Failure

I was just sitting down at our home computer to print something off for Jamie...a Groupon (love Groupon!) for a nearby shoe store so that he can buy himself a new pair of Birkenstocks and not spend an arm and a leg. My husband has a bit of a love-affair with Birkenstocks...he owns four pairs of shoes...dress shoes, work boots, tennis shoes, and Birkenstocks. And he wears those Birks ALL the time...anywhere, any weather. We got nine inches of snow last weekend and he wore the Birks! While I was digging around for something that would keep snow out of my shoes and off my already freezing feet, he slipped on his Birkenstocks. Admittedly, they are incredibly comfortable. In fact, after wearing heeled boots today, my Birks will be the shoe of choice tomorrow...and I will arrange my outfit around getting to wear those Birks.

I digress...I sat down to print this Groupon off for Jamie - and the printer crapped out. Full-on, 100% beyond fixable, I'm fairly certain. I flipped through the manual and found the error message this piece of technology was giving me and discovered...I needed to call the company. Which I then discovered they only want you to do if your printer is still under warranty, which I know this one is not. Finally, fed up, I went to Wal-Mart's website where I found several printers that we can afford and will do what we need...cheaper than probably fixing the one we own. And probably a lot faster. And wireless. Decision made...new printer it is. Trip to Wal-Mart on the errand list for this week. Check...

I sat down to write about what is in my heart (and then, summarily, was distracted by the printer debacle.) I had a day today...and day I had to consciously begin by reminding myself not to take my frazzled, disorganized, sleep-deprived self out on the 10-year olds around me. My students walk in my door at 8:40 a.m. I arrived to school at approximately 8:33 a.m. Just enough time to pee, put my lunch away, run to my mailbox and take a breath. And then the day began...twenty-something little people that needed something. Twenty-something little people that haven't been in school since last Wednesday, thanks to those previously mentioned 9-inches of snow! Twenty-something little people that simply need to be loved and taught and embraced...and today, it was hard at moments. I am stressed about work, stressed about upcoming work issues, and stressed about life. When did my life - our life - become so abnormal?

I remember telling my doctor once, at an annual exam, that I was "normal, boring, and average...always have been." I soon ate my words...I got pregnant with Faith and we went from "normal, boring, and average" to anything but. And it's not like we're new to being the anomaly...after all, Jamie had colon cancer at 28-years old. We have seriously spent a great deal of time looking at each other, asking, "What did we do? What have we done? When is it our turn?"

I have recently discovered an author by the name of Terri Blackstock. She is a Christian author that writes mystery/suspense novels. These books have done more to fill my mind with questions and wonder and thought than any in a very long time. They are wonderful stories, suspenseful and with wonderful characters, and she uses Christian principles and scripture as part of the story. I have cried through some of the stories and wept at my own heartache that weaves in her stories (really - on one occasion I had to stop reading and go back later because I was crying so hard I couldn't read the words on the page.) One of the things I've most taken away from these books is that sometimes the world around us, the failures we see and live through, are impossible to understand. She doesn't wax poetic about living a Godly life...she doesn't write characters that live without question or live perfectly. They just keep trying. She writes stories in which terrible things happen...and the people around it must cope and try to live a human life when they have a greater belief. I have taken so much from those characters...that being Christian and believing in God doesn't mean doing so perfectly or without question.

I will never understand why my child had to die...or why my husband had to have cancer...or shy my mother had breast cancer...or why Alzheimer's robs so many...or why so many deserving people struggle to have children...while others want for nothing. I don't pretend not to struggle with my own beliefs sometimes or question the "why" and wait for an answer I know that I will not get in this lifetime. My brain knows I won't get an answer that will satisfy me...because there isn't one that will. My brain understands this. My heart has a much more difficult time because, after all, I am human. I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a teacher, a mother, a wife, a reader, a writer, an aunt. I am...an exhausted and imperfect human being. I am, like most out there, trying to understand things I cannot possibly grasp. I won't pretend that I'm going to stop...because I won't. I will still search for answers and for the reasons, even when I know I won't find them. Maybe that's insanity...but I also believe that as long as I keep on trying, I just may find out something I didn't know before. Like a treasure hunt, I'm discovering that one clue leads to another clue, that leads to another clue...and so on. It is life...up and down, hard at times. I just pray that I can keep finding a way to start going up the next hill...each and every time I see a new one.

Erica