Wed, May. 15
... Pictures of a baby me
Sometimes I think that metaphors to describe things that need to take place in life are highly overrated. Take the concept of "letting go," for instance. In the concrete world, it's quite simple. When I let go of something, either it falls or I fall. It's immediate... You don't go through a huge process--there's a specific moment in time when my hand ceases to be in contact with whatever it is that I'm letting go of. Emotionally, though, it's not that simple. I mean, really. How do you let go of something? Yes, the concept is, in theory, all fine and dandy, but when it actually comes to
doing it, it's a little different.
Funny. Usually I'm a great abstract thinker. I come up with strange analogies and odd thoughts for all kinds of things, but sometimes, it just doesn't fit together. Maybe I just have trouble actually letting go. The trouble's not in understanding the concept, it's in putting it into action.
Anyways, enough of that.
Some old family friends sent me some pictures yesterday of their daughter Shannon and I, when I was only about 8 months old (in these pictures). Shannon was 10 years older than me, and when I was little, she was my favorite babysitter in the whole world. Most of the time, I'd stay at her house while my parents were at choir practice or something like that, so her parents were there (because she wasn't quite old enough to actually babysit me, especially at first), and she and I would play. As I got older, I remember sitting in her room while she painted my nails, did my hair, and let me try on her clothes. She gave me an old t-shirt for pyjamas one day, when I was about four, and I wore it until I was at least nine or ten and it was nearly ripped to shreds.
She babysat my sister, too, but they moved by the time Esther was about two, so she never had quite the same attachment to Shannon that I did.
Shannon had a big brother named Brad, and he was nice, but he'd always tickle me, especially when we were riding in the car, and I hated being tickled. Shannon would try to protect me from him, and sometimes it worked, but not always.
I remember (vaguely), and my mom tells me, that when they were trying to potty train me, I was such a stubborn little kid, and I didn't want to be inconvenienced by going to the bathroom (I was the child who, at one point, told my parents when they told me that it would be so much nicer when I wasn't wearing diapers and walking around with them when they were dirty, "But I like poopy diapers!"). The only way that they could convince me that it would be worth my while to be potty trained was by getting some of Shannon's old training panties for me to wear. I did not want to do anything to ruin "Shannon's Panties," so I really had no choice but to be potty trained.
I wonder if any of the kids I've babysat or taught in Sunday School have had any of the same sorts of experiences. I don't know... It would be interesting to find out some day.
I've had something like 3 or 4 parents ask me in the past couple of weeks whether I'm doing FACES camps again this summer, because their kids have been watching the camps for two years, waiting to be old enough to attend, and this year, they finally are. And this year, I'm not doing them. I kind of wish I was... I mean, it's working out just fine with the trip and everything, and God's working it out just like everything else to do with this whole thing, but it's still kind of disappointing. What's most disappointing to me is that no one at the church really wanted to take it on and kind of oversee it. I mean, I do all the work, I just need someone to "officially" take it.
Anyways, this entry has covered enough different topics for one... I'll leave this for now. I think it's enough.
infinite || abyss
posted at 10:47 p.m.
