Single Busy

Recently someone asked me how I was doing, and I said, “good but busy.”

Her response was, “oh how many kids do you have?”

When I said I didn’t have any she was shocked that I would actually be busy.

Are single people not busy? Do we not have full lives? Are children the only thing in life that allows one to declare oneself as busy? I mean what do I do with all of my free time. I must sit around get massages and eat bon bons. Surely that is the essence of a single person’s life.

These rules have not be explained to me. I was irritated but quickly let this go and chalked it up to her being an idiot and moved on with my life.

Then tonight, in one of my groups someone asked me how I had time to send out the weekly email and then she said, “oh yea, you’re single with no family.”

Excuse me? How rude and insensitive is that? I really wanted to punch her in the face. But at church I figured that wasn’t a proper response.

My second response was to say, “I guess I’m just better at time management.” No, not a right response either.

My third response was to say, “Actually I am busy, I have a full time job, am a part of three small groups, two of which I lead. I managed to get a master’s degree and I just completed a 32 week lay counseling program. All of that and I still got the freaking email out. I am just that good.”

Instead, I took a deep breath, smiled and said, “I hope you enjoyed the email.”

I still wanted to smack her upside the head.

Filed under: Ranting and Raving, Single Serving, Small Grouping , rude response, singlehood, small group

Feast of Love [2007]

From the trailers it looked like this movie was going to be about finding real love in its varied and unexpected places.

It is a convergence of lives and stories much like Crash and Shape of the Heart. We see love play out through the innocence of youth, apathy of middle age and wisdom of maturity. Yet as much as anyone thinks they know about love, we really have no idea and are just stumbling in the dark trying to make sense of it all and in this movie they do that mostly naked.

Greg Kinnear stars as Bradley Smith, a coffee shop owner, who loses his first wife [Selma Blair]to another woman. She claims that he didn’t see her so she followed her heart to another.

Disheartened, yet optomistic, Bradley moves onto another woman, inspite of the advice from his friend, Harry Stevenson, [Morgan Freeman] to notice what is happening right in front of him. Harry, happily-married, is suffering from his own loss because he was clueless about what was happening to his child.

Oscar and Chloe, coffee shop employees, young, invincible and full of dreams take on the world, including his drunk, abusive father to start a life on their own. She jumps in even though it is predicted their love will end in tragedy.

The positive lessons of love in this movie are that:

1. You have to go in with your eyes wide open, you can’t just leap.
2. You have to pay attention and really know your lover. They aren’t simply who you need them to be at the moment you need them.
3. Love is brave and not for the weak

There were beautifully poignant moments in the middle of the mess. They are sandwiched between all of the cheesy melodrama and manufactured celluloid. You are able to truly connect with parts of the stories that are real, born out of pain and soothed with love. However, the repeated and frequent nudity in this film are completely unnecessary.

Overall, I fundamentally disagree with the portrait of love that this movie provides. Based on its definition and exploration love is undependable, selfish, fleeting, random, dysfunctional and unfaithful. We cannot so cavalierly excuse our inappropriate and hurtful behavior towards one another in the name of this kind of love.

Love has to be bigger. It’s more than just physical. It’s more than tragedy. It’s more than pathetic and desperate. I do believe that you have to surrender to love, but one that is unselfish. Love is found where you sacrifice for the good of someone else. Love means commitment, endurance, patience, joy, hope, peace, and trust. Love is a choice. Love is honor, loyalty, and respect. Few of these characteristics abide in these stories.

Feast of Love is about a buffet of love to be found in life. But more often than not its characters just gorge on desset mistaking it for meat and substance and so wonder why their stomach hurts in the end.

Filed under: Pop Culture , commitment, love, movie, relationships, romance

Allergic Reaction Explained

My quasimodo face has finally been explained.

After three hours of poking, prodding, scratching, reacting, getting shots, and x-rays I finally know why my eyes, lips, cheeks, throat and tongue have been swelling beyond oblivion. I am allergic to dust, cats, trees and mold and it is triggering my asthma.

It was odd to see that just the scratch test of dust caused my back to swell just like my face. The cat test was a little less but still very reactive.

I realized that each of my previous incidences have happened at work (remember I work in a former gravel pit) and/or with people who have cats. See I knew there was a reason I hated cats. At least now I can officially say that I am allergic to work. Sweet.

I’m just glad to know what it is. I get to add a pill to my arsenal of medication but as the doc pointed out – you like to breathe right?

Filed under: Health , allergies, asthma, doctor, swelling