Thorns

He who wants a rose must respect the thorn. —Persian Proverb

 
 

I’ve been drinking this tea lately- roasted dandelion root tea. My dad called it “dirt tea” because it tastes a little ... earthy. It’s supposed to be good for cleansing the liver; my dad was drinking it daily after his cancer diagnosis and he lived a lot longer than his doctors thought he would. So, I drink it too. I’m not sick, and a recent blood panel shows my liver in great health but I’m really trying to be health-conscious. If Bill had thought about his health when he was my age, he might have lived longer so I’m learning from his example-of-what-not-to-do.

 

I’ve been reading the labels on the tea bags while waiting for my water to boil, and I’ll be honest- usually the sayings on tea bags are so corny. Clichés I’ve heard my whole life, they lose meaning for me the more oft-repeated they are.

I’ve been thinking a lot about regrets and mistakes and mortality and these bits of tea bag wisdom are really resonating with me. I don’t have the sort of personality that is comfortable heeding the warnings of others. I’ve always wanted to experience life on my own terms, firsthand and bloody. 

My mom tells this story of me when I was a little girl- maybe two or three years old, playing around the stove, and I reach out to touch the oven door. Mom’s been baking and she tells me “it’s hot”. I reach out again, and she tells me not to touch it or I’ll burn myself. According to the story, I glared right in her face and leaned over and laid my cheek against the hot oven door until it burned bright red.

 

This pretty much characterizes how I like to live life. I’ve gotten a little smarter and I now understand that hot things will burn my face off and sharp things will cut me open; but I’ve still got that rebellious little girl inside me who will glare at you when you tell her what do with her life. 

Give me thorns, and I will happily slice my soul open to receive them.

Expectations

Not everyone gets to be what they want all the time

I’ve been thinking about this and wondering what it means to me. I think I have this vision of myself, of what sort of person I am: I think I’m smart, and funny, and spiritual, and open minded, and inclusive. 

Am I really all those things? Ask me and I’ll tell you that I am. It makes me wonder what other people think about themselves, and how accurate our vision of ourselves really is. I recently wrote a life sketch about my dad to read at his funeral service. I really struggled to find the best words to describe him, as this was the one opportunity I had to speak publicly about his nature and his legacy as a dad and a husband.

I know my dad thought of himself as a total badass. And most people who knew him when he was younger, or who only saw him at work, saw that too. But he was also loving and kind, and intensely loyal to his family. And I don’t know if he saw that about himself. I wonder if he knew that there was a big, soft, teddy-bear of a man inside his badass shell. 

That shell was created to protect him, to guard him from life and those who would hurt him. The shell was made up of a bad attitude, bad choices, and a pit bull of a personality. If you’ve ever owned a pit bull, you’ll know that underneath the hair-raising growl and terrifying demeanor is a sweet, loyal, protective creature. That’s how I think of my dad.

I don’t know if my dad got to be what he wanted. I know he wanted a family, and to be loved by them. I know he wanted to provide- to go to work and earn his way in life and be productive. Did he know he was accomplishing those things, every day that he was able? I don’t think he was tremendously self-aware, so I wonder if he knew what an amazing job he was doing at his life. 

When I think about what I want to be in life, I’m reminded of this saying: “Not everyone gets to be what they want all the time”. I don’t remember where I heard it, but it makes me think about the need to take a good, hard look at myself. Am I being the person I want to be? Am I living up to my own expectations? To God’s? To my family’s? I’ve never cared much about what other people think of me, so it’s hard to worry about whether I’m living up to everyone else’s expectations; but there are a few people who count and it’s a struggle for me to consider what they think of me. 

When my life sketch is being written out, what will be said about me? I hope no one talks about how messy I keep my house, or how my night stand is overflowing with candy wrappers and soda cans.

If I don’t get to be what I want all the time, how will I handle that? What will I do when my expectations out of life are not met? When I am disappointed by people or circumstances? My hope is that people will be able to say that I handled that with some sense of grace. 

I guess I’d better start working on that, so people will want to say it.