Epic

Can we just give it up for this? Repeatedly? Thanks. 

30 Things I Want to Tell My 18-year-old Self

Life Lessons...and Things I Wish I'd Known Before College 
[Things I would say if I could pull my young self aside and tell me what's what.]

1. First of all, Little Ashley, the reason you started crying at the sight of your empty P.O. box today is because you are very, very tired. You were up until 4 a.m. hanging out with your roommate at a diner, and you are not functioning properly. The truth is, you suck at life when you're tired. Take a nap, kid. You will need more naps in college than you did when you were a toddler, and you will be able to take them. Don't miss this window of napportunity. Ditch Western Civilization, climb into your lofted bed, and pass out until dinner. You will still pass that freshman gen. ed. with flying colors.

2. Your college experience will not be just like Keri Russell on Felicity. I mean it. Skip buying the giant sweaters and finding a friend to send your recorded self-obsessed messages to. That's what blogs are for. Give up on this tv show dream; it is fake.

3. If you go on a date with a guy who tells you he hates reading books, do not go on another date. 

Unless he's a really good kisser.

No not even then. Don't listen to me. 

4. Learn how to drive in the city. Soon. Not knowing how to drive in they city at 18 is precious and endearing, but not knowing how to drive in the city when you are almost 26 years old is sad and pathetic. This cannot be your crazy cat lady quirk.

5. Jump in a lake with your clothes on with that one crazy guy who takes you on that one crazy date your junior year. It will be fun, and it will not get weird. 

6. You also need to get over your fear of old people. They will always be there and you should be nice to them. They are not trying to lure you into their homes in order to eat you, like the witch from Hansel and Gretel, and the odds of them dying of old age, mid-sentence, while talking to you, are very slim. 

7. Sit your butt down and write your uncles two thank you cards for collaboratively buying you that laptop for high school graduation. I know you think the appreciative email you sent them was enough, but it wasn't. I know, I know, we hate thank you cards. But if you do not do this thing, they will vibe you/me for the next seven years. Write them cards. It is not hard, and it will save us from years of awkwardness.

8. This is selfish, maybe, but switch banks now. If you don't, then I will have to take care of it this week, seven years later, when all my direct deposit and withdrawal stuff is set up. It's super annoying. Please do this thing. Do it for me, your elder self. 

9. Don't cut your hair super short your sophomore year of college. You will hate it, and yes, you will look like a mom. 

10. You're not going to find your husband in college. I don't care what all of those games of M.A.S.H. said. Feel grateful for this, and don't worry about it. You will be tempted to worry because you will surrounded by girls who are worrying about this, but don't get sucked in. Life goes on after college. As a matter of fact, it gets better.

11. DO NOT. AND I REPEAT, DO NOT try to dye your hair Gwen Stefani blonde by yourself at 2 a.m. in your dorm suite bathroom, with a $5 box of hair bleach you bought at the grocery store. You know the guy who hosts Diners, Drive-ins and Dives? Yeah. You will end up looking like him. Don't go there.

12. Figure out the difference between a boring guy who is super responsible and a non-boring guy who is completely irresponsible. Find out the character traits of a happy medium between the two. Do it now. They exist, I promise.

13. You are not a failure at life because of whatever currently overly dramatic crisis you are currently facing. Stop telling yourself you are. You're eighteen, for Pete's sake.

14. Everything you own does not have to be from the Gap. In fact, owning trendier clothes will prevent you from dressing like a teacher or a little boy every livelong day, which, unless you change your ways, you will, until you turn 24.

15. Take your sister up on her offer to teach you how to cook. Someday (it will come very, very soon) you will have to cook for yourself, and you cannot live off of peanut butter, yogurt and grapes.

15.b. I know you think your inability to cook is a cute and interesting fact about you, and that it makes you mysterious and independent. Unfortunately this all goes to crap and ends up making you look rather pathetic by around age 23. Learn to cook. Do this thing for me, Young Ashley. I would love to know how to make lasagna, and it all depends on you.

16. You don't have to like Wilco. You can find them boring and pretentious. It's okay.

17. It is also okay that you like Alfred Hitchcock movies, painting things, reading books, folk music, and going to flea markets with your mom. I know you are a dork now, but in seven more years, this will be super cool. You're basically a trendsetter. Keep dorking it up, sister.

18. You live in a world where the bank closes at 1 p.m. on Saturdays. Denying this fact will not make it open when you go there at 3 p.m., so please learn this very important, harsh life-truth right now.

19. People are not always mad at you. Sometimes their mood has absolutely nothing to do with you. I promise. On the same note, Jesus is never mad at you. Stop thinking he is.

20. Start a savings account right now. You don't pay rent, you don't pay utilities, you don't pay for a car, and your student loans haven't kicked in yet. We could be so rich by the time we are my age. We could buy our own chef and then you wouldn't have to worry about my instructions in number 15.

21. Call your parents more, especially your mom. I know you don't want to call your her right now, but you need to. Seriously, though.

22. Keep being best friends with Steph. Treat her like a rockstar. She will be your pillar of sanity and loyalty through all of college and your early twenties. Be nice to that guy she starts dating your junior year. He never goes away. As a matter of fact they get married. But you will continue to refer to him as Smelliott, and Steph will continue to find it just as funny as you do. This is why she's your bff4life. 

23. When God says he'll provide, he means it.You will re-learn this everyday.

24. Don't change your major four times. I know you will get super freaked out when you go to your first journalism class, but it's the only thing you've ever wanted to do. Don't let it scare you away. You do not want to be a social worker, a teacher, or a professional communicator. (What do communications majors do, anyway?) Study the Chicago Manual of Style. Study good writers. Write all the time. You love writing--you want to be a writer.

Do not make a pros and cons list that tells you otherwise.

25. Buy tickets to go see Nickel Creek EVERYTIME they are in town. I hate to tell you this, but shortly after you graduate from college, they will break up. You will continue to stalk Chris Thile and his new band, but it will never be the same. Don't waste this precious time with them.

26. Hang out with your college roommate, Alyssa, more. She kicks butt and someday soon she will marry a Swiss rocket scientist and move to Boston. No, I'm not kidding. Make sure when you are working on a paper at 3 a.m. in your dorm room, you don't wear headphones. You will accidentally be much louder than you think you are, banging your coffee mug on your desk, etc., and you'll keep her awake, but she will be too sweet to say anything. Do not do this. Preventing one from sleep is a form of torture. Have some social grace.

27. Be ballsier. Just in general.

28. Don't be such a snob about music, movies, or books. Someday, you will harbor a very intense love for an 18-year-old Canadian popstar who looks strikingly like a woman. And you will think that this fact about you is very awesome.

29. Your sisters are always right. So is Steph. Get used to this now and you will save yourself a lot of wasted time.

30. Life will not end after college, just like it didn't end after high school. You will like your early twenties an awful lot. You will, dare I say, have even more fun than you are having right now. I promise. 

A Little Something on Grace and Honesty

Hi folks. I've been the crappiest blogger on the face of the earth lately, because I've been spending a lot of my time writing for Kyria.com. Here are a few of the posts I've done recently. Please known that for Kyria, I've written twice in the last month about kinky porn in society. I do not have any way to explain myself.

However, this is a post I wrote last year, on my old blog. It's about Jesus. And honesty. And grace. I've been reflecting a lot on the mayhem that recently took place in the life of Brian Presley, including the circulation of an interview I did with him two months ago. It's all been very odd for me to watch, but it's made me think a lot about how, simply stated, we are never going to be perfect.

 So...here you go. A little something for you Wednesday.

-------------------------

I read this last night, and it has never read so beautifully before.

"²⁷ After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, ²⁸ and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.

 ²⁹ Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. ³⁰ But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ³² I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

 - Luke 5:27-32

After that, I read this.  Jesus said it.  I like it.

"³⁷ Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. ³⁸ Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

    ⁴¹ “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴² How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."

 Luke 6:37-38; 41-42

Christ was sinless and perfect, and he told. us not to judge each other. 

But we do. 

We do it in conversation. 

We do it in our minds and hearts. We do it when we pass people on the street or drive past them in our cars.  We do it when we watch the news and hear about the different ways that people are trying to fill the voids in their lives with relationships and substances that continue to hurt them.  We shake our heads and say, "How could they do something like that?" when really, what we should be saying, is "How wonderful would it be for that person if they allowed Jesus to fill that void.  Thank God for His grace and mercy that allows me to feel whole, even amidst confusion."

 My pastor always says that there is nothing worse than a conversation between a Christian and a non-Christian in which our main goal is to "fix them."  It's just gross.  

It was one of those crazy weeks for me where God kept telling me the same thing so persistently that I would have to chop off both of my ears in order to NOT hear Him.  I'm not down with the ear-chopping.

We were not put on this earth to judge one another.  We just weren't.  At least five times, just this week, I have been on one side or the other of the following conversation:  

"I didn't want to talk to you about this/call you to talk because I was scared I'd be bothering you/I didn't want to disappoint you/I didn't want you to let you down."

Translation?  We are terrified of being judged by each other, and so we isolate.  And when we isolate, we suffer even more, and that fear continues to build.  Two nights ago I talked to my best friend for a good hour, and we both admitted to each other that we'd been scared to talk to each other about some things that we were dealing with.   But the fear that we both felt was a lie.  Through our conversation a film that had been covering our friendship over the past few months was lifted, and we were able to see clearly that we will receive nothing but love and understanding from one another.  And yes, sometimes we tell each other that we are acting like morons.  And that is a good thing, because it is based on love. 

But why does that fear exist in the first place?  Why do we get so scared to talk to each other about the truth of our lives?  I think that sometimes the lack of grace we are surrounded by in this world becomes a direct correlation to how we perceive our relationships with one another.  In the church, we deal with the anomaly of striving to become perfect in Christ while knowing in the deepest part of our hearts that we are nothing but a bunch of sinful bastards.  We are given mercy through the faith that we have, not because of our perfection.  We don't deserve the Father that we have in Heaven, but He loves us just the same. 

We know that we can't hide our sins from Christ, but sometimes we start to believe that everything will be so much easier if we DO hide our sins from one another.  The biggest problem with this, of course, is that the more perfect we try to appear, the more hypocritical we become, and also, the less likely it will be that anyone who is actually struggling, who is actually in pain, will be willing to talk to us about it.  When we shut out God's grace for ourselves, the grace that allows us to joyfully admit that we are imperfect, we also stop giving that grace to those around us.

"¹⁶ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

Hebrews 4:16

I am talking to myself more than anyone, today.  We have to get it out of our heads that being saved by grace makes us "better" than anyone else.  We aren't better, we are just incredibly blessed with the knowledge of a loving Savior.  We have to stop freaking out about the minute things that make us think that our society is "going to hell in a handbag," and start freaking out about the incomprehensible amount of suffering that is taking place around us.  Jesus spent His time on earth with those who were suffering and confused.  The outcasts.  The people you'd never trust to babysit your kids or hold your purse or go to for advice.  Those were the people He ate dinner with.  So I guess what I'm trying to say, and struggling to do so, is that this judgement and fear that we live in is not the Gospel.  It's not the truth.  Jesus loves us sinners, and He demands that we love others in the same grace-filled way that He does.

This week I had another conversation, too. This one tore me up, because it gave me, with clarity that I believe must have come from the Holy Spirit, an outsider's view on the graceless, selfish "religion" that Christians today are always in danger of becoming, and often, have become.

I'm paraphrasing, but in unbelievable truth, a friend  of mine said something pretty close to this:

"Do you want to know the reason that everyone who isn't a Christian looks at the Church and laughs about what a big joke it all is? It's because you people spend so much time judging non-Christian music and movies and listening to your contemporary Christian music and preaching at others about how they need to get "saved," but in reality, your lives don't look any different from ours.  Your lives become about what you don't do.  Where are you being the hands and feet of Christ? Where are you actually being the light that is showing the world that you are different?  No one gives a crap about what you have to say if you are living a life that is full of judgement towards us.  Show me someone who is living like a light.  Who is really trying to spread that love that Jesus gave.  I'll listen to that person." 

I think that God speaks in a lot of ways.  Wednesday, this is how He spoke to me.  And now there's no going back to normalcy.   Not when you get convicted like that.

Happy Wednesday, y'all. 

Good Friday

I think I've always had two versions of Jesus in my mind.


First, there is Jesus: the sweet, life-giving, grace-pushing carpenter who was always telling the losers he loved them. I've always liked him. We're close. I tell him things. And he makes me feel safe.

And then there is JESUS: the silent, somber B.A. who was always pissing off Pharisees--the one who walked the road to Calvary. Now, this guy, I respect. But I'm not sure if He likes me that much, and he's always freaked me out a little.

It's always been easiest to have this separation, because what Jesus did on the Cross completely baffles me. I don't understand it. It makes me sad. And it makes me feel a little guilty.Yes. It has been easier for me, for 25 years, to keep the Jesus in the crowds, the one who called me on the beach, saved me from being stoned, broke bread with me...it's easier to keep that Jesus separate from the one who died for me.

But tonight I attended a Good Friday service that felt a lot more like a funeral--and I've been to my share of funerals of the past few years. The resemblance was purposeful, but it was also incredibly fitting. Tonight was not a memorial of the distant martyr who hung on the Cross. It was the funeral remembrance for the only man who has ever loved me purely. The one who says he's the shepherd for the lost and the hopeless. The one who prays to his Father in John 17, telling him how much he loves the insignificant morons he's spent the last 33 years getting to know. The one who knows me inside and out--who I share everything with.

Tonight I re-lived the funeral of my best friend.

It was awful.

I don't know what it was. Maybe it's because this year, more than ever before, I've experienced more closely what if feels like to lose someone you love. Or maybe this was the year that I finally truly fell in love with Jesus. I don't know, exactly.

Whatever it was...the life I lived this year has brought me to a place of absolute dependence on the Grace of the Man who died tonight.

The death of Jesus is not some far off, theological concept.

It's personal.

It's heartbreaking.

It is worthy of mourning.

But...it's not the end of the story.

How thankful I become when I arrive, face-to-face with this truth.

New Post for You and You and You

And then I wrote THIS.

Cat. Organ. Rainbow. Song.

Hello there. How are you doing?

Me? Well, I was doing great. Was. Until I saw this. Now I'm sort of a mixture of nervous, nauseous, and...and...

Now it's all just darkness.

Hospital Gowns and Jesus

I wake up to a sharp jabbing sensation taking place in the direct vicinity of my ribcage. I peek out of one eye and immediatly recognize the culprit as Eva, my friend Jennie's four-year-old daughter. "Wake up! Wake up! Ashchleee, WAKE UP!" she yells as she continues to stab me with her tiny (but freakishly strong) hands. I roll over and groan. I"m beyond tired and my head is pounding. Eva's lucky she's cute, I think as I roll off the couch and onto the floor.

I eventually stand up and drag myself into the kitchen after groggily fist-bumping my little alarm clock. Eva is freaking awesome. She can tell the difference between Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson songs better than I can. She's a rockstar. But I need coffee.

Jennie stumbles into the kitchen a few seconds after I've poured the water into the coffeemaker. We exchange mumbles. My roommate, Anna, is much more of a morning person than either of us will ever hope to be. We can both hear her singing to herself in the shower. I crack a weary smile.

In truth, I've spent the weekend fighting demons. I've been angry and bitter at the Church and its failures, lately. My anger is about the things that show the immature, stupid state of my own heart, things that God is in control of, and things that I need to let go of. Basically I've been struggling with the notion that everyone sucks. I know this is not okay, but I can't help but carry around a heaviness in my heart as I get ready for the service this morning. It sits as a passenger next to me on my drive there.

Marching through the church doors, I'm pleasant. This is stupid, I tell Jesus. I fake smile at the greeters, hoping to avoid talking to anyone else for the rest of the morning. I run into Jennie and she tells me about a debacle she had with one of the parking attendants, and I manage to curse about it while standing in the children's ministry area. Good job, Ashley. Classy. I make it halfway through the lobby before I look down at my phone and see my sister's caller ID flashing across the screen. It's early for her to call, and she has babies to get out the door for church. I figure I'd better answer it.

"Did you butt dial me?" I ask dryly as I navigate my way through the crowded lobby.

"Get somewhere where you can hear me right now," April orders.

Oh boy. Is she mad at me? I wonder. I feel panic and guilt rise up in my chest, my brain racing to figure out what on earth I possibly could have done wrong in the past two days.

"Okay, I can hear you," I say, finding a quieter corner in the noisy lobby.

"Don't freak out."

Panic panic panic.

"Okay, I'm not freaking out."

"Alright. Mom and Dad are in Milwaukee for the weekend, and they were swimming this morning..."

Oh my gosh my dad is dead.

"And Dad passed out in the pool. He was having pains across his chest. I don't know. But he blacked out and Mom had to pull him out and he's ok now and there was a nurse nearby and she told them that it might be a precurser sign to a heart attack so now they're in the emergency room in Milwaukee and we need to go up there."

I get off the phone and start speedwalking back through the lobby, tears stinging my eyes. All I can think about is my dad, and how he can't be old yet, and about how he's supposed to walk me down the aisle and he needs to meet my kids someday and he can't do that soon because I have committment issues and I can't find a man and my mom needs him around for forever and my sisters need him and my nieces need him and my nephew needs him and the world needs him...I think about how I cancelled on my family on Friday night to spend time with my friends, and how I am the worst daughter ever. I think a lot of other very guilt-ridden thoughts, as well.

Etc.

On my way out the door I hear someone calling my name. I turn to see Anna, who's looking at me like I've lost my mind. "Where are you going?!" she yells. There are way too many people around for me to feel comfortable with this setting, but as she walks towards me I begin to fall apart.

"My dad...heart attack...water...pool...Milwauakee...Do you know how to get to Milwaukee? Can you point me in the direction of Milwaukee?! I NEED TO GET TO MILWAUKEE AND I DON'T KNOW WHERE IT IS!" I sob-yell incoherently.

Clearly I am extremely level-headed.

Anna puts her arm around me and starts walking me towards her car. "You can't drive like this. No seriously you can't. It's a bad idea and you WILL will die. I'm driving you." she says calmly. "Your dad will be fine. I promise. Let's go. And stop apologizing," she orders, referring to my half-hysterical mumbling of the phrase, "I'm sorry."

I feel awful about Anna driving me all the way to Milwaukee, but luckily my sister comes up with a better plan to meet somewhere nearby and drive together, so Anna and I have exactly ten minute in the car together, filled with her praying and my crying before I am back at my own car, driving to meet my sister nearby.

I've never felt as desperate as I do on the car ride to meet my sister. God gets quite the earful from me. I tell Him I know He owes me nothing. I tell Him I know that I idolize my dad way too much. I beg Him not to take him away. I bargain with my own life, I apologize for my own idiocy and constant sin, but mostly I just cry, and yell about how helpless I feel. I tell Him I know that my dad would go to Heaven, and I know that God would take good care of him up there, but I need him here. I beg some more. And then I meet up with my sisters.

We arrive at the hospital and scare the nurses as we storm through the halls, trying to find our dad. It feels good to be with Erin and April now. I'm positive the nursing staff thinks we're nutjobs. We find my parents in Room 6, my dad all hooked up with tubes sticking out of his arms. I feel myself wanting to cry again as my mom tells us exactly what happened. I can't get over how small my dad looks in the hospital bed. Like a little boy who's trying to be brave. He looks afraid, and wide-eyed, and traumatized, and glad that we're there. I pull up a chair right next to him and ask him if he's okay. His eyes water, but he nods. I struggle to hold it together. Dad crying is the worst.

We spend the day together as a family, and my dad cheers up more and more. He tells us how much he hates his hospital gown, which nurses are nice and which nurses are bossy, how uncomfortable his bed is, and how much he loves us. The immediate tests have all shown good things, so we all relax and talk. When I was little, we had nightly mandatory family dinners. Now that my sisters are both married, and April has four babies of her own, my immediate family rarely gets a chance to just be together. I feel thankful for this time together, even if my dad is wearing a man-dress and lying in an uncomfortable bed.

I decided to stay the night in Milwaukee with my mom. She's asleep now--she was exhuasted. I'm writing this in a pitch-black hotel room, relieved I can process what happened today. When we left my dad tonight he told me his big plan was to get another blood test and then watch ESPN. I think he's actually pretty pumped about that last part. Tomorrow they'll do a stress test on him, and depending on what they find, they'll either keep him for longer, or send him home for a follow up.

As I sit here in the dark tonight, all I can think about is how much I don't deserve the blessings that God has piled onto my family. Today was the first health scare I've ever faced with my dad, and as a result he spent the day being doted on by my crazy sisters and mother and me, as well as four nurses, a nurse practictioner, a doctor, five med students, and probably some kind of pear tree. I feel like God blessed this day by allowing us to be together and pause our lives for a few hours. I'm thankful.

I'm thankful for a few other reasons, too. You see, my dad is not a cuddly, warm-fuzzy guy. He's gentle and kind, always, but he's never been big on "I love you's" and hugs. But today made me realize that he knows, without a doubt, that I love him. I tell him I love him all the time, but today was the first day that made me realize that he gets it. He joked all day about how he knew I would be the biggest disaster when I heard the news this morning. He even called me when I was on the way to the hospital to check-in. I don't know if I'm making any sense, and I am extremely tired and more than a little emotional right now, but there's something incredibly valuable about knowing that someone KNOWS that you love them. I'm grateful.

And all of that stuff...the stuff that was stealing my joy and making me feel worthless and causing me bitterness earlier in the day...it just doesn't matter anymore. Because in the grand scheme of things, the ONLY thing that matters is that we love each other like Christ loves us. That's it. Set the pettiness aside, set the fears aside, set our selfishness aside...the only thing in this world that matters is the love of God, and the love we share with each other. Looking at my family today, thinking back on the struggles and the hurt that we've gone through and caused each other in the past, and how far we've come, brought concretion to the reality that each day we have to start anew, and each day we are required to forgive each other, and each day we get to love each other.

And the same goes for the church. You know, The Church--that thing with those people that was pissing me off so much this morning. The people who have "failed" me in some way. It just doesn't matter anymore. We're fallen people. We're all big effed-up losers no matter how much Bible teachin' we've got. And we need to stop keeping count of one another's wrongs and making each other feel like a bunch of failures. Because if we don't, we're just simply an organized group of lying hypocrites who can wave goodbye to a unified church. I mean, right? So now I need to seek forgivness from God for the grudges and the anger I've held in the past. Sheesh. Today was a big day for me. I gotta stop saying sheesh, though. It makes me look like a nerd.

Thanks for letting me debrief from today's insanity. I'm sorry if this post makes zero sense and makes me sound like I'm full of it. I'm tired as crap. And I had a long day.