Rambling Out Loud

On my commute I have a lot of time to think, and one of the things that I've been pondering in my car is a slower pace of life. I think about when people would sit on their porches with lemonade and just talk to each other. I imagine a game of Scrabble or checkers or chess while watching the world go by.  No phones. No social media. No marathoning Netflix.  Just friends, family, and conversation.  I used to think that quietly sitting on the porch would be the most boring waste of an afternoon, but now I'm beginning to think they were on to something. Our life is so fast-paced now. Work, school, social events, sporting events, church, lessons, grocery shopping, cleaning, and the list goes on... I long to just sit in silence and companionship.  Oh, I'm good at sitting still with my phone. Sometimes I will lounge on my bed and glance up to realize I've sat there for two hours flipping through Facebook and Pinterest. How much of my life am I wasting on this dev...

I’m forty and have been wondering all my life where I fit into this world.    Never really a social butterfly, yet not quite an outcast…something of a loner who often still longs for the company of a friend…never popular but not really unpopular either…always looking for my niche but never belonging fully to any group… I am a wallflower.   I am a Hazel.   I am an observer in the world.   (If you got both of those references, I love you.   If not, read “Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky and “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green.   Seriously.   Do it.  I don't care that you are an adult and they are technically written for young adults.) But I don’t want to be an observer… I want to be an extrovert, always the life of the party.   I want to be the artistic soul who creates beautiful art and music and poetry. I want to be the intellectual everyone listens to for their sage wisdom. I want to make a mar...

It's raining outside.  Ordinarily, I love this weather.  I like to lie on my bed, snuggled up in one of grandma's quilts, and watch the drops from my window.  I love listening to the rumble of thunder while reading a favorite book. I live for these days. They are my favorites.  Today it's just gray, cold and wet.  God has created a perfect setting for the way I'm feeling.   My teenager started off the morning by being difficult and making me late for work.  I had just about let that go when I received the call that my uncle had passed away.  Besides the worry for my aunt, I began to really think about death. I thought about when my mom and I found my stepfather on the couch, after the heart attack in his sleep.  I thought about the aging family members I have, and all their health problems.  I thought about my great-grandfather who was no longer in his right mind after a traumatizing assault, and who eventually ended his own life. ...