Starbucks

I have a passionate love/hate relationship with Starbucks. I still can't decide if the delicious taste and boost of energy is worth the dent in bank account each month. Lately the hate far outweighs the love. Let me tell you why.

My day was off to a friendly start. My husband, Mike, and I had recently moved to Kansas City and I was feeling unstoppable. He had landed a great job and I was on summer break after finishing my first year of grad school. On this particular morning I was going to spend some time at Starbucks and then return home to finish unpacking our last few boxes. Needless to say, I was not dressed to impress. Knowing I would be alone in our apartment all day I just threw on some raggedy old jeans, a t-shirt my dad got me while on a business trip to Guam when I was 12 that says "GUAM" across the front in all caps with two dolphins about to jump through the "G" and "M," and my hair was pulled back by a headband and ponytail. As I walked into Starbucks I noticed the male barista had stopped what he was doing and was looking intently in my direction. Assuming there was a hottie behind me I hastily continued my short walk to the counter as not to disrupt their cheesy moment. I envisioned a skinny, blonde, businesswoman walking in behind me, the sun shining brightly behind her making her appear angelic, wind blowing through her perfectly curled hair that probably smelled like strawberries, legs as long as the seashore that they would soon walk along together. It wasn't until I got to the counter that I realized nobody was behind me and the barista hadn't yet broken eye contact with ME. After looking around to make sure this was actually happening, I was immediately overcome with insecurity assuming that he was staring at my giant forehead that I so willingly exposed that morning as I pushed back my bangs with that headband despite my better judgment. I silently vowed never to wear my bangs back in public ever again, even at the gym. I'd rather people stare at my sweaty bangs than their reflection in my fivehead.

In accordance with our new, fresh, healthy, KC lifestyle I proceeded to order a Skinny Latte (that makes up for the fact that it was a large and I was going to put 2 packets of sugar in it, right?). Anyway, the tall, dark (coffee pun!) barista let out a small chuckle and said, "There is no way I'm giving a girl that looks like you a skinny latte. How about I make you a regular one for free?"

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?!" I thought to myself. I hadn't been hit on in several years. Last time I received a compliment that explicit and low quality it came from my good friend Zeke and was followed by, "Just kidding. Can I have Ashley's number?" (Ashley is my stunning best friend who looks very similar to the woman I was envisioning walking in behind me.) I didn't know what to say and was feeling extremely nervous. I mentally retreated inside myself to weigh my options and figure out how to respond:

If I accept the free drink, am I enabling his behavior and somehow being unfaithful to Mike? (Remember, I had not been hit on in a long time, especially not since I was married. How are married women supposed to react in these situations?) BUT if I refuse this free offer I will have to pay for my own drink when this $5 could go towards my inevitable lunch at Five Guys. I will order lettuce on the burger so that kind of counts as a salad so it's still healthy. Totally healthy. Back to the coffee! I can't accept a free coffee after a pick-up line that heinous. That was the worst thing I have ever heard! However, by accepting the free drink I am saving my husband money. Aha! I am merely being a bargain shopper! Bargain shopper = good wife!
 

Before I knew it the drink was already made and he was handing it to me. I was still just as flustered and confused as I was when I first ordered. I just wanted to get out of there. I was officially perspiring and mumbled a weird thanks as I turned around to leave, not feeling confident in the chosen interaction. The problem was, I was so focused on how to respond that my brain forgot to tell my legs to move. I turned around and tried to proceed forward but to my surprise (and most everyone else's) my legs decided not to follow suit. This ultimately resulted in me falling face first onto the floor as my free latte spilled all over the place. I got up in an instant and turned to look at the barista, whose face was solemn. He almost looked annoyed. "I am so sorry!" I exclaimed, grabbing napkins and trying to wipe it up while pretending my face wasn't throbbing from the fall. "Do you want this one to be a skinny?" he asked, staring straight down at the register before making me another drink. "Um, sure!" I replied, as feminine and dainty as possible attempting to maintain what little dignity I had left.

As if this moment could get any worse I then heard the six most demoralizing words I could imagine: he looked straight into my eyes, the same eyes he was gazing so fondly into just moments before, and said, "That will be $4.46."

Not only did he successfully coerce me with the world's worst pick-up line that I know he's used with dozens of women before me, but then he watched me turn around, trip, and spill my coffee without batting an eye. He didn't ask me if I was okay, he didn't even offer to help me clean it up. And worst of all, now he was making me pay for the second one! Only because I couldn't think of anything clever to do on the spot, I calmly paid for the drink, thanked him for his service, and walked out knowing that I was undoubtedly now part of a story we would both tell to anybody who would listen for weeks to come. Starbucks had done it again. The green coffee mermaid lures me in with her seductive tentacles, promising comforting, convenient coffee and an increased energy level only to humiliate me.

I also think it's important to add that after telling my dad this story he ordered me a Keurig for that year's birthday and sent with it several months worth of Starbucks K-Cups. If I am going to make a fool out of myself for the sake of delicious coffee, I am going to do so in the privacy of my own home! Thanks, dad. And just like the jerk barista, if I trip and spill my coffee, my Keurig will just sit there and watch me pick up the pieces.

This story, while small in comparison to more defining moments, still taught me a few valuable lessons:

1. You are the heroine in your story! Don't always assume the heroine is somebody better or more beautiful than you, and don't always assume she's blonde.
2. Don't let the way people treat you define you.
3. When somebody falls (literally or figuratively), for the love of everything sacred, help them up!

Sarah Siders

From the moment I stalked her on Facebook I knew she was going to become one of my favorite women. I had applied to Life Choice Ministries in the fall to complete my practicum for graduate school and my position was riding on Sarah interviewing me and agreeing to supervise me for the next 8 months. I knew from my extensive Facebook research that, like me, she enjoyed The Colbert Report, understood the serious difference between Jewel's old stuff and new stuff, and appreciated references to Robert Goulet. I immediately began to brainstorm how to get this job while simultaneously convincing her to want to be my friend. I knew she liked the show Portlandia and decided that the most important thing to do to prepare for my interview was put together an outfit with a bird on it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XM3vWJmpfo). I'm not saying my bird scarf got me the job, but it definitely helped. During those 8 months Sarah supervised me doing more than counseling the brave women that came into Life Choice, she also showed me what it looked like to stop playing it safe and dream a bigger dream. Coloring inside the lines was my favorite thing to do. Symbolically speaking, Sarah took my coloring book, pointed out that it looked pretty, and then ripped it up. I want to spend some time reflecting on how and why Sarah just being Sarah inspired me to be a more courageous woman.

1. She didn't prefer meeting in the same place more than once. Sarah once referred to our routine meetings at Bluestem as "stuffy" and we immediately began trying new places all around Manhattan. From donuts to cheese curds to Thai food, she took me on a wild ride and my last few months in Manhattan were ones I will never forget. Because routine is the only place I feel safe, these weekly meetings challenged more than my digestive system; every week was a new lesson in self-discovery, courage, and trust. Not only did I learn that I don't hate Thai food, but some of the best, most influential meetings we had took place in areas of Manhattan that I had never been. Trying new things sparks creativity and teaches you valuable lessons about yourself.

2. Right after knowing and loving the Lord, the most important thing to Sarah was being a good wife and mother. Her son is her whole world, but unlike some other moms I know, Sarah had more to talk about than her child's latest developmental milestone. She explained to me once that part of being a good wife and mother is being a dynamic woman. (I remember that because right after she said it I excused myself, went to the bathroom, and wrote it on my hand.) That phrase sounds simple but I can assure you that it is not. It involves knowing yourself and then intentionally being yourself; most people never make it through that first part. Sarah is a loved daughter of Christ and a dedicated wife and mother, but she is also a writer (http://sarahsiders.com/), a social worker, a church planter, a friend, a human rights activist, a volunteer, and more. Managing a family and a free spirit is an art and perfecting it takes a lifetime, but that doesn't stop her from trying. She taught me that it is okay to be a woman and love more than your husband and family.

3. Sarah is a free spirit. She is full of creativity and inspiration and wears fun, whimsical scarves in her hair and somehow makes it look cute. I never told her this but I often went home right after meeting with her and tried to make that look work on me. It never did.

Hair scarves on Sarah:
                                               

Hair scarves on me:


Continuing on with my point, I always admired how Sarah's well of wild dreams and colorful ideas never seemed to run dry. Sarah is naturally a very creative person, but she also combats "writers block" and a lack of inspiration by choosing to participate in creative things. For example, she painted a room in her house yellow and went from long hair to a pixie cut without having a bob first. Coming from a person who has had the same haircut since 7th grade, I suspect that she has more courage in her pinky finger than I do in my entire body. If Sarah runs out of ideas, she goes and finds more. She isn't afraid to try new things. The methodical rules I live by do not apply to her. It took me several months to realize that living a life inside the box was going to produce ideas that were also inside the box. No wonder I was tired and uninspired. If I wanted to be a bold, courageous woman I had to live boldly and courageously. She taught me that "if you want to be brave, you must do brave things. The bravery will come later." That nugget of wisdom is also posted on her blog and if you're smart you have already left my blog to go read hers.


The three lessons that Sarah taught me during our 8 months together have changed my life. She didn't mean to teach me those things, but the life inside of her couldn't help but spill over onto me and I am eternally grateful. I don't doubt that most people who spend time with Sarah walk away feeling braver, more creative, and more like the person they are supposed to be than they did before they met her. While I continue to struggle with self-imposed rules and guidelines, Sarah gave me the kick I needed to see that there is much more to life and there is much more to ME than I ever knew. If attaining some of the qualities that Sarah has is the end result of taking risks, making mistakes, and dreaming a bigger dream, I don't have to be afraid of the process. The grass really is greener on the other side. Sarah's life changed mine and the imprint she left on my heart is now being filled with braver choices and a love for myself that I didn't have before.

Sarah, you are a gift. Thank you.

Wabi-sabi

I want to tell you about Russel, a man in my grad program. He is somewhere in his 50s, has a long, curly, white ponytail that reaches to the middle of his back, and is typically dressed in some kind of eccentric, Hawaiian poncho. He rides a motorized wheelchair despite the fact that he can walk, has tribal gauges in his ears, and rarely wears shoes. He is a self-proclaimed Buddhist, professor at a different university, foster parent of 15, and has several master's degrees. His voice is so painfully loud that I was convinced he was joking for about 6 months. He is the real life Jacob Silj: http://www.hulu.com/#!watch/276438. Voice immodulation is real.

Life lessons always come wrapped in such interesting packages.

Our class was assigned a project in which we had to work in groups and present to the class all pertinent information about various modes of therapy. Russel's group chose to present on Morita Therapy, a form of Japanese psychology. You can find more information about Morita Therapy here: http://moritaschool.com/content/morita-therapy. It's actually quite brilliant and I look forward to it making it's way into western mental health. When I saw a shoeless Russel stand up to present with his group I knew I was in for an interesting treat. I didn't know his message was about to change my life and jump start my very own healing process. Russel started the presentation by simulating sitting on the toilet! He said things like, "Cold porcelain on my warm skin," and, "My digestive system is working properly, not everybody can go to the bathroom on their own." I was both traumatized and intrigued by this haunting visualization. He was teaching us about the concept of mindfulness. Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment in a particular way, on purpose, nonjudgmentally. Paying attention to the present on purpose is something I have avoided since I was a child; I have always lived in the future. Quite frankly, that was the only way I survived a childhood of divorce, abuse, and neglect. I was a little girl with big dreams and the present was only going to slow me down and/or destroy me. The present was my enemy. While having goals and working hard to reach them is important, I realized that my entire life could be summed up by this image:

The sad thing is, unlike this cat, I am never going to catch the string. The life I had always dreamed of and worked so hard to get is finally here, but after years of training my mind to avoid the present I couldn't even enjoy it. I was still chasing a string. A constant complaint I have always made about my spiritual journey is the inability to feel God present in the moment with me. I have always had an understanding of what God was trying to do yesterday and where He might be leading me in the future, but could never feel Him here with me now. It took me seeing Russel sitting on a fake toilet to realize that God has been present... I haven't. Spirituality is not as much about "getting there" as it is about "being here." To live and breathe in Christ is to exist exactly where I am, exactly as I am. God is not waiting for me in that wadded up piece of paper at the end of the string I have been chasing. He is sitting here right beside me right now. So why am I still running?

I excused myself in the middle of Russel's presentation and locked myself in the bathroom in a very Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls sort of way. I sat there alone in a sad, maroon stall and began to cry. Then it hit me: now I'm the weirdo sitting on a toilet. After moments that felt like hours of deliberation and internal apprehension I decided to take Russel's advice and do what I had never done before. I was going to pay attention to the present moment in a particular way, on purpose, nonjudgmentally. I secretly hoped somebody would barge into the bathroom and throw off my zen but nobody ever did. I stopped running and began to look around me. My hands were shaking and I was glad I couldn't see my stereotypical, ugly cry face in the bathroom mirror from where I sat. I was in Topeka, Kansas. My toes were perfectly painted dark red and I was wearing my favorite black scarf. My ears were ringing from Russel's low grade voice immodulation. My stomach was tied in a knot and I started to feel lonely and afraid, just like I did when I was a girl. I wished my brother Joe was there. I felt extraordinarily uncomfortable as if I was about to unravel irreconcilably. I was angry. I deserved a safe home to grow up in. I missed my dad. My skin was cold. I was never going to be a good therapist. Do I make Mike happy? My racing thoughts about myself in the present moment were so ugly, so untamed, so desperate. No wonder I hated it here. I took my scarf off and buried my face in it. I thought to myself, "This is what I get for taking Russel's advice. I did this to myself." As I stood up to pull myself together and splash some water on my face I noticed my hands as I placed them under the faucet. I was always reaching for something. As I looked in the mirror and reflected on the presentation and my strange bathroom catharsis a message came to my mind:

"The Lord is not interested in my perfection. He doesn't care about my degrees or my grammar or my ability to respond like a robot to the stressors of this life. To be "unfinished" before Him is the very definition of intimacy and trust and care. Stop reaching. The Lord is extending His hand right here, right now. He is reaching for you. Stop running away from it. You are broken. You are desperate. You are loved."

I slowly walked back to class but it felt more like floating. I could hear Russel's voice in the hallway long before I reentered the classroom. He was screaming/saying, "WABI-SABI. WABI-SABI." His typical, erratic behavior initially served as a harsh reintegration back into reality. As he went on to explain wabi-sabi my mouth fell open. Simply put, wabi-sabi emphasizes finding beauty in imperfection and is part of the practice of being mindfully present in the moment. Wabi-sabi is exactly what just happened to me down the hall in that sad, maroon stall! I was present in the moment and embraced the imperfection. For the first time in my life I understood what God was doing with me in the moment and I never wanted to leave.

I wish this is where the story ended and that I could report a happily ever after in the present moment with God as long as we both shall live, amen... but I can't. My mind daily blasts off into the future and if I don't intentionally reel myself back in by practicing mindfulness and Morita Therapy techniques I will spend more time thinking about my life 5 years from now and all it will take to get me there rather than enjoy the present moment. It's scary to let myself focus on who I really am in the present, but I know that God sees my imperfection and loves me even more because of it. Being undone before my Heavenly Father, family, and friends is what will lead me into the "successful" and "effective" life I spoke about in my previous post. It's easy trying to "get there," but it takes courage "being here." I am perfectly imperfect and I can't wait to share it.

Thanks, Russel.

Wabi-sabi.

Cliff Diving

I planned to start blogging again after I finish grad school this May. In typical Jeri fashion, I'm working ahead to finish starting early. You read that correctly; I am finishing starting early. In the wise words of my soul sister Leslie Knope, "If you're not going to finish something three months early then don't accept the job."

I tracked my last blog post back to three days before I started my master's program. I have spent the past two years trapped inside a busy mind that has had more to say than ever, spending all of my time reading textbooks written by men with impressive beards and tweed coats and writing thousands of pages of material that will earn me a piece of paper stating that I am qualified to be a therapist. The bittersweet part of preparing yourself to work with other people's mental health is the blunt realization that you must first be aware of your own. The awareness of self is basically Counseling 101. Before I could study other people, first I had to study myself, and so it all began. Two years ago I was comfortable: stuck in all things familiar and methodical, but comfortable. I was and still am the epitome of an organizer/planner. I calculated every move before I made it and there wasn't one shelf in my apartment undusted. I knew what each day would look like and never had to worry about missing car keys, being out of milk, or any other inconvenient phenomena that comes along with an unkempt lifestyle. Little did I know I was living in a self-induced prison, albeit an immaculate prison much like Magneto's in X-Men, convincing myself and everybody around me that I was a successful, effective person. But I wasn't. I had quarantined myself through intensive planning and structure from all experiences that would cultivate a life worthy of the adjectives successful and effective.

I ignored the frequent longings I had for adventure and the daunting loneliness that settled on my heart each night. After all, my life was fantastic. I was married to a man inconceivably greater than anything I could imagine and I was blessed with the opportunity to pursue the only career I have ever been passionate about. What could be wrong? It wasn't long before my lack of self-actualization began scratching at the door of my soul and coping with it via academic achievement and washing the dishes only seemed to exacerbate the restless sensation. The scratching became louder and more persistent and eventually the fear of staying the way I was outgrew the fear of changing my ways. A God-ordained journey was set in motion and I haven't looked back. I haven't wanted to.

I am currently right in the middle of what I believe to be the change process that will result in me experiencing life the way it was meant to be experienced: jumping in puddles of mud, getting dirty, and enjoying it. I want to run out of milk. I want to lose my car keys. Dead in the center it is too late to turn back and I still have a long way to go. God continues to thrust me forward into situations beyond my control, forcing me to face my lifelong fears and encouraging me in all sorts of ways not to cope with it like I used to by tidying up and pretending. I don't want to quarantine myself anymore. I was lonely and miserable. I am 51% voluntarily stepping and 49% being violently pushed into a new phase of bravery and authenticity that the Lord is going to use to show me who I really am and what I am made of so that I can help show others who they really are and what they are made of.

Holley Gerth has inspired me to "be courageous and write in a way that scares me a little." I hope to document my journey and fill this blog with honest stories and fearless confessions about this bright, young thing that is my insuppressible life.

Join me!