Setting the Stage
Life has settled down somewhat. I’m still planning a wedding for July, but I’m no longer afraid that one of the people I love the most in the world is dying…so I’m ready to start this blog. I know I said I’d post a “found story” to center the theme for several posts, but those really take a lot of work on my part…and a lot of reading, something I don’t have as much time for as I would like. And a big part of the point of me doing this was to get me writing again in my own words, not just rearranging other people’s. In calling this blog “Found Stories” I feel that I’ve freed myself from being constrained to chronology so I’ll just be telling the stories as I think of them (or find them, if you will).
I don’t have a lot of stories about youthful hijinks like a lot of people. I pretty much colored inside the lines and often acted as an ostrich, burying my head in the shelter of the black and white world that is really easy to find in evangelical circles1. A wild weekend in my world might have consisted of toilet papering a house or playing a rousing game of dominoes until 2 in the morning with my friends and their grandparents2. Or if I was feeling really daring, I’d drink a lot of Dr. Pepper and drive around our small town, letting my friends stand up in the sun roof of my car while I drove at 30 miles an hour3.
I might get into telling some stories of growing up at a conservative, evangelical Christian school and ending up a potty-mouthed Jesus-lover with hippie tendencies and lots of questions about the world. But really, I created this blog with the intention to look back and tell the stories about that well-meaning girl, her friends, her family, and her hometown.
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1. I’ve since learned that not all evangelicals see the world in black and white, but after 15 years entrenched in that subculture, I think it’s fair to say that there is a lot of that flavor of Kool-Aid, if you want to drink it.
2. I don’t mean to sound like I’m mocking that. Those are actually some of my favorite memories. I learned a lot from them. Now that I’ve been a city-girl for several years, I realize how lucky my friends and I were to have grandparents around all the time. A perk of staying in a small-town, I suppose, or maybe just always staying close to home.
3. There’s a little bit of mocking here. I hated that my friends wanted to stand up in the sun roof. I was always afraid I would drive under a tree and they’d get beheaded or something. Yes, I’m a little crazy.
