We knew it was coming...my uncle Jim has been dying for years.  Then, a few days ago, I learned he went home to be with the Lord.  It's taken a few days for it to sink in...for me to really realize that my father has lost a brother, my grandparents a son.  I barely knew him, but he was family.  I don't weep for him; I weep for those he left behind.  Please pray for my family, especially my grandparents.

Thank you.

What do you say?

What do you say when you learn that a coworker is pregnant?  If you're like me, you exclaim, "That's great!  Congratulations!"

"No, it's not great," she says.  Then the bomb drops.  "I don't know if I'm keeping it."

The other women nod solemnly.  "It's a big decision," they say.

I'm reeling in shock.  Abortion has never seemed so close, so personal .  I understand, in part, her reluctance to have a child; her situation isn't ideal right now.  She's already a single mom.  She's living with her own mother and no longer dating the father of this new baby.

If anybody still checks this old blog of mine, please pray.  Pray that she will choose life for the baby living inside her.  And pray that I will find the right words to say.

Today, I raise a bottle of Ale-8 to my great achievement of the moment: surviving 22 years on planet earth.

I celebrated by sitting around my house by myself, being glad I didn't have to go to work, but wishing my friends were here to celebrate with me.  Thanks to those of you who wished me a happy birthday on Facebook, though!

Happy Birthday to me...

Prologue to the post:

I just re-read all of the posts I've ever put up on this Xanga site.  Each and every one brought back vivid memories of exactly what inspired them.  They migrate back and forth between "this is what's going on in my life" journal entries and artistic-type musings or rants.  I prefer re-reading the artistic ones, but I know I enjoy reading other people's journal-type ones, especially people I don't talk to very often (which is just about everybody these days).  I suppose I'll continue posting a mix of the two, at least when I get around to posting at all (which doesn't happen very often anymore).  And this post may be a mix of the two all by itself!

Post:

I am now experiencing how people can get so caught up in the day-to-day and the status quo that they lose track of their calling and purpose in life.  I've been working at Bath&Body Works for almost six months now, and it's become my life about as much as theatre was my life all the way through college.  In the back of my head, I still have the "technical theatre is your calling" thought, and I tell people that I want to go into theatre someday, but the "someday" has replaced the "now."  And as I realized this, I wondered what the heck I was doing, wasting my year off in a retail job.

Then, I realized that I'm not wasting this year at all.  I think God has me at Bath & Body for a reason (and I don't mean that as the "I know God has a reason" cliche, either).  I've just been promoted, and I am learning how much responsibility I have in a big hurry.  "Holiday" is coming, and that's a scary word in retail.  But 90% of stage managing isn't managing a stage; it's managing people.  And that's exactly what my job is right now.  I'm not just selling products now (thought I'm still doing an awful lot of that, too!); I'm getting everybody else on track and focused to do their jobs.  A lot of this is going to carry over very well.  And that thought makes me excited about my job.  I may not be doing anything remotely theatrical right now (with the exception of a bit of acting when dealing with certain customers and/or co-workers  ), but I'm learning how to effectively lead and manage people.  And that's experience I'm going to desperately need if and when my dreams about being a stage manager become reality.