Tag: Blog

Distracted.

On By sarafroiIn Challenge, Life StoriesLeave a comment

When I was in college, and even after I finished college, I was always on my computer.  So if I wasn’t on Facebook, or Tumblr, or doing homework, I was usually writing.  I didn’t have to make time to blog, because I was already on my computer.  Now, it’s true that I am writing a little bit less, but the reason that I’m actually blogging less is that I literally have to remind myself to bring my computer with me, or I have to set aside special time when I’m at home.  Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it is something that I should be doing.  It’s just funny that this is my problem.  I don’t even watch that much Netflix anymore, at least not by myself.

It’s possible that I have been distracted, as of late.  It’s possible that something in my life is worth spending time on that isn’t my blog and my dreams and a future career.  It’s a different part of my future.  But it has distracted me from this part of my life.  I’m trying to learn how to balance it.

A little off topic, but something that I have been watching is Z: The Beginning of Everything on Amazon Prime.  It’s about F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.  It’s about how they met and fell in love.  It’s about his writing.  I’m only a few episodes in, but I just watched the wedding episode.  On the train on the way to her wedding, Zelda’s sister tells her what to expect on her wedding night.  She tells her to keep the lights off.  And she tells her to let her husband do what he is going to do, and to lay back and think about the magnolias in the garden.  I know that things were different then, but it really annoyed me.  It annoys me that there was a time where women were expected not to enjoy what happens in the bedroom.  It annoys me that people still think that way.  Relationships should never be about pleasing your husband.

I have a lot of thoughts.  And I would love to take the time to collect them.  I’m going to try to do that this month.  I’m going to try to set a goal to set aside time to myself to write and be and enjoy.  Because I’m worth it.  My dreams are worth it.  So I’ll try not to get too distracted.

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On Santa and Christmas Traditions

On By sarafroiIn Oh holidays, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Working in customer service has taught me that people get meaner during the holidays.

I’m almost positive that I’ve never taken a picture with Santa.  My parents didn’t really teach the Santa thing.  I don’t remember ever really believing, but maybe I stopped before my memories began.  I vaguely remember logical conversations with my dad about how Santa wouldn’t fit down our chimney, but I’m pretty sure I knew it was always pretty much a fairy tale.
We focused more on the original Christmas story.  Yes, we did the tree for most of my life, but we opened at least one gift on Christmas Eve, and as my brother and I got older, we started to follow my dad’s family tradition of opening all the gifts on Christmas Eve, which pretty much takes Santa out of the equation entirely.
Sometimes my mom would write “from Santa” on certain gifts, but we always knew it was from her, plus, those gifts were under the tree days, if not a couple weeks, before Christmas.  Thus, it was really hard to actually believe in Santa.  And that’s okay.  I don’t really feel like I missed out.

Every year since I can remember, apart from the random years we were spending the holidays out of town, my family has gone to a Christmas Eve service at the church I grew up in.  Even after I moved away and my parents stopped going to that church, we still went to the service.  It was tradition.  Afterward, my parents would drive around and look at Christmas lights.  As I got older, I kinda got over that tradition, and started going home to wait for them.
The four of us would gather in the living room and usually eat a dessert or something and then give gifts.  It was nice.  It was pretty anticlimactic.
This year, I’ll be away from family for the first time.  I’m okay with it, I’m not complaining.  It’s just different, like almost every aspect of my life in the south.  I was expecting to work on Christmas, like I usually do, but this year I have it off.  So I’m going to cook and spend the evening with one of my favorite people.  I’m going to drink champagne.  Maybe I’ll start a new tradition.

 

Be Kind to Each Other

On By sarafroiIn Challenge, Life Stories, Oh holidays, TheologyLeave a comment

I work at Starbucks.  No, I’m not an advocate for Starbucks and I don’t worship the siren, but I do think it’s the best company I’ve ever worked for.  They care about their employees and they care about their customers.  But they’re also a fairly liberal company, just like I’m a fairly liberal person.  And you know who likes to give Starbucks shit for no reason other than to have something to complain about or to have something be the enemy?  Overly conservative people.  And most people assume that all Christians are overly conservative.  I’m not.  I don’t.

Last year, people threw a fit saying Starbucks was trying to take Christ out of Christmas.  Because they did minimalist cups.  I never really understood how those correlated.  But, people have been blaming companies for taking Christ out of Christmas for as long as I remember.  And, as someone who works for the company, I’ve realized that Starbucks celebrates Christmas harder than most.  And I used to work in hospitality.

I had heard that people were coming into stores and giving a certain name to be written on their cup.  I wasn’t sure if it was real.  I didn’t care all that much.  I just feel the need to mention why Starbucks likes to have names on their cups.
First off, it makes the coffee experience more personal (their words, not mine).  It also helps to identify drinks, so if ten people order white mochas, you know which one is yours.  Trying to make it political or whatever is pointless.  It just causes problems.  And no one really cares if you want to put a fake name on your cup to be funny.  You’ll still know that it’s your drink.
Anyway, I had heard that people want Starbucks baristas to write “Trump” on their cups.  And they were going to complain if the barista didn’t call out the name.  Last week, I was on bar with another guy I work with, another Christian, and a woman came in and told her friends she was going to see if she could get a rise out of someone.  She said her name was Trump.  My shift, who took the order, came and told us, so we would be aware of the situation.  We weren’t supposed to make a big deal out of it.
So, I ended being the barista who got to make her drink.  And I made a decision.  Most of the people I work with don’t always call out the names on the cups, they just say the drink.  I decided to do that as well.  So, I called out her mocha as a mocha, and called out the next drink as a pumpkin spice latte, because that’s what they were.  Most of the other drinks we were making were for the drive thru.
When she came to pick up her drink, she loudly asked if it was hers.  Both of the baristas making drinks, myself and my coworker, were pretty busy with other drinks.  I told her if she ordered a grande mocha, it might be hers.  She turned to her friends and complained that we called out the drink, but not the name.  Then another of her friends came to ask me, while I was obviously trying to work, if it was her drink.  I politely told him that I wasn’t sure, but that it might be.  I was preoccupied.  Then he left, and when he came back, he asked for my name, then they all left the store.
See, this situation to me sounds like it would be a group of self-righteous teenagers acting up for no reason.  But no, these were adults, most likely in their forties.  I didn’t realize it was so hard to grow up.

It really bums me out that I’m grouped with these people.  Regardless of what you believe about Trump or Starbucks or Christianity, it matters to me that people are kind to each other.  Yes, Trump is our president.  No, he is not kind, so I find it hard to support him.  However, I do believe in praying for our leaders.  As a citizen of this country, Trump is my leader.  And this is a really hard time for people like me.  This is a hard time for feminist Christians.  It’s a time where it’s hard to voice and be okay with what you believe.  But causing division is not the way.
Be conservative, whatever.  But don’t try to make people angry purely because you can.  Purely because they believe more freely than you do.  Purely because they might have a more open mind.  Purely because you disagree.
I’m into loving and accepting people first.  Which means loving and accepting overly conservative people just as much as it means loving and accepting someone who might think I’m close minded simply because I’m a Christian.  All people are equal.  Be kind to each other.

The Case of the “I Don’t Matter”s

On By sarafroiIn Darkness, Oh holidays, Uncategorized3 Comments

I’m experiencing an increasing case of the “I don’t matter”s.  So much that it’d probably be easier to disappear.  And I don’t need people to try harder or act smarter or to learn to remember.  Because it’s me.

And it makes me think.  Maybe no one really matters.  I mean, people matter to each other, and it’s my fault that I have no one.  I’ve never really learned to have anyone.  But in the largest meaning of the word, no one matters.  We are all just blips.  Time keeps going, and the longer time gets, the smaller chance our existence will impact anything.

I feel really abandoned, but I’m the one who abandons.  I’m the one who packs up and moves away.  I’m the one who doesn’t stay in touch.  I’m the heart breaker with a broken heart.

I went to a friend’s family’s thanksgiving.  I traveled to be there.  On the way home, I realized it probably would have been better for everyone if I hadn’t gone.  My being there changed nothing.  I was just overwhelmed.  Because I don’t like lots of new people.  I don’t like feeling stuck.  I’m not good at socializing.  Why do I think that because there is a holiday, I need to spend it somewhere, when I’d be happier at home?  I don’t matter.

I entered into something I didn’t mean to enter into.  But it wouldn’t matter if I was here or not.  They can argue over everything without me anyway.  And there would probably be fewer arguments if I didn’t show up, because I’m too liberal, apparently.  Anything I have to say just gets interrupted and forgotten.  I don’t matter.

And when people say that nothing is going to change, it always changes.  When they say you won’t get dropped, they’ll have excuses for when you do.  Because it’s impossible to articulate anything real at all.

I feel alone.  But I feel alone because I don’t know how to express what is inside of me.  I don’t know how to make anyone understand this grief that has built up.  I don’t know how to be anyone else.  I don’t matter.

My Thoughts on the Day Before Thanksgiving

On By sarafroiIn Darkness, Life Stories, Oh holidays, Stupid Depression RantsLeave a comment

I don’t really care what you have to say about Thanksgiving.  I know that it became a tradition in an unsavory way.  I know that people want to say it’s a white privilege holiday.  I know that this land is stolen.  I know this land isn’t promised.

But I don’t really care.  And I’m not even a Thanksgiving advocate.  I literally just don’t care.  I have never once thought about or celebrated this holiday because of pilgrims having a dinner.  I don’t even think of pilgrims.  I associate this holiday with thankfulness.

There’s a guy I know.  Not a guy I like.  This guy always has to have something to say.  He always has to be right.  He always has to have the last word.  And when I tell him to stop, he refuses.  He says sexist statements because he thinks it’s funny.  He calls me militant.  But that’s not what this is about.
This guy.  This male specimen.  He has spent more than half of his life in the United States.  I’m pretty sure he was born here.  He just spent a portion of his growing up, elsewhere.
The other day, he made a big, offensive deal about how he hates Thanksgiving and he doesn’t even know when it is.  He never paid attention because “we all know what happened when that dinner was over.”  To have spent all this time in America, regardless of whether you celebrate a holiday or not, something is major cannot be ignored.  You’re going to know when it is.  Everyday Muslim, Jewish, and Jehovah’s witness know when Christmas is.  People know when Thanksgiving is.  You’d have to be stupid, more than ignorant, not to.
How does he not know that you can change the meaning of a holiday?  I know it doesn’t matter.  And I know he’ll never care.  But I needed to say something.  Thanksgiving is in the name.  It is always a time that I have believed to be set aside to be thankful.  He believes everyday should be thankful, which is true.  But that’s not the point, is it?  We celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, don’t we?  Shouldn’t we be showing how much these things matter on a day to day basis?  How bad is it that we set aside a special day as well?

This is my first Thanksgiving away from California.  This is my first Thanksgiving since losing my mother.  I don’t even want this Thanksgiving.  But it is a part of life.  So I’ll live through it.  Maybe.

Can’t we celebrate if we want?  What is the point of making someone feel bad for wanting to have a little joy in their life, even if it might be manufactured propaganda?

The only one who loses, is him and the turkey.

Everybody can shut up now.

Right Now

On By sarafroiIn Life StoriesLeave a comment

I am currently sitting on my balcony, that I just swept off, for the first time since moving into this apartment seven months ago.  It is November 1st and it is 82 degrees outside.  Back home it’s 35 and they’re getting ready for the soon coming opening of the mountain for this winter season.  I have to get ready for work in fifteen minutes so that I’ll be there on time.

This forest behind my apartment is not silent.  Not the way Mammoth was.  Almost every second something is stirring.  It’s autumn, so leaves are constantly falling.  And I’m certain every step I hear is from a deer or a squirrel making their way around.  It’s like magic though.

My life has changed drastically in the past year.  I’ve probably changed too.  I’m fairly certain I’m not the person I was last November.  Maybe I’m better.  Maybe I’m worse.  Maybe I don’t like who I am.  But maybe I’m trying to.

My heart is as restless as it always is, but I think I have found a home.  I think I’m learning what life is supposed to be like.  I think I’m finding who I am.  And I think I’m okay with any mistakes I might make in the meantime.