This Mother's Day

This Mother's Day I am thankful for my mom who birthed me and raised me. 

For my aunts who supported that role. 

For my friend's moms who treat me as one of their own. 

For the older woman in my life who have filled motherly roles,

 for my peers who have mothered me when adulting is to hard, 

for my friends who are raising up tiny humans of their own.

I am thankful for the women who won't give birth or haven't yet. Thank you for showing me and reminding me that I can be an amazing woman without having the label of mom.

just because you haven't given birth or you're not responsible for another human life doesn't mean you haven't filled the role of mother in someone's life and you haven't loved well and you aren't less of a woman. you are valued and loved and I am thankful and grateful for you.

Moms are amazing and brave and strong.

But this day let us take another look at what the word mom means and be grateful and thankful and mindful of those woman who desire that title.

I am a bad friend

I am horrible at relationships. I must have missed that day in school.

I am not just talking about dating. But friends, family, coworkers, God. Any and all relationships, I have never been good at.

In grade school I didn't have a lot of friends. My birthday parties were always just family. I hung out with cousins and the neighbor kids, and even those relationships I couldn't make last into middle school or high school. 

High school I hung out with a few people, but once again I was bad. I rarely initiated the conversations or the hang outs. I was always on the receiving end. 

College I sat in my room until people came and talked to me. During summer breaks I rarely spoke to those people. Out of sight out of mind seemed to be the running theme.

Even now as a grown woman, with all the technology we have, if you are not a part of my day to day life I don't reach out to you; even if you are, I don't reach out. I sit and I wait. I wait for someone to speak to me.

I do the same thing with God. I don't hang out with Him daily. We see each other on the weekends and a few times during the week, but usually I just sit around waiting for Him.

I wait for Him to reach out to me. To say something big, to comfort me when I hurt, to grant me knowledge and wisdom and peace. 

I sit with my phone always on me, waiting. 

Part of my reason for not reaching out to others is that I never want to be a bother. I don't want to interrupt their life. And what if they don't want to speak to me, like I want to speak to them. 

But see the thing is when I do reach out and reconnect with those old friends, things are as if they have never changed. They love and care for me the same way they did before. 

God is the same way. When I open up and speak to him. He opens up and speaks to me. Loving me and caring for me the same way as before. But taking that first step is always the hardest and scariest, the fear of rejection hangs tight.

God I am sorry I have been a bad friend.
Friends I am sorry I have been a bad friend.

I promise I will try to do better. That is all I have. The promise to try. 

FaceSpace

I keep debating over my feelings for Facebook.
On one hand I love that it is an easy way for me to keep track (note: not in touch) with friends and people in my life.
On the other hand I do not like that everyone and everything is connected through it.
Some things to consider: (in no order what so ever)
1) I have been on Facebook since pretty early on. I remember the days when it was only for college students and when my friends at Iowa State had it but I had to wait for Northern Iowa to get it. It was a private club. I liked that, I felt special.
2) My dad is on Facebook. That is just weird.
3) As mentioned previously, I dont actually use Facebook to keep in touch with people. Keeping in touch implies more than just reading their statuses,  checking out their pictures and an occasional comment or like. It implies actual conversation, little to none of which I do. I religiously read statuses and always have to check out the pictures, but barely ever to I use Facebook for anything other than legal stalking.
4) I have often thought about friend requesting every person I have more than 2 mutual friends with. (Horrible grammer I know)  It would be a fascinating case in Its a Small World.  Everytime I think about I talk myself out of it. Mostly because by doing so it would allow these strangers into my world.
In a blog I have thought about, but not posted or written much of, are the truths about my fortress.  The elaborate system of walls, which I have built to protect myself. If I friend request every Tom, Dick, and Sally, I am allowing guest passes into Jannaland. I am not ok with that. (Confession: I have 3 different email accounts, a FB account (duh), a Twitter account (not connected in any way(on purpose)) and this blog, all so I can keep parts of my life separated)
Also it really annoys me when people I dont know ask to be my facebook friend.
5) I also often think about defriending most people on my current friend list. Those people from college who I never speak to, and if I ran into them at the mall, wouldn't know what to say to them. But I can usually justify most of the people staying. "They're family, if I unfriend them it would create family tension." "This is a good business contact." "If I ever find myself in XYZ city, I can use this person for info." "They always have funny posts." "I like seeing pictures of their cute kids" Nothing good, nothing valid. But yet they remain my "friends". Maybe I need to go back to my old thought of "If I would enjoy a meal with you, you can be my facebook friend."
6) I completely dislike that EVERYTHING has a Facebook page now. My favorite band, the grocery store, the bowling alley, the apartment complex. I do not like that so much of my world, of THE world is contained in one little website. (I almost called it an app, until I remembered that it does still exist mostly as a website.) If Facebook dies, so much dies with it. My trust issues are not ok with that.

But yet there it is, this thing that rules so much of my world, so much of the world period. There it sits and there it shall stay until I can learn to actually keep in touch with people and deal with a lack of information.

P.S. I got really distracted while typing this and starting thinking about comas, colons, and semi-colons, more than I should. I should probably learn how to use the last two better.

The Past

<p>Tonight I got a very unexpected friend request. The man who has the record for my longest relationship wanted to be my facebook friend. The man who I dated off and on for 3 years, cheating on me and breaking my heart multiple times, wanted back in my life after no contact for over 6 years. <br>
It took me a long time to get over him, to get over those feelings of hurt and betrayal from a man who said he wanted to marry me, who wanted to father my children. <br>
I had closed and locked the door on that part of my life. I no longer associated with people from that time, I avoided the places we would hang out. I had moved on.
And tonight, tonight I was faced with all of that all over again. Those feelings of hurt and betrayal as I saw his name and the photo of him with his wife and kids.
Five years ago I would have cried. I would have grabbed a bottle of wine, and drank until the tears contained nothing but alcohol. I would have made some phone calls and let my anger guide me down a path of poor choices.
But tonight, as my heart sank as those memories came flooding back, I was allowed a moment of reflection. I am no longer that girl that would allow a second and third chance to a boy who cheated on me. I am no longer the girl who would let her pain lead her down a path of destruction.  I am no longer the girl who would drown her tears in alcohol.
I am now the woman who moves on. The woman who recognizes her pain and lets it go. The woman who sees her past and by the grace of God does not have to relive it. There might still be tears tonight, not out of pain, but out of thankfulness to a God who has saved me from it all. A God who has blessed me more than I deserve, a God who will continue to bless me more than I can imagine.

I will not be adding to my friends list tonight or anytime in the near future, not that name anyway.

Failures

I had a moment of panic last week during church that when it comes to judgement day and I am standing before the cross that I will fail for the times that I have been a poor friend, for the times when I have failed to proclaim God's name, for the times I have failed to hold on to God and nothing else. For the times when I have saught the pleasures of this world instead of holding out for the prizes of heaven.

Tonight as I drove around after returning a movie that I thought was going to be a comedy but was actually pretty deep and brought up some nasty things in me, I started to feel bad and like a failure. But this time not in God's eyes but the worlds.
I am 31 years old. Single, never married, no kids. Work a job (two actually) not because either of them are something I love but because I have to pay the bills. (Frankly I dont know what I would do if I wasn't just working to not be in debt.) Dont own a home. Live in a shoebox of a studio apartment that I struggle to keep clean, because even when I have time off from work or my non booming social life, I can't seem to make myself get off the couch for more then 5 mins at a time.

Lucky for me these two feelings didn't intersect and tonight as I drove around listening to K-love (because that is the Christian thing to do [cheesey]) I didn't feel like a failure in God's eyes and I knew that even though I am a bit of a screw up (sometimes larger than others) that God still loves me and is still proud of me and doesn't care that my house is a mess or that I dont know what I am doing with my life. He knows that I love Him and that even when things suck a lot that I won't turn my back on Him. That everyday I am becoming less of the person I was before, and more of the person He wants me to be. That as long as I try to please Him I can't fail and failure in the world's eyes mean nothing.

Friend Frustration

Recently I have become more and more frustrated with the friends in my life. Those that are fully aware of my job situation and my general need to have something to do with my days.
I realize that my friends can not just give me a job nor can they apply to jobs for me, but they do have the power of informing me of job openings, as well as putting in a good word for me at their companies or with friends and family that are hiring.
I am also having a bit of frustration with people who already have jobs and are looking for second and third jobs while leaving me in the dark. Me, the girl who has worked a total of 4 days in the past 6 months, the girl who is starting to wonder how she is going to pay bills, the girl who wishes life wasn't about who you know instead of what you know, the girl whose frustrations are leading her to doubt herself.