Wierd Kids

I guess ever since God invented kids there has always been a "wierd kid" in the bunch. The one who was a little off the wall, who didn't really have very many friends, and who kids generally stayed away from.

It turns out that I have one of those wierd kids.

We all want our kids to be happy and to have friends, and generally be content with the world. As the school end draws near, I look back with the sad realization that Matthew didn't get invited to one birthday party all year....and I'm sure there were kids who had birthdays during the year! The realization was punctuated as I read some Facebook postings about a boy in his class who had a birthday party yesterday, a boy I thought Matthew got along with, but no birthday invitation for Matthew.

Of course, there are only so many kids you can invite to a birthday party (unless you're one of those crazy parents who invites the entire class!!), so it's not like Matthew would get invited to every birthday, but I would have thought maybe one at least? In the end, I don't think he cares, but sometimes I wonder what goes on in his head.

And so I think the move to the new school will be a good one - he may be the "new wierd kid", and may still not get invited to any birthday parties, but when the school is small, the loners aren't so obvious to themselves. Right now he sees hundreds of kids playing together and he might be lucky if one will talk to him over recess. When he is only one of forty or fifty kids, hopefully he won't feel so ostrasized.

In the end, we like to say that school popularity doesn't really matter, but how long can a kid go before he starts to think something might be wrong with him? And it sure doesn't help that he has an uber-extroverted sister with more friends than she can count.

Aaaah parenthood - the pains along with the joys. We can all just rest assured that God has a plan for all of the kids, even the wierd ones.

Old Friends

When I was in elementary school, there was a huge core group of kids that grew up through elementary school and into junior high. We all walked to school, our parents knew each other, and it was a safe time to just be kids.

One of those friends I had was named Chris Dary - I tended to hang out with the boys more than the girls, mainly because they were more interesting and liked to play sports at recess. As an aside, I still struggle to relate to the female gender - my brain just doesn't seem wired in the same way most female brains are. I really don't like getting together with "the girls", find mindless chatter extremely annoying, and abhor shopping. But I digress.

Anyway, on Sunday morning, I was puttering down the trail on my Sunday morning "run" (more like a limping shuffle) and remembered a dream I had the night before. "Chris Dary!" I mused out loud (to the birds and squirrels, I guess), "I haven't thought about him in years!" I chuckled to myself, remembering innocent times of the past, and continued shuffling along.

That night, I had a friend request on Facebook from a friend at the gym. I confirmed, and then had access to her Facebook wall. As I'm reading down the wall, imagine my surprise when I saw a posting from none other than CHRIS DARY! I looked at his pictures, and sure enough, there was my old friend, hanging out with buddies, beer in hand, all grown up. My friend from the gym confirmed it was the same Chris Dary, and next thing I knew there was a Facebook friend request from him. I had to confirm!

Stuff like this makes me wonder about the ripples and waves of time and how we all flow towards one another (sorry, Mr. Spock reference again). Why my brain would have picked that night to dream about an old friend, I'll probably never know. But it makes me ponder dreams and where they come from....supernatural perhaps? I'll never forget the dream I had the night after Scott's grandma died, where we sat at a kitchen table and she told me how great things were now that she had passed. She looked thirty years younger, and was as real as I am sitting here today.

I think it's time to take a closer look into my brain, and start figuring out what it's trying to tell me.

Early Morning

As part of my obsessive-compulsive behavior during this fitness challenge, I was up at 445 this morning to run a killer hill (twice!) before a killer strength/cardio class at 600. That's not really my point. The point is that it was so quiet at that time of morning - dark, cool, and even the highway wasn't bustling with trucks yet (as it usually is by about 530!). I left my house at 500, enjoying the silence of the morning, sputtered up and down the hill (and up again) and chugged along to the gym.

Later in the day, as part of a study I am doing, I was reading Mark and specifically the verse when Jesus awoke in the early morning to pray in a solitary place. That really struck me today. I've heard about people who get up at 300 or 400 in the morning to have their solitary God time, and what a fantastic time it would be, with the air still and quiet. Trying to "get in" God time later in the day with hustle and bustle everywhere just doesn't seem to work - it doesn't allow us to really listen to what He has to say.

I am lucky to be a morning person, and I wonder if I should use that gift to do something more productive with my time that try to burn calories so that I can lose another pound that I don't really need to lose. I will still enjoy my morning workouts, but if I'm going to be up at 500, why not use that quiet time to do some REAL good in this world?

Obsessive Compulsive

You would think that after almost 38 years on this planet I would know myself by now. I'm competitive, easily irritated, and a perfectionist. So what was I thinking when I entered a fitness challenge at the local gym? We get points for certain challenges (most points at the end wins a prize), and I've been going hard to ensure that every challenge has been completed, and was infuriated to see this week's challenges, two of which I won't be able to complete. I stormed around for a while last night, thought about quitting the challenge, and then decided to pray about it (like God wants to hear my rantings about a silly weight loss challenge in small town Alberta!).

Once I turned to face God, I soon realized how unimportant the whole thing is, and who really cares if I complete these challenges. One of them is unhealthy (in my opinion) and the other I'm forgoing to hop out to the lake on Saturday.

And so I learned a lesson last night, and slept soundly on God's advice, and realized that turning to Him in any situation makes things much better.

Off to face the day!

Purpose Confusion

Like many others, I am searching for my purpose in life. That seems to mean (in my narrow-minded world) that I only have one purpose, and I'm trying to figure out what it is. Why waste time doing something that is not my one purpose? As a result, I seem to have been scared into a corner, unwilling to move in any purposeful direction.

So when I had one of "those" dreams last night, I thought I had it all figured out. My general purpose, I think, is to help people (isn't that everyone's?). I've been trying to narrow it down to a specific group: Seniors? Homeless? Financially challenged? I thought that my heart would guide me to the correct group. My dream had me at the Mustard Seed Church, although it was a big 6+ story building (I only say 6+ because I went to the sixth floor). I parked my little car in a 30 minute parking zone but stayed too long, resulting in $600 worth of parking tickets (there's that six again). I returned another day with some blankets for the room I had visited, and was trying to fold them in a common area but was having trouble folding them (you know how dreams are), and I kept thinking, "I'm taking too much time, and Scott and the kids are waiting for me." I woke up as I was riding the elevator up to the sixth floor with my blankets.

I was sure this all meant I was supposed to go back to the homeless people. Then I received an e-mail from someone who is in dire financial straights and needs help. Now I'm not sure where the seniors fit in. Maybe in all this I have to be patient and not narrow my focus to one particular group. After all, everyone needs help in some capacity, right?

And so for today I will help the financial challenged, and Friday I'll help the seniors, and one of these days I'll make it back to the inner city, because it's calling me loud and clear.

A True Purpose

I'm doing volunteer tax returns for our town office, and Wednesday I'll be going to visit two seniors at their lodge. The thought of going there to help them (one uses a walker and is not very mobile), makes me feel content, exhilarated, and useful. The appreciation in their voices is worth more than anything I could ever be paid. Interestingly, a part time opportunity has come up in which I would work solely with seniors. I wonder, however, if I would come to resent the work that could eat up precious time. I would never want to think a negative thought about a 90 year old who is waiting for me to help them with their life. Maybe I should just keep volunteering, because the time is my own and I'm giving it - I'm not obligated. That makes a big difference.

Am I just taking the easy way out?

Friends

I've never been a person who has had a lot of friends, primarily by my own choice since I'm so antisocial. I had a great friend as a kid, until we went to different highschools and then lost touch...even though she still lived down the street. In high school I had one good friend and lots of casual friends, but then we went to University and all lost touch, even though we were in the same University. In University I had a great group of friends - graduate students who were all older than I was and took care of me like a little sister. Then they all finished their theses, moved away, and started their lives.

I have had many casual friends since then, lots of bar friends (they're easy to find!), and when we moved to Devon, lots of neighbourhood and "small town" friends. Everyone is friendly in a small town! I do, however, have one friend who was special - she is outgoing, extroverted, gregarious, quite unlike me, but like me in that she is smart and Type-A and is a thinker. She definitely has no need for extra friends, but I always felt like she truly cared about me, and I thought about the future days when we would grow older, and watch our kids grow, and maybe my kids would marry her kids, and I took for granted that she would never leave.

But, I found out today that her family is likely moving, and for an excellent reason, but it didn't keep me from mourning the loss of my buddy and crying silently to myself. I'm probably crying more for the fact that she gave me a way out of my anti-social behaviour - she was outgoing enough for both of us, and our kids liked to play together, and now I'm going to have to start all over again. Selfish, yes.

So, I guess I have to work at letting more of my casual friends into my life, opening my anti-social door, and find someone else to lean on. I wonder if, over in my parallel universe, the alternate Jo is outgoing and full of life. This Jo is just going to have to work at it.