter followers and Facebook friends are clearly some combination of smart/interesting/kind/entertaining (along with savvy and determined, and most likely sleep-deprived).</p>
<p><strong>But the opposite isn&#8217;t necessarily true. Smaller numbers, comparatively, do not always indicate the presence of all that&#8217;s dumb/boring/mean/humorless.</strong> I&#8217;ve been trying to remind myself of this and keep things in perspective as I build the kind of network a writer needs to get any attention in today&#8217;s world. It&#8217;s a steady, messy inner battle involving ego, reason, patience and humor.</p>
<h4>What we can learn about numbers from a church</h4>
<p>Today I read an article that was both inspiring and humbling, in unexpected ways. It did more to put the idea of numbers in perspective than anything I&#8217;ve heard or read in a long time. Check out these numbers:</p>
<p><span id="more-211"></span></p>
<p>For 60 years, the 91-year-old Gordon Cosby has been preaching at Church of the Savior. Since it was formed 6 decades ago, the church has been known throughout Washington D.C. as an activist powerhouse, starting dozens of organizations that serve thousands of people. Just to give you a sense of the scope, last year one of those organizations found jobs found for 800 people, while  another found 325 units of affordable housing for families in need.</p>
<p>Sounds like the work of a mega church, doesn&#8217;t it? Actually, Church of the Savior is an anti-mega church. How small is it? When Cosby preached his final sermon last Sunday, about 70 people gathered to hear him speak.</p>
<p>Why, when I read that, was my first though &#8220;How sad!&#8221;? Because <strong>I am blinded and fooled by numbers. Numbers are on the surface. To get what&#8217;s really behind the numbers—or to get past the numbers completely—you have to go deeper.</strong></p>
<h4>Staying small has made their impact big</h4>
<p>In this case, going deeper meant reading the rest of the <em>Washington Post</em> article, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010503341.html?wprss=rss_print/asection" onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outbound/article/www.washingtonpost.com');">Activist D.C. Church Embraces Transition in the Name of Mission</a>. This is where the humbling and inspiring part kicked in.  Listen to just a few of the very cool things about this church:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- The article describes the church&#8217;s basic philosophy like this: &#8220;A commitment to serious, inward contemplation as well as ambitious social justice work. No spectators. Action over institution.&#8221;</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- The church has what the article calls an &#8220;aversion to bigness.&#8221; (I&#8217;ve always heard this called the &#8220;daughter church&#8221; model.) &#8220;In the mid-1970s, the church broke more fully into different groups. And in the late 1990s, Cosby rattled many church members by proposing that they go further: legally become separate entities and eventually dissolve the Church of the Saviour, the umbrella structure.&#8221;</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- The article quotes 91-year-old Cosby as saying this: &#8220;&#8216;We&#8217;ve got to move from believing so deeply to doing,&#8217; he preached. <strong>&#8216;We&#8217;ve got to keep in mind the discrepancy between belief and embodiment.&#8217;&#8221;</strong></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">- And then there are these amazingly inspiring paradigm shifts: &#8220;After decades of bringing white, middle- and upper-class people into neighborhoods around Columbia Road and Adams Morgan to serve the poor and lecturing to seminarians and faith leaders, <strong>Cosby has concluded that societal change might go in the other direction.</strong>&#8220;</p>
<p>Wow. Talk about turning it all on its head. It kind of reminds me of something someone said about the last being first and the poor being rich. And for some extra irony, get this: &#8220;[Cosby] noted that megachurches, now struggling to manage their size, have come to the church for guidance on how to be small.&#8221;</p>
<p>I love it. I&#8217;m inspired. I&#8217;m ready to see the world differently.</p>
";}}s:7:"channel";a:7:{s:5:"title";s:17:"Halfway to Normal";s:4:"link";s:30:"http://www.halfwaytonormal.com";s:11:"description";s:24:"Living a life in between";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sun, 25 Jan 2009 03:07:23 +0000";s:9:"generator";s:29:"http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1";s:8:"language";s:2:"en";s:7:"tagline";s:24:"Living a life in between";}s:9:"textinput";a:0:{}s:5:"image";a:0:{}s:9:"feed_type";s:3:"RSS";s:12:"feed_version";s:3:"2.0";s:5:"stack";a:0:{}s:9:"inchannel";b:0;s:6:"initem";b:0;s:9:"incontent";b:0;s:11:"intextinput";b:0;s:7:"inimage";b:0;s:13:"current_field";s:0:"";s:17:"current_namespace";b:0;s:19:"_CONTENT_CONSTRUCTS";a:6:{i:0;s:7:"content";i:1;s:7:"summary";i:2;s:4:"info";i:3;s:5:"title";i:4;s:7:"tagline";i:5;s:9:"copyright";}s:4:"etag";s:36:""059405874a8ef60ec739d074a0162769"
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