Ok, bonus post.  There's a grand entry about tacosagna below that I posted a few hours ago, but there are a lot of thoughts crushing me under their weight, so I'm going to spill it out and hope there's some semblance of a post that resonates with others.

I've been reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.  So far I really like it... I can deeply identify with him on this journey he's been through called life, and how he's related to God and tried to figure out this crazy universe.  One part that really resonated with me was a section where he wrote about realizing how incredibly selfish he was, and how everything he thought, said, and did was always directly connected to somehow benefiting him.  

Ouch.  That is me. I've been stung in recent weeks with a growing realization:  

I am a jerk.

Seriously, I'm a jerk.  I am incredibly mean.  My husband will even look at me sometimes, as if there's this strange alien woman with medusa hair sitting next to him.  I just say horrible things about people- and even worse, I say a frighteningly small fraction of how much I think  about other people.  

Let's talk irony here- I'm likely the fattest person that most who know me have actually met face to face.  Come on- 350 pounds is HUGE.  And yet today, while seeing what people from my past are on Facebook, I found myself thinking horrific thoughts about others.  Here are some:

And on and on.  I'm ashamed to put them on here, because now you can see how truly ugly I can be.  It's kind of humiliating.  I can say that I asked Father God to help me to stop being such a judgmental jerk and He answered my prayer.  But it got me to thinking... I'm not always that jerkish.  What set me off to be so repugnant?  The heart is the wellspring of life, and there was a reason that everything spewing from mine was vile and repulsive.  

It was only after an amazing conversation with my incredible husband that it caught up to me and stared me down, like a high schooler who just smoked a doobie eyeing a bag of Cheetos-- something happened last night that has me reeling with insecurity and my way of responding is to beat down others, mentally, in some effort to feel ok with my own life.

How [swallow the bile creeping up my esophagus] unbelievably high school.  

The incident last night isn't one I am ready to talk about yet.  It involves issues from my church from college, and I just can't write about that until I know I can write something I won't ever regret or want to erase.  Not easy when it regards a situation I praise God for getting me out of yet people I love and respect are still either in or connected to the mess.  It's just too sticky, and I'm not yet willing to risk relationships by saying things that so easily separate friends.  So, for now, I will leave it at that.

I can say that it really annoys me that high school still has the ability to eat at me from time to time.  High school was rough- I was always too fat, too poor, too smart, too loud, too desperate for love, and, eventually, too into Jesus to be one of the cool kids.  I, of course, could never settle for having amazing friends who weren't the popular crowd.  I had faux relationships with the cool kids yet without blinking I would gossip and betray my real friends, all in hopes that I'd finally get "in".  As a result, I got to hang out with the cool kids but I was never really one of them.  

In retrospect, I truly am grateful.  I'm glad I was fat, because were I not I likely would have dated the wrong guys and given away my body like it was a piece of gum- you lie and say you don't have any so you can't possibly share if the person doesn't have the social capital for it to matter, but if it's someone with enough value on the popularity status stock market then you always share whenever they ask.  I mean, let's be honest- if their stock is high enough and forecasts suggest it will continue to grow, then you intentionally bust out your big ol' pack of gum in their presence, intending to share it long before they ever ask for some.  I don't doubt that my pack of gum would have emptied quickly in my efforts for acceptance.  Instead, I was fat, the equivalent of offering someone a lutefisk and lindberger cheese sandwich when they ask if you have any minty-flavored gum... no worries about emptying the pack on that one.

I'm glad I was poor, because I had to work and earn everything I had, and I never took anything for granted.  I know what it's like to pay for something with food stamps as a teen picking up the bare essentials at the store for my parents while the middle-class popular girl smirks and mocks with her eyes- and then with her mouth back at school.  It wasn't easy, but it taught me that material goods don't make a good person, and I learned humility in abundance.  It was what spurred me on from a young age to get good grades and go to a good college.  I have never regretted that for a moment-- moving away from home and going to college got me to where I am today.  Plus, when I was teaching with TFA in NC my kids knew I wasn't just another white girl who had life spoon fed to her from a silver platter-- I worked hard and earned the life I was living.  As a result I was able to reach them in a way that many others couldn't.  

Speaking of, I'm glad I was too smart.  I've been blessed with a capacity to learn and absorb information in a way that many struggling kids would do almost anything for.  I don't have to be ashamed of being smart.  I wish I never helped other people cheat (again, that social capital system bit me right on the arse) and that I didn't at times get overly puffed up with pride at getting the best grade the majority of the time.  However, I don't regret doing well in school or being the best at something.  I like having educated conversations with people about issues more important than what a whacked out person Britney seems to be.  I like having conversations that, to me, actually matter.

I'm glad that I was too loud.  Yeah, I laughed a lot.  Yeah, my laugh is loud.  And yeah, I was hounded mercilessly for it- damn you, Joey Sisson and Kevin Stabenfeldt- but I'm a generally happy and bubbly person with a huge heart.  I wouldn't trade my optimistic disposition for petty pessimism any day of the week.  Sure, in high school I laughed louder than I needed to at times, but I didn't have much going for me and I sought attention in the desperate hope that someone- anyone- would see me for who I was and simply love me for that.

It's likely the toughest one, but I'm glad I was desperate for love.  My home life was rough, and I kept looking for someone to finally allow me to discover what it felt like to be loved- truly loved.  It was good for me to yearn for love, because it's what sent me straight into the waiting arms of Perfect Love- God the Father, His slain Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit who allowed this love to be manifest to me as a sinner.  

It led to much mockery, but I am completely grateful for being too into Jesus-- anyone who actually knows Him understands that there is no such thing.  From time to time I miss that girl, the innocent new Christian telling her classmates that Jesus was changing her and could change them, too.  I remember once, sitting on the baseball bleachers and talking to a friend who had gone down a path of drinking and drugs and sneaking out and lying to his parents, asking him why he did those things, because I knew his parents, how strict they were-- wasn't he worried they'd catch him? .  I'll never forget his reply, as it's haunted me for years and I've prayed for him though I haven't seen him since the day we graduated.  "Sometimes," he almost whispered, his eyes unfocused and staring into a torture I couldn't see, "I wish they would."

What spoke to me was all that he didn't say.  He was arguably the most popular and sought after guy in our entire class (ok, of 36... but small towns can be more harsh than huge schools!) and here he was, telling me without telling me, that he was miserable and the "cool kid" life looked a lot better from the outside than it ever actually was when you were living it.  It would seem easy enough that he could just stop, but... anyone who ever went to public high school, particularly in a tiny town where no one is anonymous, knows that he really couldn't.

As a Senior, I quit trying to be popular.  I split my time between inviting the cool kids to youth group and hanging out with the kids from youth group, mostly Freshmen and Sophomores, and not even cool kids in their own grades to boot.  And I was perfectly ok with it- we had Jesus in common (or, at least, at the time so it seemed) and there wasn't pressure to measure up to some standard.  We just were.  I stepped into leadership positions, found my niche for teaching, and grew comfortable in my own skin, despite how fat and poor and smart and loud and desperately in love with Jesus that skin happened to be.

I graduated, went to college, and never looked back.  Today I still face my haunts- weight issues usually leading the pack- but this is me.  I still wouldn't trade lives with anyone (though I wouldn't whine if I got to look and sing like Carrie Underwood... but I wouldn't be country.  Ew.) and I keep growing.  

I'm not pretending to be totally well adjusted and positively perfect.  Every now and then something from high school or related to it will bug me.  A few years ago I came across a (different) popular guy from my high school class on MySpace (ick, I know... oh, Facebook, how loyal I am to thee), and he accepted.  He was new and had six friends in the days of a mandatory Top 8.  Translation:  my face showed up on his friends list and he didn't have enough friends to hide the fact that we were MySpace pals.  He deleted me a few days later and never replied to my message asking if there was a mistake.  It burned- I had grown so much, come so far, there I was working with impoverished students and seeing lives change on a daily basis-- making the world a better place, dammit!-- and I felt completely hurtled back into reliving the emotions I felt as a rejected 15 year old who had to wear his plain white (read: unable to be traced back to him) practice football jersey to school on Fridays while the hot girl in my class wore the one screaming his name and number in huge white iron-ons.  Even though I asked first and he said yes to me, as if it were no big deal and he didn't mind people knowing he actually talked to me.

Then, there are the times I want to get thin and fit and have my husband get fabulously wealthy with a gaggle of gorgeous offspring so that I can go back to a reunion and be like, "Oh, I'm so sorry that you got fat and your kids are bratty ADD vacuums sucking the youth right out of you... I'm sure living in Republic totally makes up for it though," all the while thinking, "Suck it, bit**es."  Ok, not that dramatic, but you get it.  I just want to prove that I won't always be the fat poor girl who never had a boyfriend.

Just typing this out has been somewhat therapeutic.  Sure, my readers are aghast in horror, because none of you are ever like that, but sorting out my insecurities ala high school actually reminds me that I'm unbelievably happy and blessed exactly where I am.  My relationship with the Trinitarian God is growing and his is more real and tangible than ever before, I'm married to a man that I daily praise Jesus for, because I still am in awe that he's my husband, I have amazing friends, go to the most incredible church in the world, and I'm constantly growing and changing and leaving behind the childish things and embracing the woman I continually become.  

Yes, sometimes I get insecure and am a jerk.  But when I rely on Jesus I get a little less jerky every day because I'm reminded that I'm securely in the arms of Jesus, and who I am is a beloved daughter of the King and Creator of everything that exists.  Not too shabby.  There is no joy in realizing that people from high school are miserable losers- be they bit**es still or no, they are in desperate need of a relationship with Jesus and I'm a vile sinner regardless.  My time is far better spent praying for them and living out a life of surrender to Jesus so that they might know Him and continue the cycle of making Him known.

Alas, in closing, a letter to my high school self.

Finally, my beloved, we are still fat.  As in really fat.  It's kind of ruining our life.  So could you please start actually thinking about what you're eating?  Quit sneaking so much food when you work shifts at Eich's.  It's not Christlike, and you're stealing (translation: SINNING), anyway.  And when you get to college- model your food choices after the normal sized girls on your hall and not the O-Line for the football team, ya think?  And exercise at the fitness center because we really hate to work out and believe me, never again will such a sweet gym exist free of charge and in such killer proximity.  I'm just saying- when you get on your exercise kick during Jan term of our Junior year at Whitworth (did I forget?  We go there.  So quit trying to impress people with talk of east-coast-ivory-bs. We spend time on the East coast and all we do is miss the PNW.) don't stop!  That would really solve a lot of our problems.  You're a prisoner in your own body, sweet girl, and it completely sucks.  Changing it is a lot harder than you might think, so maybe we could just work on it when were young and 130 pounds lighter.