Redeemed...

My life has been an adventure from day one.  I can only imagine the consternation my impending arrival must have caused my teenaged biological single mother in 1960.  I am sure it was the last thing she, or her family, hoped for her life, and I hope she has never regretted giving me away to someone who was in a place to give me everything she couldn't.  I have been a handful and a half, and she was probably not up to it.  I shudder to think where I would be if she hadn't given me to the parents God meant me to have.

Live, laugh, love....

Sights, sounds, scents.  All can unexpectedly evoke images in our mind and memory of someone we loved who is no longer here with us.  The smell of doughnuts frying reminds me of my beloved aunt.  The sight of candy corn in the fall always makes me smile as I remember a special association with my uncle.  My dad's favorite song still makes me cry every time I hear it.  Red candles remind me of my friend, gone far too soon.

Today, as we mourn the loss of my mother's closest friend, a woman who has been there with my mom through the deaths of two husbands, the raising of children, the horrors of adolescence, the joys of being grandparents, countless church pot lucks, Vacation Bible School weeks, and most especially, raising their voices together as they put faith in action through song, I am thinking about the distinctive laugh that was her hallmark.  I can hear it now in my mind, as she exclaims, "Oh Donald," over something her husband said or did, laughing out loud even as she was exasperated with him.

Not so fast....

Nature versus nurture is an ongoing debate among scholars, researchers, and parents. The question of which influence is more important, the nature you are born with or the way you are raised from birth, is an interesting topic of conversation, almost impossible to resolve, as you cannot take away the nurture part of the equation to discover how different someone would be if they were raised differently.

Being adopted, I always find it amusing just how well I fit into my family structure. Most of my relatives seem to be pretty artsy craftsy, just like me - musical, artistic, and "sensitive." Since the nature part is out of the question in my particular case, it seems to me nurture must be a pretty strong influence, after all.

So little time, too much stuff....

Well, here's the thing. I have been packing for months. I have had the world's most aggressive garage sale. I have done everything I could to reduce the accumulation of 17 years of worth of belongings to a manageable amount.

And...

there is no appreciable difference in the amount of stuff I have packed away into the deep recesses of this house. It's just unbelievable. I am, in a word, gobsmacked by the whole situation.

Arrogance of youth...

I had one of those defining moments in life a few days ago - a slip up on me, smack me in the face reminder that I'm not getting any younger, and the actual youth are taking over.  My iPhone (yes, I know, uncharacteristically trendy of me, but it's For Work) was not functioning properly, forcing me to enter The Hallowed Place, also known as the local Apple store for any neophytes who haven't had the experience.  (Note I did not say pleasure.  It is rarely a pleasure to enter the doors beneath the gleaming silver apple in the sky.  Mostly, it's expensive, but I digress.)

Anyway, as I sidled into the orifice of the beast, I was greeted by a variety of young people who handed me forward like we were doing the Grand right and left down the center aisle in their little dance.  Ultimately, I ended up with a young man who was probably born after the shoes I was wearing came off the assembly line.  I am not sure he was even out of nursery school, although the wedding ring on his finger made me suspicious that he was less young than I am old.

I am not saying he wasn't knowledgeable.  His head was packed with information I neither needed nor wanted, since my only goal was to get the phone working again and get the heck out of Dodge while spending as little as possible.

But he was young.  And it showed.  Oh, how it showed.

He was filled with the disdain of youth for their elders.  He assumed I knew nothing about the technology involved, and thus needed him to explain the complex workings of the cellular device that I was not able to use (it didn't seem to occur to him that the prized possession may actually not be functioning properly.)  He worried that I would lose Important Stuff (because my entire life revolves around my phone, naturally,) and explained in elementary terms (read - like talking to a four year old) how to sync the phone to the computer, as if I hadn't been doing that since before he was a dot on an ultrasound.

His arrogance was matched only by his determination that this older person would walk away an Apple believer.  He ran diagnostics.  He patiently explained how to turn the phone on and off.  He connected my phone to a cord, and after about five minutes of reassuring me that everything, but everything would be gone, but it was The Only Way to cellular nirvana, he wiped out the phone and we started from scratch.

He insisted I needed help setting up the phone, sighed when I said I didn't need the location services (I went back in later and changed the settings, but seriously, I had a job to get cracking on, and didn't have time to play around) and informed me that they HIGHLY recommend setting up an iCloud account, and I would somehow be a lesser mortal if I failed in my mission to be connected to the great Core in the Silicon Valley.  I passed.  He sighed louder.

It was then that a revelation made it's way into my brain.  We come from different worlds, the under 35's and the overs.  We have different goals in using our technology.  We have different expectations of what our phone should be able to do for us (or to us.)  We have different needs for our telephonic adventure.  And there is no common ground.

Old people want the phone to be a tool, to work for them when they need it.  People my age do not want to be enslaved to electronic media 24/7, and we resist the invasion of our privacy and our time by the shrill call of the cell.

Young people seem to have a different relationship with their technology.  They want it in their hand, they want to be connected at all times, they interact via media more than they do in person, and they don't have the same desire for privacy that we oldsters grasp for.  For the younger crowd, the media is an end all on it's own, while for people my age, it's simply the means to get somewhere else.

I think I now understand why Mark Zuckerberg is constantly surprised by the furor created with his massive changes each time they bring out a new iteration of Facebook.  He is catering to the under 35 crowd, and his focus groups consist primarily of his target audience.

I have a suggestion for him, one which would probably garner him billions more in advertising dollars, and enhance the experience for all of us.  Allow choice in which format you want for your FB page.  Bring back the original experience, and call it Facebook Legacy - a simplified, dumbed down version that allows people to do what Facebook originally intended - connect with people you already know, and with whom you already have something in common.

 For the younger set, bring on Facebook Future, with all the bells and whistles, apps and games.  If they don't care about privacy, they can set their page to accept any new feature as it becomes available.  They will be on the cutting edge, leaving their parents safely back behind the fence.

It's an idea we could all embrace.

I think the youth who helped me at the Great Silver Apple in the Sky was left as depressed by the experience as I was. As I exited the store, he shook his head behind me.  His thought was clear.  I am a land line person in a digital world.  He may be right.  Have you seen my rotary phone anywhere?!

Less is more...

People who know me well are aware my life is currently in upheaval.  (I realize this is not exactly the earth shattering pronouncement it may have been if I were someone whose life was not constantly in flux, but none the less, it is true.)  For those not In The Know, I decided, after long and careful thought, to uproot myself and move back to the Great Motherland in the North.

I am not unique in this prodigal return.  It seems that sooner or later, most people who Leave Minnesota For Good eventually end up right back where they started.  It's disconcerting to once again be just another average statistic, but I'll get it over it.  I do hate being this predictable, however.

In the process of moving, I have been forced to go through everything I own, deciding what to keep and what to toss.  It's been surprisingly cathartic, as I have detached myself from the unnecessary and figured out what actually matters to me.  The new me, the one in Minnesota, will be a substantially slimmed down version of myself, and I think I'm going to like it.

I haven't gotten rid of anything vital, of course.  I need my tools, and I have more clothes than I will probably wear in a lifetime.  My kitchen will remain well stocked with items, even after my daughter runs off with a few items she cannot live without!  My garage will still be full of car and lawn care items, and I will still have everything I need to deal with the A to Z's of life.

But I will actually know what I have, and hopefully I will be able to put my finger on where it is when I need it.  That will be a nice novelty I haven't enjoyed in quite some time.

What has amazed me in the past month, however, is how little I have missed all the stuff I have already discarded.  I find I don't even recall what I had, much less feel like I miss it.  How surprising life can be at times!

This has been a good lesson for me.  All the stuff I have clung to and thought was so important may be just window dressing, covering up what really matters to me.  When you step back, take a deep breath, and truly examine what you have in life, sometimes there is a clarity about things that you cannot get any other way.

I have spent the packing up hours examining my life along with the belongings, and have found some things to discard there, as well.  Old attitudes that no longer reflect who I am, old ways of doing things that might be done a better way, inefficient thinking which constrains me and holds me hostage to the past - all of it needs to go.  If it is not moving me forward in my life, then it is holding me back, and I need to discard it.

The road has been long, and the process has been difficult, but I think I may finally be emerging into a new life.  Finding our place in the world is a process, not an event, and all lives have hard times, but I have discovered it is possible to open oneself to the possibilities and enjoy the process more than I have to date.

I am heading back to the future at the end of this month, and I am starting to really look forward to what is ahead for my life.  If nothing else, living in the town where I grew up will remind me of who I fundamentally am, and that can only be a good thing. Growth is painful, change is hard, but the future is not attainable without both.

Time to pack up and move on out to my new life in my old home town!  I can't wait to see what's ahead for me, and share it with you, my faithful readers.  From the big city lights to the small town nights, life is changing, and I'm changing with it. I hope you will all come along for the ride.

Live and learn....

As I approached my long awaited destination last evening, the plane slowly descending out of the skies into the lush greenery of Africa, it suddenly occurred to me just how very brave my 19 year old daughter was a few short months ago when she came here all alone.  To set out for a nation previously unknown, with no support system and no one to turn to, no one to hug or care for her inner person - that is a daunting thing for anyone to take on.

Perhaps that is why hostels are for the young.  As we age, we crave comfort and security, eschewing the unfamiliar in favor of what we know and understand with minimal effort.  Sometimes we cling to the known even when the familiar is no longer the right fit.  Square peg, round hole, although awkward, when gradually slid into, can even feel normal even if we do it long enough.

There's no place like home...

Although I live in the land of Dorothy and Toto, I don't have ruby slippers at my disposal.  Tonight, I really wish I did.  Because on May 9, 2012, I am going to do something "they" say you cannot - I am going home.  Back to the future in real time.  It seems "they" (whoever they are) are wrong.

For many years, home has been in two places.  Home will always be the farm where I grew up, and where my mother still happily resides.  Home has also been where I raised my children, and have lived for the last 17 years of my life.  But on May 1, this house goes up for sale, and I hope it will sell very quickly.  And on May 9 I will pull away from here with a load of belongings, and I will join my two homes into one place, both in my heart, and to lay down my head at night.

Between now and then, I have more packing, sorting, disposing of and selling to do than I ever thought possible.  Where did all this stuff come from?  It's incredible.

There is much that I will miss about living in Kansas City, all to do with the wonderful friends I am leaving behind.  But to spend the next few years seeing my mother every day, to be a part of my extended family happenings again, and to allow myself to be in a place where I find peace will be a blessing beyond measure.

Hello Minnesota.  I've missed you.  I'm coming home.

Procrastination indignation....

I have learned something about myself today.  Usually, self-actualization is a positive process, a way of gaining insight into one's own soul.  Unfortunately, this new revelation about myself does not exactly fall into that category.  It was not a positive piece of news, one that I could announce joyfully on facebook.  (Oh, I announced it, all right.  Just not joyfully.)  Because I have discovered that I Have A Flaw.

Hello, my name is Sarah, and I am a procrastinator.

Same old, same old? Not so fast....

I spent the last few days "At Home" in Minnesota on the farm where I grew up.  My brother Charlie, whom I haven't seen in awhile, is visiting our mom, and I wanted to spend some time with him.  So away I drove, out of the frying pan and into the freezer!

Although it has changed - buildings have worn out, some of them are even gone, the silo is but a shell these days and the windmill will never turn on it's squeaky axle again - much of it remains the same.  It is, in some ways, a bizarre time warp to go back and sleep in the same room where I spent my years of teenage angst, wondering where life would lead me.  It is probably a good thing I didn't know then what I know now, or I would never have had the courage to leave in the first place!

Lost in Oz...

I have been thinking this week about the shackles that bind us to our past, and how difficult it can be to break them open and run free from the things that keep us rooted in our previous experiences.

I imagine most people, when hearing the term shackle, think of being held captive in slavery.  I don't mean to diminish their experience or their pain, but I think there are other shackles that hold us as firmly in place as the metal cuffs placed on the wrists of the runaways seeking the freedom to live life on their own terms.  The fact that the freed slaves often chose to remain where they were speaks to the difficulty of overcoming our own expectations as eloquently as any words I could ever find.  Casting away what we know and moving freely into whatever the future holds for us is always complicated, and easily resisted.

Skinny is not a dirty word any more....

I am just going to say this once, but it's important, so listen up everyone.  If you want to feel good about yourself, find a pair of pants you don't currently fit into, lose enough weight to pull them on, AND, (this is the really mind warping part) ZIP THEM UP.  It is a guaranteed natural high which will have you short of breath and floating on air all day.  (Ideally, you should be short of breath from the joy of it all.  Of course, you also may be short of breath because to get them zipped, you now cannot sit or breathe, but I consider that a personal issue, and I'm not going there.)

Eye told you so....

"They" say that memory is the first thing to go.  (Seriously.  Who are they, anyway?)  Well, apparently "they" have forgotten, because the first thing to go is not the memory, its the eyes.  You can always tell the people of A Certain Age (and trust me, it's a LOT younger than you think it will be.)  They are the ones holding everything at fingertip length, squinting and turning their heads like a camera lens unsuccessfully trying to focus in on the target.

Someday...

I was listening to a tune on the radio today, "Someday," by Rob Thomas, and the words really jumped out at me.  The song is actually about a broken relationship, starting over and getting it right the second time around.  But I think the words also apply to life generally, or they do to my life, anyway.  The lyrics which particularly caught my attention were as follows:

Maybe someday

We'll figure all this out

We'll put an end to all our doubt

Try to find a way to just feel better now and

Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud

We'll be better off somehow

Someday.

Through the looking glass...

I have been thinking this week about the many different ways that our own perception colors the way in which we approach life changing events.  For example, if you get laid off, you can see it as the end of life as you know it.  (Generally speaking, this would be my approach.)  Or, if you are one of those positive thinkers, you can see it as an opportunity to recreate yourself and find something more suited to your talents, abilities, interests.  (This is how I wish I saw things but probably never will, cynic that I am.)

Treasure trove....

Today is one of the biggest days my daughter will ever have in her life.  That is a big statement, and not one I make casually.  But today is the beginning of a life changing, mind expanding adventure that will mark her forever as a global citizen, and I could not be more proud.

For over 20 years, this child of mine has belonged to me.  I have nurtured her and loved her and carried her, within and without, since the moment she was conceived, even before I knew her life had begun.

A friend in need is a friend indeed....

A friend brought a little saying to my attention recently which had the undeniable ring of truth to it. I don't know the author but the words are profound in their simplicity. With apologies to my mother, it is, "Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend." I have expended a fair amount of mental energy in contemplating this truth, and I wanted to expound on it a little further.

We, as fallible human beings, have all stepped in our own mess at one point or another. Whether cow pie sized or a small rabbit pellet, life is full of mistakes that need to be cleaned up. We say things we don't intend, we take an action we later regret, we make a mistake that we cannot undo. There are many reasons why things go wrong, but the end result can be a mess of our own creation. The clean up is hard work, but I have concluded that sometimes doing the hard work on our own is the best way to cleanse the soul, not to mention make amends with those we've wronged..

Critter Crazy...

In an unscientific survey (okay, I googled Nestle Purina PetCare annual sales a few minutes ago) I have discovered that pet food and paraphernalia are an extremely lucrative business venture. Purina alone had global revenue of USD $12.5B in 2010, which is Big Business with a pair of capital B's. When you think about how many companies are in the pet care business, the revenue must be staggering.

If only I'd known. I love animals. I could have been the one to make all that cash, if only I'd thought of gourmet pet stuff sooner. Now the market is awash with premium options, and although pulling back on buying homes and other frills, people continue to spend money on their pets, making someone else rich beyond my wildest fantasies. I am always a day late and a dollar short. Story of my life.

Paying the piper...

I just want to go on the record right now as having said, "I told you so."  When winter finally arrives, and it will, one way or another, we are going to regret this little weather holiday from reality, guaranteed.  Of course, in the meantime, I, for one, am seriously enjoying it.  I'm not stupid.  I take the good with the bad every time.

I have been waiting for global warming to come to flyover land for quite awhile now, and it seems my wish may finally have come true.  (If I'd known wishes were being granted, I would have asked for something more practical, like a Swiss bank account, but oh well.)