Sweethearts

I finished my first book of the summer and it was marvelous. Seeing as I teach high school English, I love the YA section of the library. So, I will recommend Sweetheartsto you and convince you with this snippet. It's pretty good. (Also I love writing that is similar in style to my thinking, and I like to think I could've thought this. Granted I probably could not have expressed it so well.)

Sometimes I think about how there are certain people who come into your life, and leave a mark.
I don't mean the usual faint impression: he was cute, she was nice, they made me laugh, I wish I'd known her better, I remember the time she threw up in class.
And I don't just mean that they change you. A lot of people can change you -- the first kid who called you a name, the first teacher who said you were smart, the first person who crowned you best friend. It's the change you remember, the firsts and what they meant, not really the people.
I'm talking about the ones who, for whatever reason, are as much a part of you as your own soul. Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless. If you had a lifetime to talk, there would still be things left unsaid.
The pulse of unfinished business still beats while life unfurls; days, weeks, months.
In the end, I decide that the mark we've left on each other is the color and shape of love. That's the unfinished business between us.
Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order and not always complete.

Bronco and Kona

I just spent a week and a half dog/apt sitting for a new friend. Let's just say I'm not ready to be responsible for another living being; I'm just not mature/selfless enough. I am walking away, however, with a bit of perspective. I haven't really taken care of anyone/anything in a long time. It's just been me. It's been me bumbling around and, if anything, being taken care of by others. But these past weeks, I had to be selfless.

I know you're probably thinking, Mandy, that doesn't count. I would like to say, however, that it does. I had to make sacrifices and not do things I wanted to do. I hadn't been to the gym in all that time until this morning. When I got home after school, which had to be at a certain time so as to prevent accidents, I was in for the night. When Bronco was sick, I had to clean up after him. (And I definitely called my mom like a proud parent when he stopped getting sick.) For two weeks, I was a responsible adult.

Today, I picked up said new friend at the airport. While I will miss those dogs, today was fun post 6pm because it was just me to take care of all over again. And that's nice.

One day though, I'll be ready. One day I will be mature enough to constantly put someone else before myself. (Although I'd like to think I'll still be able to sleep in on the weekends.)

Stolen words from Kevin Bacon

Okay, the words aren't really from Kevin Bacon. I found these marvelous words on the blog of a friend of a friend; which made me think of seven degrees of separation, which clearly leads to Kevin Bacon. All that to say, I read this and my heart sighed. It found a kindred spirit in Mr. Bacon. Therefore, I will let the words "he" wrote speak for my heart...


We are running marathons. Nothing is a sprint except an actual sprint.

And yet, I think in terms of sprints. I think short-term, I think here and now and do little to consider the future. I do it with relationships, friendships, finances and more; whatever feels good now is what I'll do. I distill my world to 140 character status updates, and do not consider the punctuation marks I use may not be correct. The place I put a period may be where God wanted a semicolon, changing what I thought was an end into merely a pause. I don't look far enough ahead to understand the difference.

The question I struggle with is how am I to learn to live a marathon life in a world that thinks in sprints?

I want to train to pace myself, to work up to the hills and stretch the parts of me that get overworked along the way. I want to understand that the blisters I get are not because I'm a terrible person or a failure, but because I am a person who is running and blisters happen to runners. In the marathon world, I must pay close attention to what I take in and where I'm going. If I'm to run the race marked out for me, training for the long-distance and not the immediate future is the difference between standing at the finish line and giving up before I can see it.