Saturday, April 12, 2014

Let's Start at the Very Beginning, A Very Good Place to... Snot.

Happy Saturday beautiful people! It's time for the official first post. Are you ready?

Let us begin with the very first awkward moment of my memory. If I wanted to go really far back, I guess I could start with that time in kindergarten I knocked over the puppet show stand on top of this girl named Briana, sending her to the floor. But I think that was just straight out funny. I actually don't recall feeling embarrassed.

So, skip to third grade because that's the next one I can think of. It was my first day at a new school. My family had moved a town over, which is scary enough for an 8-year-old that has lived in the same place since the world was ever so blessed with her presence (I'm joking). I remember my mom walking me into my new class, with twenty new faces that were staring at me as if a giraffe had walked into the room (which could be taken literally... I was always tall for my age). In addition to this, my teacher was not the warmest and fuzziest teddy bear. Actually she scared me. She scared me a lot. Especially when she lowered her eyebrows. I don't even remember her smiling when she introduced me as I clung to my mom like a freaking koala bear. I instantly missed my teacher from the other school, who could be compared to Miss Honey from Matilda.

Once my mom peeled me off of her leg, she went off for work and I was left to fend for myself in a new world of foreign creatures. My teacher led me to my new desk, which I already hated because my best friend Errin was not in the seat next to me. She wasn't even in the same building. What was this life?

It was the beginning of an incredibly awkward one; I can tell you that much.

I was sitting in my desk, not making eye contact with anyone. No one had even said hello to me yet. As I looked at the clock, pondering what my other class was doing at the time and wishing I were with them, I felt something coming on. Oh no. Not a sneeze.

Yes, a sneeze. And not just a cute little "a-choo!" that would break the tension. This is the sneeze that rocked the world. I leaned back to brace it, so far as if the grossest 3rd-grade boy was trying to kiss me, and shot forward like a crash-test dummy as it came out. And it wasn't just a sneeze that erupted from my little self. It was every booger in my being as well. I'm not even kidding. This was the snottiest sneeze I've ever experienced, and it was all over my new desk. And the worst part is, I'd been in the room for about 2.5 minutes.

Do you think I knew where the tissues were?

So here I am, the new girl, attached to my desk by the line of snot protruding from my right nostril, scanning the room from left to right hoping to come across a Kleenex. It was probably a perfect freeze frame for one of those "wanna get away?" commercials. Unfortunately, Southwest Airlines wasn't there for me. Luckily, somebody was. Before I could find the tissues myself, the precious girl sitting next to me quickly ran up, grabbed the box of them, and returned them to my desk. I ever so quickly cleaned up the mess my sneeze had made, hoping that a minimum amount of my new classmates had witnessed the whole event. I thanked my new friend for saving me, and she asked if I wanted to eat lunch with her, a question I got from three more people before it was time to eat my sandwich. It could of been out of pity that all the girls wanted to eat lunch with Molly McSneezy-Sneeze, but at that point I didn't really care. If others are willing to brush off your embarrassing moment, you might as well do it too. And it actually ended up being a pretty good day for the new girl.

Isn't it nice when others help clean up your mess, not because they have to but because they don't want to see you do it alone? Proverbs 17:17 reads, "A friend loves at all times." All times meaning yes, even when you have boogers all over you. Even when you're falling apart and have no clue what to do with yourself. I know I'm blessed enough to have more than a handful friends who will always come running with the Kleenex, and if they're reading this, hey friends, thanks for the times you've provided the tissues, literally and figuratively. If you have friends like these, cherish them and don't let them go.


So there it is, lesson of the day: keep the friends that will always be there to help clean up your boogers. To my own, thank you very much for every time I've said "I'm getting snot on your shirt" only to hear "It's okay!"

And as promised, I bring you the very first song of the day from one of my favorite artists who I am lucky enough to have met. If you ask me, this is a really great song to listen to while cleaning or night driving. Take it away, sir.

"Signs of Life" - Andrew Belle





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