Hug Longer

Saturday I had a really great day. I hung out with new friends at a random party that I had to force myself to go to. All by myself. Which is always hard when no one is pushing you out the door or arranging to meet you at a specific time. I drove a half hour and got lost. But I made it. And was happy I went.

Then I got home and did the thing that I had JUST read earlier that day that you should never do. I checked my email before going to bed. And an old friend from Grad school had contacted me to tell me that another friend, an older friend, a closer friend, had just died.

I knew it was coming. I didn't want to think it might happen and in my heart I had decided it wasn't going to anymore. But, part of me knew it might. This friend of mine had been diagnosed with cancer right after I graduated. In 2007. I remember her being really sick then and me being scared and sending a card and emails. But then. Nothing. For years. I didn't hear anything. I didn't see updates on Facebook. And I kind of forgot about it. Until a few weeks ago. For some reason a few weeks ago I started thinking about her again. And checking her facebook. And reading her caringbridge. And I started remembering her. For some reason. So then when I found this out just a few weeks later, I should've known it was coming. But it still came out of nowhere.

And now all I want to do is see her. All I want is to get those four years back. All I want is to tell her that she is my friend and that I won't forget her. All I want to do is laugh with her. Really hard. And all I want to do is hug her.

The part that is the worst is that we stopped talking. Right before graduation. I don't remember why. I don't want to. But we did. We were really close for three semesters, then all of a sudden, we weren't. But then after she got cancer, we emailed and so I have to know that everything was amended. That we reconciled. That everything was made new again.

So I keep thinking of her. I keep thinking of that first day we met in Coms 591. I remember us both being so scared. I remember us making jokes and passing notes. I remember us bonding because we had the same nick name. Nicky and Nikki. I remember us being so tight and talking about Media and complaining about professors. But mostly laughing.

I remember some bad things too. Some stupid girl things. Some stupid grad school competition things. But I don't want to remember those. Because now is a time for romanticizing. Now isn't a time for regrets. Now isn't a time for remorse. Now is a time for remembering all the best moments. The most fun moments. The sweetest moments. The friend moments.

So now I ll think about the time she came over at the end of that last semester. And I had a party at my house for my Documentary class. Ill remember us smiling for the camera. And watching cartoons. And drinking beer.

But mostly Ill remember us laughing. And Ill remember hugging her. Being Nicky and Nikki. And being friends.

So to all my new friends and my old friends and my always friends, know that I might always hug you longer than you expect. It's because I've had so many moments like this one, when I wish that I could go back and just hug longer. 

Love you Nikki.

Love you all.

Social Conscousness

So after writing my breakup to Toms and then retracting it in a post script (so typical of an actual breakup, but I digress) I thought about something. Where do we draw the line with our social conscience?

I became vegetarian in June. Almost eight months ago. There were many different reasons for this, all of which I wont get into at this moment, but one of the reasons was World Hunger. I heard a statistic that if we took all of the grains we use to fatten up our meat then we'd have enough food to feed the world. And it just hurt me. When I later presented this idea to one of my coworkers she patronized me and told me I was VERY idealistic. That hurt too.

I know that there is a lot more to world hunger than our fat cows in America, but in my way, that's me trying to make a dent.

I have these friends who don't eat chocolate or drink coffee unless it's fair trade and that's their dent.

And then there's the money I donate and the prayers I pray and the news programs I watch.

There's my mom trying not to shop at Walmart.

And my dad buying American cars.

And my friends serving in Uganda.

And we're all trying to chip away at these massive problems we have in this world like poverty and hunger and slavery.

So I wonder where is the line? Not as in when is enough enough, but when is too little too little? When is just a small step just right? And when is just a small step just not good enough?

One day I was walking out of a coffee shop and these two little girls were selling cookies and lemonade for fifty cents. When I saw them I thought, "How cute" and was surprised to see this in the middle of the city. So I obliged and bought two cookies.

I didn't think about whether I could get the cookies cheaper somewhere else. I didn't wonder if the girls used fair trade chocolate and tell them I couldn't support them if they didn't. Nope. I just bought them. Because here were two little girls with immediate need asking for my help.

And my heart was completely in it.

I didn't actually eat them because I'm a germ a phobe, but I bought them because I wanted to support these girls.

I have no idea where Girl Scout cookies are made. I have no idea if their ingredients are fair trade, but I'm guessing they aren't. But I always buy those little yummy things. Because it involves helping some girl get a little closer to her dream. Even if her dream is just to sell the most cookies.

So do I think Toms are over-priced. Yes. Maybe they cost as much as they do because it's fair labor. Maybe it's to support the lavish lifestyle of it's staff members. I don't know. Were the Airwalks cheaper. Yes. Is it because they were made by forced labor? I hope not.

But I do know one thing. I bought those shoes because I wanted to have a pair of shoes but also because I wanted to give a pair to a child. I don't have a lot of money. At all. But I do have enough to buy myself a cheap pair of shoes. I have enough to eat. I have enough to pay my bills. I have enough to be sitting here writing this blog. And I have enough to give some of it away to someone who has even less money than I do.

I don't have enough to spend lavishly and to me buying shoes that cost more than $20.00 for myself is a lavish expense. But I do have enough. So when I can, I will use it to help those whom I can, and try not to feel guilty about all the people who I could also be helping. Instead I'll focus on where my heart is when I'm helping these people. And try not to focus on what I'm getting out of it.

Love.

On second thought...

Dear Toms,
I don't know if I can break up with you just yet. I'm going to have to research this new guy first! Maybe your high cost really does reflect the cost and labor that goes into making your shoes. Perhaps you have very ethical labor practices and pay your workers at a high wage. Perhaps it's like buying fair trade and the things that are cheaper were made unfairly.

I just can't leave you yet Toms.

Love.

Dear Toms

Dear Toms,

I have a confession to make...I'm officially cheating on you. There I've said it.
While your company's one for one policy is wonderful and your shoes are adorable, they are WAY TOO OVER PRICED!

I own one pair of your shoes. And I love them, I really do. But your shoes were starting to take over my mind and I just cannot have that. Neither can my pocket book.

I really believe in your cause. I believe that we should all be socially responsible. I love the fact that you donate a pair of your shoes to a child in need. And this is what drew me to your shoes in the first place, because I have to be honest, the first few times I saw them on my hipster Christian friends I thought they were hideous and made their feet look HUMONGOUS!

But alas, I succumbed to the socially-aware, "charitable," philanthropic idealism behind this fashion statement and I went out and bought myself a pair.

I rocked those shoes all summer. I wore them with jeans, shorts, leggings, and even a few skirts. I loved them and I loved you. But as time went on, I started feeling...gross. I started feeling like if I was going to "donate" something to a child I should just do that and not get a pair of $50 shoes in return. So I kept up with my actual giving to organizations and decided to hold off on trying to be trendy in return.

Because face it Toms thats what you are-trendy. You're in style right now. You're the go-to shoes of every hipster Christian and LA fashionista. And who would have ever thought Midwest Christians  and LA socialites would have things in common. But we do. We all like a cute shoe. Especially when these shoes have a great message behind them.

While I love the fact that you were thinking of little barefoot kids in Argentina when you decided to start your company and I know that your intentions were GREAT and very very honorable, at this point my dear dear Blake your shoes are so incredibly over-priced.

I wanted your $98 wrap boots and pouted a little at Christmas when I didn't see them under the tree. I wanted your yellow wedges and tried to convince myself that it was justified to spend $70 on one pair of shoes that I would probably only wear a few times a year because somewhere a cute child was getting a tiny pair of yellow wedges herself. But I'm pretty sure she wasn't. I'm pretty sure she was getting a teeny tiny pair of basic black Toms that may have cost $2.00 to make.

So my dear dear ex boyfriend Toms, if you lower your prices to actually reflect the cost and labor of two pairs of shoes with a small profit, I will gladly come back to you. And I may even become desperate enough for a cute pair of cordoroys or some awesome new textile your creative design team comes up with in the near future.

But for now, I have to break up with you.

So, while shopping around for a pair of Dyeable shoes for my friend's wedding, I stumbled upon another Toms-esque venture. It's by Airwalks. At Payless. Yes, yes I know I have no idea who is making Airwalks. And yes, I know I don't know if the person behind them is Christian. And yes, I know they're not on a sleek website or at a trendy expensive boutique, but at my local corner Payless.

But the shoes were $30 dollars cheaper. AND I was still able to partner with World Vision and donate a pair to a cute child in need. So I say it's a win win situation. I saved about $80 (I bought two pairs...they were BOGO!) AND I was still able to donate two pairs of teeny tiny baby shoes to two cuties in South America.

The most ironic part about it all is the reaction my Toms-loving Christian friends are going to give me when they see me sporting the "copy cat" brand. I wonder if there's going to be a little girl in Argentina who is shunned by her friends for sporting her donated pair of the imposter brand.

Love.

Just Being Nice

 

There’s this thing that we all do. I do it. You probably do it too. We agree to something or suggest something or say something at all just to be nice. Oftentimes we feel like this is a great idea. That saying this thing or suggesting this thing or agreeing to this thing is a really wonderful choice of action. But then, after thinking about it or living it out, after a few minutes pass or a few days or a few weeks, we realize that what we said yes to or suggested was really not a good idea at all.

Sometimes we panic. And in that panicking we begin to doubt our choice of words. Sometimes it really was a great idea in the first place and it’s a really great thing to do, but over time we have speaker’s remorse and we no longer believe what we first believed. Other times we never really believed it at all, but instead we just wanted to be nice.

            Just being nice is never a good thing. When we do it we are hoping that in our niceness the other person will like us. We want them to look at us and think, “She is such a kind or generous or thoughtful person” and this “being nice” thing is only a means to that. That’s the only thing we hope to accomplish from it.

But, so often, it backfires. The other person takes our niceness and doesn’t realize that we’re just being nice and instead thinks that we’re doing the opposite. Being sincere. And so he or she takes the words we have said or the suggestion or the agreement and turns it into truth. When really all along we never meant for them to take those words literally.

And this always backfires.

After we realize that the other person really believes us, we realize that we actually have to follow through on what we have said. When in actuality what we have said was a lie. So we end up having to either commit to this lie or slowly back our way out of it. When you begin backing out of a lie or a commitment, the other person always ends up getting hurt. Or at the very least confused.

I think that this is the most sure-fire way of breaking off a relationship. Slowly the other person starts to realize that you really didn’t mean what you said and there goes your integrity. And then he or she starts to wonder if you ever really meant anything you’ve ever said at all. And there goes your relationship.

This always gets messy. A friend of mine wrote a status update on facebook about girls who instead of saying “No” to men who ask them out say “Maybe” when in fact they mean no. And how women should just say no in the first place. I have to agree. I’ve done this before. Said “maybe” when I meant “no.” I’ve said, “we’ll see” when I meant “no.” I’ve said, “I’ll have to see how things go” when I meant “no.” And I’ve even said, “Sure” when I really meant “no.”

I don’t know why it’s so hard for us to say no. I think it’s because we are so afraid of what people will think of us. Sometimes I really do think something is a good idea and I want to do it, but then for some reason, I just don’t end up doing it. But other times, I don’t say no because I don’t want to hurt the other person’s feelings.

But the horrible thing about this is that in saying “maybe” or “we’ll see” when I really mean “no,” I always end up hurting the other person’s feelings. Because when you hear someone say yes to something or suggest something and then they don’t follow through on it or they come up with scenarios to not follow through or they try to convince you it’s a horrible idea so that you won’t make them follow through it always ends up hurting you more than if they had just said no in the first place.

I get so annoyed when people shoot me down and say "no" before they’ve even thought about it. But then, maybe these are really the people who I should respect the most. Because it’s so much cleaner and neater and saves you so much questioning and stressing and in the end heart ache, when the person just says no to begin with.

So, let’s try to be people who mean what we say and say what we mean. Who never say “maybe” but always say an emphatic “YES” and then follow through. Or who choose to say a committed, firm, and thoughtful “No” and then allow every one else to just move on with their lives. Instead of forcing them to sit and wait in the stagnant space of an insincere maybe.

Love.