Sandy did not play nice...

To my dear friends and family back home: I have not been swept out to sea or blown off the map. But, can I just say that I really appreciate Spokane's mild climate after today?  

Winds started to pick up yesterday, but REALLY picked up today.  The wind was literally shaking the entire house throughout most of the day. We lost power...for 5 minutes (if that). Pretty exciting really...and nothing more than that here in Boston.  Lots of coastal flooding in other places and New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and even Southern Mass need a lot of prayer because their clean-up is going to be a lot more difficult than ours.  I'm sure news coverage has been extensive everywhere in the country, but being on the East Coast, I have seen a lot of images of people that are really going to meet some tough challenges up ahead after this storm. So keep those prayers coming!  

One thought I had during all of this is how much more prepared they were here than they were for Hurricane Katrina.  I guess you can take a political/racial spin with that, or you can chalk it up to a lot of lessons learned following that particular event.  Whatever the case, the response was really good here in Massachusetts and I think most states would agree that their response was good too!

Lots of people out here also like to downplay how bad storms are...  Coming from a location that barely ever has anything worse than a couple feet of snow or an occasional dust storm, this was bad.  Don't let these crazy East Coasters tell you otherwise. 

As for Boston University, they canceled classes today and are canceling any classes that are scheduled  before 11:00 AM tomorrow since transportation is still trying to get up and running again!  This is good for me because I have an 8:00 AM class, and I didn't feel like getting up for it!  I like to think I'm a responsible and motivated graduate student, but if I can have class canceled for any reason at all, I will gladly take it.  :)

Thanks to those that prayed for our safety here.  I'm loving my time here in Boston...natural disasters and all!

All Hallows Eve

Can I just say I have a thing for Halloween?

As I find myself this year, in the land of Halloween...here are my thoughts.

1) I was sick on Halloween last year....and couldn't dress up.  This year I am without a costume, and don't really have plans to get one.  I am turning into an old person...its official. And I'm oddly ok with it, because Halloween ends up costing a lot of money and is kind of exhausting.  There is something so peaceful about forgoing the costumes for a night of pumpkin carving with friends instead.  But I so look forward to sharing the subway with a menagerie of scantily clad zoo animals. Oh college.

2) In light of that, I have had some really great costumes over the years.  This one is top in my books. I'd re-do this one over and over if I could.  It did make the bathroom a challenge though, and we all know how much I go to the bathroom.  Bad news bears.

3) I have two favorite Halloween movies.  Hocus Pocus and Casper.  Now when I say that I love Hocus Pocus, I tend to draw a hefty amount of judgment from my Christian friends.  Yes, my mom thought it was ok to expose me to witchcraft as a young child.  No, I never dabbled in witchcraft as a result of it...phew. Close call.  Shoot, I was way more likely to become a wizard, look how cool Harry Potter is.  Hocus Pocus and Casper are cool for two very different reasons.

A) Hocus Pocus is cool because it is set in Salem, MA...which I don't know if you know this, but I basically live there.  Half hour away...close enough.  It is also cool because the main character's name is Dani.  She was the first girl I ever experienced as having my name.....and turns out she isn't even real.  Disappointment.

B) Casper is cool because its the ultimate romance.  Girl becomes best friends with ghost. They fall in love. Ghost sacrifices for girl. Ghost gets to play Cinderella for the night.  Ghost turns into Devon Sawa....seriously, doesn't get better than that!

4) Pumpkin carving is torturous. The seeds are gross. The guts smell bad.  I'm typically within an inch of ending my life by way of tiny, jagged pumpkin knive.  It's bad news all around.  But it is so worth it when you take cute pictures of your lit up pumpkins all lined up in a row.  

5) I can't wait to be the parent that checks every piece of her kid's Halloween candy to make sure no psychos have shoved razor blades in them.  I feel so bad for the people that seemed just sketchy enough that my mom internally memorized what candy they gave us so that we could throw it away later.  I remember one house we went to had this guy answer the door, and he had painted a third eye onto his forehead.  His candy definitely got tossed later that night...

6) Speaking of trick or treating....why the heck does Halloween land in the fall?  Because I never once got to wear my cute ballerina costume or princess costume without a pair of sweats or jeans underneath and my heavy winter coat over top.  Way to kill a sweet costume, you stupid weather.

7) Home Improvement Halloween episodes are a little slice of heaven.

8) Bobbing for apples is filthy.  It's like being Catholic and drinking off the same wine glass as the entire church.  UGH.

9) Tis the season for scary movies, and I want it to be over.  As much as I love a good natured scare right around Halloween time, I am NOT into having a commercial for Paranormal Activity play 3 times during every commercial break on Hulu.  That trailer haunts my dreams.

10) I was a "bum" for Halloween once.  And I'm a social worker...who has a history of working with the homeless.  I'm the worst.

11) I think I should dress Scooter up even if I have no costume plans of my own.  What do you think of this?

Anonymous

Boston is a busy spot.  It is diverse.  It is constantly moving.  I really love it.  And one aspect that I really loved upon arriving here, I must admit, was not knowing the name of every homeless person on the street.  In Spokane, after two years of working directly with a healthy percentage of the homeless on the streets there, I felt like I couldn't go anywhere without being noticed.  I wasn't anonymous anymore, and they weren't anonymous anymore.  Sometimes it was a good thing, but most of the time I just craved that anonymity again.  I wanted to be able to be in the grocery store without having a conversation with everyone that approached me.  I wanted to be able to wear that short dress out with friends and not have to answer about it on Monday when I got teased about it by someone that saw me.  But as much as I wanted my privacy back, I also desired to not know anything about their hardships anymore.  When you work with people and walk alongside people in that way, everything about you ends up changing.  Your personal politics change.  Your attitude towards your own life and your own circumstances change.  Your biases get tossed or strengthened...depending.  I found myself unable to walk past a homeless person in any context and assume that they suck as human beings...and there actually had been something comforting in that before.  Being oblivious had been great...it took the responsibility off of myself....because it was their fault...it was their problem...not mine.

Now as I arrive here...wishing for some of that obliviousness to come alongside my newfound anonymity...I realize I have no shot of ever having that again.  Homelessness continues to break my heart, and continues to be a driving force behind what I'm doing in social work. My field placement is passionate about human rights and happens to be deeply involved in issues surrounding homelessness and particularly some terrible laws that have been passed in Massachusetts in the last year.  Two of my 6 clients in my caseload are homeless or have been homeless in the last 6 months.  For all the effort I took to get away from this issue....I feel like I'm actually so swallowed up in it and it's so a part of my life, I may actually be linked to it forever.  For all those months that I wished to be here, I now wish to be home some days...I wish I knew what was happening in my guys' lives...I wish I wasn't so anonymous now.  I feel a deep sense of pain when I think of winter coming and the fact that some of our guys may not make it through and that I, in my haste to leave, probably didn't get any real closure with them.

I was riding on the Red Line up towards Harvard yesterday after work and I was standing alongside a multitude of other business people...all of us in our fancy outfits with our books open or IPods on.  I must admit...I've had enough really interesting bus/subway experiences that I tend to shut out life with a book, but I happened to be standing right alongside a guy who was not willing to be shut out.  He was clearly intoxicated and was rambling on about how his wife had died and about how we all thought we were better than him, and a multitude of other things that couldn't be deciphered over the din of the train.  I was just thinking yesterday of how long the Red line train is...and how strange it is when people happen to meet up with people they know on it.  What are the odds really that you would happen to be on the same train, let alone end up in the same car....out of the 20 odd cars on the train.  Now you can choose to just apply this to the likelihood of running into a friend...or you can apply it to the likelihood that you end up standing next to the one person on the train who actually needs some attention.  Figuring that my book could wait and that I could stand to abandon my "no eye contact rule"...I let this guy divulge his life a little bit.  And he was completely pleasant...and he was hurting really badly.  As I look back on that moment, I realize that I don't blame anyone for not paying attention to him, because he was relatively obnoxious, but I would have blamed myself if I hadn't paid attention. People looked on uncomfortably as this guy engaged me...probably thinking I was in over my head or stupid....or both.  And he said his two bits and got off at Central station and I'll probably never see him again.  He won't remember me, and I likely won't remember his face, but for two minutes he was allowed the chance to not be anonymous.

To say that my faith was strengthened while I was at the House of Charity would be a bit of a stretch.  It was really desolate.  It felt really hopeless a lot.  I felt really abandoned in a place that felt miserable some days.  But on the outside of that experience, as I look in, I find that I have a great deal more perspective, and I feel my faith growing as I process it more.  God is so present, even in the most dire circumstances.  The House of Charity is a place where God moves daily...in really big ways and in really small ways.....and it is so much easier to see from the outside in how specifically he is moving.  Along the movement front, one of my dear friends who I completed a church internship a few years ago is getting married in two weeks.  He is absolutely the most thoughtful man I have ever met...he is dedicated to God, he is passionate about people, he loves his son more than anything in this world, and now he also loves his bride-to-be in a way that is so self sacrificing and so beautiful. This man would come to the House of Charity to help with Urban Plunges for the church interns and would just melt into the environment...talking with the clients and listening to their struggles and offering a pat on the back or prayer.  He reminds me of why I am doing what I am doing.  He used to be a client at the House of Charity.  If I had been working there 6 or 7 years ago, I might have known him personally as a meth addict and thought he was a "hopeless case".  Instead, I know him as my friend and an inspiration and enough reason to keep fighting the good fight in this upward battle against homelessness.  I'm reminded when I look at him of how precious second chances are, and I'm challenged to consider my place in being a part of facilitating those second chances as I keep on with my career.



Shameless plug time.  The Poor Man's Meal is this weekend at the House of Charity.  In case you are in Spokane and want to support a worthy organization, please consider this one.  I love the House of Charity because it provides a "no strings attached" approach to serving others.  There are a lot of very selfless and loving people that work there, and I must say a big part of my heart remains there today and with the mission that they carry.  It starts at 11:30 and your ticket price is a donation...I believe its $10.00 a person.  Believe me, the meal alone is easily worth the $10.00...Tami is an amazing chef.  House of Charity runs very nearly on private donations alone, and in this rough economic time, they need all the help they can get.  Thank you for listening to my heart on all of this...love you all!

L is for the way you look at me

This past weekend I had the pleasure to attend something that was so reminiscent of foregone college days that it made my heart insanely happy.  I have gotten involved in my short time of being in Boston with a great church (Park Street...check it, it's REALLY old) and also a great on-campus group called Graduate Christian Fellowship which is the Boston University leg of Intervarsity ministries for Graduate Students.  They had their annual retreat up in New Hampshire on this beautiful "lake" (I say lake loosely coming from the Northwest where we have real lakes) and it was just a really great time.  It included all the requisite aspects of a retreat experience...time that I desperately needed to be with God, worship, a healthy amount of competition (kickball, cake decorating, board games), and time spent with people that love Jesus (this aspect is actually a little rare in Boston...the educated crowd in Boston to a large degree is also not interested in faith.)  Also requisite....the relationship panel. Now, in my Campus Crusade days, I sat through a number of relationship panels.  I went on Summer Project...which was basically a relationship panel in and of itself.  I went to a secular relationship seminar with my high school kids in Moses.  Everyone loves to talk about relationships...and I'm one of them.  But this time around, I didn't go.  I couldn't stand to sit through one more relationship panel and leave with that same old feeling of inadequacy and false hope in imaginary scenarios that I have made in my mind.

My college years were spent mentally chasing after every guy that I could.  I had serious crush after serious crush.  I had stupid crushes that I had no business having.  I watched most of my friends get married....sometimes to people I had liked. Yeah, that puts things in perspective. I can't even speak to how many minor and major heart breaks I have walked through in my college years and since college.  I have been burned...I have been strung along...I have walked down many paths in my mind and then been greeted with nothing.

But this isn't a "woah is me" blog....because I've had plenty of those.  This is meant to be an honest blog, because sometimes all the other voices drown out the single kids and we don't really have an opportunity to be honest.  And this is me being honest.

I would certainly be lying if I said that I don't have moments sitting at home alone at night studying or watching TV that I wish there were someone next to me other than my cat......who, granted, is very faithful...but not very interactive.  I would be lying also if I said I haven't cried some while considering this whole relationship thing after this weekend, because it is personal.  Being single is a personal thing.  Every person experiences it differently and to a different degree.  It hurts some people more than others.  I would say in college it really hurt me....it was a devastating characteristic of who Dani Haller was.  I struggled with figuring out what I was doing wrong and why it was so hard for me and why just about everyone else had succeeded in finding that perfect guy or girl.  I equated being single to failure....

Last Fall, I failed one more time.  I failed to snag that one last guy.  The one that I put an inordinate amount of hope in.  The one that I look back on and was so poorly suited to my personality that we never could have made it anyways.  And with that failure I gave up.  I quit trying, and blessedly....it has been a year that has allowed me a great sense of freedom.  God puts people in our lives for a reason, and that guy was not put in my life to be a viable dating option.  But did I learn from it?  Oh yes, I did.

I think that last guy really broke me up inside because it was a reiteration of the fact that you can't force someone to feel for you in a way that they don't on their own.  You can think someone is the most fantastic person in the whole world, but if they don't return those exact emotions back at you, it isn't going to happen.  And why would you want it to?  Why would you want to date someone who doesn't think you are the coolest person ever...without persuasion on your part?  That's what you are going for.  If they think you are just alright...that kind of stinks.  You know?  And it kind of stinks to assume that you should be able or should have to persuade them to think otherwise anyways.  I wonder what's wrong with acknowledging that they are still an incredibly person while also acknowledging that they are an incredible person that you shouldn't date.

The more I think about singleness, especially in the church, I realize that its counter-cultural to be semi-ok with being single.  Not just getting by while you are single, but actually thriving in that category of life.  I guess something I have considered this year is whether I am living well as a single person, because if I'm not living well as a single person, what do I expect that being a dating person will be like?  Mix another person's "junk" (I mean that in a figurative sense, not a literal one) in with my "junk", and think that we will come out the other end less junky than when we started?  Those problems don't get better because you add another person in the mix.  What am I doing in my life to work on the things that I actually believe God is calling me to work on before I get into a relationship.  I feel like we all have an inkling of what those things are. Now, I know God blesses us with relationships when we are still a MAJOR work in progress...but what about when you know that he is challenging you to work on something and you are waiting it out because you feel like you'll be able to work on it better when you are in a relationship.  Like having another person there for support will motivate you?  Nah...give me a break.  If you feel like God is asking you to move, you move...you don't wait for someone to move with you.  Maybe you are supposed to be totally done with the moving before that person gets there....even if its hard work and you hated doing it alone.

I think that single women in their mid 20s start to feel a sense of desperation.  I have felt that...I can relate.  That feeling that by the time you actually feel ready to date seriously, there won't be anyone left to date.  That feeling that if you are ready, none of the guys you are ready to date are ready to date you.  Or will ever be ready to date you?  The book "He's Just Not That Into You" really hurt my feelings when I first read it, because it was written about me....he was never that into me.  Ever. None of them.  Does that hurt my feelings now?  Somewhat, but its also OK  because where would my life be if "he" (any of the "hes") actually had been into me?

I can tell you one thing...I wouldn't be pursuing my Masters degree to go into a field that I feel I can make a difference in.  I would be in Spokane, WA....or the middle of nowhere WA....doing something mediocre.  Instead I'm pursuing what I feel God has led me to, and undoubtedly what God was leading me to in place of that all powerful relationship idol that I was always grasping for.  I wouldn't be in Boston.  I wouldn't be comfortable with myself and what I stand for.  So much of who I am as a person has been formed in the last 5 years.  And so much of that person was defined by being single...because being single gave me the time and space and freedom to do the defining.

I guess that I hope that this is an encouragement to someone.  I'm not in any way saying that I have this single thing down...did I mention tears earlier?  There is still a real pain in being single at 26 years old while most of my friends are married.  But there is so much joy in every other capacity of life that it outweighs that pain.  And it doesn't mean that I don't know a handful of Mr. Amazing s,  even right now in my life....but a step back and a heaping of perspective says that Mr. Totally Amazing will figure it out on his own and outshine any of these guys that I may perceive to be the "only people on the radar".  And it doesn't make you a loser to wish one of those guys would turn out to be that Mr. Totally Amazing.  I still have fatty crushes, but I also try to maintain some perspective on what the impact of those crushes not liking me back would be.  If the impact falls somewhere along the line between "total devastation" and "nuclear holocaust", I am investing too much emotion.  Harmless fun is allowed and encouraged in my book, total meltdown status is not.

P.S.  I love you married people.  And I look forward to providing you all a chance to embarrass me as much as I embarrassed you at my Bachelorette party someday!  :)  I just may be 40 before that happens, so start thinking of age appropriate Bachelorette activities....