Well, I Believe

Two Roads

Many of my adoring public have been asking for the scoop on my decision to come on back to Dallas.  I have emails and voicemails to return, so I thought I would be lazy and share it here on my blog.

Frankly, I miss home.  Houston has been a wonderful and rich experience.  I have made friends that I know will be lifelong friends.  I am not worried about a four hour stretch of highway changing those relationships.  But along this journey I have learned a lot about myself.  Mostly that I want passion.  Not like that.  Perverts.

I want to be passionate about the things I am doing, the life I am leading and where I am heading.  I’ve enjoyed my work here and absolutely love the people that I work with – they are fun, energetic and wicked smart.

With all the things going in my life, now seemed like the stupidest possible time to make a big change.  So I did. Cause that’s how I roll.  If it seems like the worst possible plan ever – then I want to try to do it. There isn’t a big mystery or dramatic diagnosis or anything like that.  Very simply I found the courage to take one of Frost’s “Two Roads that Diverged in a Wood”… mine just happens to be Interstate 45 North.

I have no idea where this road will take me except home. I don’t know what work I’ll do – I am considering a whole bunch of things.  Maybe I’ll be like the chick in Eat Pray Love and just take off and travel for a year.  However, I don’t know if there is a Four Seasons in Bali. Maybe I’ll try to write the great American novel.  Maybe, I’ll run a marathon.  Okay, a half marathon.  I don’t know. I just know that wherever this road is leading that I am surrounded by family and friends that love me and support me.  Especially my brother-in-law who is giving me a home for a while.  Bless his heart, he’s never seen sisters fight.  This could be interesting.

For most of this year, I have longed to be back in Dallas.  Each time I went home the trip was more and more bittersweet.  I love seeing everyone and hated to leave.  I would cry most of the way back to Houston and it would take me about a week to get over being homesick.

Two years ago I took a chance and moved to a new place and tried new things.  I am forever changed by the people I’ve met … “as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another – Proverbs 27:17”.  I don’t want to undo any of these changes, forget any of my moments or memories and I would not erase a single experience from the past two years.

To each of you in Houston that have been a part of my life here (however long or short) – I will forever owe you a debt of gratitude – for your generous acceptance, for your laughs, for challenging me in new ways, for sharing in each of my new experiences, for growing my faith, for reading this blog, for comforting me in times of need and homesickness, for embracing the crazy of me, for sharing of yourself, but most of all, for loving me without question.

-          Sherbear

P.S.  And don't worry Houstonians... you've still got a month of my crazy and Dallasites, you still have a month to prepare for my crazy.

I Say a Little Prayer for You

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer.  Don’t worry this isn’t about to get too religious or too political or even too mushy into my trials and tribulations.  I’ve just been thinking about the act of praying and how it makes people uncomfortable to pray in public.

I miss prayer in school.  I miss football games not starting with an invocation.  I miss seeing ball players take a knee and bow their heads.

My personal prayer life is a little bit more like a long ongoing conversation.  It’s a personal conversation with God.  But I find something truly peaceful about praying formally too.  I find that a calm washes over me when I recite the Lord’s Prayer at church.  I am not Catholic but I assure you that I’ve said my fair share of Hail Marys.

So, why don’t we pray publicly? If it calms someone as crazy as me down, I think it could do wonders for a crowd.   I don’t think we necessarily have to pray to the same God.  I have a friend that is teaching her young son to pray.  She wants him to make his own choices about religion and faith, but right now as a young boy – she wants him to understand that at night it is healing to bow your head and show gratitude for the blessings in your life.  He is quite little – so I think he prays to spaghetti right now.  None the less,  he thanks spaghetti for him mom, and his dad and grandparents and anything else he can think of.  I like his style.

I just kind of miss starting off big occasions with a prayer – a nod to the man above that we are about to do something big and we’d like him involved.  And I can tell you that I still find it sexy when a man removes his hat for a prayer or the National Anthem.

I went to Aushwitz a few years ago with my cousin.  We visited Poland especially to go and experience this part of history.  It was without a doubt the most important historic site I have ever seen.  But each time we walked into a building where so many had lost their lives, Ryan took his hat off.  Made me proud that he’d been brought up that way.

But that’s just it… isn’t a prayer… simply a moment to stop and show respect.  To stop and show gratitude for what we received.  I know I joke about praying for Mack Brown and Will Muschamp and this year, I’ll be praying for Gilbert’s arm… but I love UT football, so I stop and say thanks for sending great men to be a part of something I love.

My daily prayers are wrought with questions, sometimes filled with begging for answers, and that’s not really what I am talking about today.  Today, I am talking about the simple act of bowing our heads, stopping for a moment, breathing in, and saying thanks.  I think we could all use more of those moments.

I think there should be prayer in school.  I think there should prayer at sporting events.  I am pretty sure there is prayer in war (though I hope to never find out for sure) and I think there should be prayer before we do just about anything.  It doesn’t have to be to my God.  Pray to spaghetti, pray to Buddha, pray to whoever you want.  If you don’t believe in God… well then tell me what’s wrong with simply stopping for moment to be grateful?  So maybe we don’t call it prayer, but I just can’t find anything wrong with the act of stopping to say thanks – for whatever you are grateful for…like Mack Brown, Will Muschamp, converting on 3^rd down, and this blog.

Go Cats!

Please allow me to wax nostalgic for just a few minutes.  This weekend we had a reunion of sorts to celebrate graduating from Plano Senior High School 15 years ago.  And while I have struggled quite a bit with saying 15 years - it feels good to actually be that far into adulthood.   It was indeed a masterpiece of events.  Looking back, I was so unsure of myself and so worried what others thought of me.  Fifteen years later, it was fun to see that I think we all felt that way and we all truly liked each other back then.

The years have gone by in a flash and according to some, “I have not changed a bit.  I am exactly the same”… which I am going to take to mean that I have not aged at all and the Botox was a wise investment.  However, I think it might be more focused on the fact that I am still loud, a little bit obnoxious,  very garrulous and still want to be the center of attention.

There were people there that I saw the day before and people I hadn’t seen in 15 years.  There were people there that I was “friends” with in high school but now through the magic of facebook would count as good friends (Elicia Eckert… I love you.)

There was my friend Lynn that played on the Gremlins with me in like the first grade.  I love the fact that she was as unathletic as I was and now we can laugh about it. She is a beautiful mother now with a great family and life.

My friend Nathan was there.  In white jeans.  I’ve known Nathan just about my whole life – our parent’s were best friends.  We were thrown together by fate since our sister’s were friends -forced for most of our childhood to spend time together.  What I love about my friendship with Nathan is that while our parents don’t hang out anymore and our sisters see each other every now then… Nathan and I are the ones that stuck together.  Years later, I know, without a doubt that I could call him to bail me out of jail.  And he’d do it.  He’d leave his wife and 2 daughters at home to get me out of prison.  He is that kind of friend.  I won’t go into the details, but just know that most of the evening Nathan wore a wildcat banner around his shoulders like a cape and fell off the bar.  It was glorious.

There was my friend Kyla.  With her amazing smile and generous spirit.  She was one of the smartest people that I knew (and still know).  And my friend Courtland, that I know I haven’t seen in 15 years.  But we ruled Bent Tree North back in the day.  He had a trampoline in his backyard.  He is days away from being a dad.

It was room filled with memories and good times.  There were fans of this blog – galore – and you know I ate up every word people said to me about how much they loved my posts.

There were friends missing from the celebration, too… but who are now living vicariously through terrible pictures of the night. (Abe and Campi…. I can’t believe you weren’t there to mock me like you did in high school).

I think what I liked most about the night was that a group of people – joined once only by geography – got together and now had their collective memories in common.  We all had different experiences, we’ve all gone different ways, become different people… but for one night we were all just kids again.  Just with money and a legal bar tab, this time.

W

My friend Danny was in a bad car accident a few months ago. He's had several surgeries and been confined mostly to a wheel chair. He and his wife Andi have been my #1 prayer - right after Mack Brown and Will Muschamp.

Today Danny had a pretty funny experience at church. I thought I'd share with you all now, cause it made me smile and say "Only in Texas, heh!"

From Danny:

I sat in the handicapped seating in my wheelchair at church this morning. Randomly George W. sat right next to me. Cool.

At the end of church when everyone stands and holds hands for the last song W grabs my hand. I'm kinda unstable on my one good leg, but I stand too.

When the singing starts he begins to forcefully swing his arms to the tune, causing me to loose balance and basically fall into the end of the pew that seperated us.

Then it happened, the President looks at me and says...."whoops, sorry."