Friendship

One of the things I love about Liz is that she shares both my boy-craziness and my fear of committed relationships. 

Also because after two weeks of busyness and always being with people, hanging out with her felt like being alone.

One day soon I'm going to post about something she shared with me, but I'm not feeling it right now, so instead I'm just writing short paragraphs.

Keep Some Love To Yourself

"It's easy to hate yourself when all your love is inside someone else."

This song lyric blew me away a couple days ago, and I'm not done thinking about it.  I think it is the key to my low self-worth.  I have a tendency to fall in love easily and deeply.  I crush on a guy, and I immediately imagine our joint future.  I wonder if he is The One, I smile into the middle distance, I text and delete and look through pictures.

I put all my love inside someone else.

And when they reject me, it's easy to hate myself.  Because if this guy who I think is so awesome does not think the same of me, then obviously there's something wrong with me.  I'm unloveable.  I'm disgusting.  I'm too neurotic, too passionate, too different, too tall, too opinionated, too ugly.

It's easy to hate myself when all my love is inside someone else. 

So what needs to change?  I need to keep some love for myself.  I need to rest in the assurance that I like who I am, even if some guy doesn't.  If I give someone else the power to decide if I have worth or not, I will always be disappointed.  People, in all their glory and folly, will always disappoint.  Even if someday a guy I like feels the same way about me, there will still be days when he says something unkind or unthinking, and I'll be back in the same pit of self-doubt. 

I need to trust my own judgment. 

(I know some readers will think, you should find your identity in God!  Which is true.  Of course I do not fully understand God's love, but most of me thinks, "Well of course God loves me.  I want people and cute boys to love me just as much!"  But yes, I can always learn to lean more fully on God's opinion of me.)

Recommendations for Mallory

Mallory wanted my advice on movies and books that she ought to see, and I put together a list.  I didn't want to name them without describing them, though, so linking to my blog seemed like the best course of action (plus I saw someone else do it).

First, obviously Lord of the Rings goes on both lists, and Harry Potter goes under books.  But I assume you know that already.

MOVIES

The Fall (starring Lee Pace)
  This is my favorite movie.  It's a story of broken people finding hope in each other and in stories, so uh, obviously I love it.  Also Lee Pace is crazy cute, and there's an adorable girl with an accent.

Anna Karenina (starring Kiera Knightly)
   I have to admit I've never read the book, but this film adaptation is phenomenal.  I loved how it was filmed as if everything played out in a theater, and the way it explores the varying forms of love (and its effects) just blew me away. 

The Four Feathers (starring Heath Ledger)
   This movie is so great, and I don't know why I don't hear about it more often.  It's about courage and friendship, and I've just remembered that I want to rewatch this asap.

Big Fish (starring Ewan McGregor)
   Kind of cheating, because it's also about the power of stories, but this time from a family point of view, and how we forgive and accept the people we love.

BOOKS

The Fault in Our Stars (by John Green)
  This is the book I recommend to everyone everywhere.  Quick read that will make you laugh and cry and feel ALL the feelings.

The Great Gatsby (by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
   I'm obsessed with Fitzgerald and his obsession with the American dream.  I love how in every book he writes, his characters pursue romance and wealth only to find it unfulfilling. 

The Three Musketeers (by Alexandre Dumas)
   I loved this when I was 11, and I loved it when I was 22.  It feels modern(ish) and is such a great story of friendship, swords, and adventure.

A Grief Observed (by C.S. Lewis)
   I like when Lewis gets real, and reading him rail against God and mourn the loss of his wife reminds me that good theology happens in the messiness of life. (I also love his Surprised by Joy.)

When Life and Beliefs Collide (by Carolyn Custis James)
   A book that proves women need theology and need to teach theology based on Mary of Bethany's interactions with Jesus.  It made me cry, it was so good.

Knowledge of the Holy (by A.W. Tozer)
   Bite-sized descriptions of God's attributes that remind readers that fixing our eyes on who God makes everything else fall into place.

Encouragement

The best thing that happened at Emily and Joe's wedding (on a personal level) was when Susan Osborn pulled me aside before the reception.  "I've heard a rumor," she said, and my heart sank.  I assumed she was going to become another well-meaning Woodlander who said, "Are the boys chasing you?  No?  What's wrong with them?" thereby reminding me of my singleness in the form of a compliment, which confuses me emotionally.

I thought she would say something like that, but instead she said, "Are you thinking of becoming a sex therapist?"

"Oh, yes!" I said.  "A marriage counselor, really, but I definitely want to incorporate sex therapy into my practice.  I don't see how someone couldn't."

Susan looked straight at me.  "Well, I just want to tell you that I think you'll do a great job!  You have this disarming smile, and an easy way about you that I think will make people open up with you right away.  Before their first session is over, they'll have spilled everything they've never admitted to anyone else."

My shoulders fell.  "Susan.  That is exactly the thing I need to hear most right now.  Thank you."

Because the thing is, when I talk about marriage and sex counseling, I typically get rolled eyes or "of course Tricia would do that because she's weird" comments.  Earlier this weekend, I thought of something I wanted to ask Emily about the wedding night, and an adult called after me, "Just remember, you're giving advice from a textbook, not experience."

Ouch.  No wonder I spent so many years thinking I couldn't be a marriage counselor without first being married.  My professors have beat into our heads that we are equipped to counsel because we're learning how in graduate school, not because we've experienced everything in the world.  I believed it too, but hearing someone I admire tell me that my advice was somehow lesser because it did not come from my past set me back a few mental steps.

And then Susan, sweeping in with encouragement that is specific to who I am and how I deal with people.  It was so lovely and so needed.

A Day With Anju and Ketan

Ketan and Anju's grandparents have gone back to India, so after a month and a half, I finally have them for full evenings, straight through to bedtime.  Jennifer, my new roommate, reacted incredulously when I told her I'd been with kids for eight hours, and I responded, "Oh, well.  I actually like hanging out with them."  These experiences made me want to record a day in the life with Anju and Ketan.

In the morning I took them to camp, but we were all tired, so they read in the backseat and I sang along to music up front.  In the afternoon I picked Ketan up first.  He had gotten a Mavericks poster, so he quizzed me on their names, which went really well since of course I know none of them.

Ketan:  Starts with an S.
Me:  Sam!
Ketan:  No.
Me:  Susie!
Ketan:  What?  No.  S-h.
Me:  Shhhh--Shane!
Ketan:  No.  S-h-a.
Me:  SHANE.
Ketan:  No.  S-h-a-w.
Me:  Shaw!
Ketan:  No.
Me:  Shaw...dolington.
Ketan:  No!
Me:  Shawt?  Shawr?  Shawn?  Shawn!
Ketan:  Yes.  Wow.
Me:  HAHAHAHA I never knew how bad I was at guessing names.
Ketan:  Yeah, that was awful.  Next one starts with T.

We picked up Anju, who proudly announced that she had only two more chapters left of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  Ketan kept talking, which distracted her, which made her yell, which made me say, "Guys!  Talk to each other with patience, okay?"  We got to piano, Ketan started his lesson, and Anju realized her bookmark had fallen out.

"You're at the place where Harry says Dumbledore is the only wizard Voldemort ever feared, and then Tom Riddle says that Dumbledore fled at the mere memory of him."  She looked at me with wide eyes, said, "Oh yeah," and found her page.  Then her bookmark slid to the floor, and she burst into tears.  "This is the worst day ever!" she yelled.  "Sounds rough," I said.  "Will you give me a hug?"  She pouted and shook her head.  "It will make me feel better," I said, and she glumly sat on my lap so I could wrap my arms around her.  From my seat, she got distracted by the artwork and was soon happy.

After piano lessons, we went home to eat snacks and change into capoeria clothes.  They made fun of me for eating an avocado, and I made fun of them for not eating an avocado.  We went to cap, they did their thing, and after we drove to Chick-fil-a.  No one was in the parking lot, and when we got to the door, we saw a sign saying they were closed because of a power outage.  "Where else should we go?" I asked.  "In-N-Out?"  They didn't like that, and finally we settled on Sonic next door, which, when we got there, was also closed because of the power outage.  Our third choice was Torchy's, so we drove there, got tacos, argued about soda vs. water, and ate.

Anju had to go to the bathroom, so Ketan and I sat on a bench near the door.  We accidentally played a no blinking game.

Me:  Oh!  This reminds me of a Doctor Who episode.  It was soooo creepy; I watched it at night and it scared me to death.  There are these angel statues, and they can't move if you're looking at them, but as soon as you turn around, they move closer, and it's awful!
Ketan:  Let's do that.

So I stared at him, then turned my head away and back really quick.  He had moved infinitesimally closer. I looked away a bit longer, and when I glanced back he had raised his arms and was making an awful face less than a foot away.  I shrieked, then we both fell over laughing, and I hit his leg because he had actually scared me.  Anju finally returned with a horror story about how the light had turned off in the bathroom and she had fallen over.

When we got back in my car, Anju and Ketan debated whether or not Dumbledore or Gandalf were older.  "Gandalf is somewhere between 95 and 2,992 years old," Ketan said.  I laughed, and he continued, "You told us that, Miss Trish!"

"I know, but that was months ago!  I'm surprised you remember.  But I think it was 2,772."  He disagreed, so I pulled the car over and made him get out to look at my license plate (Gandalf's age is my trick to remembering my number).  "Radioactive" was playing on the radio, and Ketan has started doing this thing where he sings one word ahead of the song, but to the right melody.  It is both impressive and annoying, so I let him go for awhile before reaching back to punch him in the knee and tell him to stop.  Then I turned on "Sidekick" from the Very Potter Senior Year, and we all sang along loudly.

"Do "Gotta Get Back to Hogwarts"!" Anju requested, so I did.  When the chorus kicked in, I yelled back at them, "This is perfect for you guys!" because they had been complaining a lot about wanting school to start.  Ketan sang, "Gotta get back to St. Monica!" and we all laughed until I pulled in at the house.  They took showers, I put them to bed, and Anju showed me that she had finished Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the car.

"I love the part when you find out Tom Riddle is actually Voldemort," I told her.  "The first time I read it, I was all WHOOOAAA.  It was great.  Now you get to read about dementors!"

I raised my hands above my head and made a creepy face, which caused her to fall over in bed screaming.  I fell on top of her, hugging her and apologizing.

"Don't make a scary face again!" she said.  I agreed, and smiled, and she screamed again.

"Hey, that was my normal face!  Don't scream at my normal face--that hurts my feelings."  She giggled, and said, "I thought you were going to do it again."

"Do you want me to do it again?" I asked.  She nodded mischievously, so I did, and she screamed and laughed.  I got up, handed her the third Harry Potter book as she was sitting up, and smacked her in the nose with it.  She crumpled, crying, and I covered her face with my hands, apologizing and asking to see whether it was bleeding.  It wasn't.  "Man, we need to make sure there's a lot of space between us at all times, huh?" I said.  I back three feet away from the bed.  "Is this good?"  She giggled again, I handed her the book delicately, said goodnight, and went downstairs.

Sanjay came home and told me he appreciated my good influence on the kids by setting an example by reading a lot.  "No problem," I said, as if I could do anything else.

Sanjay:  Pretty soon they'll be reading stuff that you're reading!
Me:  ...
Sanjay:  I guess they already do that, huh?
Me:  Yeeaaah.  We pretty much read the same things.

And that was yesterday.

Reading & Empathy & Counseling

Liz and I have talked a few times about the power of reading.  More specifically, we've both noticed that people who read a lot tend to be more empathetic than those who don't.  Of course this is a generalization!  But, well, I think there is some truth to it, because reading (I'm talking about fiction here) is essentially a class on empathy.  The whole point of reading a book is to put your mind inside someone else's body and live out their life.  As a white single woman in 2013, I can live the life of men and women of color from all time periods in relationships and situations I could never, or hope to never, experience.  I can live the lives of good people and bad people, people who are desperate and people who are generous.  I learn who I want to be and who I want to avoid becoming.

Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else's place.  Reading is the practice of putting yourself in someone else's place.

That was one epiphany.  During a later conversation, I realized that this empathy was also what has equipped me to be a counselor.  Counseling is basically being able to understand someone else's situation, to feel their pain and know their struggle. 

What I'm saying is, my 25-year habit of reading a novel every other day is going to make me a kick ass counselor.  I'm also saying that maybe I have exactly one interest in life:  experiencing other people's stories, and I do that through both reading and counseling.  WHAT that blows my mind, here I thought I was a beautiful complex snowflake.  So if I were to boil myself down to one characteristic, I think it would be empathy.

All because of books.

Joking about Virginity

One of the reasons I decided I might be well-equipped at counseling is that I'm fairly unshockable.  Of course, you can prove that statement wrong in any number of ways, but the thing is, I expect the worst of people.

That sounds awful, but it's tempered by my equal belief that people are awesome.  I believe we are all broken people who make stupid decisions and who act out our insecurities in harmful ways, but that it's kind of all okay because we all do it, and it all comes from a place of pain, and anyway, maybe if we talk about it, it will get better.

I think this makes me a good friend.  I was hanging out with someone lately, a friend from Dallas, and she was obviously in a bad mood.  She was hinting around at how she wished she had people with whom she could be real, how she hated that her small group at church never went deeper than "well, work is really stressful right now."  The two of us haven't really gone beyond hanging out and surface fun, and I knew we were on the cusp of going deeper.  She finally said,

"You know, when I first decided to go to DTS, I was positive I was the only student who wasn't a virgin."

"Obviously that is so not true."

"No, I know."

She stared at me.

"Oh, well I'm a virgin, but that's only because no one has ever asked me to have sex with them."

She burst out laughing, and we continued with our conversation, and we shared our frustrations and basically had a lovely, meaningful talk.  I'm sure if I'd only said that I was a virgin, even if I said it kindly, not judgmentally, she would have shut up.  But by being honest, by admitting that I wasn't a virgin because of my Stellar Character, that I have desires too, that I relate to her feelings if not her experience, well.  We could talk.  That's a lot to communicate in one joke, but then, I think humor carries a lot of weight.

I'm not sharing this to prove how awesome I am (although obviously, why do I share anything unless I want people to pay attention to me, hopefully positively?), but as advice.  We're all broken people who have been hurt and who have hurt others.  We all make stupid decisions.  The fastest way to heal one another, even just a little, is to listen to someone else's brokenness and expose your own.  Preferably with laughter, or maybe that's just me.