Happy adult turkey day?

I knew this day would come, I knew it getting into this field of work. Happy holiday alone! Not that I am really alone, I will be at work and was invited to the news team orphan brunch. Yay for all of us being alone together! But even after all the prep work I had done to get myself ready to be alone on my first holiday, walking around the house in silence and working on my cute crying face, I just didn't know it would be this hard. 

So as I do on every other Thanksgiving I got up early, got breakfast, and plopped down for the parade (PJ's on and all). Did you ever notice how sad the Macy's Day Parade is? It's like the reason I am doing this is staring me in the face, and they are not with their families on Thanksgiving either! And that commercial with the solider getting off the plane? Obviously I feel his pain. The story of the football player who was taken in by his ex girlfriends family when his mom died and is now in the NFL? All the sudden he is my son and I'm crying over his accomplishments. By the way Today Show... when did you get so sentimental with your content?

Sitting at home alone I started to think, maybe this doesn't have to be so sad. Until I got on Facebook and saw my grandpa's comment on my page... who knew he could even use the thing??

But really, I don't need to be sad. See, there are a lot of things to be thankful for. Like having a job. I am thankful that I have a job in which I can make money on Thanksgiving to save up for flights home when it is not Thanksgiving. 

And I am thankful for the wonderful message I received this morning from a man who is thankful for me. I hope he knows how thankful I am for him too. Oh, and that I get to see said man in eight days!

Most of all, I am thankful that I can be thankful. That I can look back and know I had 20 years of wonderful Thanksgivings where I was surrounded by family. Where I woke up early to my mom making the salad with the water chestnuts that my uncle hates. I got to sit with my father in front of the TV and gawk at the wonderful floats and beautiful views of New York.

And I am thankful that my whole family gets to spend the day at my grandparents house where my grandpa cuts the huge turkey and my grandma sets a wonderful table. And my cousins get to fight over who is not sitting by who, and my nephew wont sit down at all only making things even more enjoyable. That I am not judged (too much) for sitting at that wonderful table hours before the food is done. 

I am thankful that my grandpa delays us eating by taking what seems like a million pictures where we all look like we are contemplating eat the camera itself. And that no one touches the fruit salad but it is there every single year because it wouldn't be a complete meal without it. And passing around the rolls, you know everyone is going to take two, except my cousin Jay... we will take 10. My sister and him will only eat three things at the table, and my uncle will fill his plate twice. 

Then after the meal my silly aunt tries to find the one and only store open in town to go shopping, not just because she loves shopping but, because she doesn't want to do dishes. And that tupperware full of leftovers we all snack on all day even though we declared none of us would ever eat again. Oh, and I am thankful for those pies my grandma makes in which we try to devour before someone else can get to them.  

See, I may be alone this Thanksgiving but there are so many more Thanksgivings I have gotten to be a part of that many people never do. And I couldn't be more thankful. 

Time for a change

Ever heard of the book Same Kind of Different as Me? I'm here to tell you if you have not... you need to educate yourself right now. 

As I turned all 237 pages of this novel I had an experience I'm not sure will ever be met. At first I was un amused. A novel where the main character wasn't a wizard? Or going to turn the good girl bad with his charm and lump sums of unnoticed money? PLEASE! A book without teens is not a book for me. 

Boy was I wrong. 

I should have known. I should have known right there my life was about to change. Of course a book was going to change my life! Every book does that. 

But this one. It was so different. 

Now, I'm going to spoil a lot for you, but it was spoiled for me too, and it still is worth every letter on every line on every page to read it. 

This novel is about a high class art dealer and a streetwalking ex-slave. Their paths cross when the art dealers more than godly wife decided he had to help at a soup kitchen because she had a calling and a dream in which one of the men (unknown at the time) changes the face of Dallas forever. BOY DID THEY!

For 200 of the 237 pages I cried. My heart wrenched as this once cheating husband helped his frail and fragile wife battle cancer. He was never a religious man, but she was. And together they prayed. They begged and pleaded for her healthy recovery, all while helping out these people who had even less than them. 

Her battle was lost, and for that night so was mine. I was torn. My tears turned into sobs, my sobs into that awful heaving sound people make when they have gotten to the point where they can no longer remember why they were crying in the first place. This woman was a saint and all because she wanted someone else to be. She had courage and strength, even when it was all taken from her. Even when there was nothing left. 

I turned the back cover over the last page and immediately began to think of all the ways I had to change the world. It obviously had to be big, and it obviously had to happen right away. 

YURIKA!! 

One of my friends who I had lost touch with over the past year was going on a mission trip and they were looking for help with the cost. Clearly I would pay it all. Let me get my check book I declared to my finally calming mind.

That piece of paper caught fire faster than a bad Harry Potter spell. My bank account was not enjoying my new  want to help the world. Really bank account? Isn't there some rule that when you are doing good no amount of money should matter?

So I settled on a little less and made peace with my first attribution to this place of help. 

But it wasn't my last one. I have now decided on a new project. From this week on I will do one gesture each seven day period. May it be sending money to an organization (that will be few and far in between... sorry heavens about but a kind of-journalist just doesn't roll in dough) or be it something to help myself, perhaps a fear I need to overcome or someone I need to forgive. Either way I will do it all over this blog. The very few people that read it will have to put up with weeks of me trying new things and I'm sure failing some, if not all, of them. I won't leave out any details and I wont tell you anything the way it did not happen.

Here goes nothing. 

You mean it doesn't have to be right now?

So here I was watching the full 40 minutes Katie Couric interview with Taylor Swift (obviously since the release of her new album her media tour has been my most searched topic) and it hit me. It was nothing that Taylor Swift said, though she did say some great things. It wasn't some epic moment where Katie asked the right question and my entire journalism career made sense. It was actually the very first thing out of Katie's mouth:

"When I was 22 I was working as a waitress..."

WHAT?? You mean to tell me you were not a well known journalist with her own show and great credentials at the age of 22? You mean to tell me Kate, may I call you Kate? That you were not flying around the world asking questions to the most well known stars and influential people? You mean your life wasn't completely figured out with every last "I" in the details singed and dotted?

And then I thought, of course it wasn't! So why do I think mine needs to be? 

See, ever sense I graduated in August I have been so focused on why my life hasn't worked itself out yet, but honestly why would it have? I'm 21 for heavens sake! I'm young and not prepared for the real world. I'm still on my parents insurance. I don't know how to wash clothes, can my red socks go with my white rug? And why do I have red socks? And I live by the motto that you NEED every article of clothing, you just have to decide which ones you want. So why if the hot mess express has broken down at platform Shelby and half a maturity level do I think my career should be that of a fabulous 45 year old?

Though this problem of trying to grow up too fast is something I think many struggle with. We spend our entire childhood trying to be bigger. We want to reach the cookie jar without any help, we want to watch the PG-13 movies at the age of 10. It is human nature to try and advance yourself before you are ready. But why?

Why are we so provoked to read the end of a book before we start the beginning? Then race through the pages like we are at the olympic track? We already know the end!

I have been very sure of a few things in my life. I know I want to be a journalist, a great one. And I know I don't ever, EVER, want to get married. But in thinking these things so surely I have begun to learn other things. 

Like, wanting to be a journalist is great, but it wont happen over night. I knew there would be years of paying dues and that they would amount to triple my student loans (if I'm lucky that will be it). But all along I have assumed it would have happened by now. Silly me. Silly all of us. I am not the only one who wants so badly to be at their ending destination. Rushing there is only going to cause us to miss the parts that truly matter though. The in between. I hate more than anyone when people say "Just enjoy the right now," please people, I want to enjoy the good times not the debt bearing sloppy days. But perhaps the good times are what we make of it.

The perfect example I can think of is a kid wanting a toy. I brought my nephew to a toy store a few weekends ago to pick out his birthday present. Here is a little insight to my nephew, he doesn't really want to have anything to do with me. He is four after all, and I am the aunt he never sees. Except this week. All week he was telling my sister and mom "I got to the toy store!" And when asked who is your best friend "Mommy, Daddy, Poncho, Aunt B." Thats right people! I'm after his smelly pug as 4th best friend! Can't beat that. 

And nothing could beat the look on his face when he was in the store. There were gum balls and cars. Rocks and guns ( which he already had two of). It was the best hour of his day... and then we left. He would hardly show my dad the toys when we got home, and I was no longer his best friend. Brayden is four, but he might be smarter than any of us. He knew that going to the toy store was not to get the toy. Lets be honest, no one wants the toy. Once you get it there is nothing left to look forward to. But when you are wanting it, when you are spending your days talking about it, planning for it, preparing yourself, gosh that toy is the ONLY thing worth living for. 

So why do we rush? Why do we not take the time to stop and smell the roses? 

I've told everyone and their mothers I didn't ever want to get married. I never wanted to be serious with someone. But what if one day I do? What if maybe I think it could be right? Well, then I get crazy. Then I KNOW it is right. I KNOW where it is heading. Right to that isle of wonderful white dresses and happily ever after. Okay, kidding. But honestly from a girls point of view this is what we do. We either know no man will love us or we are ready for those vows. Some share it less than others, or some chose to share only one side as I did for so long saying I would just take the avocado tree on my one bedroom apartment table. We have to have whatever we want right then and there.

But that is the problem. We are hot or we are cold we are never just enjoying. What if for once we just let life takes its toll? What if we waited for that toy? How much happier would we be knowing there is no end goal in sight because the end goal is to live life.