Life is fast...

Better not blink, or you'll miss something!

Hello friends,

I write to you tonight as I sit at my desk at Martin Luther Manor. A desk that will only be mine for another 24 hours or so. I have about an hour to waste before my evening activity starts. Tonight, it's TailWaggers. A group of middle-aged women come in with their therapy trained dogs and the residents get quite a kick out of it. I'm bored out of my gourd, but I guess it's not about me. It's weird to think that tomorrow is my last day at this place. It seems like just yesterday I was writing some melodramatic entry about being axed and how we should (figuratively of course) "Damn the Man, Save the empire!" Now, I have less than 24 hours left at a place where I have spent nearly every day of the last year of my life and a 365 square foot truck is rented and ready for me to move my life elsewhere in less than a week. Like I said, Life is fast, better not blink or you might miss something!

Speaking of missing something. I lost a good friend this past month. At least he once was a good friend. I haven't really blogged about it... for two reasons actually. Needless to say I have been a bit sidetracked by my needing to find a job, but right after his passing, it appeared that blogging about Billy was the "cool thing" to do and it seemed a bit tasteless at the time. Now, however, I'd like to put some thoughts into words...

In looking back on the last three weeks of this new year only one word comes to mind... unpredictable. If you had asked me on December 31st what I thought my January would bring... I clearly would have given you the wrong answers. Life is insanely unpredictable. To sum up the last few weeks... January meant losing a job, but finding a passion. Losing Billy, but finding grace.

Billy was theater person. A singer. An upbeat sparkplug of a boy who became a good friend of mine during our time at Lake Zurich High School. He was a freshman when I was a senior. Despite the age difference, I looked up to him. He had a charm and charisma about him that none other could quite achieve. He was kind, thoughtful and full of life. During my sophomore year of college, I was told that he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I would see him every now and again during my trips back to Chicago and although he always looked different... he was still the Billy I knew. He was still the Billy who played the best "Jack" to my "Cinderella's Mother". Even when the chemo and medications were taking hold of his brawny frame, he was still the Billy that permeated with some sort of strange yet undeniably appealing attraction. He was always just Billy.

When there's old age or self destructive behavior, it's easy to make sense of death. When you are close to a person and see them through the different stages of sickness, it may be easier to understand. He was here, and now he's not. However, in my feeble attempt to make sense of what makes no sense, I see the lesson that looms overhead. Appreciate the people in your life. Be kind, even when you're not being watched. Take a deep breath once in awhile. Seek out a sunset here and there. Heck... climb a mountain or write a poem. Know that you are part of a people who are intelligent anresilientnt and vast in their differences. Know that you are perfectly crafted by the Artist Himself. But also know that your time is limited. Your days are few. Tomorrow is not guaranteed and because of that... know that you must live a life abundant in love and laughter. So when your day comes...whether it be 85 years down the line or, much like Billy, far too soon... you will leave this place knowing you have accomplished great things.

Add to the Beauty,
Tempa

Whirlwind Weekend

Hello friends,

Wow. I have just returned from quite a whirlwind weekend (hence the title of this weblog!) I spent the last four days in Cedar Falls running around to job interviews galore. They all went well and I had a wonderful time with the best people in the world. I look forward to hopefully being offered one of the jobs I interviewed for and starting a life much like the last four days have been. But, I am still uncertain when, or if at all, that is going to happen. So, for now, I will sit in this computer chair at a place I no longer want to live and fight to keep out the harsh reality of the fact that I am back where I don't want to be.

The last week or so of the month is always an emotional one for me. Again, the fault of genetics and the lovely X chromosome. But for some reason, these last weeks of January have been tough. I lost my job and, somehow, with it the dream of a life established was lost as well. I had always thought I'd be somewhere by now. Married or dating or successfully corporate. I had always thought that by the age of 24 I would be established... at least employed. I know it sounds ridiculously dramatic (and, in all honesty, when I read back over this entry in a week or so I will surely realize that it is) but when I lost my job here in the Twin Cities, my path went with it. In life... we have milestones... drivers license, highschool graduation, college graduation, one's first job, marriage, children...etc. I rushed past the first few milestones with flying colors and until recently, I had thought I was well on my way to the next. Now, however, I have to back-track. No one ever prepares you to re-do milestones. A milestone, by definition, is something that is exciting and new when you reach it. It is neither new nor exciting when you have to travel backwards to reach it again. In fact, it's frustrating. Really frustrating.


Ironically, spending time with my best friends didn't really improve my uncharacteristically fragile emotional state. Don't get me wrong. I love them. I would spend time with them at the drop of a hat, but their milestones are different than mine. They've hit a few more than I have and as wonderful as that is, as much as I love them, as selfish as this may sound... spending time with people who are in love, have jobs they love, and have lives they love...spending time with people who have their lives on the right path makes it even more apparent to me that I do not. And yes... I realize that in the big picture,my life is right where it needs to be. Milestones will pass when the Lord has planned for them to pass. I am redoing this one because I need to. There is somewhere else I need to be right now and I realize that 100%. I know that is true. I know that the Lord has promised good to me, but it's hard for me not to know where that good is going to come from. It is harder still to sit and wait all the while knowing that very fact is not mine to know.

For now, dear friends, I will be still and wait. I won't tell you that it is going to be easy, because there is no use in lying to you (or myself!) I will sit and wait and strugle to be ok with the fact that I am left sitting and waiting...

"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways" Psalm 37:7

Good morning,

It's odd typing to you in the morning and not in the late hours of darkness. I have the day off of work, so I thought I would take advantage of the situation. This morning, I awoke to the sound of my cell phone ringing "Tap Dance" and saw that it was Kate calling. She felt bad about ripping me from my child-like slumber, but soon realized that it is overdue retribution for the many times I did the same thing to her during college. Funny Stuff.

Lately, I have been noticing all the odd (and annoying) ways people draw attention to themselves. You know what I am talking about... how some people wear clothes that are too tight, too bright, too short, too big... how people dye their hair colors that are far from natural... how some people spend hours at the local Gold's Gym to sculpt the perfect "look at me" body... and how others just pierce and tattoo the crap out of the perfectly good body they already had. They are all attention-getters. Granted, the majority of us however, don’t do anything radical. Instead, we simply find interesting things about ourselves and use them to our advantage when necessary. It could be as simple as stating an off-color opinion during a heated discussion or as intricate as shelling out thousands of dollars for an endangered monkey or a Puggle. It is only when things like this fail, that people bring out the big guns. It is at that point that people call upontheirrdeficienciess. Now, working in a healthcare field has given me the opportunity to learn about many different ailments, but it’s down-right disgusting to hear all of the different abnormalities that come out of a simple break room lunch discussion.

It starts out innocent enough... Randy might mention, in passing, that he has a mild peanut allergy. Then Evelyn will chime in with the fact that in addition to peanuts, she is allergic to all legumes. After two have mentioned their odd yet intriguing ailments, the childish game of "My dad's better than your dad" begins. Haley will call upon her lactose intolerance, Josh might throw in that he gets the runs if he eats wheat bread. I, of course, always make a point to mention the fact that my face once inflated like a beach ball because of the pesticides on Florida Oranges. The conversation between coworkers quickly progresses to things like accidents resulting in surgery, pregnancy woes, and diagnosed mental disorders. I have found that doctors and nurses often claim to have had learning disabilities as children, while those in the business office pull out the lisp or lazy-eye card. Without a doubt, someone will eventually mention how his best friend's sister's boyfriend's cousin's uncle was hospitalized for a tumor that they later realized was actually his twin.

The other day when I was working at the coffee shop, an older (although still quite burly) man entered and asked if we had anything that wasn't made of chocolate, coffee, or sugar. "I'm on a special diet," he said "Can't have chocolate. Coffee. Or Sugar." He went on to tell me all about WHY he was set up on such a specific diet and for how long he was instructed to stay that way: Severirritableal bowel syndrome and 6 months. Although I was tempted to ask him why he came to a coffee shop for something that didn't include any of the ingredients that coffee shops are famous for... I simply explained to him that we had many juice and tea options... lest he forget about the option of a tall glass of water. I felt bad for the burly man. In that case, his incredibly specific ailments needed to be broadcast to a complete stranger behind the counter... not to mention the few thirsty customers who had formed a line behind him during his "special diet" saga. In the end, I gave the man (whose name, I was told, is Marty) a medium skim sugar-free no-whip hazelnut steamer.

In further (and probablunnecessaryry) thought, I wonder why these foolish ailmentexistst in the first place. Are they Biblical? Are they the result of human or technological evolution? Or... did God create things like IBS and Peanut Allergies during a light-hearted conversation with John the Baptist ovemediumim skim sugar-free no-whip hazelnut steamers?

Have a great day,
tempa :)

Overture, Entre'act, Finale...

Good evening friends,

It is nearing 1:30 in the morning and I have just woken up from a few hours of sleep. Oddly enough, I'm not tired anymore. Very interesting, I know. I think I am just nervous about the fact that my life currently hangs in the balance between Minneapolis and Cedar Falls, Iowa. I thought I would take advantage of this sudden awakeness and clear my mind by writing to my favorite internet friends. Yes, friends. I realize I do know most of my readers in person, but even to those who might just read my words as they are passing by... I feel we are somehow connected on this giant spinning orb we call earth.
Anyway, on with the blog...
Anyone who knows me, knows that I have quite an active imagination... and, dare I say, a flair for the dramatic. Granted, I'm not the girl who wears beatnick berets and black turtlenecks... but I was the six year old who made castles out of dining room chairs and bed sheets. I was the girl who somehow found ways to parallel every episode of Dawson's Creek to her own life and, yes, I still do secretly yearn for my oh-so-distant love story to be pulled from the script of a good Nora Ephron movie. I'll admit it... I love the intense highs and lows of life. Romance and Sadness, Joy and heartache. They cohabitate on our life lines and, in my opinion, living would be a dull existence without them.

Earlier this evening (when I was supposed to be concentrating on making a large sugar free skim honey vanilla latte) I was thinking about my life. Or more so... life in general. I have always said that I wish life was like an old Roger's and Hammerstein musical. Where a simple thought could start a chorus of song. Where those around you would somehow know all the steps to the intricate dance that you spontaneously break into. Feelings could be expressed with a simple comment to the proverbial audience and everything would work out OK in the end. Then I realized, with the exception of the song and dance, our lives are our own personal Oklahoma's and South Pacific's.

Before the show, the audience is prepared by the overture. The 9-month overture in our case. This signals the audience to take their seats, quiet their conversations, and get ready for the show. Act One introduces the main character. She learns, she grows, she experiences. Supporting roles are added in as necessary and inevitably become integral parts of the storyline. The story continues and just as one might think our leading lady has it all figured out, she gets herself into a pickle. Sometimes humorous, sometimes frightening... but always a pickle.
INTERMISSION- This is when our lives seem to even out. Nothing exciting, nothing new. Time enough for the audience to grab a drink of water and stand in-line at the lady's room for a while before returning to their seats. Act Two, the shorter of the two acts, starts with a rousing Entre'act, a reminder of where we left off. Somehow, with the help of the supporting characters and good script writing from the Author Himself, our heroine finds her way out of the aforementioned pickle and all ends well to the sounds of the reprise...reminding us all of where we came from and how exactly we ended up alright.

Although I would be lying if I said I didn't yearn for a full-cast song and dance at times, I'm content with knowing that I have a little bit of the Sound of Music in everyday life.

G*night friends,
tempa

Happy New Year... or something...

Hello friends,

I love New Year's. Not because of the champagne and parties; not because the hustle and bustle of the holiday season is finally over; and especially not because of the sudden college football television monopoly. I love New Year's because it signifies the end of something newly completed and the beginning of something completely new. Suprisingly, both the ending and beginning excite me. At times, I think that celebrating "New Year's" seems a bit foolish. When you really think about it, it's only a matter of seconds that separate the old from the new... but I think we all need that definitive separation to give us the ability to get past what is past.

Recently, everyone left 2005 and entered 2006 at different points in their lives... the common denominator of the situation is that we are all entering a new year very differently than we entered the least one. Some of us got married, some of us had children... some of us won the lottery and blew it all on Coach purses and Maybelline. (No, I don't know anyone that did that, but it made me laugh to think about... seriously, think about it. You'll laugh too!) Unless you spent the last 12 month encased in ice...we are all at different places than we were a year ago. For Instance, I was dealt a bad card yesterday when I was informed my position at Martin Luther Manor had been eliminated. Although I will continue there until the end of the month and was given another full month of severance pay... the proverbial rug was pulled out from under me. Now, I stand (rugless) at an unknown location very far from where I was just 365 days ago. At this point, it would be easy for me to complain and seek out the injustice... but just like a matter of minutes allows for a new start to the New Year, a matter of minutes can allow for a new start to a new chapter of my life, as well.

Along with this most recent life-altering debacle, the last couple of years have brought along with them relationship disappointments, missed opportunities, lost friendships, and poor reactions to situations beyond my control. In order for me to move forward...to continue growing... I need to put those things behind me and venture into the rugless unknown I previously spoke of.

Like I said before, not all of us have entered this new year in the same place, but all of us are changed. All of us (except, of course, those encased in ice) have a year of growth under our proverbial belts and we are called to embark upon this new year with gusto. Afterall, in the immortal words of Semisonic (circa 1999) "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end".

G*night,
Tempa

"For our momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2nd Corinthians 4:17-18