I'm Abraham De Lacy Guiseppe Casey Thomas O'Malley, O'Malley the alley Cat

I've got that wanderlust. Yes, 'wanderlust is a real word and not one of the many that I make up for these blog posts. You can look it up, but I'll save you the trouble: it means to have a very strong or irresistible impulse to travel and everyone has it pumping through them.
Not just that wanderlust of wanting to move from one geographical location to another. The word can mean so much more. Maybe your wanderlust manifests itself in the form of time - you wish you could only be 15 years younger of that you children would grow up faster. You might be lusting for your career to be further, your schooling to be done, or your hair to grow - anything! You want to be somewhere/something/someone else. In the words of every mother talking to their three year old child, "Why can't you just stand still?"
Why can't we?
Why do our proverbial feet itch so that we must be constantly planning our next move up and out? Thousands of outside influences entreat us to stop and smell the roses or enjoy the day. We, ourselves, give that advice to all others around us raving though life, but never set the example by being the one to slow down first.
But isn't that what makes life wonderful? It's that ongoing anticipation of the sun coming out tomorrow after all, tomorrow is supposed to be another day? Wanting to wander for better isn't haste it's hope. It's the built in human right to dream for something more out of life. It's how we let go of our disappointments from today.
Lust on my friends. Lust for that better job, a day when you're out of debt, or when that moving truck comes and sweeps you out of life known as today and brings you home to tomorrow. I am a wanderluster. And I'm proud to live so.

To Judge the Judging

Every week or so I crack open the opinion potion of the local paper. Then I laugh. I'm not laughing so much at the authors or what they've chosen to write about, but more so of the inevitable back-lash of all the comments people readily give in return
For example: a couple weeks ago a columnist wrote about how they hated all forms of PDA and the week after the most passionate pro-PDA advocates had all come out of the wood work to write about their apparent outrage over the article. The week then after, another rush of letters came in with people arguing the original point of being anti-PDA. And so the cycle kept turning publication after publication until another issued article was printed and a new cycle began. The biggest twinge of amusement comes from the fact that almost all these letters are judging the other writers' words and telling them not to be so judgmental. Why haven't they ever found the irony in this circle of condemned men and women?
I'm not saying that we should stop judging, judgments can be a good and beneficial part of our lives. When I'm looking for a parking spot I'm going to judge the cars I'll park next too and usually pick the new-mint-condition one over the car with scratches all over their doors. Or I'll judge whether or not to buy fruit from a vender depending how clean everything is. Judgments are necessary.
Maybe we just need to add more 'benefit of the doubt's in our lives. My experience in life is this: there are always exceptions to things we dislike. Or in other words, nobody hates everything. I could say that I hate bees because their stinging hurts, but I like the honey they produce and the flowers they help pollinate. I could go on and on about how I despise people who wear socks with sandals, but what if a person was a burn victim and had to wear the protective socks; then I would have to make an exception there as well.
The down side of these articles is that they are not conversations and if they were the two debating parties might be able to agree on some middle ground. I love holding hands with my Ben in public, but I didn't appreciate when I was sitting in church and the couple in front of me was literally making out, tongues and all, for 22 minutes. (I timed them)
We should all take a breath when hearing someone's opinion and then actively look for what we do and do not agree with in their statements. There is always a little of both in every opinion.

From Bad, to Worse, to Mortifying

Break-ups are never easy and the longer you're together the worse the end becomes. When I broke up with Justin, for the fifth time, I was more then finished with him. I never wanted to see him again. Not so much in an 'I hate you' sort of way, but more of an 'I don't like to dwell on past mistakes.' Lucky for me the day after the final separation I left for 18 months on a mission for the LDS church and blissfully never saw him again.

Until two years later when I moved next door to him.

Yes I, Rachel Darling, managed to move into the very same apartment building as my ex-boyfriend and his new wife. To make matters worse, living in such a close proximity also meant that we would be going to the same congregation every Sunday.

Protocol and boundaries needed to be set up immediately. Without ever once saying a word to each other we agreed that a sustained silence and never acknowledging one another's existence was best course of action. And we never did cross paths again.

Until nine months later when I accidently flashed him and his wife.

It was an especially breezy day and I had recently purchased a bright pink skirt that is, shall we say, flowy? I knew the wind was howling, but the divine lust of wearing a new article of clothing to church overruled any shred of common sense. Yes, fashion over function will win every time. I devised a plan to just hold down the tufts of fabric while I was outside. The walk into church was cleared with no difficulty. It was the treacherous exit from the building when the incident occurred.

My Ben, seeing the hustle I made to get into the building earlier, went out and moved our car closer to the church door. As I stepped out in the parking lot I marched past my thoughtful man and into the parking lot filled with similar silver compacts. I quickly realized I'd walked to the wrong car, but didn't realize that it was Justin's car, at least not until I turned around and saw him and his wife walking up behind me.

You know those gears in your head that turn ever so slowly; where you see someone and one gear starts to click "You know them." click click click "You're at church so that must be where you know them from." click click click click "You should smile and explain that you're walked to the wrong car".

I did. Jovially I said, "I went to the wrong car! Haha". Mid sentence everything clicked and the gears seem to shout, "STOP Talking STOP Talking!" But it was too late; I had already broken our rule of silence. I never felt so embarrassed.

Enter then a stiff breeze from the east, my skirt up to the heavens, and my blushing levels rising. Now that was real embarrassment. I stood there; in all my granny panty glory. As the moment with the couple starring me down seemed frozen like an old western the gears in my head were the only things that moved. They told me to run away and run fast. But I didn't.

I knew that if I did shrink away it would be like giving them a part of my dignity. I decided on the opposite and stood there and laughed. I started walking towards them again (the only path I had to get back to the parked Ben) and assumed Just would start laughing with me. They didn't. And that's ok. They chose to sneer at me instead. A part of me felt sad for them as we finally passed by one another. They could've at least cracked a smile.

I learned that day that laughter is the best medicine. It works especially well for bruised egos.