Becoming Agape

"I love you," a friend recently said to me as we ended our phone conversation. At first it took me by surprise, but then I was happy she said it. Then a few days later, another friend did the same thing. I again couldn't help but smile. I mean, I was LOVED. By at least TWO people.

Now, I realize that for most of us, "love" has many connotations. And the love that my friends were expressing is different than the kind of love that I hope to someday have with one special lover. Or the kind of love I feel for my parents and siblings. But it is an important love, nonetheless, that I felt is the kind I most overlook.

Well, I felt that way until a few special new girl friends in my life had me start thinking about the Fruits of the Spirit and agape and how different we would live our lives if we knew that WE were truly loved. So, I've taken it upon myself to start trying to love EVERYONE. And I don't have to love them as my own family members or even as a dear friend. But I have to love them without selfish regard. This, I have realized is the love I most often overlook. Working toward including this love in my life is also, just so you know, one of the most difficult things I could have ever set out to do.

I mean, I really don't want to love the idiotic California driver who cut me off. I want to honk. Then honk again. Then when she looks at me scream through my closed window so she can't hear me but only imagine the profanities I'm yelling at her. Nor do I want to love the grocery store cashier who refuses to make eye contact while speeding through swiping my groceries just so she can look at her fingernails. Nor do I want to love the cheap customer who leaves a measly tip after demanding enough time and attention from me that I had to neglect other customers far nicer than he.

In all honesty, though, these people may temporarily annoy me, but reminding myself to react to their actions with agape instead of anger is much easier than loving others that I should already love. I've had the hardest time not responding with sarcasm to an annoying coworker, or joining in on a negative conversation about a friend's less-desirable personality traits, or being selfish and not offering my roommates the same courtesy of driving them north when one of them had JUST done the same thing for me two nights before. I want to be really selfish and self-indulgent and make myself look and feel better at the expense of others. But that is not love. So, I'm trying to love. Trying oh so hard.

20 Years of Valentines

At age 6: My parents help decorate a shoebox for my first-ever Valentine's Day party. Lots of doilies and pink and red construction paper go into making the perfect box to shove my expected Valentine's into. The day ends with being stuffed with lots of cupcakes and red punch (that's me, and not the box that's stuffed with that).

At age 11: I now make my own doilied and pink and red box. And spend way too much time analyzing which of the five pre-worded Valentine's in the theme-box-o'-Valentines I should give to each classmate. I end the day with spending way too much time analyzing what each received Valentine REALLY means about my relationship with said classmate.

At age 16: I don't have any boxes for Valentine's anymore. The girls with boyfriends get bouquets of flowers delivered to the office. It's not that I want a boyfriend, but I do want to get that note telling me to pick up my delivery at the office. I end the day with my mom asking a stupid question about why I don't have a boyfriend.

At age 21: Although all my roommates have boyfriends, two of them aren't in town. So we still hang out and have a good time. I end my day comforting the roommate whose boyfriend is in town...they got into a fight, and she came home early.

At age 26: I have to answer to way too many people why I'm stuck working on Valentine's Day night. But I notice that there are WAY more lonely and sad adult guys on Valentine's Day than there are girls. As much as single girls get sad on V-Day, I think there comes an age when guys do even more. I realize that working made this my best Valentine's Day ever; I end the day knowing I'm not the only one who ponders my single life...and with a bit more money too.

Interview with Wendy (or Good Kopp, Bad Kopp as SC Says)

In case you didn't see this...

Check Out These Guns

My legs? They've always been pretty muscular. My arms? Not so much. I've always had pretty puny upper limbs.

So I have to say that the best part of being a server is the kick-arse arms I've recently noticed sprouting up. Which, considering I haven't been to the gym since July is pretty darn awesome. Now if I can only figure out a way for serving to give me a six-pack (of abs, not beer).

Am I Alone?

Do you ever get confused about life? Sometimes I feel like everyone else has their lives figured out...or that you're just not thinking about it as much as I do.

It's not that I want to ponder the meaning of life (and mine in particular) all the time. I just can't help but feel that if I don't think about it, then I'll wake up one day and be old, poor, single (save one pitiful cat I'll probably rescue from the throes of death), and in a job I never loved. And that scares me more than being young, poor, single, and still wondering if there will ever be a job I love. So, I sit and consider everything I should be doing to not be these things in 15 years. And I've no idea where to start.

And sometimes my confusion is almost as bad as feeling as though I'm the only one confused.