Family Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas, Friends! As always, there is quite a bit to say about the Kinzers this year. In discussing the writing of this letter (and who would be the author), we discussed the fact that it may have to be several pages long with tiny margins and a dinky font. Only because we all did a lot, but none of it is truly newsworthy. Mom’s words were, “We were pretty boring, did a lot, but nothing too drastic.” However, all in all, I’d say it’s been a great year for all of us.

Faith is doing fantastically. She’s still going to Liberty and is finishing up her third semester. She always takes a full load of classes and does her best to stay heavily involved in many outreaches at the school. She participated in a Halloween Haunted House and is a prayer leader in her dorm hall. As a missions coordinator at the school, she helped organize her summer mission to Brazil where she acted as a leader. I was on vacation when she called me from the airport to ask for some advice in regards to “problem kids” and keeping control. I was pretty excited to hear how grown up she was and recognize that she’s now truly an adult and is having an impact on the sphere around her. I must say that it is somewhat weird for me to watch her turn into a grownup who has mature thoughts and mature conversations. I crave time on the phone with her and can’t stand not knowing what’s going on with her on almost a daily basis (I even Facebook stalk and friend request her roommates and whatnot). When I begged and pleaded with her to tell me what she definitely wanted included in this letter, she gave me a long list of things that happened (that are all here) and added, “I dunno. It’s probably been the most adventurous year for me so far.” I think I have to agree with her, because honestly, I can’t even remember everything she’s done. Almost every time I talk to her she’s doing something that sounds incredibly fun (or challenging).

Nathan is officially a military man. I think Boot Camp and training may have almost been harder on Arielei, but we are very proud of Nathan for his choices and for doing well. Since then, he has injured his knee which is complicating the benefits and Nathan’s future with the military. He has signed on with the Reserves and will be deployed in May(ish) to Iraq. Definitely keep him (and Arielei) in your prayers as they are separated and Nathan is doing dangerous things for a large portion of their 2011. They’ve both started to attend Liberty University as well and enjoy being able to see Faith more often. They have an apartment and are enjoying classes which they say are much more challenging than the ones they took at UNM. Arielei gave me permission to say, “Arielei only married in but she's working as a staff photographer for Liberty's student newspaper.” I have gleaned from their Facebooks that they do miss their friends here and are getting excited about graduating and moving back to the Land of Entrapment. I have also gleaned from Nathan’s Facebook that he is getting stranger and more jokingly-dramatic than ever.

Kristen, the intensely amazing authoress of this fine piece of informative literature, is doing quite well. She has the same job she told you about last year and has not had anything too exciting or out of the ordinary happen in the last year. She made some awesome friends, acquired an awesome boyfriend, got rid of her stalker, went to a gazillion weddings and baby showers, got her foot badly broken (by her best friend) and was on crutches for 9 weeks (it’s been 9 ½ months and is still broken). She visits her grandparents almost every day just to make sure they are entertained on a regular basis. She went back East with Jonathan and got to see Mom’s side of the family. She hadn’t been to family reunion at the beach for about 5 years and was incredibly excited to see everyone (and how they had aged so much). It was great to introduce Jonathan and spend time with the family. Just to be a downer: she sang “Amazing Grace” at a dear friend’s memorial this fall; it was one of the hardest, most rewarding things she’s ever been asked to do. Her New Year’s Resolutions were to get two new piercings, two new tattoos and have fun. She ended up with 3 new tattoos, 5 new piercings and had a ton of fun going to parties, throwing parties, being in weddings, traveling, etc.

Jonathan Pierangeli-Kinzer gets a shoutout this year! He’s been part of the family long enough that we decided it was time to include him in the letter. He’s the best friend that ruined my foot. We still love him. He also had a great year and was obviously present for all the family times! He had a blast meeting all the Byrnes at the beach and is always asking if he gets to go back. I always tell him, “Duh. I’m not missing it, so you have to go.” He told Grandma Pat that he refused to call her Pat and would be calling her Grandma. She seemed pleased to welcome him to the family. As we were leaving the beach (a tad early), Uncle Scott shook his hand and hugged him and said, “Welcome to the family.” I’m pretty sure that means he’s stuck with us anyhow. Of course, he’s always helping around Grandma and Grandpa’s house and helps me entertain them. Grandma always counts him in her grandkid list. As I mentioned, we went back East and got to see his entire family including our favorite aunt who we love to spend time with!

Caleb is ancient. He and Tiphani are still living in Oklahoma with the babies, D’Lyla (3) and Mariah (2). Unfortunately, we don’t see them often enough. However, they were able to make it to Grandma Kinzer’s 80th birthday party and also to the family reunion at the beach! They’re both little swimmers, speak multiple languages and love playing until they’re so tired all they can do is cry. It’s amazing how much the girls grow between each time we see them. Mariah ended up crushing on my boyfriend. Pretty sure I’m going to have to watch out, make sure she doesn’t try to steal him… She’s mostly potty trained. D’Lyla, on the other hand, not so much interested in being potty trained. A tad too hyper and enjoys only having fun. They were welcomed whole-heartedly by all the Byrnes at the beach and they grew particularly fond of Uncle Scott since he’d let ‘em sit in his lap and squish his face. Caleb is still working at the detention center and was fortunate enough to get a regular 9-5 schedule which has helped them all be able to coordinate schedules better. Tiphani is working at a local buffet and keeping extra busy taking online classes and working to get her degree. They are planning on finishing saving up some money and relocating to New Mexico. I keep encouraging them to be irresponsible and just move out here and then saving. For some reason, that’s not working. ;) The whole family would love it if they moved home and we got to spend more time with the babies who aren’t really even babies anymore.

Marcie is, as always, maintaining a busy lifestyle. She’s teaching college classes, taking college classes, and still teaching high school lit classes. She’s teaching Sunday school class and doing other things at the church as well. All in all, I’d say that pretty much eats up all her time. Last I talked to her, she doesn’t have much time for a social life (outside of the socialization she gets in school and at church). I tend to tease her about that, but then again, I’m just kind of mean that way. She does her best to keep in touch with all her kids since most of us are spread all over the country now. She does still let us call her Moo which is good. Keeps us all young in our old age. She fixes meals for Grandma and Grandpa several times a week.

John is also maintaining his busy lifestyle and teaching college, high school, and middle school. He’s also involved in the church as an elder. He has a tendency to send his children email forwards and gets a kick out of hearing their responses. He’s still attached as ever to Font and I’m pretty sure that puppy can do no wrong. He went elk hunting again this winter, but fortunately, did not get bucked off a horse (again). He didn’t get any meat this time, but still had fun from what I understand! He apparently gets more adventurous as he gets older which is probably a good thing…

Marjo (that’s their new celebrity name; couldn’t give you the same one two years running) is one crazy (aged) couple. They seem to be over committed much of the time which seems to be the Kinzer way. They miss the heck out of the babies and their kids. They even miss me and I only live some 15 minutes away. Their house, however, is no less full. They are still storing stuff for all four of us and have four offices full of books, papers, and any other paraphernalia that comes with teaching. I was joking with them that they were going to end up on that show, “Hoarders.” I’m not sure they thought it was as funny as I did. Anyhow, they are obviously both doing lots of teaching and keeping busy. They help Grandma and Grandpa out a lot as they had a fairly challenging year healthwise. Between the three of us, I think they see an extra Kinzer every day. Dad may not know this, but G & G make sure I keep up with him on eating Snickers ice cream bars. They bought a Nintendo Wii this year which I still really just can’t wrap my brain around. They both have cell phones – that they seldom answer. They’re really starting to enter the 21st century! Dad doesn’t even need much help with the computer anymore. He sort of got a crash course when he went from a house full of kids (and extra kids) down to an empty nest all in a matter of a couple years.

We didn’t get a family picture at all this year mostly because we are all irresponsible (Arielei just married in and doesn’t take our pictures, apparently, just random LU students’). But here are some shots you may enjoy!

We hope you all have a wonderful

Christmas, a great New Year and a

Blessed 2011!

With Love,

The Kinzers

(John & Marcie, Caleb & Tiphani,

Kristen, Jonathan, Nathan & Arielei,

Faith, D’Lyla & Mariah)

Big Brudda

Today seems an appropriate day to blog about my older brother.  He’s my big brudda.  He’s super awesome.  It’s his birthday.  He’s now officially 26 and that is one of the scariest things EVER.  Well, ok, maybe not.  Still scary.  Not a fan of the whole growing up thing.

Anyways, my big brudda and I did NOT get along when we were kids.  The root of that is long, drawn out, a boring story, and probably too personal to be posted in a public forum such as this.  But we both did our share of antagonizing each other… although, to this day, I feel he did more of it than I did.  He was older.  And bigger.  If he sat on me, I could die. 

Now that we’re apparently ancient, we get along really well.  To be totally honest, I couldn’t wait to call him for his birthday.  I love talking to him, love spending time with him and can tell him almost anything.  He’s great.  I’m so glad I have an incredibly awesome older brother.

New Year's Resolutions

It is that time of year where you start looking back at your past year and forward at the next year.  It’s when you decide whether or not you lived up to your New Year’s resolutions and what your next year’s resolutions will look like. 

Last year my resolutions were as follows (albeit partially to annoy people and partially because I’m not a goal-oriented person):

1.    Get two new tattoos, one of which had to be done with little-to-no thought in advance

2.    Get two new piercings

3.    Have fun

I must say, I did a stellar job. 

I got three new tattoos, one of which had no thought behind it and one of which had some, but not much thought behind it and that I asked the artist to mostly freehand.  The third tattoo I got was one I’ve been hoping to get for about eight years.  You can read about it. 

I got seven new piercings.  One was a “repeat” as I had lost the jewelry and then the hole closed up.  But still, seven new piercings.  One of them is completely unique in that the jewelry was custom made for my ear as it was put in.  Two are technically surgical and look like they are just stuck in my face.

I had soooooo much fun!  I can’t even express how fun this last year was.  Sure, it was chock full of stress as well.  I got two friends hired and fired.  I helped my boss open a third company.  I had quite a bit of family stress including my dear old grandma being stuck in the hospital for two weeks.  BUT I got all of those body modifications (all with good friends around), attempted to be the Face of Fox, acquired an awesome boyfriend, started hanging out with a group of friends who are basically the awesomest people in the world, went on a road trip with my BFF, went to family reunion for the first time in about six years, and the list goes on and on.  I had SOOOOOOOO much fun.

Now I just have to figure out what I’m going to do next year… I’m not sure what I’ll do.  I’m sure I’ll come up with a more intense list of resolutions.  But a few things in my life need to settle down before I go into detail about some of that on here, I think.  But this is my year-end wrap up of resolve.  I’ll probably post a few more times before the end of the year, but this is my personal Resolution Wrapup (unless I got more tattoos or piercings… which is totally possible… my piercer tends to call my name these days…).

Opinions are like noses...

…everyone has one.

And most people should keep ‘em to themselves.

I was recently bombarded by a slew of Facebook emails notifying me of a battle that was taking place on my status: 

Kristen Kinzer can't figure out how David Caldwell figured out the flipping passcode to my phone! I'm so excited for this. Now there's no way to keep him off my Facebook! YAYAYAYAYAY!

The more attacking opinions were all from people who I have known for quite some time (all through church) but that I don’t keep in that great of touch with.  They were, however, more than willing to comment.  Here are some paraphrased excerpts:

1.    Find a guy who respects you and shows it rather than a guy who doesn’t respect you and shows it

a.    This particular comment received several “likes”

2.    David’s posts on Kristen’s wall are middle school-tastic!

3.    David should get on the high road

The other side basically said:

1.    It’s clearly a joke

2.    Kristen messes with David’s Facebook also

3.    Self-righteous people need to cool it

4.    People shouldn’t tell David and Kristen how to have a relationship – people doing that is what ruins a healthy relationship

At this point, I stepped in with a lengthy comment explaining that it wasn’t really anyone’s business who I date (especially since none of these more judgmental people have even met him) and that I obviously don’t have a real issue with his stealing my phone.  I mentioned that David is a choice and that I’m not stupid enough to be in a bad relationship.  I went on to say that each person commenting on the thread is also a choice and choose to be their friend.  I mentioned that everyone on the thread was guilty of being rude to people I know that they don’t and that is what is truly disrespectful and juvenile.

From there, someone else chimed in with the fact that they “knew a better Kekky than that.”  Which is asinine as none of the negativity on the thread was ME.  As a matter of fact some of the harsh judgment came from someone I know this commenter respects.  She was then responded to and it turned into a mild argument which she immediately backed out of based on age.

I know these are all very strong words because the people who left these comments all know who they are and if you’d really like to know who left them, you could probably access my Facebook.  But you know what, I don’t care.  If you want to judge me, go for it.  I’m posting this for the general public to learn how retarded trolling and judging is.

So, here’s the deal.  If a person has an opinion on something they know little-to-nothing about, they should keep it to themselves or, at the very least, keep it off a public forum.  If they must post it in a public forum (which, let’s face it, is going to happen), they should have the ability to keep it nice and non-judgmental and maybe even try some love (especially those “loving” Christians). 

Treating people poorly just because you have the ability to troll around on the internet is not taking the high road.  What’s funnier – the people throwing judgment are all Christians who claim to “share Christ’s love” by being loving.  And they just told someone they “care” about (me) that she has a crappy boyfriend (who they don’t know and who is actually pretty damn amazing).  What they did is what I have written about on here before – they made “Christians” look mean, stupid and judgey which is why so many people I know what even darken the doorstep of a church and want to have nothing to do with religion.  And, again, they did it all behind an attitude that is clearly based on “religion.”

The non-judgey comments and ones who stood up for me are people who do not claim to be religious, don’t attend church and don’t treat people like they aren’t capable of making their own choices, having their own relationships, etc.  And they were not rude – even after being attacked.  Their comments were pointed and classy.  Well, not always classy, but certainly not blatantly judgmental and rude.

I do have to give props to one commenter who did pass judgment as she was responsible and respectful enough to send me a PRIVATE message explaining why she reacted as she did and to apologize for her attitude.

Point is, everyone does have an opinion (a shocking number of people have opinions about everything I do).  And most of these people need to learn how to share their opinion in a non-offensive way and without treating people poorly.  And if you’re going to do it where I can read it (or you have the audacity to throw me into the middle of petty, immature arguments based on things you know nothing about), you sure as hell better be ready to be written up and have the general world see the fact that you have acted so poorly.

Getting Over Writer's Block

Rob is convinced that my writer’s block will disappear when some things in my life clear up.  David is convinced that I need to keep writing because he’s positive I’ll have an impact on people and even if I only have impact on one person, writing is worth it.  Pete said that I talk a lot and I have to think to talk and people are entertained by me when I talk so writing can’t be a bad idea.

To that end, I have decided to pass a piece along to a friend who has gone through some of the things that I have.  I don’t know that they are completely pertinent to her, but I’m hoping that she gleans something from the piece – even if it’s just that she’s not alone.  I’m sort of looking forward to knowing… because that may determine what I do with my writing.

Rob’s words tonight were:  You are one of those people who live so large and who have such a passion for life that you have excess life, such natural sagacity, and such a unique and fresh way of seeing it, that not only will people read you and be changed by the experience, but you have an inherent obligation to speak out loud.

That scares me shitless.  That’s power.  It kinda goes back to what “Anonymous” said a few months back about how I need to write about more than me.  My argument in response was that I can’t write about anything else because I’m not qualified… and I’m not.  But I have a weird life… I’ve been through quite a bit considering I’m only 23.  The list goes on for why I write about what’s happening to me, what I’ve been through and what I’m going through. 

The point is, I’m trying to get over writer’s block.  I really am.  There is no reason not to, but I’m officially nervous and scared about the fact that I could possibly, really and truly have an impact on someone through typing words that are in my brain into a computer.  Not such a fan of the idea that that could happen.  It’s scary.

I’m gonna be careful and start small, though.  Keep up the blogging (some) and write a family Christmas letter.  That’s about it.

If that's what life is...

I have a friend who feels like she is sort of... in limbo... as far as a "relationship" she is in the midst of.  Here's the deal:

She likes this guy.  The guy seems to like her.  But he's kinda socially awkward.  ... Not that she isn't.  She called herself an Aspy the other day...  Somehow the guy got confused and thought she was permanently moving to another state.  When that got cleared up and realized she was just going on vacation, he got a tad flirtier again.

This all seems good, right?  I would agree with you on that.  Except that this got my friend all worked up because of the unknowns.  Here's how the instant message conversation went:

"I hate not knowing, though."
"I know. But that's what life is."
"Life is not knowing...life is annoying then."

So then this kind of got me thinking.  Why DO people get annoyed because they don't know the future?  Why do people spend money on palm readers and fortune tellers and whatnot?  Why can't we just kinda roll with life and see what happens?  It's how I do it.  My life is full of surprises.  Some good, some bad.  But how much more fun is that?  How shitty would it be if you woke up this morning knowing that your car was going to break down?  Why would you want to wake up knowing bad shit was for sure going to happen and know what it was?

And in this particular situation with my friend, why would you want to know that you were going to marry a guy you have a crazy crush on even if you haven't really dated him?  Isn't anticipation like half the fun of the life?  Maybe I'm weird or more adventurous than most.  But I really do like to letting life happen as it wants to.

Back Posts

So you know I’m lazy by now.  That said, I’m going to be posting what I call “back posts.”  Blogger gives you this option to post-date and pre-date posts so that you can post a gazillion posts at the same time but it looks like you posted over several days.  That said, I’m going to be post and pre posting posts because I have some things I never got around to posting.  They’ve all been this week or the last two weeks(ish).  I’m going to post them in the order I wrote them.  But the timing may seem off if you know me.  And I’m ok with that.  Just suck it up.

This is what happens when I writer’s-blocked writer is also lazy.

My Girl Laura.

She’s my Fucking Fuck.  That’s what we call each other.  We know it’s kinda rude and we’re totally ok with it.  But Laura is the shizznit.  I barely even know how to express in words how amazing Laura is.

We met in our last semester of college in an English class (that I went to a total of four times) and a Spanish class (that I don’t think I ever missed).  We did our Spanish project together and sort of talked here and there outside of class.  Eventually, we just started hanging out and ended up walking at graduation together with my best friend.  I’m pretty sure neither of us paid any attention to any of the people who were speaking and I was definitely giving her some relationship advice during the keynote speech. 

From there, we basically started bonding.  Honestly, I have no idea what happened, but my best friend and I started hanging out with she and her boyfriend on almost a weekly basis.  Even though the four of us have a group of friends we can hang out with at any time, we do try to have bonding times between just the four of us.

When I started dating one her boyfriend’s good friends, she specifically asked if just the four of us could hang out like we used to.  It may seem like a tiny little gesture, but nonetheless, it was pretty sweet.  Proved that our bond was real.

Throughout our two and a half year (ish) friendship, Laura and I have gotten closer and closer.  I love hanging out with Laura and helped throw a pretty wicked awesome SURPRISE birthday party for her (if I do say so myself).  She means a lot to me.  I can tell her anything and know she isn’t going to judge me and isn’t going to tell anyone and is going to give good advice.  She’s one of those ones who asks questions to walk you through your own thoughts rather than tell you want she’s thinking about you.  Which is always a good thing.  I think she gets that from her mommy.

Anyhow, what brought this on is that when I signed into Facebook recently, I had seven pictures tagged of me.  So I selected “Pictures of Me” on my phone and scrolled through a lot of them.  I realized that the first 90 or more were either taken by Laura or Laura was with me when it was taken. 

If I had never met Laura – who has a special place in my heart no matter what – I wouldn’t have most of the friends I hang out with regularly and wouldn’t be in such a good place.  She, in a way, saved my life just before “the real world” started.

I love my Fucking Fuck.

Frights 'n' Haunts

Seriously, for some reason I love Halloween.  Ok, really, I think I like any reason to get in a costume or go crazy decorating.  I just love holidays.  But anyhow, I think the whole month of October is my favorite in some ways.  I love wearing costumes and thinking of things to dress up as.  I love partying with my friends and being the only “old people” to go trick or treating in a neighborhood.

Most of all, I LOVE the haunted mansions, houses, farms, barns and cornfields.  I love getting the shit scared out of me so badly that I can barely move my feet and feel like I’m going to wet my pants the whole time.  Sometimes, I get so scared I end up ripping the skin of the poor bastard who lets me hold on to him.

Every year, I take my boss’s son up the mountain to Moriarty, New Mexico to McCall’s Haunted Farm.  This year, I got a group of my friends to go (there was drama, but I don’t wanna talk about that).  It was scary as shit.  I thought I might die.

We went to the Haunted Corn Maze first.  The line was pretty tedious, but I was with friends, so it could definitely be worse.  As soon as we stepped foot into the maze, I knew I was an idiot for going.  I had been jumpy the whole time we were in line.  My friends kept randomly scaring me as we waited and I just knew that my heart was going to stop and I was going to be murdered inside the maze.  I gripped onto David’s hand so hard I’m pretty sure he had reason to think that his hand was broken.  I couldn’t let go and he would hold me back when things scared me more and drag me when I attempted to stop.  I screamed bloody murder at almost every turn.  I knew something was going to jump out at me.  I kept screaming, “Don’t look at them!  They won’t know you’re scared if you look at them.”  Apparently that isn’t true.  As always, I came out of the maze saying, “Every year! I do this to myself every year! Why?!  WHY!?”

There’s this guy there every year.  He’s dressed up in what I assume is a hockey jersey (I only say I assume because I never get a great look at him because I get too scared).  He carries around a creepy noise maker thingie that makes sparks and really is designed to scare me so badly that I seriously think I’m going to get killed before I leave the Farm. 

This year was the first year the creepster learned my name.  I was standing in line, kind of in a corner, next to David.  I leaned past and behind him to say something to my friend Laura when David reached behind him to “hug” me.  When I looked up, Zach was talking to the creepy guy and all I heard him say was, “…Kekky…” 

Immediately, I screamed and clutched onto David.  I was so scared.  I felt my face get hot and I was pretty sure I was tearing up some.  The creepy guy started growling my name, “Kekky…  Come here Kekky… Why are you scared?”  I couldn’t stop screaming and every time I looked around one side of David, the creepy guy would follow with his taunting.  It was like playing scare-the-shit-outta-ya-peek-a-boo for adults. 

I have no idea why the guy finally quit freaking me out, but I do know that my heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest.  I could feel it through my arms and I could see my chest spasm with each beat.  I don’t think I’ve ever been more frightened in my life.

Every year.  I don’t know why I do it.

No Words.

I know.  It’s hard to believe.  I have no words.  None at all.  I’ve had writer’s block for weeks.  Well, I say weeks, but really have no idea how long it’s been.  A friend of mine has been helping me revise a longer piece that I have no intention of ever posting here and I can barely work on it.  Not because it’s crap (which it is), but because even fixing a word or two here and there is just… I don’t know.  I have the worst case of no-words ever.  I don’t even want to call it writer’s block anymore.  It’s worse than that.

I’m not even sure why this is happening.  Cool stuff has been happening to me lately.  A lot.  And I don’t even wanna write about it.

This is one of the bitchiest posts ever.  I apologize for that.

I love you.

To me, those three words are horrifying. 

That sounds terrible, but it’s true.  I hate hearing those words.  Hate it.  My whole life, I have cringed when people express to me why they love me or how much they care about me. 

But I love to tell people I love them.  I love easily and love much.  It’s a phileo love – a friendly love that I can share with friends and family.  Many of those that I have this phileo love for, I also love on an agape level and I crave to help them and serve them.  It’s so easy for me to love a friend or family member and want to be a shoulder to cry on, a drinking buddy, a sounding board, or anything else they may need.

The scary love is the Eros love – a romantic, passionate love.  A love that knows no bounds.  Craving to be with the person every possible moment.  The idea of being in Eros with a guy makes me nervous and question who I am.  It’s a commitment that I’ve never been sure of.

It’s been over three years since I’ve had a guy say, “I love you.”  He never acted like he loved me; treated me more like an enemy, really.  It’s become apparent that not only did he not love me, but I didn’t truly Eros him.  We were planning on getting married and I shouldn’t have even been associating with him. 

I heard, “I love you,” dripping with disdain and hatred over and over for three years.  My response of, “I love you,” was typically the honest truth.  I did Eros him at first, and continued to phileo him until he eventually wore me down and I only loved him because I can’t help but to phileo and agape people.  But the romance left quickly when “I love you” may as well have been “I hate you.”

Since then, subconsciously, when I think of Eros, romantic love, I assume it will turn to hate. 

The truth is this: I figure that eventually one of these relationships will turn from fun and companionship to a deep, romantic love and it’ll stick.  The likelihood of me ending up with another guy who starts to hate me is slim. 

Because of my ex, I have been standoffish with several guys who have cared about me.  None of them knew the whole story of how I was treated.  It’s embarrassing to admit that I almost walked down the aisle with someone who could barely tolerate me – not exactly light dating conversation.  Eros love is something that has not been expressed to me in a healthy way – not something you tell a casual boyfriend.

Since then, I can barely stand to think of falling in Eros with someone.  I don’t even know what that would look like because I have never experience healthy Eros.  I have almost fallen that hard once.  I think.  I don’t even know because I have been so shaped by that first relationship.  I think this guy fell almost as hard as I did.  We never dropped the L word for each other.  I think the root of that is fear based on past relationships.  Eros has never treated either of us well.

My boss asked me what I would have done if this guy told me he loved me.  My first reaction was, “Walk away, I’d walk away.”  And for a few minutes, I believed that was true.  I would get so scared that I’d walk away.  Then I thought some more, I think I could have handled it.  I would be ok with hearing, “I love you,” from him because he actually cared and we care about each other on a phileo level – there is no hatred between us. 

The point to all of this is that most of us have an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend who discontinued Eros.  If you’re lucky, you stopped loving them first.  But as my therapist (boss) has told me, you sort of have to work your way out of that.  You can’t let that overshadow everything.  It may not be surprising that it’s hard to accept love after it’s been thrown in your face as hatred, but eventually you have to open yourself up to the possibility of love again.  It freaks me out that I’m even thinking this way, but it’s true.  You have to let the words, “I love you,” be spoken to you without making you shudder with fear that eventually they’ll hate you or you’ll lose them no matter how much you pour out your heart to them.

Struggling

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you probably read my post, “Dear Anonymous.”  If not, go read it.  Or don’t.  Whatever.  Anyhow, one of the things Anonymous brought up is that I should be writing about important things because of how I write.  From what I gathered, they were saying that I have a style that makes people want to read what I write so I have some level of power (from what I gathered). 

Here’s the problem – I can never think of anything important to write about that isn’t completely personal.  Personally, I think that I have experienced quite a bit for someone my age – I’ve done quite a bit of stuff and been through some weird things.  I run an office and have quite a bit of “business” experience.  I’m basically raising a few children.  People come to me for advice on many different things.  So the only way for me to express important, deep thoughts is through personal experience. 

I don’t read, so I can’t write intelligently about topics such as who to vote for or why I’m not voting.  I can’t write about fixing cars because everything would be called dumb things like, “that thingy that looks a little bit like a whatchamacallit.”  I have never liked writing expository pieces.  I hate having to analyze things.  The list goes on and on about why writing about things that really mean something is a bad idea.  The only piece I’ve ever written that wasn’t non-fiction was about how to direct a play.  Like that’s something you can really cover in six pages.  But, seriously, that’s the only instructional piece I’ve written.

So my point is simple, I’ve been struggling with accepting that the only way for me to communicate (through writing, especially) is through talking about my experiences.  Maybe this is something I’ll grow out of… if I ever grow up at all. 

Now that I’ve gotten this thought process out, I think maybe I’ll write more.  Because I think I have to come to grips with the fact that my style choice for writing is non-fiction which means personal and means that I’ll have to speak through experience and not worry about the fact that maybe I could choose a different style.  It could change one day.  But I’ve been so slow at getting even close to semi-decent at non-fiction that I’ll probably be 90 and have to have a typist because arthritis with have hit me so hard that I can barely move my hands, much less type.

Lately...

...I have little to say.  I have no idea why.  I'm not sure if it's because little is going on in my life or if I'm starting to be writing-edout.  I have written a few essays - too long to post on a blog.  Maybe that's why I have little to blog about.  


All in all, though, my life has been a mixture of bitterness and happiness since I last posted.  And most of what's caused the bitterness and the happiness are things that I really don't feel comfy posting on the internet.  


This is something I've been thinking about as far as writing goes.  Oddly, I'm ok with the idea of publishing a BOOK that has a ton of personal stuff in it.  But dropping one-page long bomb shells on the internet several times is not ok in my mind.  Does that make sense?  I don't want to pour little pieces of my heart on a blog every couple of days when I could write a whole essay and maybe one day get it published.  I'd rather the whole bomb just drop once rather than slowly explode on a public forum.


So, I guess that's why I haven't been posting lately.