The Final Lessons Learned in 2009

Note: All the following transpired on December 31, 2009

1. I learned that the x-ray lady does not need a man

According to the radiology lady who took my chest x-ray this afternoon, we do not need men. What was her reasoning behind this statement? Well, when she took the lead protector off from around my waist, the lead part fell off the strappy part. She struggled to reassemble this contraption. After the assistance of a handy dandy number 2 mechanical pencil, she was able to reassemble--- she then looked at me and said, "ha, who needs a man."….

2. I learned about toe fungus.

There was an elderly lady and her daughter in the room across from my room in the dr.’s office. The daughter explained very loudly to her mother, “ Toe fungus takes a long time to get rid of—could take 2 months or it could take 6 months. You never know, but I DO know that you need more of that fungus medication.”

3. I learned that smiling means you are a gambler.

While my mother was so patiently waiting for me at the dr’s office this afternoon, an older gentleman randomly looked at her and said, “You’re happy—you smile a lot. Do you gamble?” She told him no, and he proceeded to ask her, “Well will you be gambling when the casino’s come to Cleveland?” Oh Clevelanders….

4. I learned that Panera Bread panini’s are pre-made and cannot be altered

After my dr’s appointment, I was hungry. Of course I went to Panera Bread, but this time I was going to live on the edge and try something new! I mean, we are about to welcome in a new year, so why not start things off right with a new found meal at Panera? I do not remember the obscure name of the Panini, but it had swiss cheese and we all KNOW how much I despise various cheeses. When I asked for the Panini without cheese, the man looked at me all funny and said, “Our Panini’s are premade and the ingredients cannot be altered.” I responded by saying, “Well you gosh darn better make a new one without swiss cheese because this is what I want and you are going to give it to me!!!” Just kidding--- I just simply ordered a turkey sandwich instead. :)

5. I learned that certain foods can make one’s purse smell like B.O.

Yesterday mom and I shopped at the mall for a couple hours. We decided to get some hushpuppies from Arthur Treachur’s to tide us over. Well, my mom hates being wasteful so she asked me to get a to-go bag for our uneaten hushpuppies. She proceeded to put the hushpuppies in her purse, and left them their overnight. This morning she removed the hushpuppies from the purse. This afternoon, however, when she opened her purse, she smelt a very strange B.O. odor…. Of course it wasn't me, she swears it wasn't her, so the only things left blame were....hushpuppies. Moral of the story: just throw the extra hushpuppies away...

6. I learned that I do not fully understand the rules to the card game “go-fish”......

7. I learned that a simple gesture can go a long way and make the seemingly impossible, possible.
You’ll have to watch The Blind Side to understand this one

Happy 2010 Everyone!! :-D

Let's Be Real

I don’t know how to begin, so I’ll just get down to it. There are two words I have always lived by: hope and trust. Today I doubt the meaning of those words for many different reasons. (Please note that I used the word doubt. This does not mean I have completely given up on them.)

The only word I can think of to describe how this feels is simply…scary.

I feel as though I am failing a test that God has set before me. Because I am failing this so called test means that I’ll just have to be tested again, and I dread that. (It’s just like the GRE. You study, you fail, and you take it again. If you fail again, you study more, and take it again. If you fail again…well, you get the picture). I knew this day would come, where God would test me to see if I really, truly learned before. I was prepared. I was ready to face it head on. But here I am, in the midst of it feeling defeated.

So, just give it time, and this cycle will repeat itself. Let’s face it—I’m always right about these things.

I hate being right nowadays.

(I’ve never been a dramatic person. I avoid drama like the plague. Please don’t see this as drama, but just as someone being honest with herself and about herself to those around her.)

I’ve always been dubbed the “tough cookie”. No pain, no gain. It’s in my soccer playing blood. In soccer, if you quit or gave up, then you became the dreaded benchwarmer. Your job as the benchwarmer is to sit there and watch everyone else do what you couldn’t. I was never the benchwarmer. Why? I never gave up. For example, I have asthma. If I couldn’t breathe on the field then too bad; I had time to breathe after the game. I was also prone to getting hairline fractures on my left foot. When I fractured it doing suicides, I still played on it for weeks. It hurt like crazy, but too bad… I had a team to support and a game to play.

Today, I feel like I am playing a game, except this time I’m the one about to become the benchwarmer, and I have no zeal to get my head back in the game. However, there is still time left on the clock…

This game isn’t over yet.

A Saga: A Good Question

Like every typical 3 year old, I had questions. An average 3 year old would ask their mommy a question. I, however, would ask the actual person I had the question about. For example, I once saw a person in a wheel chair and waltzed right up to that person and blatantly asked them in a loud voice, “What’s wrong with your legs?” My poor mom always talked to me about using inside voices, not asking people those kinds of questions, etc., but that was CLEARLY absurd to my 3 year old mind.

I will never forget, though, the time I asked my aunt a question that no one else in my family had the courage to ask and one that you would not expect to hear out of my 3 year old mouth. I had invited my aunt to a church Christmas play that I was in, but she informed me that she did not go to church. Confused, I then asked, “Well, are you saved?” She abruptly answered, “Yes.” I proceeded to challenge her by asking, “Then why don’t you go to church??” I guess you could say God planted an evangelistic heart in me at a very young age. I mean, for crying out loud, I wasn’t even saved yet!

In my young heart was a passion and desire that has continued to grow throughout my life.

I remember in 5th grade watching a movie about a missionary. She felt God calling her to ministry around the age that I was at the time. I remember sitting there, listening to this woman’s story very carefully, and thinking to myself, “Can God really put a passion and a desire like that in someone at my young age? Is that something He would want me to do?”

I don’t know exactly what God has planned for my future, but I remain open to His leadings. I don’t know why He has me in speech pathology, but I know He will use it. I also know that He has put a heart in me that longs to share His unfailing love to the world. Whatever that will look like, I know I can trust in His peace, and His peace will be my strength, and I will continue to seek His peace in each and every circumstance in my life. (Psalm 34:14b)

On a lighter note, at the age of 4, before I understood these truths of peace, what else was I supposed to find peace in except my.....

To be continued....

A Saga: The Honest Truth

Throughout my life, people have often told me that they depend on me for my honesty and bluntness. From the stories I hear from my parents, I was honest and blunt the moment I could put a full sentence together. Let’s rewind shall we?

I was a bald 2 year old with an unusually deep and husky voice. My face was as round as the moon, and my smile stretched from ear to ear. I would traipse throughout the house wearing my pink ballerina tutu, pointing at everything in sight and whispering, “wassat?”

Don’t be fooled, though, by this sweet ballerina girl appearance.

Every morning, mom would take my older brother, Jeremy, to school. I would still be sleeping when she left, so the seemingly nice neighbor lady with big curly hair would come over and wait for me to rise and shine. I would rise, but shine I would not—I never have been a morning person. As usual, I would waddle out of my room with my short chubby legs, yellow blankey (WITH silky) attached to my nose, and thumb glued to my mouth. I would plop myself on the couch with neighbor lady and simply sit there seemingly half awake. Unfortunately, poor neighbor lady was fooled by my appearance of oblivion as I sat there on the couch… little did she know that I was aaallllways watching. Just because I had a blankey at my nose, didn’t mean I couldn’t see out of my eyes! Mom came home. The average 2 year old would have jumped off the couch, run to her mommy in excitement, and hugged her leg. Me? Not so much. I simply walked over to mom (blankey still in hand, of course), and in my deep husky voice exclaimed, “Mommy, that lady was looking through your purse.”

Needless to say, neighbor lady never came back.

Let’s fast forward a little. I am now the age of 3, and have managed to sprout a few fuzzies on my head. Like every typical 3 year old, I had questions.…

To be continued…

The reason why...

So why start writing now? Good question, and I’ve got the answer.

This is not the first time I have started a blog online. Remember xanga? Yep, I was a xanga-er. I always enjoyed reading my friends comments on my musings, and for my more serious posts, always looked forward to hearing the wise words of LaserLawyer, also known as Kevin, a family friend who went to my church. At the age of 48 (in 2006) he was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, the most aggressive type of brain cancer. He was told he would live 6 months. He lived almost 3 years.

He is why I am writing today.

When I stopped writing, he noticed. He would ask me, “Amanda, why haven’t you written lately?” or “Amanda, don’t forget your love for writing. You always did such a great job.” I never had a good reason to give him—I probably just used the excuse that I didn’t have enough time. I know he knew better then to believe me.
Sometime in the last year or two, he mentioned my writing. If I’m not mistaken, I was venting about how I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with my life, and thought I wasn’t good enough at anything to actually BE anything. He kindly reminded me about my passion for writing. My first thought was, That was the past…That part of my life is over. I'm done with writing. My second thought was, Kevin made a good point...maybe I will start writing again one day.

I didn’t have much time for writing, though. With finishing up my junior year at Miami University as a Speech Pathology and Audiology major, studying seemed to be the only thing I had time for… the only thing I made time for. Kevin was doing well; he seemed to be going strong and continued to fight the cancer. It was a miracle. I had decided that once my junior year ended in the beginning of May of 2009, I would start writing again. My first post was going to be dedicated to Kevin. I wanted him to know that because of him, I was going to reignite my long lost passion—writing. Not only because he reminded me of my passion, but because he inspired me. He was a man of great faith and hope. He didn’t blame God for giving him cancer, but he was resolved that God would be intensely glorified through it. If he could have that kind of faith, and if he could have that kind of hope in that kind of circumstance….I knew I could too in my circumstances that seem comparably minuscule.

The month of May came...
Junior year was over and summer was finally here...
It was time to start writing...I couldn't wait to tell Kevin...
Then I heard the news...

Kevin had passed away.

How was I supposed to start writing now? 6 years I hadn’t written. I finally moved past all the reasons why I stopped, and my inspiration was no longer here on this earth. It’s been 7 months since Kevin went to be with the Lord. He left a legacy. He made an impact.

He impacted me.
And that’s why I am writing today.

And so it begins

Allow me to introduce myself. Ever since I was a single digit munchkin, I always aspired to being a writer. I began writing a mystery novel around the age of 8, maybe even 10, but after the main characters in the story heard the blood curdling cry deep in the woods, I stopped writing the novel. Why? Because my imagination couldn’t stretch far enough to come up with a clever ending as to what the blood curdling scream actually was. Of course I could have made it into a murder story, but my parents may have wondered why their 8 year old daughter was having such morbid thoughts at such a young age. I considered making it a kitten stuck up in a tree, but that just didn’t seem like a suitable ending for all the suspense that had been built up in the story. So, I stopped. The notebook is still in my closet. It brings a smile to my face every time I see it.

After my attempt at writing a novel, I decided to be like Joe from Little Women and write a story about my life. So, I began to journal. I had about three different journals. I had my everyday life journal, my sermon notes journal, and my prayer journal.I still have calluses on my right hand ring finger and pinky finger from where my pen would rest while writing. I figured after filling out all three of those journals, I could come up with SOME sort of appealing story.

(For the record, I must confess, I never have been good at using proper English or knowing where to place commas, but I figure people could look past that… besides, that’s what editors are for right??)

In the end, I never did write a story about my life. My many journals sit dusty in the deep corners of my closet. I don’t like to open them or read them. A lot can happen in 10 years and a lot has happened in 10 years. My journals wouldn’t reveal that though because I stopped writing. I stopped writing altogether shortly after the age of 14 or so. Writing meant having to recap the unfortunate events that occurred in life- my seemingly picture perfect life. I didn’t want to recap. I didn’t want to remember. To my dismay, however, I have discovered that just because you don’t write, doesn’t mean the memories will just go away. They are always there. They always stick.

I should have just kept writing.