(i am an everday)
I spent the night at my cousin’s this past week and we went and saw a movie (“Divergent” True life: I’m a teenage girl.) And while we were waiting to go see the movie and were sitting chatting my cousin asked if I wanted some lemon bars their neighbors had brought.
She didn’t look too enthusiastic.
And with this scenario:
I have a confession. I’m a baked good snob.
It’s true.
If you give me a baked good I will always try it, but I’m not promising that I will finish all of it.
My cousins agree.
We were raised around not just chefs, and innovated recipe creators, but people who believed dessert was the actual meal, an aunt that owned a bakery and to this day brings danishes and cinnamon rolls to Christmas, an aunt who makes the best homemade candy you will ever have in your life and a family who believes “The Cake Doctor” is the bible and boxed cake mixes were a sin.
Even the next day over eggs and abelskivers, a cinnamon roll was passed around the table and we were all “eh”.
(a wedding cake I made)
We just have standards.
Speaking of standards and confessions: Here’s another one:
If you’re a grown man, I am going to judge you for ordering a super sugary, complicated coffee drink.
On that same cousin overnighter I spent the morning at a busy, loud, crowded Starbucks attempting to journal, but it just didn’t work incredibly well.
And business man after business man ordered these sugary coffee drinks that made me wrinkle my nose.
And it reminded me of back in grad school I offered to buy a friend of mine a coffee and bring it to class.
“A grande non fat, extra whip, white chocolate peppermint mocha”
WHAT?!
I have a coffee reputation to protect.
(my first non instant coffee in peru with my girl Mer)
My barista Alex looked at me.
No, it’s not mine.
(my grad school drink of choice: quad shot over ice in a venti cup. Yes, 4 shots. My day camp coffee? Venti starbucks double shot with an add shot…that’s 7)
On that day I realized that I hold onto few stereotypes except for the one that men should not drink girly coffee drinks. Be a man. If your order is more then three words; it’s not gonna work.
So in this blog post you’ve learned three things about me:
- I am a teenage girl at times. Though I love GOOD literature, have a degree in English, some of my favorite books are young adult fiction and my favorite shows involve vampires. (You would totally judge my Netflix history)
- I most likely will not like your baked goods.
- (I believe) A man’s coffee order totally correlates to his manliness.
Other things about me?
*I have 5 tattoos and have an idea for a 6th
*My passport is almost full
*My favorite movie is Live Free or Die Hard *My favorite book is Chaucer’s Troulis and Cressid *The song currently on repeat in my head is Hillsongs “Oceans (Where feet may Fail)”
Why do I share these things with you?
Because they are all things apart of my story. Funny antecdotes, fun facts, sometimes sarcastic comments.
I’m not always serious, rarely use bad words, I enjoy a burger and a beer.
So for as many heartbroken and sad moments I’ve had in my life: I have even more joyous and happy ones. I’ve lived a treasured life this point to date. And unless you know me, unless you’ve heard my story, you’d only know the treasured moments. You might hear a bit of the depression, the heartbreak, but you’d just see a woman who lives life.
Think of the women you see each day, at preschool drop off, at church, at the supermarket, at a coffee shop.
You see what is just on their face. You see the moment of rush, the smile. And they just look like the everyday woman, no pain, nothing wrong.
But you never know.
I’ll never forget the summer before I moved away from I was babysitting a family I’d known for 5 years. I mentioned offhand about how the past few years had been hard. She asked me what I meant. I took an opportunity to share about depression, counseling, family illness.
She didn’t believe me. That’s not the woman she saw when she dropped her kids off, not the woman who was the only one who could calm her kid down when the freaked out.
Because that’s not the woman I put before them.
I’m not saying that we should tell everyone everything. Because that is not what we are called to do. But I am saying we are called to love. We are called to honor story even when we don’t know it.
And we are called to tell our story when the time is right.
(just a crew of everyday women. all with remarkable stories, dreams and hearts)
So as you pass the same women you pass everyday; on the trail, at the grocery store or wherever just remember that they have a story, they have a place in this world.
Their life may not look traumatic or awful from the outside, (or it might not even be that on the inside) but they have a story. They have a call to move, but have no one to talk to about it, they have a vision, a dream. It could be to host a group of moms once a week to do a Bible study, it could be to start a blog, to open coffee shop.
But sometimes amidst the day to day, the smiles, the forgetting of dreams occurs.
Sometimes the pain is forgotten because we forget to share it.
Sometimes the joys are forgotten because we don’t think they mean anything.
So look at your friends, the people who surround you and think of their stories, think of your story.
Where can they go? Where can they move?
And remember, you are an everyday women. You matter, your story matter, your heart matters, your hurts and your joy.
(and even your love for fiction meant for fifteen year olds)
(if you’d like to help me on my journey to create space and hope for the everyday woman check out how you can journey with me here and read more about my dreams here)
she writes on sundays 