Nice to Meet You, and Welcome to My Personal Space.

I get really suspicious of people whom I meet for the first time and they act like we've been best friends since second grade. It's a recurring trend that I'll spend an evening with a complete stranger who talks the entire night of him/herself and I sit like a silent bobblehead, listening to this person's autobiography and cringing at stories to which not even his/her mother should be subjected. Then at the end of this strenuous evening, my entertainment comments, "Traci, I like you so much. You are such a nice person. We have to get together soon." And then I continue my bobbing-head motions, only this time with a masked horrified smile on my face. What else, pray tell, do these people possibly have to tell me? I already know everything from their suicidal father to the amount of stitches in their episiotomy. Can't we just be pen pals?

No, but really, I generally like everyone I meet. However, I'm not one to allow them to Riverdance all over my guard. Have you seen the episode of The Office called "Murder"? Remember at the very end where Michael, Andy, and Dwight are having a three-way standoff, and it's well after five o'clock? Why can't more introductions be conducted in this manner?

Not to mention I'm a closed book. I laugh at the fact that I generally can't get a word in edge-wise with these people, but to be honest, I probably wouldn't discuss my episiotomy with them anyways. Or my fun, fun family. My few close friends have pried and nestled themselves into my existence. They are the few who will call me and ask me about ME. Then they dissect every word of every sentence and will demand elaborations. They respect my privacy, yet are the only ones who don't have to.

Maybe it's just me, but I think it's important to earn someone's trust instead of having it shoved down my throat. I don't know; it might also be my maternal instinct. Pedophiles are growing on trees these days, and Miami is the perfect climate for a Pedophile Tree. Far be it for me to nurture one in my backyard.

Maybe I should be more gregarious and not such a hermit. OR!!!! If they want to get to know me, they can just read my blog. After all, my fingers keep no secrets.

The Love for Your Child: A Parable

Beats me why I'm so bad at this. You'd think it wouldn't be such a difficult thing to regularly update a blog...but at least I always justify it with some cliche' phrase like, "Such is life," or "It is what it is." Nothing like using a good cliche' to cause a public disruption and then utilizing it to make an escape.

So since we're discussing cliche's, I was talking the other day with someone about how you always hear that "kids change your life," and you blow it off until you have kids of your own and really do realize that your life was a meandering, pointless shadow until they came along. And it's not something you can explain to the child-less; the closest I can come is with the following example:

Please take what you're about to read with a grain of salt. It is, after all, just a parable. Eh-hem. Think of the most terrible, horrifying, gory experience you can possibly imagine. The one you won't ever let yourself think about; the one that you are convinced is Thee Worst Possible Way To Die. For me it is to be buried alive, but use your own imagination. Now don't confuse what I'm about to tell you with "sacrificial love." Sacrificial love is this: when given the option of either you or someone you love having to endure this fate, it concludes with you pondering, sweating, and either a.) guiltily letting your loved one go and then killing yourself, or b.) humbly, heroically and terrifyingly taking the plunge to save Loved One. Either way, you wonder if you're making the right decision and you're terrified either way (unless you're Jesus - which you're not - about to be crucified).

Now, let's toss kids into this equation. If given the choice of either myself or my child enduring this fate, I would burst into gregarious laughter and swan dive into that casket. I would help them dig the hole, and hold the lid down while they nailed it shut. I wouldn't even bat an eyelash.

Obviously, this is all theoretical and not the conventional way to describe the love of a child. But it does go beyond scribbly hearts with wings fluttering around.

It's interesting how, when it comes to those on whom you depend vs. those who depend upon you, you'd think it would hurt more to lose the one you depend upon. But it's actually the other way around. The instinct of the depender, maybe? This is all theory, and by the grace of God, I pray it remains theory. But I know that for those that have experienced such a loss first hand can try explaining to me the peace that surpasses all understanding. And me, in my simplified mind, will ask them to speak in one-dimensioned parables.