Nothing Is Real 'Til It's Gone

My friend said it’s similar to looking at the northern lights and telling someone you love them. I equate it to being at the Goo Goo Dolls concert after a week of hard work with three of your great girlfriends while more confetti than you could ever dream of falls from above.

There are few words and whatever words may be able to describe the emotion is certainly out of my ability to do so.

I knew it was our busiest week of the year. I knew going into it how difficult it would be. I had tons of anxiety. I knew as I packed my bags the night before, before I even checked into the hotel room, before I met the foreigners, it would be grueling and exhausting. I didn’t expect it would be one of the most rewarding weeks of my life.

I expected one hundred hours as the worst case scenario. I came in just under. Yet anything between eighty and a hundred feels the same. Simply put, it’s all a blur.

I work for a global company with distributors coming from many countries around the world. This past week was a corporate convention and it all started there. “There” being a corn maze shaped like David Archuleta as his music blared from the surrounding speakers while 500 multi cultural early comers were entertained by and on the company.

I gave a tour of our corporate headquarters (a frequent job task) to a group of sixty Hungarians and Czech Republicans. My tour consisted of my English to a French translator who translated the French to Hungarian while a Hungarian further translated to Czech for all the rest.

Early on, I sarcastically made a statement only to be told in English by the French translator sarcasm is American and doesn’t translate. “Well folks, I don’t really have much more for you. Here is the corporate state of the art boardroom, CEO’s office, the Co-Founders’ offices, the elevator. Any questions?”

Later that week I would annihilate two of those Hungarians in a speed drinking contest. Upon leaving the table and dashing off to usher another event, I took my wine glass of water, and swallowed the full contents in about half a second. The president of our Eastern Europe Market was impressed. When commenting on my talent, I openly accepted the familiar astonishment as I’ve known I’ve had this ability for awhile.

Two of these Hungarians then challenged me to a drink off in which servers were summoned to bring each of us two of these glasses filled with water, the Europeans’ being room temperature and mine being cold. “Un, deux, trois!”

I smoked them. To which I was told had they been drinking beer, they would have beaten me. I was informed Europeans don’t drink water. To which I notified them I was more than up for the challenge after I finished work. I was cheered by onlookers and fellow co-workers.

Yet if I had to sum up my sixteen plus hour days filled with luncheons & motivational speakers like Peter Vidmar, hand shakes & double cheek kisses (I love these the best), registration & onsite product store assignments, charity dinners & silent auctions, late night dance practices for Saturday morning general session introductions & even later night conversations with co-workers in hotel rooms, I think the only word I could use for the encounter would be “hope.”

I felt a sort of hope which I have long since felt. A resurgence of what I’m good at… people. That I have so much left to experience and contribute in this world… a listening ear and love. That although I struggle with having mastered nothing in this world, I am naturally good at almost everything I try.

I’m bright. I’m comical. I’m charismatic. Then for the first time in a long time, I thought less about how I’ve been begging Deity to take me to the people I need to be with or the place I need to be.

I thought more about how somewhere someone is begging Deity to send me into their life. As an employee. As an emissary. As a companion.

I felt hope. Hope in people of the world. Hope in two prayers are heard better than one. Hope in my future.

So even as the concert marking week’s end finished and I was getting my pictures taken with the Goo Goo Dolls (backstage passes), I was more concerned with getting to IHOP in time to meet up with my friends I’d been without for vastly more than a hundred hours.

I finally got home, went to bed, and upon waking 14 hours later had one thought in my mind. Hope.

A Penny Saved

Sunday is not my usual day for writing anything which may end up online.

I diligently reserve Sundays for personal writing. Pages and pages of journal entries.

Sometimes as simple as recounting a weekend activity, occasionally the philosophizing I restrict from public eyes, and intermittently the notation of private fears or passions.

I have acquired a weird hobby in the past couple months. I enjoy reading obituaries. I’ll go online and pull up any location in the country I wish to travel to and read about someone who lived a life there. And tonight I stumbled across a good one.

It was the picture which seized me. I gazed at this man and felt so immediately connected. I wanted to know about him. So I read. Born in another country. His immigration. His life, his education, his career, and his family. His story. Then I wanted to know him.

I have this immense love for the elderly. A substantial respect really. My friend seemed to finally take note of this in me within the past couple weeks and now frequently observes and comments on its presence in my life. I found her surprise at this fact comical and relayed it to another friend of mine.

When the latter queried to my fascination with this generation I simply replied, “I’m a story person. They have the stories.”

They have the stories about good times and bad times. The stories about war and about peace. The stories about love, hatred, and forgiveness. The stories about life.

In these stories are morsels of explanation, solutions to setbacks, and recipes for doing it all and potentially doing it better than what has come before us.

I hear optimism. I hear humor. I hear hope.

So tonight, I’m taking a second to meditate and re-immortalize this man.

I never knew you but I thank you. Thank you for reiterating to me the importance of education (formal or informal). To listen more and speak less. But mostly, thank you for showing me there are hard things to be done in life. Difficult things like leaving your country and the familiar to commence on a new path. A path I have no doubt frightened you terribly. Yet a path which offered much joy after the fight. You and others like you are inspirations to me.

Are There No Shoes?

About three months ago, I finally had to submit to a package of technology I've been avoiding. Unlimited Texts.

I don't mind texting. I concede to its convenience. Any time. Any place. Anywhere. The fact I had to upgrade proves this. My church texts information regarding activities. My boss texts reminders for meetings. And my friends…

However to ignore the repercussions of its existence would be irresponsible of us. It's impersonal. It takes little thought. It holds us accountable for next to nothing.

If I had a dime for every plan made over the phone and every plan broken over text, I'd be significantly wealthier.

This past year seems to have pummeled us, forcing us into a kind technology not essential for living or work. A technology which has been enslaving in our social practices and regressive in the fine art of communing.

Hereafter is simply my opinion, my experience, and my perception.

With focus on the internet, I have seen an explosion in signups on social networking sites and blogs alone. And with every click to add a new friend, to feel less isolated, we flush away kinship.

We reduce our relationships to a digital, less than 50 words, sporadic coming and going recaps. In our desire to connect, we become much less connected.

Sure we are touching base with a growing number of people. We are locating those who we temporarily lost. Yet at what cost?

Comparison and competition is thriving in this environment. The adolescent seemingly witnesses how peers are skinnier, prettier, and dating more. Women seemingly observe other wives doing it better, other mothers being more successful, and other women who are more involved and more accomplished. Or worse. Their pride supposes them the envy of others.

For me, it's merely the car I don't drive, the money I don't have, and the experiences I’m not encountering. Funny how every walk of life leaves us wanting more and feeling less. Never did anything perpetuate this feeling within humanity as the technology I have illustrated.

Where there is comparison and competition, there is enmity.

We sign on to see we haven’t been left messages or the “right ones” haven’t left us a message. We see those who sit idly on their accounts and others leaving their cyber prints all over the place offering little insight or connection rather a stamp to prove they’ve merely been there.

Additionally I could list more reasons. However it’s my final rationale which pains me the most. The lost art of communication and people relating.

When I was in high school, I had a boyfriend who furthermore was my best friend at the time. I loved talking to him. We discussed everything under the sun. We developed this practice of nighttime phone calls.

I would get done play practice at 10 or sometimes 11, come home, get ready then jump into bed while making the call. However the calls would linger well into the early mornings.

Once my mother picked up her bedside phone at 2:30AM and spoke authoritatively, “time to hang up now.” I will never forget it. I will never forget those conversations.

Work and life has been tremendously exhausting of late. Last night I decided to retire much earlier than my usual post midnight bedtime. Upon climbing into the covers, I desired a little pillow talk. Literally.

I picked up my phone and scrutinized my contacts. I found myself in a very real dilemma.

There were two types of people. People who I know and love, who might have been up for the late night phone chat but were on the opposite coast or long turned in.

The second (and this is the distressing part) were my fellow peers. Peers who I knew if I signed onto a certain networking site would all be chatting in spades. Yet peers who I deem as lacking the skills to carry on a heartfelt, authentic, unfeigned conversation. Had I called, I would have confused any one of them.

“What’s going on?”
“I just wanted to talk, that’s all.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Just longing to connect with someone.”
Awkward silence. Stuttering. “Oh. Well… how was your day?” And those would have been the wrong words.

The right words would have been anything which would have jumpstarted the conversation. “Well I took a test today and I’m pretty sure I bombed it b/c I never listen in class. The professor is a total bore.”

“Oh yeah. I hate that. I’m so glad I’m done school. I went to the mall because I have a $40 gift certificate knowing that I wanted a pair of shoes. And after looking for no fewer than 2 hours, I found nothing. Can you believe that? Me? The shoe hoarder of late. And when I went into Vans, a tried and trusted shoe stop for me, I was greeted by indifference to a WALL of shoes, which on any other given day I can covet up to 3 pair. Can you believe THAT?”

(Unfortunately that’s a true story of this past week, folks. The excursion. Not the fake conversation.)

These are the details of our lives which bind us together. Which are defining of our beings to one another. Which are NOT blog worthy. Which get lost in this day and age of being so digitally united while so emotionally detached.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…" C. Dickens

Now I'm off to hypocritically develop my friendships via comments. After all, I love giving and getting them too.