Tag Archives: life

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Grateful for New Clothes

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I got a bunch of new clothes over my break. Over the past year or so, I’ve been trying to adult-ify my wardrobe (do adults make up words?!). Simple colors, no text, adult clothes.

New clothes are pretty awesome. I wore all new clothes today, and I looked pretty spiffy.

Sometimes, though, I feel like a stranger when I wear new clothes. Sometimes,it feels like I’m wearing a costume. And with that comes a bunch of weird implications.

New clothes make me feel like I am living a different life.

New clothes make me embarrassed.

New clothes make me feel naked.

In short, new clothes make me feel like I’m not myself.

I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about the “Thank You” Game. I got some negative criticism on that one. People said that it was insincere. I think there might be some truth in that. I didn’t do a very good job explaining.

What I was trying to say was that sometimes being grateful for something doesn’t feel right. It feels awkward and strange and the words “thank you” don’t seem to fit in our mouth. And we think that means something important so we don’t verbalize our gratitude.

The point is that you and I aren’t perfect. We aren’t going to be able to identify every opportunity to be grateful so just because showing gratitude feels foreign to us doesn’t mean we should not show gratitude.

Just because new clothes feel awkward at first doesn’t mean we should never wear new clothes.

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Telling a Better New Year

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As I have taken my first, cautious steps into the new year, I have been reading a lot of Donald Miller. He’s really good to read when starting a new year because he is all about living a better story. I have been thinking a lot about stories, and I have resolved to live a better one this year.

But part of living a better story, I think, is telling a better story.

I was home on break for most of December, and I think it was the longest amount of time I’ve spent there in perhaps a year. With that came running into and interacting with some people I hadn’t really seen since high school. One night, while reflecting on these interactions, I had a horrible realization – I was still judging a lot of these people based on things they did in middle school. That worried me.

It worried me because it seemed childish. It is childish.

At some point, I need to let go of that story. I need to let go of my junior high story, of my peers’ junior high stories. It’s boring.

My friend recently got rid of all of her young adult fiction. Not the good stuff, like Catcher in the Rye or anything like that. The faux-dark, teenage-angst stuff. She sent me a picture of all of the books boxed up. She was making room for new literature.

I think I don’t do that enough with my life. I hold on to all of the silly young adult theatrics, and because of that, I can’t live a better story. So this year, I’m going to recognize that while my first 21 years have been freakin’ awesome, they are perhaps little more than the first chapter of my life story. And that’s a pretty cool place to be.

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Let’s Have Words, Friends

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I have a new theory. I think it might solve all of the world’s problems. I think if everyone in the world played Words with Friends, we would all be a lot better off.

There are two major ways I came to this theory:

1. Sometimes, I have a heated discussion with someone, and then after our discussion, I have to figure out how to get ahead of him/her in our Words with Friends game. This is incredibly therapeutic. The thing about friends, acquaintances, and strangers is that we don’t have a built in mechanism to love them.

In my immediate family, that mechanism is the dinner table. If we are having a disagreement, we typically have to put it aside for an hour or so while we break bread together. When a family member refuses to come to the table, that’s the cue to the rest of the family that something is really wrong and needs to be righted. It’s a system.

In the non-family world, we don’t have to put our differences aside often enough. We get to pick our friends, our romantic partners, the strangers we are hanging out with at the bar. But invariably, differences arise, even among the people we’ve picked. And then, we find a new group. We move on.

That’s not really sustainable. We can’t do that forever. At some point, we have to decide that a friend is worth having, differences and all. And Words with Friends then serves as our dinner table. I might get in a fight with my friend, but several hours, I will check my Words with Friends game, see my game with her, make my move, and smile a little. It’s a reminder we are still friends.

2. Sometimes I kind of feel like all of the world’s arguments are just an exaggerated game of Words with Friends. I mean, if you look at the news, and see what people are actually upset about, what they argue over, what they fight wars over, it’s never really as dramatic as those kinds of actions should imply. I think it’d be cool if all the world leaders played Words with Friends with each other. Would they fight about that? Probably. But no nation or military would support a leader who was going to war over Words with Friends. Just sayin’.