Day 6: Zonked

Sorry for the late post today...both my flights back from Maine last night were delayed, and I landed back here in Ithaca waaaaay past my usual bedtime. I'm off to a slow start this morning!

As I was lying in bed earlier feeling completely guilty for not having this post up already (and yet knowing full well I had not a single coherent thought to share and wouldn't for quite some time) it occurred to me, for a brief moment, that I could just blow the whole thing off. It was a fleeting thought, but an interesting one. Because as much as we tell ourselves as adults we can't quit things, we can't give up, we do so all the time. We abandon hobbies and fitness programs and self-help books (by the caseload). Sometimes with good reason. I'm not against quitting, but I think it's interesting how we make these sorts of decisions. Even more so when the thing we're quitting is a relationship--with a friend, a love interest, the blogsphere....

I'm not so good at this second kind of quitting, which means I have to be honest about who I am and what's going on with me, even if it reveals that I'm not the fabu, totally together superhero that I'd like you to think I am. Even if it means I sign on and say, "I'm zonked..."

Ryanhood's NOTHIN' BUT THE REAL THING hits right at the heart of this. I LOVE this video: the guys are warming up the crowd for the headliners--I think this was the Kelly Clarkson/Jay-Z concert--and winning them over. Which takes an incredible blend of skill, humor, and humility I hope someday to acquire. It's HARD to stand up in front of a bunch of people and convince them you're worth listening to. And yet if you have something to say, you don't have a choice (except, of course, to quit, and who wants that?) THIS, my friends, is what it looks like in real time to fight for a dream:



So I try to be see-through, let you see me through
The armor that I wear and the way that I wear my hair
See what's waiting underneath...
It's me on my knees with my face to the floor
learning what it means to be rich when I feel poor

That's me today. Often, actually. But what I'm learning as I grow up is that this is a good thing, not a bad one. The facade of perfect Trish I mentioned yesterday was a debacle: not much fun, a mediocre friend, always terrified someone would realize the truth...that I had no idea on earth what I was doing or what my next step would be. I was the embodiment of a quote I once heard about how The world is full of people vying for the spotlight who have no idea what they'd say if they had our attention.

What would you say if you had the world's attention?

Not many of us think of admiting, "it's me on my knees with my face to the floor..." but there's a beautiful truth in that. People who see this, and then share the wisdom they find down there? Those are the folks I want to know. Because if you're in the public eye for more than a nano-second, the truth comes out (as we see on the cover of tabloids every week). The Ryanhood guys are right: Nothing but the real thing will do.

Luke 6 offers us some pictures of what it looks like to be rich when we feel poor: abundance, healing, and a "it's so crazy it just might work" new outlook on what matters and how we should re-order our lives. I'll also post the link to Luke 7 for tomorrow (like last year, I'll only be posting once on the weekends to make sure I'm synched up with God's rule that we take a day of rest...if something is in the 10 Commandments, I try to make it a priority!) which continues these same themes.

Thanks for letting me be real. It's not easy, but it's so much better than quitting!