Masks and Steel

Here’s a thought. If you were in a pickle, like a big sliced dill pickle not just a tiny hamburger kind of pickle, whom would you call? If you need advice from someone where do you receive it? Now to some the obvious answer may be your parents or relatives, but how many of us have someone we know we can count on when things get rough? You see for the most part we all have acquaintances in our lives which whom we call friends but if this friend only shows up for you when it’s convenient on their watch, can you really call them a friend?

I read somewhere that you use steel to sharpen steel just as one friend should sharpen another. When I use that phrase and apply it to my friendships, I realize only a handful of them would be relevant to that quote. The others would be more like a piece of lumber. Steel and lumber do not run around together. It is not that I would likely want to see that pile of lumber on the wrong end of a match, but when I look at the big picture in life their purpose in mine is limited. It is not necessarily that these people are bad people, because all of us could potentially be somebody else’s lumber, but if you call yourself a friend you should not change the definition to fit your own.

I think a big problem in friendships is that we all try so hard to impress others around us that we put masks on to accomplish this task. I know I used to have a closet full myself but I did some house cleaning and got rid of most of them as I finally became comfortable with me. The problem with masks is you become somebody you’re not, and so these so called friends become friends with your mask instead of the you that’s underneath.

Show people you, not the you they want, but the you that you want. I just threw out a lot of you’s, wow that may have been a bit confusing. Basically all I’m saying is, we all have a story, and every person you meet wants to tell you their story. The reason we don’t though is because we want to tell real people what we are all about. We want to tell people that we know actually care. No person in a mask would care what you would have to say. So we keep reserved, and go on living how we think they would want us to. Masks are for Halloween and lumber sits in a lumberyard. Take off the mask and get the sharpeners ready. Friends are a valuable thing.

Always Moving (Column 3)

She gives the Energizer Bunny a run for his money and challenges most birds with her free spirit on how high they can fly. With batteries that only require minimum charge time you will see my friend Melissa always moving. Whether she is running by the beach or pacing in the kitchen while eating her favorite snack, her feet cannot seem to quit going. It’s almost like the stop/go switch programmed in her brain is permanently stuck on go, because the only time she stops is if she is sitting at a red light.

Ever since I’ve known her, Melissa’s idea of relaxing was doing something active. If there was a hint of daylight outside you’d better be making use of it. Her time here at Kearney was spent playing on the women’s basketball and softball teams, and yes she even participated in a college golf tournament when the team needed one extra girl. So as a three-sport athlete, calling her well rounded doesn’t even give her justice. As a former teammate I’d never seen anyone work so hard at something in my life. Moving, moving, moving meant coming in the gym at 12 am to work on her game or running some extra sprints just for the fun of it.

After college days she decided she would keep her moving streak going and just go ahead and move right on over to Costa Rica. With a journalism major, she landed a job there with a newspaper where she found out fast that sitting at a desk was torture. While living there her and her quick feet trained with marathon runners which of course made things at the office not seem quite so bad. Her stay there was short however as she knew her and that desk would not be able to get along. So two months later she arrived back in Nebraska wondering where her and her feet would go next.

Then personal training jumped in the picture with an unexpected leap. Well, what better way to keep on moving then to teach people how? So going back to grad school and being a trainer was the next step on her busy road to success. After a semester of kickboxing, boot camp, abs, water aerobics, and some of those nasty anatomy and exercise science classes, Melissa decided she would up and move elsewhere with her personal training experience.

These days you will find her on the sunny beaches of San Diego, still moving. While most people think of the beach as a place to go and relax and catch some rays, Melissa thinks of running, playing football or sand volleyball, or maybe even doing a handstand or two. Her newest workout/hobby involves a ten foot board. You guessed it, surfing. This girl was meant to live where there’s water. Skiing, her old love is something of the past as she now flies through the air on a wakeboard and balances herself on the waves amongst the rest of San Diego’s surfing citizens.

Her day begins as the alarm wakes her at 4:30 every morning to train her first client. After a few hours of training in the morning she has a tiny break, where the couch rarely gets to see her bottom, as she would rather go get in a workout or maybe grab her board and hit the beach running. Her afternoons are filled with fidgety gestures as she sits impatiently in class waiting for the professor to tell her to move on with her day. Her afternoons are always filled with activities that vary from day to day but one’s that always keep her and her feet on the go. Oh and her definition of a nap? Ten minutes long.

A Response to Alex's Post on Dogs

Alright the whole idea that having a dog is as pointless as taming a giant squirrel is something I disagree with. Some people do not like dogs because they slobber and others because they are afraid of what could potentially happen if their chompers met his or her skin unexpectedly. On the other hand to have a dog for some may be the difference maker in someone's life. It may help fill that empty void that someone has been missing. What person that you know of is so happy to see you when you get home that they greet you at your car door every day wagging their tail in joyful eagerness just waiting for you to step out of the vehicle? What person that you know of can you yell at and they won't just yell something right back at you? How many people would love to see how far you can throw a ball so they can run after it as fast as they can to then bring it right back to you? I don't know of any.

Maybe that couple walking their dog down the street have tried and tried to have children and things just weren't adding up for them. So a dog mends the void. When I think of dog's I think of family time and laughs, and days down by the creek and summers playing catch in the yard. I think of sledding and riding horses, new puppies and new tricks. I think of great books I read as a kid, like "Where the Red Fern Grows", "Shiloh", and "The Guardian". Disney movies would not be Disney without a dog. "101 Dalmatians", " " Lady and the Tramp", "The Fox and the Hound", "Oliver and Company", "Homeward Bound", "Old Yeller", "Air Bud", "Eight Below", "Shaggy Dog", "Beethoven" and "Marley and Me" are all centered around dogs. Movies like these bring a family together.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a dog lover by any means. All I'm saying is I'm no dog hater. If you can teach a creature to sit, roll over, play fetch, chase some cows or sing you a tune, I say it's more than an over sized rodent.

A Place to Call Your Own

Let the song take you there. Let it take you to a place, a place only known to you. The song takes you back, to the intrinsic place, the one that no soul can enter but your own. You listen intently, with no objectives in mind at all but to be in harmony with the world. You are at peace with yourself as you listen and keen in on every note and every lyric so cleverly pieced together. As the notes smoothly flow up and down like the breeze just propelled them into place, you place yourself somewhere else. You smell those smells you had once forgotten and remember the exact feeling that was bursting from your body. The feeling you swore a person could only feel once in their lifetime. Your chest feels as if something inside must burst immediately through the wall it encloses. A smile crosses your face as you remember the exact memory. You stick yourself back in time and watch the re-run of the cherished moment play word for word, action for action, wondering if maybe you can just stay there a bit longer.
Music does this to some. If you are lucky enough to hear its power it is something that penetrates right to the bone. It is something I breathe in with refreshment and exhale with satisfaction. Music takes me there. To that place no one else can touch but me. What better thing to have than a place to call your very own in this chaotic world?

A Different Way to Look at Fat

The term "losing weight" has always fascinated me. I've always wondered exactly how the whole process works. My weight seems to fluctuate a lot during the year and it is something I really won't ever understand. By fluctuating, I mean that in the summer I watch what I eat more because, duh, it's swimsuit season. Then in the fall, basketball workouts start up and I think I can eat more. So I do. But as the wintery hibernating season begins, so do the curves in my hips and thighs. But I think to myself "Megan, you are working out for at least two hours a day, you can eat whatever you want." Well my thinking on this idea is in fact wrong, and it shows. Maybe not to everyone around me but I can start to tell when I've worn sweats for two weeks and suddenly I slip on a pair of jeans, that I don't quite just "slip" into anymore. It's a bit depressing. I've never been a girl though that is super concerned with my weight so stepping on the scale was not a big issue for me. I am what I am.

Last night though, I was talking to my friend about losing weight. We were just discussing the whole process and the best ways to go about it and some crazy thoughts started flowing. It is the strangest thing to me that we lose weight while we are sleeping. How can a couple pounds disappear from your body while you lay there in dormant mode? Where do they go? I was letting my mind wonder a bit and began to imagine our "pounds" just being thrown under the bed at night. The Fat Guys in our body all have a conference every night. I imagine it to be like the show "Survivor." Which pound of fat will last the longest? So every night they have to vote which pound will leave the group. Then while our bodies are working out and we are trying so hard to lose those extra pounds, the "pounds" themselves are performing tasks to try and stay in the group. That's why it's so hard to lose weight you see. Our body is actually working against us and we don't even know it. Well my mind is going to have a little reality show going on simultaneously. Yes, my mind is going to run the show "Punked". I am going to play tricks on the Fat Guys on Survivor and they won't even know it. Just when they think they are hanging on for good, my Ashton will come in and laugh obnoxiously as they are told "Dude, you just got Punked" Bye Bye.

Open Mind

You talk to me with open eyes….but your mind remains tightly sealed
If you could only grasp…what this scary world has revealed
You might understand….why I do the things I do
But instead you find it quite alright….to only see your words as true

What you don’t understand….is that we come from different worlds
So that can’t mean my foot is too big….if my shoe doesn’t fit yours
Just slip it on and take a walk…you’ll end up in a different place
And when you return…I dare you to tell me I’m wrong to my face

I’ll walk a mile in yours…even if it brings a blister to my skin
At least that way…I’ll know where you have been

Anyone can look at life with open eyes…but it takes a free person to look with an open mind

Don’t get comfortable being chained to your thoughts...it is in this mistake that you will find yourself only able to dream the life you sought

What's the Big deal?

Why is it that human’s care so much about what people think of them? I think they are one of the only creature’s God created that carry this ridiculous trait. You don’t see a deer stop and look at itself in a pond and check out to see if its butt looks too big in the reflection. And you don’t see squirrels only gathering the best looking nuts to try and impress their neighbor…they think “For crying out loud, a nut’s a nut!” Dogs sure don’t think twice when they gain a few extra pounds. Why should we care then? Why do we waste hours of our lives getting ready and prepped to go out? Or why do we care so much that our GPA’s have to stay high or we won’t succeed in life? After all it’s just a number, and on judgment day God will not ask you “Now child, was your GPA over a 3.5? I’m sorry I can’t let you into heaven.” Why is it that if we mess up in life we are more worried about what someone will think of our mistake than just learning from it on our own? I mean the only one that we should really be trying to impress is the one who put us here right? We get so caught up in our own little worlds we don’t realize how ridiculous and complicated we are making our lives. I’m not saying we should just throw out the body wash and makeup and be smelly bums the rest of our lives but really. As long as your heart is in the right place everything else will just fall into place right with it. It’s not about what cool things you have or how much money you can earn, it’s about what kind of person you are. We can’t take our possessions with us so why do we get so attached to them? I am as guilty as the next person on every accusation, although I can say I have never really cared as much about what people think of me. I didn’t think twice when I was in seventh grade and I was the only junior high kid who signed up for the high school lip sync contest. Sure I was nervous out there dancing and singing in front of a bunch of seniors but heck, for just being me, my group got a standing ovation. I think I respect people a lot more when they can just go out and do and say what they believe in and not second guess themselves because of someone else’s opinion. Opinions can just drag people down to where they are not even living their own lives, just living to impress people. If we could just learn that there are more important things out there than what kind of car we drive and if our hair looks just right we could save a lot less time and transfer that wasted energy to something more useful. After all, we are all equal in the Big Man’s eyes so we should all be equal here on earth, no matter what number pops up on your scale when you step on it, or what your monthly paycheck reads.

Dexter (Column 2)

My brother has danced on that line of death all his life. It can be said that our whole family has bad luck, as the flight for life has been to our house twice, but none of us suffered the extremities of this unluckiness at such a young age. It seemed throughout all his childhood, my brother Dexter could have easily earned himself the nickname Stitch, for all the hospital runs that boy went on.
I guess we should have known when the kid was born through emergency C-section, that maybe his life was going to have everyone else sweating bullets. After barely surviving that, he has managed to have stitches in his lip, not once but twice. Both times were when his lip met the end of a metal bar. He has split open his forehead running into the corner of a shelf, been kicked in the stomach and the head by a horse. The second time however the horse managed to split his ear in half with its powerful hoof. Thirteen stitches later my brother still had an ear on his head, thank goodness.
Dexter, now sixteen, is a guy who could be described best as fearless. At times dad may exchange the word fearless for stupid, as we watch holding our breath, while my brother hot rods around the farm on his dirt bike. You would think after suffering the worst of a scull fracture the boy would settle down a bit, but with Dex it’s go fast or don’t go at all.
He was eight years old when the scariest of all the scares happened. Our family was having our yearly branding. This is an exciting time for everyone, as everyone invites friends out to ride horses and brand about 300 calves all afternoon, to then feast like kings afterward. My brother and his friend slipped away from the excitement however and jumped on the four-wheeler to go for a spin. My brother made the mistake of letting his friend drive which was probably not a good idea for someone who has no experience with a four-wheeler. I need not mention it is probably not a good idea for an eight year old to drive period. But farm kids are thrown on moving objects at a very young age regardless.
Then it happened. Somehow the four-wheeler had managed to flip and my brother was trapped under the heavy machine while his friend stood helplessly in horror. Lucky for Dexter a couple of high school boys were driving by and were able to lift the now upside down four-wheeler off of him. What they found though was a young boy covered in blood and unconscious. He had cracked his skull completely around the top of his head.
No parent or sibling for that matter wants to hear news like that. After a couple weeks in the hospital he was finally released to go home but was to be under watch at all times. The right side of his face didn’t work properly. That cute little smile was now crooked as the nerves were damaged during the accident. His eyes couldn’t focus either, as one eye would look at you while the other was looking off to the side. We were told he could never play sports and would have to wear a helmet at all times if he were to ride a bike.
Well the kid has taken tremendous leaps since then. Eight years later he is now leading tackler on his football team and just recently made it to state in wrestling. You would look at him today and not be able to tell at all that the nerves in his face were once damaged. He’s no quitter. Even though he has us all holding our breaths and dropping our jaws at times, he keeps things exciting to say the least.