1 Thing

Today I met up with Erika again. We had a long talk about some stuff going on in her life and we also spent some time talking about her house. Picking paint colors for rooms at expensive prices per gallon can seems like fun but it's hard work.

Aside from that, we of course talked about Led...we seem to discuss more and more of him lately. (Also, one time I was at Led's and back when stealing music was all the rage I asked him to download some music for me. 1 Thing was one of the songs. When I first put it on it happened again, I cried like I did with Glow. It was totally subconscious and I was only listening to it because I found it on my itunes library.)

I figured out a little bit more about why I was so mad about the picture from his obituary. It looked so much like him. The him I fell in love with when I was a kid and the him that I remembered when I dated him. He looked exactly how I remembered him. A while ago when I added his brother to fb I saw pictures and he was in a few of them. He didn't look the same. Still had the same smile but he didn't look particularly healthy. Maybe he looked tired. He had gained a little weight but it wasn't that. He just didn't look like he did the last time I saw him. So the picture from his obit, that was a little bit of a punch.

I find myself in a strange place. Somewhere between guilt and anger with a sprinkle of regret. I've been thinking about that last phone message a little bit more. I know it was healthier that I didn't call back but there is regret now because I will NEVER know. I can't beat myself up over this for very long but it's still fresh people.

As one of my favorite books is so perfectly titled: The Days are Just Packed. Erika was coffee/breakfast/tea, Erin was hanging out talking about food and menu planning and Krista was pizza at Fab Freddie's. Tonight I have dinner with Kat.

So I'm not really sure where I want to go with this. I guess I'll go with Krista. She's super amazing. I really like her. It was instantaneous like with Sarah. She was dressed kind of pretty, like always. She wore jeans and light colors. And a scarf. Like the fancy kind for style, not for winter. She was really friendly and I didn't really know what to think except that her kids were super awesome. She has this big bright smile and this little cackle of a laugh. Sometimes when she's being sarcastic, which I don't think is her natural state, she get's this funny little look in her eye. It's a sly look, not noticeable unless you know her and she's about to be slightly dark funny with me. Also, just so you know, she is one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. I once told her that I wasn't very fond of someone and she just laughed and told me that the person was a nice person and I could trust them. Let me tell you, her opinion meant a lot and she was right. I have since then hung out with this person multiple times. Also, she helped me get over myself and go back to church. I had this issue with church because I've been burned a few times and I told her I just had an issue with actually getting up and going. She said, "Oh, that's the enemy. And people... isn't it amazing that the Lord loves us. Church, just a bunch of flawed people who love Jesus..." She said it so kindly and with such gentleness and finesse that I was immediately convicted and have since then only missed church because of being out of town or Led's passing. When I think of the Fruits of the Spirit, she exemplifies them 100%.

(Random side note: I tend to judge people on how well their kids behave. Hilda once made a really good point about kids and their parents. You could always tell who the people were based on their kids. If they were Christian at home or just Christian at church. And it's true. Does your kid disrespect you but plays an angel in front of you? That's a Christian at church baby. I know what your thinking, Renee, your kid acts a fool. And you know what, you're right. But that's because he needed a nap, was hungry or I was there. If I step away, for the most part, he is an angel. Not an angel because I'm around. He's still working out his theories of testing with me too so I'm sure that has something to do with it.

Anyway, so this one time we were at the play group with the kids and Krista just starts talking about how she had a miscarriage before she had her second baby. I was pretty shocked. I had only been around her a few times and I didn't know her very well and she wasn't crying or falling apart. She was merely telling a story. It was so incredibly brave and very honest. It was kind of raw and sad but beautiful because you could see how Christ was working in her life. She wasn't bitter. She wasn't angry. She was grateful and more appreciative of the two children who were living. She's still not sure about the time frame between the loss and her daughter but somehow, someway, when it seemed like she shouldn't have gotten pregnant again, she was. And that baby girl is one little cutie pie!

And so here we are almost a year later and it happens again. The first time there wasn't much of an explanation as to "why" it happened. This time, was just the same. No reason. No information that it could happen again or that it wouldn't. Just the fact that it had now happened again and there was nothing she could do about it. I had an inkling that she was pregnant but kept quiet because it's weird to say "hey, you're pregnant aren't you?". Pregnancy was a sensitive subject, still is to some degree so I kept quiet. When she told us that she had another miscarriage it was upsetting and heartbreaking. She wanted another baby and she lost it. That kind of loss is immeasurable. We didn't talk much about it but it did come up, I checked up on her but was still really confused about approach. We definitely prayed about it and she's since then pulled herself together and is slowly moving forward.

Krista is a calorie counter. She is pretty healthy... na, I can't really say that. She eats some processed foods or foods that are delicious and rich but at least they are homemade. She doesn't go out to eat very much. She mentioned to me that after the loss of this last baby she had stopped counting calories and just ate whatever she wanted. I supported that. I still do. Then like a little light bulb that just lit up she stopped eating so horribly and started to care again. Sometime you just need bad food to feel better and when you're all better, you can go back to regular life and feel better better.

So we all know I think healthy but I'm not actually healthy. I make bad food choices all the time so I like to drag my friends into my bad decision making and Krista is usually down to take one for the team. She is very reliable. I can really appreciate that. Not many people would ruin their diet for you. Today, I was so busy running around that I didn't really have time to eat real food. A donut and an Arnold Palmer are not my ideas of real food so around lunch time, I was starving. I asked Krista if she wanted to meet with me at Fab Freddie's and like the trooper she is, she met me there about 40 minutes later. We talked about Led and about the blog, as I am truly interested in people's opinions of it and it was a really great conversation. She was so apologetic and sweet. She was able to talk about death because she had experienced it within her own life a few times and even more specifically through the loss of babies (and her grandpa whom she gushed about). It was hard to listen to her being so open but I really do think that these loses she has endured will help her with her ministry. She has an ability to relate and when we talked about how people DON'T talk about it she was absolutely okay about me discussing it in my blog. She didn't shy away from it and she was honest. I didn't know that after a miscarriage you still have symptoms of pregnancy like nausea, exhaustion etc. It's so sad to know that those were things she was going through and there wasn't going to be a baby at the end of it. In fact, there was a loss along side of it which is devastating. So I now have an opportunity to pray for her and more people because we TALKED about miscarriage. Not in immense detail but in enough detail to get the conversation going.

This whole thing Friends via Fb thing was meant to help me deal with the loss of someone I used to be close with and make relationships with the people I have as 'friends' on fb. This meeting, even though it lasted a little under 2 hours and the kids were being crazy 95% of the time, was the most important meeting I've had thus far. I learned what it was to really listen and to hear about something very personal not via some stupid fb post or some other narcissistic avenue. I also felt like I was better able to understand that sometimes we just need to be there.

I was feeling pretty crappy about the blog for a few days but today, today I felt like I was doing it right. No guilt associated with it. Just hanging out building relationships.

Listening to my kid cry as he tries to take a nap. Also listening to Alanis Morissette: Uninvited. Amerie: 1 thing. At The Drive In, Album: Relationship of Command. Also, sat in silence for a while.