Ben Dresses Himself

So Much Pressure To Be Amazing

One of Jay's favorite movie lines to quote is from the little neighbor boy in "The Incredibles" when Bob sort of snarls at him gawking in the driveway "Well, what are you waiting for!?" and the boy replies, "I dunno, something amazing I guess!"

I've been waiting for something amazing. I've wanted to start blogging for some time, but just felt so much pressure to have a perfect Blog name-er-title-er...whatever the proper blogging vernacular is. It's not amazing, but I'm ready, and it's real.

I wanted to start with telling how I came up with Angels In My Rearview. It's not a country song. Although, it should be. And, maybe it is---I've been out of the country music loop since Barney and Raffi entered the scene.

Like I said, I wanted something perfect. I really wanted it to be clever or meaningful, or both. I was wracking my brain, and to no avail. I finally just stopped thinking about it and one day as I was putting the DVDs back on the DVD shelf for the 317th time that day--it literally just popped into my head. And it sort of made my heart skip a beat. So I started thinking about what it meant to me. What it means to me is this: I don't deny the presence of God in my life, and how he truly guides me everyday. What I do neglect to acknowledge and remember, particularly in the thick of it, is how very closely he is guiding me and protecting and providing. And then, 2 weeks down the road, 2 months, sometimes 2 years, I look back (as though in my rearview mirror of life---see where this is going!?) and see the angels that were literally surrounding me, and really are all the time. I have very specific examples in my life that aren't profound or earth-shattering, but truly made my life so much more amazing and meaningful.

One of them was my first job out of college. I was so insecure on paper. I didn't feel like my resume with all my odd, short-term college jobs, would ever get me in the door. If they could just MEET me they'd know I was stellar. But faxing and mailing my resume into the unknown world of potential employer scrutiny was very hard on me. I clearly had too much self-confidence in my presence making the difference because after a personal interview for Southwest Airlines (yes, it was my greatest aspiration to work for barely over minimum wage after earning a Bachelor's degree---JUST so I could fly free) I never got a call back. I was about 8 hours from having nowhere to sleep, driving a little pickup truck my brother loaned me, with all my earthly possessions in it, no money for gas, and panty hose with runs in them---when I faxed a resume in response to a small ad I saw in the paper. I wasn't even going to do it, but my cousin reminded me I had nothing to lose. I couldn't breathe when they called me back because the resume had passed the initial scrutiny---if they were calling, they either didn't care about resumes and I was in---or they liked my resume, and I was SURE my personality could outshine it. Well, turns out that Dawn (who called me to set up the interview) basically decided the job was mine, even before meeting me. She was describing the dress code and how to dress for the interview and said "business casual." She threw out a couple of disclaimers like, "it's not really dressy, but we don't wear jeans" and "don't worry too much, we're mostly casual here." For some unknown reason, I took that as my verbal cue to try and be funny and I said, "So, basically, I just need to shower, and I'll be okay?" I don't remember her laughing. In fact, I remember a loud silence. But apparently she thought it was very funny. That job became my lifeline in every possible way. They were my family, they were my critics, and they were my support, my challenge, my life. I'm not being dramatic either. They got me out of the slums in which I naively found my first apartment. Not so much "got me out" as it was "nagged me relentlessly until I found another place that passed their specifications." They made fun of my white legs, took me to mass, made fun of me being mormon, smelled my lunch food, invited me to family functions, and took care of me in so many countless ways. I worked there until I had my first baby and they gave me everything I needed for his arrival.
Now, you tell me, how a lil' ol' lame-resume-bearing, middle-of-nowhere-coming-from, bachelors-in-psychology-earning girl lands a job at a law firm, with people like that? Please refer to blog title. I saw it myself, about a year after I started working there.

Okay, I really didn't mean to go on like that, but evidently this is very close to my heart. The OTHER aspect of this title came to me the next morning, around 5 am while I was laying in bed, waiting to see if the baby's squawks were real or if she was just yelling at Ben in her sleep. I thought about one of my favorite views---looking in my rearview mirror and seeing those precious little eyes looking back at me. Or lately, looking back and seeing Avery facing the back, and Ben facing forward, holding each other's hands. They truly are Angels in my Rearview, and I don't need hindsight to recognize it.