I spent a good bit of time emo-vomiting to my best-friend-since-seventh-grade yesterday, and yes, I was on work time. Okay, okay, I'll count it as my lunch hour or take vacation time. Whatever."Emo-vomit" is a term I learned when my boys were little: it's like throwing up or crying, only with words. You know it's coming, and you know you'll feel better afterwards...so you get fed up with whatever's going on, find the best victim, and tell every sordid, pathetic, detail of the story--and sometimes details that don't even matter--and let 'er rip. And a ripper it was yesterday--I was feeling all kinds of sorry for myself and the pitiful slice of life that I'd been given these past few weeks.
A few minutes after I got finished with the email, I took my wallet out of my purse and out fell a little turquoise cross, and I immediately felt a flush of warmth in my heart. I carry the cross with me in my wallet in the zipper part with a couple of other things, one being the key to my desk at work. I'd opened that compartment to get that key out when I'd first gotten to work, and hadn't zipped it up...and when I picked up my wallet, that's what fell out. Not the extra key to Colby's car, which I carry with me because he has a habit of locking himself out. Not the key to my office in Denton which I take out once a week. Not the wheat penny that's in there because, well, I think wheat pennies are cool, and not the very delicate cross that I carry that is an example of what Tim does for a living (they usually make parts for airplanes and bombs). But a tiny, turquoise and silver cross that was given to me sometime after 7th grade and before I graduated from high school.
The significant thing about this cross is that it was made by my best-friend-since seventh-grade's dad. I don't remember the occasion for which I received it, but I do remember that it warmed my heart that he'd made it just for me. He was the really sweet kind of dad, and I was just a little envious of that because my own was the really stern kind of dad. So, the cross has always been in the keepsake part of my jewelry box, and sometime in the last year or so, it found its way into my wallet, largely due to the fact that its creator's daughter has contributed significantly to my being able to function the past couple of years.So, after my emo barfing spell, I felt better, but was continuing to feel somewhat sorry for myself when the cross fell out. I picked it up and closed my hand around it as if it were--well, not a lifeline, my problems aren't that dramatic--but a reminder of the people who love and care for me. Some of my friends would say that God intentionally made that cross fall out, but I don't quite buy that; instead, I believe that He uses us humans as a direct connection to His lap, so that we can feel as though we've crawled up into a place of warmth and safety. And because we are used that way, we find reminders all over the place, often when and where we least expect it. But it doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong; what does matter is that we have each other to lean on and to hold us up when we can't quite do it ourselves.
And that makes life good :)
