The Mind of ~Ifer

Most of us know the story of the ant and the grasshopper, how the ant worked all summer storing up food for the winter while the grasshopper played away his life. Come winter, the grasshopper was left out in the cold while the ant had food and a warm place to live.

We have been told our whole lives that the lesson that an ant can teach us is one of work ethic and preparedness. But I have been watching an anthill in my front yard, and I see a totally different lesson they are trying to teach me.

Over the course of weeks, the ants build up a small, but beautiful, little hill around their hole in the ground. They smooth down the sides of the hill, creating a work of art as well as a home. And then it rains. And in Southeast Texas, we get some downpours. After the rain, the hill is gone, and all that is left is this little hole in the ground.

Do the ants give up? Do they throw in the towel and say “if we rebuild it is just going to get destroyed again when it rains”? Do they let a little rain in their lives stop them from continuing on?

Quite the contrary. They get back to work, they rebuild. I can almost hear the ants heave a collective sigh and get back to hauling sand. It is as if they believe that one day they will build a hill that will withstand the rain. A hill strong enough to endure.

I pray that I will have the persistence of the ants, to keep rebuilding when life throws rain my way. To keep on.

To hold the faith.

And who’s to say that one day the ants won’t build that enduring hill?

And who’s to say that one day we won’t?

How trusting are you?

I remember a friend I had years ago telling me that one of the most unusual things about me was my ability to trust my friends and family. She was speaking specifically of a certain conversational exchange that we had:

Me: What are they talking about
Her: You don’t want to know
Me: Okay.

And that was the end of the conversation. In my mind, I trusted her to make that judgment call for me. I trusted that if she said I didn’t want to know, I really wouldn’t want to know. I trusted that she knew me well enough to be looking out for my best interests, and she was trying to protect me.

I am still that way to this day. If Mike tells me I don’t want to know something, I usually drop the subject. If Mike were to come to me tomorrow and tell me we needed to move across the country to a different town, a different state, a different world even, I would trust him, and begin to make plans.

I am not sure why I have this faith in other people. This belief that they are doing what is best for me, that nobody would intentionally hurt me.

For me, trust in those areas is an easy thing.

It is the smaller things that get me.

I have trouble trusting that someone is going to do the job correctly, so I often do it myself to make sure it is done right. I have trouble letting others do things for me, physical acts, because again, control freak. Even if I do let go enough to let them do the job, I will often follow up behind, “correcting” minor issues, things that were fine the way they are.

How trusting are you?
What are areas that are easier or harder for you to trust others in and with?

I revel in the way the leg of my pants is hanging, instead of pulling.

I revel in the fact that I had to buy a belt

I revel in the way my waistband feels snug, but only because I tightened the belt an extra notch.

I revel in the clothes that we are digging out of storage, and able to wear again.

I revel in the way we feel, so much better, so much healthier already.

I revel in finding a place to exercise in air-conditioning (note: two laps around the outer perimeter of Wal-Mart is 1/2 mile)

I revel in the pride of us, we are doing it, meal by meal, step by step, we are doing it.

I revel in success, fought for, and earned.

I long for a legacy.

It is more than just wanting to be remembered, or missed, when I leave this earth. It is a matter of wanting a piece of myself to be left behind, to MAKE something that will be remembered. Something tangible, something permanent.

I long to…

pen the novel that is adored by the masses…
compose the symphony…
paint the picture…
capture the perfect picture…
choreograph the timeless dance…
win the Olympics…
sing the sweetest notes to the sweetest song…

I want to be Ansel Adams, Jesse Owens, Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Margaret Mitchell, and Pavarotti.

I am not morbid. I am not depressed. I know that were I to leave the earth tomorrow, I would be missed. I believe I would leave an emotional legacy. As beautiful as that is (and make no mistake, an emotional legacy is a beautiful, priceless thing), it isn’t what I am longing for today.

I want something that can be held in your hands, something that will endure. A hundred years from now, I want someone to pick up something that I have created, and remember who I am.

I long to not only make a difference, but to make something that makes a difference.

Where is my mark, and how do I go about making it?

I am from Red Heart yarn, from crochet hooks, knitting needles and cross stitch patterns.

I am from Army housing with white walls, green carpeting, and lumpy, scratchy furniture on loan.

I am from Misawa, Berlin and Fort Hood, from sushi and bratwurst and barbeque.

I am from Christmas Eve gathered around the tree and playful sarcasm, from Linn (with an “I”!) and Dave and one brother and four sisters.

I am from a myriad of quirky aunts and nerdy uncles.

From “don’t get your dress dirty” and “You can do anything you set your heart on”.

I am from little Baptist churches, baptism on Christmas morning, and Just As I Am

I’m from everywhere and nowhere, multiple generations of soldiers and protectors, world travelers, homemade spaghetti and scrapple.

From the amazed “it’s a girl!” from my father at my birth, the summer trips to the library for Nancy Drew, and the backyard sledding in Japan.

I am from blue photo albums, from glass china cabinets, from a black and white of my mother as a child, from a heart-shaped baby picture of my father locked away safe inside a locket, from a million scattered pieces of colored glass brought together for one beautiful stained glass window

Inspired by this template, an exercise in remembering and understanding just who we are.

Yesterday, we stood in church and sang “Jesus Loves Me”. As the familiar notes washed over the sanctuary, I was transported back into my childhood.

For one brief moment, I could feel the rustling of the dresses I wore as a child. I could see the shine on the shoes, feel the softness of the tights that I was wearing.

I was a child again. I could almost sense my mother and father in the pew behind me, my siblings at my side. I felt a connection to my past, to my God, to myself.

And yet, at the same time, it was almost as if I was watching my childhood self, standing in the pew next to me. I smiled fondly at her. She was separate from me. She was part of me.

I don’t long for a life in the past. I cherish what it was, what it has given me. I value the fact that the childhood I had, the past I lived, allow me to more fully appreciate and experience the life I have now.

I think part of the magic was the song, the simple words of “Jesus Loves Me”.

It was a good feeling, a happy memory.

More than anything, it was a sense of peace.

What sights, sounds, and smells take you back to the past? What makes you smile and acknowledge just how far we have traveled? What brings you peace?

Reason #393485893 why I love my husband…

An excerpt from our conversation on Friday night:

Him: I think one of the biggest scams is the woman’s make-up industry.  Women don’t need all that.

Me: So it doesn’t bother you at all that I don’t spend time each morning putting it on?

Him: Not at all, you certainly don’t need it, and I am glad you don’t feel like you have to wear it.

Am I blessed, or am I blessed?

A few days ago, Mike and I watched a video online of the Boy Scouts annual Jamboree, with President Obama making a speech.  You could not even hear what he was saying because of the Boy Scouts booing him while he was onstage.  The video was really sad to me for a couple reasons…

1. There is the whole common courtesy issue.  There is a person onstage making a speech.  Common courtesy would dictate that you be polite enough to allow them to speak.  If you don’t want to listen, then don’t, but don’t be disruptive and rude.  That person, whoever they might be, was granted the honor of speaking on that stage, and the polite thing to do is to keep your mouth shut.  When I was a kid, I would have gotten in real trouble for even calling an adult by their first name without using Miss or Mr. in front of it.  I can only imagine what my parents would have done had I had the gall to boo someone while they were making a speech.

2.  These were the Boy Scouts.  I know they are still kids, but the Boy Scouts are supposed to be the ones helping people across the street, the ones that are somehow kinder, more noble than the rest.  They are supposed to be the best of the best.  They are also taught to honor God and country, and somehow, I don’t think booing the President is doing that.

3.  He is the President.  Now, I generally make a point not to discuss politics on my blog, but I think this might shed a little insight into how strongly I feel about this point.  I did not vote for Obama.  I am a fairly strong conservative in politics, and he was not the man I chose for the job.  Add to that, I am not a fan of his now.  But. He IS the President.  Like him or not, he is the President of the United States, and as such, he deserves certain respect and honor.  Regardless of what you think of the person individually, the office he holds demands respect.  You just don’t boo the President during a speech.  You just don’t.  I can’t begin to tell you how very wrong that feels to me.

It just bothers me, angers me, frightens me, that our world is getting away from the concept of respect.  I see so many people that are becoming angered and militant in their personal points of view, and using that as an excuse to be rude, or hateful to someone else.

There is no excuse for that, in my opinion.  We can disagree, we can have different viewpoints, we can even argue with one another, but there should always be the underlying attitude of respect.  You have a right to your view, I have a right to mine, and there is never a need to belittle someone else to prove a point.

I don’t know… does this bother you?  What would your reaction be to watching that video?

Have I ever mentioned that Mike and I used to go ghost hunting?

Ghosts, and what they are, have been an interest and a passion of mine for many years, since I was a young teenager.  I can remember this book that my parents had, this volume collection of famous ghost stories, from all around the world.  I read that book many times.  I don’t know exactly why that was an area that fascinated me so much, but I have some theories…

(First let me say that most of this post is going to be based on the assumption that you believe in the existence of ghosts, as I do.  If you do not, this probably sounds like a bunch of hokey nonsense.)

~It is a supernatural fascination.  Ghost hunting, and understanding ghosts, or believing in ghosts, is at heart, a discussion of the afterlife.  If there ARE ghosts, and if they ARE somehow related to the people that have gone before, then there must be something after we die.  These people didn’t just disappear, their spirits are still there, communicating.  There must be something that we go to.  And more importantly, we still have a presence in the world.

~It is a search for knowledge.  I want to know WHY people see the image of a loved one that has already passed.  I want to know WHAT is causing that light at the end of the road, WHAT is making that noise in the house.

~It is a love of history.  I have to be completely honest, and tell you that my favorite “hauntings” are the historical ones.  And a large part of what I love to do is the research.  The finding out about the stories, the love affair I have with the past.  Searching through records to find out who owned the building, who lived there, the story behind the tragedy, the story behind the ghost.

~It is a love of the thrill.  Sitting in a room that is rumored to be haunted, and waiting for something to happen, is at the same time the most frightening, and the most utterly boring, thing that you can be doing.  It is a lot of sitting there with nothing happening, a lot of being in the dark, but always, always, there is this sense of anticipation.  It’s odd though, in some places we have hunted, there was a sense of quiet, as if nothing was going to happen.  In others, there was an electric feeling in the air, as if someone were there with us.

Do I believe in ghosts? Absolutely.  I think hauntings are real, I think something is happening there, I think something is being seen, or felt, or heard.

What are ghosts? I have no idea.  I can tell you this much though… I don’t believe that sensing “an angry presence” is evidence.  Mike and I… we want evidence, we want proof.  We want video of an apparition.  We want recordings of an EVP (which by the way, we have gotten once, and I will tell you about that at another time).  We don’t want pictures of dust that people claim are orbs.  When we go hunting, we take a LOT of electronic equipment.  We have everything covered with video cameras, and audio recording devices.  We have EMF detectors, and thermometers, and all kinds of stuff.  We want something concrete, something that we can use as proof.

What about you? Do you believe in ghosts? Do you have a theory as to what they are?  Would you go ghost hunting if someone invited you along?

I am not sleeping again, and it is beginning to take its toll.

I have always had periods of insomnia throughout my life.  Once I get to sleep, I sleep like a charm, but sometimes it is the getting to sleep that is the problem.  When I was a kid and a teenager, whenever my family would get ready to move for my father’s next Army assignment, I would start not sleeping again.  In my later teen years, we tracked it down to the fact that the boxes in my room made me nervous and anxious about the upcoming move, and I swear to you, we solved the issue by me sleeping on the couch.  Sometimes I would sleep on the couch for a month or more before we actually moved because of the anxiety.

When I have had jobs I didn’t care for in the past, I would often experience Sunday night insomnia.  In a simple, childlike effort to keep Monday from coming, my body would not allow me to let Sunday end.  Let me tell you, Sunday still ended, and Monday was all the worse for it.

Always at the busiest times in my life, when I needed the sleep the most, I would have the most trouble getting the rest.  My mind doesn’t want to shut down, and although my body lays there like a dead person, my mind just.won’t.stop.

And then there are my legs.  I have RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome).  When I lay down at night and try to sleep, about 25%-50% of the time, my legs start hurting.  It is an intense ache that feels like it is in the bones of my shin, and the only way to ease the pain is to move my legs.  Everytime I am just slipping off the edge of that cliff into sweet sleep oblivion, I have a throbbing pain in my legs, and I have to change positions.  Not exactly conducive to rest, I can tell you.

So now… why am I not sleeping now?  Honestly, I have no idea.  This summer has been a very rough one, and there have been a lot of sad things that Mike and I have had to help each other through, but there is nothing on the horizon now that I should be worried about.  My legs bother me some, but not as bad as they have been in the past.  We are not about to move, things are calm and good at work, and things are good at home.

I am not sure why I am not sleeping.  But I tell you this… I am a woman who loves her sleep, always have, always will… and I miss it.