Somewhere

Embaressment is the worst feeling in the world, bar none. I think I'd rather be broken hearted than embaressed. I would't choose it, but I'd rather be it. There is just nothing you can do with embaressment. I hate ackward situations and moments.

You know, I think I'm a pretty easy person to please- I only need the slightest excuse to be happy. It's just when there is no such excuse anywhere that I struggle, feeling like there is just no point in any of this. I need some of those "inner resources" that Jane Austin talks about to live off of when there's nothing to be excited about. My life is so borring, living way out here in the boondocks of Puyallup, going to one single afternoon class and spending so much time alone in my room. Now I can't even write, because Mom deemed my computer to be too much of a distraction and took it away.

Isn't it funny how whinning honestly makes you feel better?

Maybe there is hope for Christians after all. All of you here on blogger, for example. A few others, too. And Mr. R talked about his church the whole way home from co-op today, which is named from the hebrew word for "hope." They're entierly centered around community, as he said over and over, which is encouraging. He was also talking about converted Jews and the Messianic movement, and how the only thing you really have to add to the Jewish religion is Jesus in order to make it alive. I didn't know there were Christians out there who thought like that. I certainly never expected to find one in Mr. R. It was nice.

Oh, and he was also talking about how one of the biggest blessings at his church is his pastor's marriage, and how it's so devoted and romantic and how that not only sets a really high standard for marriage in general but also changes the whole air of the church. Just by the pastor loving his wife. It's the greatest thing you can do for the security of a congregation, says Mr. R. It's refreshing to hear people talk like this.

I was thinking this morning. My sister will probubly grow up to be the kind of person that everyone is mad at for being perfect. She'll be very precice and reasonable and down-to-earth and polite and pretty and fashionable (very fashionable) and hard-working. Some respectable, important, likely well-to-do man with a Nse since of humor who perhaps used to play in a rock band until he was reformed (by her, maybe) will fall decently in love with her and they'll get married on a resonable budget and go on to live very, very happily ever after. They'll move out of state for buisness reasons and maybe even live on a sparkling new horse ranch, raising kids by-the-book and eating their vegtables and donating not-too-much but not-too-little to charity every year and going jogging every morning and crafting a carefully contemplated, polite little social life with lots of formal dinner parties. They will be impossible not to like. Every aspect of their lives and persons will be fully functional and admirable. People will call her Super Mom, and her husband will be so very proud of her and thankful that he got such a steady, good sort of wife instead of some flighty school girl (like her sister) and they will never have a single bump in their marriage. I can't wait to visit them, because Elizabeth doubtless makes remarkable cherry pie and I do enjoy a good dinner party every now and then.

It's only in the last few days that I've caught a glimps of what she may be as an adult, until now I've just seen her as an annoying little guardian.

But I? I will be different. I will either get married right out of college and tour the whole entire world in a three-year honneymoon, or I'll stay single till I'm thirty and develop all sorts of opinions and write a best selling book, and I'll tour the world promoting that. Either way I'll marry someone who could be wicked but wouldn't, and he and Elizabeth's husband will never quite be able to get along. By this time I will have a mile-long list of all the things I must do before I die, and I'll have so much energy I won't ever sleep, and I'll start programs and help Junior Highers know the difference between cool person and cool shoes and adopt kids from other countries and give speeches at women's confrences everwhere and write several more books in the mean time. During the 70ish% of my life that I will actually be in Washington, I will be working on renovating the old barn that I live in. I'll decorate it in ways that will certainly make my mom and perfect sister cringe, like with souviners from all over the place on the walls and inspiring quotes pretty much everywhere you look. It will not be an ordinary house, with stairs going up and down and slides and swings indoors and it will leak in the loft, where we will gather with flashlights on holidays and tell ghost stories with all the nighbor kids who, by the way, will think I am the coolest mom ever to grace the plannet and I will let them come over through the back door (which will ALWAYS be unlocked) whenever they want. I'm telling you, this dream of living in a barn is not going to die. I can hear the rain pattering on the windowpanes and see the kids laughing and running around waving plastic swords and smell the meal Elizabeth baked for us cooking already.

And I will always be less than I want to be and more than I can be, or at least I will always try. Lots of people will shake their heads at me. I'll always be dreaming and scheming and taking people along on wild adventures. We'll be poor because I hate money and I'm bad with it and I would have the tendancy to give it away without thinking. I'll never quite be a cook and maybe the bathrooms won't always get cleaned. But I will always be there for my kids, and I will teach them to cultivate their immaginations and be positive no matter what and to love life, because there is always something to love about it- even the leak in the roof makes the whole place smell like fresh rain.

I'm very afraid of settling for less than this. I have so many big ideas and dreams right now, but life is always more hum-drum than I mean to make it. Watch out for me, guys- please don't ever let me become ordinary!