Instead of a Christmas Letter...

My Year in Review: 2012 in Charity-land

Georgia, Florida, California. Weekend adventures, beach-walking, road-tripping, moving. Hotels, apartments, bay-side living, even my car. New friends, new places, old friends, and older memories. 15 states (3 of them new), 8 planes, a few trains, and thousands of miles on my car. Turned 28 for the second time and settled down for the first time. Bought a bed, a Kindle Fire, a new computer, and the usual share of wedding presents. Attended 1 wedding, 0 baby showers, and 0 funerals. Made scrolls for the first time and chocolate chip cookies for the millionth time. I visited my family, and they visited me.

This was the first year since 1979 that we didn't have our entire family in one place at the same time; it was the first year that we didn't fight over what to wear for family pictures; the first year I was the one watching a sibling move off to another country indefinitely; the first time I missed a roommate reunion since I started going to them; first year since college that I have only one W-2.

I'm good. Good apartment, good city, good roommate, good job, good church, good Bible study, good friends, good-ish car, good computer, good times. Commitment-phobia: still present, but less than in 2011. San Diego: fantastic (do I really live here?).

Things I didn't do: camp, take up smoking, replace my car, get a boyfriend, kick my caffeine addiction, read J. K. Rowling's new book, get a piercing, get a traffic ticket, have a baby, bake a cake, go skydiving.

Things I did do: lived in a hotel, took up a collection, fixed my car, thought about getting a boyfriend, kicked my toe (and fell on my thumb), read the unabridged "Les Miserables," got a roommate, got in a traffic accident (minor - no injuries), held a few babies, baked cookies, went snorkeling.

Top THAT, 2013. I dare ya.

12 Things I Did for the First Time: in 2012

• Road-tripped cross-country solo (Everybody sing: "I'm ridin' solo / I'm ridin' solo")
• Cooked eggplant - successfully, I might add
• Mailed a package to Sweden
• Illuminated a scroll (can't post a pic, until the person it was for receives it)
• Registered a car in California (though, I didn't obtain my CA driver's license for the first time)
• Bought a bookshelf
• Drank wine
• Tasted beer (Wow, two alcohol-related bullet points. Scandalous!)
• Wrapped every Christmas gift before giving it
• Refinished (and re-upholstered) a piece of furniture. With Roommate. But still.
• Attended a pirate festival
• Denied my real age (I told everyone I was turning 28 again, because prime numbers annoy me)

So yeah, it was a pretty good year. Not gonna lie.

Happy '13, everyone! (Ugh, a prime number)

Further Thoughts on Home

With much conflicted feelings, I decided to leave my "location independent" lifestyle and settle down in San Diego, California. I told myself I'd travel for a year and see what happened, and yesterday marked 11 months, so that's pretty darn close.

Four weeks ago, I did a solo road trip from Tallahassee to San Diego. Even less than an hour after I left Tallahassee, I had the sense that I was going home. It made me so happy that I was going to have a home - not just a random place to crash for a few weeks/months - that I actually started crying before I was even out of Florida.

To my delighted surprise, I haven't once doubted my decision to stop moving around for a while. In San Diego, I'm home - totally home. It's like I gathered up all the other pieces of me that I left everywhere else around the world and put them back into place, and all that's left in the other locations is just the imprint in the dust that gathered around the pieces I'd loaned them for a while.

Of course, my fear of commitment didn't go away immediately, and I still struggle with thoughts of what will happen if I lose my job or if something bad happens to my family while I'm away or whatever. It seems like every time in my life up to this point that I try to settle down, something bad happens. I tell myself that it was just to get me to this time and place where I'm supposed to be - but sometimes the commitment-phobe in me doesn't listen. Even in the last four weeks, though, the fear has become quieter and less obnoxious.

This completely unexpected and welcome sense of having come home has prompted a lot of processing, as you can imagine, and I'm sure it will for months yet. For instance:

• I'm taking longer to find a church and community here, because I don't have to settle with the first group of people I meet.
• I don't know anymore if I should keep "wants to live all over the world" on my list of things I want in a man.
• I have to start paying attention to local news and politics again, because they actually affect me now.
• I have more things I want to achieve in life, but they're mostly things I can achieve here.  

Some good things about moving to San Diego:

• I already have friends all over So Cal.
• A friend put me in touch with a roommate who is so compatible with me it's ridiculous.
• I'm back on Pacific Time.
• The ocean is nearby.
• People actually visit me now instead of just saying they're going to. 

Not that I didn't love my "location-independent" lifestyle while it lasted; I did. I just feel like all of my life has prepared me to live in San Diego. The whole time I was traveling, I had this sense that I had to keep moving because I might be missing out on something better. But now, I don't. Like, maybe this is what I was looking for the whole time - but I sure wouldn't appreciate it this much if I hadn't lived in four other states in the last 12 months. Sure, I still want to mark the remaining 17 states and 3 continents off my list, and I haven't lost the desire to keep seeing the world - but I don't think I ever want to live anywhere else besides the greater San Diego area. Maybe I'm honeymooning a bit still, but I'm okay with that.

Now that I've bought four bookcases, a bed, and half of a living room set (my roommate bought the other half), I'm a little in mourning over the loss of the "easy" move I've been able to do every 2-13 weeks. Plus, my parents and two youngest brothers are driving the last of my stuff down from MN this week, so I'll probably never again be able to throw some stuff in my trunk and go.

So what about San Diego makes me feel at home? I don't have an exhaustive list yet, but here's a start. On a macro level, everything here feels "right" (Yes, I know you can't judge other places/cultures based on how yours does things; but having grown up in So Cal, I am hard-wired to think that the way So Cal does things is better) - everything from the palm trees to the 9-lane freeways to the street signs to the dining establishments (In-N-out, anyone?) to weather is just...right (for lack of a better, less-judgmental word).

Also on a macro level, it's everything I've ever wanted in the place I eventually settle down: big city, lots going on, lots to explore, not rainy all the time, not dusty and deserty, well-known location, day-trip adventure opportunities to keep me busy for a long time, and a super-fun downtown I probably want to live in someday.

I think it's the combination of big-city and Southern California that makes San Diego so wonderful to me - but even that doesn't explain it entirely, because LA wouldn't cut it; maybe it's the smog there or something, but LA hasn't felt like completely like home since I left in 2001. Here, I love the clear air, the multiculturalality, the friendlier feel, and easy freeway navigation. (This list is actually much longer, but I've been gushing long enough.)

I guess my concluding thought is that, I never thought I'd be completely at home ever again, and I have been pleasantly surprised by life and God. I can say unequivocally with C.S. Lewis that I have been "Surprised By Joy." Put differently: sometimes, God just makes me happy.

A New "30 Things" List

I ran across this article by Glamour Magazine from 1997, titled "30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time She's 30." Shocked and a little offended by the shallowness and the outright wrongness of it, my friends and I decided to write our own list.

Without further ado, we present to you:
30 Things Every Woman Should Have, Know, and Do by the Time She's 30

DO:
1. Travel outside the country at least once (yes, those missions trips to Mexico count).
2. Go to a movie (restaurant/day trip/museum) alone.
3. Break down on the side of the road.
4. Wear a bridesmaid dress.
5. Help a friend through a break-up.
6. Read a Jane Austen novel cover-to-cover (movie versions don't count).
7. Paint an entire room.
8. Throw comfort zones to the wind and do something despite your fear.
9. Make the most of your twenties.
10. Nerd-out about something, without caring what other people think.

HAVE:
11. A basic tool set.
12. At least one outfit purchased at full price.
13. A laptop, a phone, and one other piece of technology you can't live without.
14. A full bookcase - or at least a shelf.
15. At least one guy (not-boyfriend) friend.
16. A friend who doesn't put up with your crap.
17. A pretty good idea of how to iron and mend clothing, if only in emergencies.
18. The self-control to stick to a diet every once in a while.
19. The self-esteem to know that diet-breaking isn't the end of the world.
20. Basic customer service skills, including the ability to say "I'm sorry."

KNOW:
21. How to unclog a toilet/sink.
22. What size jeans you wear (I mean, come on).
23. How to change a dirty diaper.
24. How to listen.
25. How to shop for baby showers.
26. How to be childlike without being childish.
27. The difference between "your" and "you're."
28. That you can't control your family's decisions, and that's okay.
29. How to articulate what you believe, for the most part.
30. How to laugh at yourself.

Many thanks to Joanna Schmitt and Amanda Bangor for helping with this list.

Further Thoughts on Singleness

I thought I'd said all I had to say on the subject of singleness, with my last post. But some comments prompted me to do further thinking (let's hear it for the commenters!).

My ponderings led me to three things:

1. Much emphasis (especially in the church) is placed on the value of marriage, thus implying that singleness is less valuable. MY THOUGHT: This implication is neither intentional nor true. Please ignore it. 
2. The predominant message to singles is that we need to be fixed somehow: we need to figure out why we're single and what we can do to change that; to straighten out our attitudes because we're sad/frustrated/impatient/lonely; to work on ourselves so that we'll be prime marriage material. I can't count the number of time a well-meaning friend has said with determination and decisiveness, "We need to find you a man. Let's see who you can date..." MY THOUGHT: Singleness doesn't make you broken; sin makes you broken. We all need attitude adjustments, we all could learn a little more contentment and thankfulness, and we all should continuously improve ourselves, regardless of relationship status.
3. One idea that pervades Christian circles is that once you are content being single, your spouse will come. MY THOUGHT: Your contentment is not God's cue to bring along Mr/Ms Right. I've gone back and forth between contentment and impatience more times than I can count - and that was just yesterday. ;-) Be content for its own sake - not as a means to an end.

But one commenter wanted to know: HOW do you become content, face the loneliness, and deal with the challenges of singlehood? Believe me, this is something I'm learning more about every day. (But of course that doesn't stop me from having bullet-pointed suggestions.)

• On a macro level, it helps to dwell on the good parts of whatever situation you're in. But don't ignore the bad parts. Are you sad/mad/lonely/frustrated that you don't have someone to rub your feet tonight? Acknowledge that and then put your feet up and eat some chocolate and start being thankful that no one cares about the smudge on your lip or the socks you just threw on the floor. Last night, I wanted a snuggle buddy, but I got off the mopey couch and made myself some pancakes in the microwave and thanked the heavens that I didn't have to cook for two. 
• On a micro level, I once had a lonely friend ask, "How can you stand traveling all by yourself? Is it even worth it if you're not with someone you love?" Since the answers are applicable to more than just travel, I thought I'd share:
• Do things anyway.
• Take pictures and share them with your Facebook peeps - that way your adventures are not completely solo.
• Text people along your trip (life/adventure/day/whatever) - you'll feel like someone is paying attention to your life, even if they can't be there to share your adventure.
• Take the opportunity to do things you would never do if you had someone with you: 
• pull over at a random spot on the road to take pics.
• stop at a random frozen yogurt joint and get the biggest ice cream cone ever because you can.
• take a random side street and see if it gets you where you're going.
• talk to random strangers because no one cares.
• get lost and don't worry about someone nagging you about directions.
• eat dinner at 3 pm because you feel like it.
• Remember, you are not defined by your singleness. It's not even a problem - it's just a fact, just like your hair color or your address or your birthday. It's one thing in the millions of things you get to process and experience in life. 

All my thoughts keep concluding with something like this: Life is great. Life sucks. So what? Live it and process the heck out of it, because "The unexamined life is not worth living." -Socrates

Joining the Singleness Conversation

I've been reading articles and books lately on singleness and the growing phenomenon of singleness in this country and around the world. Whatever the reasons these articles/books/shows/documentaries actually provide for this trend (women are being empowered to be more choosy, men are being encouraged to be less chivalrous, cohabitation and divorce are at all-time highs, etc.), they generally say one of two things:

1. Singleness is empowering.
2. It's okay for it to suck sometimes, though.

When it comes to books about the topic of singleness, I find that they are mostly geared toward women, and fall on two extreme ends of the spectrum (with a little bit of everything in between).

1. On the ultraconservative end, we have books for single women who live with their families until their father approves their marriages.
2. On the ultra-liberal end, we have books for single women who date around and fall in and out of love and ultimately learn to love themselves.

But I have yet to see a book with me as the target audience. I am a strong, independent, confident, pretty, late-20-something woman who has never been on a date, has never been kissed, and certainly has never had a boyfriend. I live by myself, I travel the world, I like men, and I make friends easily. I even love myself (if you couldn't tell that from the previous two sentences). So where's the book on singleness for me?

I know, I know - you're going to tell me to read books geared toward Christian women - books like "Captivating" or "Every Woman's Battle." You might even tell me to read books geared toward singles in general, like this one I found in a quick Amazon search.

What I don't want is another book to tell me that "falling in love (or getting married) is the ultimate event around which your life is based." Believe me, I'm perfectly capable of telling myself that. What I don't want is another article that says, "Singleness is inevitable - so go out and date and have fun and love yourself." Believe me, I love myself, I have fun, and I don't really care about wasting my time on random dates (if I even knew how to get one).

What I do want is a book that says - well, something like this:

So you're single. So what?

Sometimes, singleness is the most amazing thing in the world; you get to come home, kick off your shoes anywhere, find the remote right where you left it, eat a Lean Cuisine while watching the show of your choice, and go to sleep in a bed you can roll around on and hog the covers in. No one cares if you snore, get up in the middle of the night, or blast your alarm at an ungodly hour. There's no one else's opinion to consider when you make plans and decisions, and there's no one who can stop you from doing what you want with your life (within reason, of course).

Sometimes, singleness is the worst state of being you can imagine: you have to come home to an empty house, there's no one to rub your feet after a long day, you have no one to blame but yourself for the missing remote, the only thing to eat in the house is cold cereal, and you can't even snuggle with someone while watching TV. You have to go to sleep in a cold, big bed, and the covers don't warm you up fast enough by themselves. No one rolls you over when you snore, flops their arm over you when you get back into bed after getting up in the middle of the night, or helps motivate you to get up at that ungodly hour - again. There's no one to help you make plans and decisions, and there's no one who can help you get where you're going in life.

But so what? Married people have joys and problems. Parents have joys and problems. Siblings, as you know, have joys and problems. It's what you make of every moment that makes life what matters.

You might get married someday; you might not. So what?

Your relationship status doesn't define you. The culture doesn't define you. The studies don't define you. Your friends' relationship statuses don't define you. Your church's expectations don't define you. Your preconceived notions of where you'd be at 29 years old don't define you.

Or maybe all these things define you - or at least pieces of you.

But your identity is in Jesus. Everything else is just details. Bonus material. Special features. Footnotes.

You have been raised with your generation's notion that every individual can and should carve his/her own niche in this crazy lifetime. Embrace this. Maybe your place is the one that says, "It's okay for previously-homeschooled, single women in their late twenties to just say no to poofy hair; to not live at home, teach piano, and knit a trousseau; to stop waiting in life-limbo for their fathers to find them husbands." Maybe your place is the one that says, "Life is amazing. Life sucks. Live and process it with no regrets - but don't let any one aspect of your life hold the rest of you back."

So maybe I shouldn't be asking "where's the book for me?" Maybe I should be asking, "Who wants to publish my first book?"

Homey Thoughts

As a traveler, I'm not surprised to find myself processing the concept of "home" lately. It's a topic that I've processed nearly non-stop since I moved to Oregon in 2001, but I have deeper thoughts now. So let's see if I can put them into words.

We've all heard, "Home is where the heart is," "Home is where you hang your hat," "Home is with your loved ones." None of these are wrong, but none of them encapsulates every aspect of home for me. With that in mind, I have broken down my processing into two parts: my concept(s) of home, and other people's expectations of my concept(s) of home.

My concept(s) of home:
Home is hard to define, but for the purposes of this section, it is a place where I can be completely myself and (mostly) not feel like a foreigner.

It's probably obvious to most people who know me, but home is not just one place. I can be "at home" in just about every place I've lived, and in some places I haven't. I can feel "like this is home" in a church, at a friend's house, or in a place of work. I feel equally home in Southern California and in Oklahoma. In the Filipino church where I was raised and in my dad's current church. At my college job in Plant Services and in my post-college job in Australia. Even now, after years away from some of those places/people, I know that a significant piece of me would be home there, were I to walk in the door tomorrow.

But for me, having lived and given of myself to many, many places and people, I can never feel completely home in any one place or with any one group of people. When I leave a piece of myself behind somewhere (or with someone), I know that that piece of me will ever only be at home at that place or with that person. Part of me is sad that I cannot gather up all of those pieces of myself again. But the other part of me doesn't regret for a moment any of my life and love decisions. The thing that is so appealing about heaven is that my entire self will be at home (with Jesus, no less!).

In my current Location Independent life/work situation, home has two immediate, practical meanings:
1. It's easy for me to call my hotel room "home" because that's where my stuff is.
2. But I learned in 2011 that I can live anywhere and put up with almost anything if I'm with my family. I have no particular love for Minnesota, but "going home for Christmas" meant being in the midst of my crazy, big, loud family; snuggling with any sister or brother at any time; talking to my mom in person and being interrupted every three seconds; speed-talking and having people understand me; reading a book in a comfy seat while the chaos around me faded and I lost myself in the pages. I didn't go home to Minnesota - I went home to my family where I could be completely myself and not feel like a foreigner.

The way I live (half-in, half-out of my car; not knowing where I'm going to be from month to month)...well, it just seems right to me. It wouldn't have been right at other times in my life, and it will probably get old at some point. But for now, I'm perfectly happy - and I mean, really, really happy - to have my current life. I feel like I was born for it, and all my previous life experiences have led to it.

But over 99% of the people I interact with have never experienced this lifestyle and probably never will. That's where the second part of my processing comes in.

Other people's expectations of my concept(s) of home:
As a working, responsible citizen of the United States, I am expected to have a "home address." I don't. People had to send my Christmas presents to my family's MN home. I can't order anything from eBay or Amazon because I don't know if I'll still be living in the same hotel or the same room when it's delivered. My DL says MN, but I have bank accounts in two different states and coffee punch cards for at least four in my wallet.

As a traveler, I get asked all the time, "where's home for you?" It's a fair question, I guess, but I don't have a one-word answer. On the first day of my new job assignment, I had a conversation much like this with the lady who was processing my I-9:
her: Where are you from?
me: Most recently, from Missouri.
her: Oh, your Driver's license says Minnesota.
me: Yeah, that's where my parents live.
her: Your Social Security number - where's that from? Like, where were you born?
me: Dallas, TX
her: Ah, so that's where you were raised?
me: No, I grew up in Southern California.

Yes, when I say "I'm from everywhere," I really mean that. But most people have no concept of that, unless they're from a military family or something.

I wish I had an alternative to the question, "where is home for you?" and its equally frustrating twin, "where are you from?" I wish it weren't the opener question for get-to-know-you conversations. I'm perfectly okay with having a complicated and/or ambiguous answer, but I am a bit tired of everyone's confused looks and are-you-crazy attitudes.

I recently read the following article: 17 Location Independent Entrepreneurs Define “Home”. I was struck by how many of the 17 entrepreneurs said something like, "Wherever I have my backpack and a wi-fi connection, I'm home." While I have not gotten to where I can live out of a backpack (hey, this girl has to have her hair products and make-up kit), I do resonate with the idea that an Internet connection is all that's needed to be "home."

I will never, ever be physically present with everyone I love, all at once. So I might as well be away from them somewhere cool that has excellent wi-fi.

I love my life.

Dec Reads and Year-End Literary Reflections

Enemies & Allies: the Dark Knight Meets the Man of Steel – Kevin J. Anderson

The Lost Gate – Orson Scott Card

Suddenly Southern: a Yankee’s Guide to Living in Dixie – Maureen Duffin-Ward

Divergent – Veronica Roth

The Giver – Lois Lowry

December recommendation: Divergent. It’s the newest book in the newest wave of young adult literature (post-apocalyptic), and it received the 2011 GoodReads Choice Award. Fantastically written and not nearly as violent as The Hunger Games, it’s a fast but thought-provoking read. I read it in a day.

2011 recommendation: The Hunger Games. I know it’s all like mainstream and stuff now, and they’re coming out with a movie, but they were the only books this year for which I lost sleep. Bethany asked me earlier this month what I thought of them, and I responded, “The trilogy is violent, psychologically disturbing, heart-wrenching, and kind of disgusting. Yet it manages to be fascinating, riveting, and utterly fabulous.” I think that about sums it up.

My thought on post-vampire YA lit: I’ve now read three entire series of YA post-apocalyptic literature, and Divergent. In each one, the protagonist is a teenage girl. I understand why this is so (that’s their market, teenage girls provide easy fodder for conflict, etc.), but I would be interested in a series that sees the breakdown (or re-making) of social constructs through the eyes of a boy, or even a couple of characters.

On the other hand, books like Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey and Lois Lowry’s The Giver are not YA, and their protagonists are male. I find this to be an interesting distinction.

Aaaaanyway, here is my total count for the year:

Books finished: 58 

Most books read in a month: 13

Books unread on my shelf: Ummm...I can't remember. I think it's like 6. 

Goal for 2012: Tristram Shandy. Get ready for some blogging, baby, because it’s a doozy.