The Status is NOT Quo.

1. Fred Astair

2. Bad music

3. Pointless dancing

4. Age difference between Audrey and Fred (Seriously? She was way out of your league, Freddy.)

5. Happiness found through modeling instead of books? Are you serious? I get if you just go to modeling, but nobody who loved books would switch FROM books TO modeling. The people who wrote the script obviously didn’t understand book lovers.

6. Don’t even get me started on the gender politics.

It has been a long hard day, and I don’t regret that it’s nearly over.

Why it was hard - I think just because it started weird. The middle was weird, the end came to a desperate climax of me trying to find beauty in a Wal Mart parking lot, staring at sheets of rain. Looking for God.

Sometimes I haven’t got any faith at all. Like tonight.
Because now? I know he was there, in the wet and cold that I normally find beautiful but couldn’t take pleasure in tonight. But earlier I couldn’t find him. And rain isn’t beautiful without God. Maybe people are like that. Maybe we aren’t beautiful without God.

A friend reminded me that we can cry out in our unbelief, begging for help. (Mark 9:24, I believe.)

And now?

I have some faith again. Just enough.

I developed a workaholic trait this year that I don’t remember previously having.

I certainly was not a workaholic in highschool, but I don’t really want to talk about that - I just want to say. To any one else who does this, you’ve gotta slow down.

Take a bubble bath. Have some tea.

Or, if you’re having trouble sitting still, like I was, make keish muffins from scratch. At the worst you wont’ have anything to eat and at the best you will have dinner.

I’ve often found that when I want to write something, the two ideas I want to write about may or may not be related logically or to anyone else, but are related inside me for some reason. I like to think that I have very little to do with this idea, that maybe God’s the one working that out, and I think a lot of the time He is.

And I’ve also often found that the only thing to do when you want to write about stuff like that is to just get started, hang nice introductions or anything that makes writing presentable or perfect. I don’t believe in perfect mechanics. It ruins my purpose as a storyteller.

So, with that partially irrelevant introduction aside, here we go.

I started working at Starbucks a few weeks ago, and it’s been a pretty wild ride, but in a weird, quiet way, the kind that’s ridiculously normal. I guess it’s just life, but I’ve never really gotten why people are so uppity about normal life. It’s hard. I’ve never been excited about NORMAL life, to be honest. When I was little I wanted to do big things and become famous, and now I want to do small things and not leave the house.
As it is I do have to leave the house, I don’t expect to become famous with what I’m doing (perhaps never), and I’m not doing big things.

Starting a new routine is a big step for me. I hate change. If someone rearranges the furniture in my home I blow a gasket, and I don’t even consider this to be a fault. (Rearrange the furniture in your own darn house.) Changes in relationships freak me out because if it was safe before, I don’t want it to be dangerous. I don’t want to go into new territory - if it wasn’t a safe relationship before than I’m scared of it getting worse! Even if the changes can only be good it terrifies me. So starting a new job is kind of a big deal, the kind where I would expect to be breaking down frequently, throwing mental tantrums, perhaps quitting. (I did experience this with a job a few months ago, another thing I don’t consider to be a fault, because it became pretty clear when I started crying the second morning of work that I was not cut out for it.)

The change in routine has been hard. Right now, it feels like if I have enough time, I can leave my Starbucks self behind, leave her in the uniform, standing there looking awkward in clothes that don’t quite fit (because nothing I own quite does) and trying to look professional and not like she has no idea what she’s doing, even though that’s the truth. I had a dream about making coffee the other day when I was napping, and that was ridiculous. I don’t know how I feel about that. I’m hoping I’ll learn to leave work at work the longer I go.

The last week was hard because of some issues with a supervisor (three weeks in, isn’t that great?), and I started wondering why I was staying, why I was putting up with it all. Why am I going through such a big change? Why put myself through that? It’s so uncomfortable, and inconvenient. I have to add and tear up little bits of my identity.

There are a few good reasons, I guess. One being that it’s a great job. The benefits kill and I get free coffee, for crying out loud. (Although I’ve found that I prefer every other coffee shop in town but the one I work at.) Everyone’s pretty nice, and even though I have a hard time multi-tasking at times, I realize that it’s something you’ve gotta learn and that even the people that are great at it don’t do it perfectly. I’m getting better at forgiving myself for some things.

But I think the biggest reason is that God wants me there. I can’t get around it. I don’t even want to try and think around staying there logically, because I know I won’t land on a solid point. The past few weeks have been tough, but I’ve stumbled through them and the only time I feel like I fell on my face and scraped my knees was a week ago when I had the stomach virus and couldn’t get my shift covered. I don’t think anyone stays on their feet with a stomach virus, and if they do, they have problems, or they’re an alien. Go home and rest, ya idiots.
Seriously, though? Why haven’t I been on my knees more? Or my FACE? I’m not the sort of person that stays standing through big changes, I’m the kind that crawls through them. That’s just how I operate. It’s not how I want to operate but it’s how I operate.
If I could talk myself out of quitting another hard job, why not this one? (Because the fact is, it is very difficult to keep up with people’s orders and take their money and count back change and make drinks and grab pastries and keep your coworkers happy and clean the store all at once. Not to mention learning the retail system.)

I think it’s because I’m supposed to be here. I don’t know why. Maybe because it almost fits me, better than any of my other jobs have. I like Starbucks, I like coffee, I like the kind of people that come to Starbucks regularly. I like being there on a good day, just like I like being anywhere on a good day. I think I can be happy working there, you know? That’s gotta mean something. I think I can come to terms with having a little bit of a career there, at least. And I know the pay is good, because I’ve already gotten a paycheck.

And the other thing I wanted to write about that may or may not be related is this: figuring out God’s gifts.
The other day I was thinking about my cat, Amelia. She’s really cute. She has a personality and it makes me happy to see her, she purrs and she has a mind of her own. I don’t feed or water her, haven’t invited her to be around or even let her in the house - although she does get in my car a lot. She just stays.
I started thinking about why she’s here. (I over-think everything.)
And then I realized - who cares? She’s here because she’s one of God’s gifts. She brightens my day, she makes coming home better, she makes being at home better. She softens the blow of real life. It’s not my job to figure out what God’s trying to teach me or what He’s given me. It’s my job to trust and be grateful.

Just like, it’s not my job to figure out why I’m at Starbucks, why I’ve been given a job as good as that. I just need to be grateful for it.

It’s not my job to figure out why I write, why He’s given me that. It comforts me. It helps me see and understand things better than I would without it - it’s my microscope, to see the details. Why is it mine?
I dunno. Cause God gave it to me.

That’s all.

When I was a little kid, Christmas was the best. It was probably my god. I loved it, I loved everything about it, I loved the warm feeling I got inside, I loved the lights on the tree, I loved watching Mom make cookies, I loved wrapping presents and figuring out what to get for everyone, I loved getting presents myself.
There were a few years after I became a teenager that Christmas felt more warm than it ever had, because I really understood it better than I ever had before. Things were simple. I guess I didn’t really know what pain was.

Two years ago I remember it being somewhat harder. As if the warmth was slipping away, but I didn’t notice it that much. I didn’t really know that childhood was running off and leaving me here.

Last year it was noticeably harder; the routines our family had developed were thrown off, I remember feeling bad on Christmas Eve for a variety of reasons, some physical, some emotional.

Even though I’m not very far this year, it feels harder than ever. With every year that goes by, the absence of my Mama is harder to bear, and as hard as this year has been, as aware as I am of my despairing state, the burdens feel nearly impossible to put aside.

What does that mean? I probably sound Grinchy, but honestly, I don’t want a whole lot of crap about how Christmas is the season of joy. I agree. But some of us are not joyous beings. Some of us have parents with Alzheimers or dementia. Others don’t have their parents anymore at all. Some people are going to be all alone for Christmas this year, and others are just trying to figure life out, and Christmas is just… too distant, too fairy tale for those of us trying to figure out reality. Sometimes I think we forget how important fairy tales are. Tolkien described the story of Christ as a ‘true myth,’ because of the kind of story it was, where impossible things were going on and pure things were going on and downright evil things were going on. It has all the stuff that fairy tales do, but it actually happened.

So, Christmas seems a bit fairy tale this year.

But I don’t mean that it doesn’t seem real - I mean that it seems so real, like a part of another world that I’ve lost access too. I’m bogged down with the pain of the year, the stress of today, the problems that are always there, the anxiety that just doesn’t…. it doesn’t shake. You try and it doesn’t go anywhere.

When you’re little, Christmas is probably the most real thing to you all year, I think it was to me. It was more real than my birthdays. It was very fairy tale, all of it, even the stuff I didn’t believe in was fun and exciting, like Santa and reindeer. There was magic in me that came out to meet Christmas.

It hurts to think that I might not have that magic anymore. The older you get, the more magic you lose, at least some people. Maybe it’s just buried, maybe I’ll get it back someday, but what does that mean for this year? It’s… overwhelmingly distant. Putting up the Christmas tree seems more like a chore than a festivity at times. Getting Christmas shopping done has been one of the number one stress factors for the past week and a half.

I think Little Anna might be gone. People have always told me that growing up is a good thing, that we’re supposed to grow up, and I’m not saying that this isn’t true.

But then you turn around and Jesus is all like, “You can’t come to me unless you’re a little kid. You can’t love me unless you are dependent like a small infant and you are awed by things like children.” Many of the things we’re told to put away because they’re foolish are actually the things we’re supposed to hang on to.
How do you hang on to that?
I recently read, in a book co-authored by the talented John Green (Let it Snow, by the aforementioned Nerdfighter, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle) that Christmas is a state of mind.

Okay. So - that state of mind kinda gets lost in the muddle of pain and stress and self absorption.

Lord help me. I need prayer, guys. I want to have a Christmas this year, but that little girl that used to get warm might be gone. I don’t want to be one of those people that loses their inner child, or whatever you wanna call it, but I might be. I just don’t feel wonder at the lights as I used to. I don’t feel freedom whenever I put on black sparkly rain boots or bright suspenders so much as ridicule. (Whether either is real or in my head is a good question that probably deserves some thought.)

However Christmas turns out for me, may everyone else feel that warmth and keep their little self.

The journey to baptism has been a long one, and looking back on it now, I can see God’s hand all through it, quite gentle and always controlling.
I guess it all started with being little and avoiding it. I’m terribly shy and the idea of getting up in front of a bunch of people to be dunked in water that would make me holy and perfect or something sounded awful. I didn’t want to be watched. It seemed like a really important milestone, and I guess there’s always this primal fear inside me that goes, “But what if I screw it up?”
Anyway, I am grateful to my parents for making it clear to me at an early age that baptism was definitely an event that was between me and the Lord, not between me and them.

Today as I was writing to God (I do most of my praying through writing) I realized that it was today, that it was actually happening, and I wrote, ‘My whole life I’ve avoided this, always wanted it be something that was far away, safely far away. Baptism has always seemed like a very holy, mysterious ordeal, and I guess part of me has always thought that I’m not good enough for it, that it would be a lie to let people think that I was enough like them to be baptized.’

It still seems rather holy and mysterious to me, even after experiencing it today. I confided in my best friend around this time last year that I felt like it was something I needed to be thinking about, but that I was terrified of being up in front of a lot of people. She was the first person to ever make me feel okay about it. She told me that they weren’t going to be judging me, they were there to support me.

For some reason, this idea had never occurred to me.

Another person that helped me come closer to the idea of actually doing it is Anne Lamott, a writer and essayist that I greatly admire and enjoy. Her testimonies as a Christian are honest, uncut, R-rated, unapologetic, even. I’ve read her book Traveling Mercies twice now and each time felt like she was telling me her story personally, and that the things she was saying are relevant to me. She talks about how she first met Jesus right after an abortion when she was younger, how she could feel Him in the room, sitting in the corner. She tried her hardest to ignore Him, because she knew that if she let Him in, He would never go. She compared it to letting a hungry, stray cat in and giving it milk. They never go away after you let them in.

She did finally let him in, and the story that follows is messy and honest and beautiful. I can relate to her, and when I read her words about Christianity and baptism, I felt like someone finally understood that I needed to be talked to like a normal person.

“Because Christianity is about water. ‘Everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” It’s about baptism, for God’s sake. It’s about full immersion, about falling into something elemental and wet. Most of what we do in wordly life is geared toward our staying dry, looking good, not going under. But in baptism, in lakes and rain and tanks and fonts, you agree to do something that’s a little sloppy because at the same time it’s also holy, and absurd. It’s about surrender, giving in to all those things we can’t control. It’s a willingness to let go of balance and decorum and get drenched. There’s something so tender about this to me, about being willing to have your makeup wash off, your eyes tear up, your nose start to run. It’s tender partly because it harkens back to infancy, to your mother washing your face with love and lots of water, tending to you, making you clean all over again. And in the Christian experience of baptism, the hope is that when you go under and you come out, maybe a little disoriented, you haven’t dragged the old day along behind you. The hope, the belief, is that a new day is upon you now. A day when you are emboldened to take God at God’s word and cleanness and protection. ‘When though passeth through the water, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow the.’”

No one had ever talked to me about baptism like I was a normal person before, like I just didn’t understand Christianity, and I didn’t, really. I still don’t. I think I’d have to be Christ to understand Christianity. My mind is too small to hold that much beauty and truth inside it, let alone comprehend it all.

See what I mean, though? I realized that it wasn’t as strange as I thought, that it was something that was important but that I didn’t have to be holy before I did it or something - I’ll never be holy enough for the Lord. That’s not what it means to be a Christian, anyway.

I wasn’t even looking to be baptized, but God shoved me into it (very gently). It took a few months to get here, but I got here, and I’m so glad that I did.

Tonight was beautiful. I prayed in my notebook through church, wrote some notes on the opposite page from Dusty’s sermon, and then, after the first song started, me and my Aunt Tillery went to the back so I could change. Dusty prayed for me, put his hands on mine and Aunt Tillery’s shoulders. The whole time I felt so overwhelmed by these people that love me so much, these great people that were there to help me through this.

During the last song I sat on the steps, and Dusty sat on the steps on the other side of me. The water was warmer than I expected, so that was a nice surprise. It felt good, lapping against my feet. I’ve always liked water. Swimming, bubble baths, rain, you name it. Puddles. There’s something grand and exciting and… I don’t know, deeply child-like about enjoying water. I sat there, realizing how much peace I had. How much I didn’t care that a hundred people were going to be looking at me, wearing my camouflage shorts and Avengers t-shirt. I didn’t care that someone was going to read my awkwardly done testimony out loud to all these people, most of which I’ve never met before. I just felt peaceful, that I was finally doing this.
The last song they called was More Than Conquerors, and every few lines or so I would sing the words if I could remember them, or just sit there and listen.
In every thing we are more than conquerors, because of who You are and all You’ve done.

I think that’s how it goes.

Then it was time, and my testimony was read while I stood there looking at the water and Dusty stood beside me, probably not looking at the water.

I remember telling my parents that I loved God because I knew that was what they wanted to hear, but in reality God always seemed like someone you had to please and tiptoe around, like if you did too many things wrong you would make Him mad, and that was something you never wanted to do. I ignored God and Jesus for as long as I could, until I was sixteen years old and realized that I couldn’t do that anymore, that I needed to try harder to love Jesus. I’m nineteen now, and over the past three years God has been working in my heart very slowly and gently, pulling me towards Him and building my life in such beautiful ways that it sometimes breaks my heart in the best possible way.

I ignored baptism for as long as I could, but I feel convicted now that I should be willing to show my love for Him in this way and join His eternal family. I trust that I will continue to grow in Him and that He will always love me infinitely no matter how many mistakes I make or how many times I turn away from Him for something else, something that won’t satisfy the longing in my soul but somehow seems easier to reach. I love Him. I want to fall into a deeper love with Him and look forward to how He continues to care for me and shape my life.

I didn’t have nearly as much time to write my testimony as I would have liked - I think I had twenty minutes due to an unforeseen work schedule, but I think that God blessed it to get across the most important things. It’s probably better anyway, that I didn’t work too hard on it, and stress over it being perfect. I tend to do that when I write things.

And then, Dusty was saying, “That’s beautiful. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost I baptize you.” I think that’s what he said. It happened so fast and my mind was going a million miles an hour, so I missed a lot of the little things that I wish I could have slowed down for.

I’ve always liked the sound of water, but it was so much better tonight than it ever has been before. Rushing around my head and body, splashes inside my ears, coming up dripping and sloppy and almost blind because I got water in my contacts….

It was great. It was the best water sound I’ve ever heard, it was just… beautiful.

I also wrote this to God earlier, thinking about how my life could change after this and what that might look like: ‘Maybe this is like a song, like, the beginning is over, I mean the very beginning, the introduction, and now the singing starts, you know?’

I’m not sure now, just when the singing started, but I know that either way, this part of the song, this lyric of getting dunked and wet and loved, and the water rushing around my ears and becoming an official member of the eternal family of Christ…. this is a beautiful part of the song, and I trust that the theme will carry for the rest of the song, forever.

I remember thinking after, while I was hugging everyone, or while I was driving, that it felt so good to have wet in my hair, but it was special wet, even though it felt just the same as all the other kinds of wet. It was really special baptism wet.

And later, driving again, I realized that I’ve been dreading that for years and years, right up until I decided to do it (and then a little bit after that, honestly.) But there was so much peace today, so much more than I anticipated having. Jesus is so kind, and so good. I realized how much I loved it, how much I loved the water sound and the wet and the kind words spoken to me and doing something for Jesus, and I realized that it was over, and I almost wished it wasn’t.

It’s not really over though. That’s a comforting thought.

I am so grateful to all my friends and family. I can’t tell you how much you all mean to me, and how much your part in this tiny little chapter of life has meant, how much more beauty you add to it.

Thank you for being part of my song.

And -

Jesus, thank you for writing the song.

Today, I got up an hour and a half earlier than necessary to get primped and pretty for an interview. I really wanted this job and I wanted to make a good impression, and I’ve been told that looking nice is a good way to do that, so. I did the whole works. (Stuff I rarely do, I might add ) - I blow dried and curled my hair, put foundation and blush on (I call them dirt) and eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, lip gloss. I put on a nice outfit, made sure it all matched according to the general rules of society, I even accessorized, for crying out loud. I was excited that I could do that - honestly, I was a little bit excited that I could even look that good.

The interview went really well, but after that I did the normal Anna thing, which is to go somewhere and write for whatever amount of time I have left before the next thing. I had about two hours. The moment I walked in, I was complimented on my sunglasses, and I got in a brief, innocent conversation with someone I’d never met or seen before, that I’m aware of. That was fine, I figured he was just a nice person.
But after about forty minutes, he came all the way upstairs and introduced himself. He said that he realized it was an odd thing to do, but that he just wanted to. He did apologize several times for it being odd, but he still did it.

I’m not saying that this guy was hitting on me or anything like that, although he may have been, I don’t know. I’m really bad at being able to tell when people are hitting on me.

But it does seem strange to me that someone would go to all the trouble to come all the way upstairs and introduce themselves. He didn’t give a number or ask for one, didn’t even ask if I frequent that coffee shop, just introduced himself and talked for a minute before leaving.

Why?

I’m not saying I was a knock out today or anything like that, but I looked a lot better than I usually do, I guess. But that’s not me, that’s really not who I am all the time. I’m frumpy. I’m usually okay with that, and I don’t believe people that tell me I’m pretty. Most of the time I feel like they’re just saying that because they don’t know what else to say to me and they think I need to hear it - most of the time I don’t. But I realized that how I present myself makes a big difference to other people, especially guys. If I go looking pretty, to anywhere, that means that other people are going to think I’m confident or something like that.
Or interesting. Pretty people aren’t necessarily interesting, I’m not saying they aren’t, but he thought I was interesting enough to come upstairs and shake my hand, say his name, ask for mine.

Since this never happens to me whenever I go out my normal self (which is sloppily dressed, little or no make-up, and often dirt and grime because I work before I go places) I think that all that stuff I did to look nice today made a difference in how I was perceived.

I don’t enjoy the attention. It usually scares me and makes me sad. Because that never happens when I’m myself. That means that, to normal people, normal me isn’t interesting enough or pretty enough or whatever to come introduce themselves to.

Whenever I look like someone else, like a pretty someone else, I’m interesting enough. I feel like an object because I don’t think he would have come to say hello, or talked to me while I was in line if I hadn’t looked pretty today. How I looked was what made him decide all that. I understand that people are attracted to nice looking things (again, not saying I was a knock out or gorgeous or anything like that, I was just nice looking, especially for me because I hardly ever look nice), but shouldn’t we be attracted to people for better reasons, more deep reasons?

I think Jesus would have come over and talked to me if I’d been my normal self, I think He would have come over no matter what I looked like. And I don’t think He would have let me feel like an object. I don’t think we would have talked about my sunglasses or whatever t-shirt He was wearing. I think we would’ve just talked, and I don’t think He would have “just wanted to introduce Himself even though it was odd.” Because Jesus thinks I’m pretty all the time, but that’s not why he’s interested in me. That’s not why He would have come over to talk to me.

Maybe I should feel flattered, but I don’t. I just feel sad. Because…. normal me doesn’t attract guys like that (and I don’t want to), but it makes me sad that the world is that way. That I have to live in it and be part of that - part of this system that wants people to be interesting and worth introducing yourself to if they’re pretty.

I just don’t like guys looking at me like that, especially not guys I don’t know. I feel like they want something I’m not going to give them, or like they’re looking at my body, not me. They don’t care about me, they just like the way I look for some reason. I don’t like when guys look at me like I’m something to eat.

And the guy that introduced himself to me didn’t do that, at least not that I noticed. But he still went out of his way to talk to me. And I could be totally wrong, I guess, but I just don’t think that would’ve happened if I hadn’t looked pretty. If I hadn’t looked pretty, he wouldn’t have, I mean, why would he? We didn’t talk about anything interesting when I was in line, just my sunglasses and his t-shirt.

I feel like an object because my value is based on my appearance, and when it’s all out on the table, my appearance means nothing at all. It does to me, I guess it might to people that care about me, but not the presentation part of my appearance, just…. the me part. I love the faces of my friends and family, but I love them whether or not they tried to look nice. They always look the same to me. It’s always the same face.

I’m really glad Jesus just loves me, and that He understands this. I’m glad that He cares about me even when I don’t try to look pretty. I’m really glad that He would have come over and talked to me whether or not I’d put on an outfit that coordinated, and I’m glad that He wouldn’t have wanted to “just introduce himself.”

I really wish the world were different. I’m just not made to live in it like this. I miss something I’ve never had.