a bunch of randomness ... and lance

do you ever have something you need to do, but because you don't want to do it, you keep putting it off? and in it's place you find a hundred other things, less urgent, to do instead?

i need to write a paper but i'm feeling uninspired. my last semester of college has been exhausting, to say the least, and even though i know i will miss it and it's been an amazing season, i'm ready for it to end. i have seven major papers (10+ pages apiece) and several other minor ones to write before graduation in three weeks.

you'd think i wouldn't want to write on my blog too because i'm on writing overload, but i'm hoping some random word vomit will get me into gear. most of the time i am too tired to write on my blog too - hence the lack of posts, so i apologize.

and now for the word vomit ...

• i was afraid that my almost nonstop gym clothes wearing phase (aka the last two years of college) would yield negative results, but it has turned out to be just the opposite. people say if you wear sweats all the time you will gain weight and not notice. nope. i've been whipping out the old business clothes from my banana republic style phase for job interviews and such ... and they're too big! love that.



• i'm still learning the power of words. a major theme in my life. sometimes i want to be a motivational speaker. sometimes i mess up MAJORLY and realize without a doubt my words have an effect. it's easier for me to notice the negative effect they have than the positive. i really need to be careful. while i feel like i do exhort people, the nasty side of that is when i get angry i say awful stuff. this post at the sanctified pearl blog spoke right to me.
  



• why why WHY do people in lancaster drive so slow? this is a great time to practice holding my tongue. thanks for the setup God, very funny. ;-)



• another thing i'm learning is to guard myself. i'm not sure if this is good or not, it's something i'm processing and trying to "find the balance in." i feel like in the past i was too quick to pour out my soul to just about anyone who would listen. and get carried away. this goes along with the power of words thing.
  



• politics, schmolitics. i am so over all the legalities and formalities everyone dances around. i am so disgusted by the systems set up to supposedly protect and serve the people. reformation is needed, along with deep conviction and a willingness to stand up for truth every single day! here's an article from the nytimes that made me think - especially the challenge he poses at the end: let's ask ourselves "how to overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive."



• whenever justin bieber and selena gomez show up on my computer i feel OLD. i am about to turn 24, i'm way too young to feel old.



• handwritten thank-you notes are NOT out of style and should not be ignored. etiquette is timeless. a huge thank-you to brides who actually still write thank-you's because it means something and it's worth your time no matter how annoying or silly it might seem.



• parenthood is my new favorite TV show, even though i've only had the chance to watch it once all season. i've realized that family is my passion. i love my family, and i can't wait to have a family ("can't wait" is a terrible phrase i overuse by the way - i can definitely wait, i will not go get knocked up after i type this blog, all i mean is that i am extremely excited for that time of life), but i also love hearing about other people's families and observing how they've been shaped by their families.



• i was highly disappointed to learn that plato thought families should be dispersed and everyone should live in community, with women mothering everyone - instead of children in specific family units with parents in monogomous relationships. maybe 'disgusted' is more fitting than 'disappointed,' especially because he thought once women became mothers they became inferior rather than equal to men. i was thisclose to raising my hand and expounding about the nobility of motherhood, the inestimable importance of family, and the fact that a woman can be very intelligent and still "just" want to be a mom. insert a mental snapshot into your mind of a livid chelsea, because that discussion put me on edge.
  



• an obnoxious plea as christmas approaches: don't buy too much junk! that cleverly packaged whatever-it-is might look great in the store, but do you/they really need it? working at thrift store is fun, but also eye opening to how much junk people have. you might want to stop reading because here comes the grinch: all those $5 gift exchanges you coerce others into (or are coerced into) ... just think about it. in terms of practicality and how money adds up and the big picture and who that money could be helping.



• along with that: don't donate mattresses, used peanut butter jars, broken appliances, dirty socks (dirty anything really) or jean jumpers to thrift stores. jean jumpers never stop coming in and i don't understand how people still have them. there are certain things that just need to be taken out of the cycle. throw it out. and if you're wearing a jean jumper while you're reading this, i don't know what to say.
  

and here's my boyfriend and me after a 5k we ran for fun. that was obvious when i tapped someone next to me at the start of the race to ask, "this is just three miles right?" that made those serious gameface runners laugh. people take things so seriously, i don't get it.

lance is home for two blissful weeks before he is deployed to afghanistan again. pray for him and everyone else in the military whenever it crosses your mind. he is a man who goes above and beyond in everything he does. the level of discipline in his life seriously inspires me and motivates me to work harder and reach my highest potential. one of his things is taking care of people - he will do anything for anyone, he is so incredibly generous with everything. i have a lot to learn from him. and best of all he makes me laugh all the time - even when he's not around, i start laughing just remembering something he did or said. love that.

i don't want to sound too much like a hallmark card, but i think it's already too late. oh! and he writes me the greatest cards and letters ever. he's an awesome writer and all-in-all amazing communicator - great at drawing stuff out of me, and handling me at my worst. handling me all the time for that matter - best, worst, crazy, quiet, "normal," whatever. my mom made the comment that i "wear it on my sleeve" that i love him so much ... i think that's a good thing? ;-)

miss you pappy shank

ten years since pappy shank died. i realized it during the 10th anniversary of september 11th. when those attacks happened pappy said they were coming after the shanks. he wasn't a conspiracy theorist, that was just his sense of humor, since one of the planes went down in shanksville.

i can't believe he’s been gone ten years. but then i may have a tendency to dramatize things. a few days after pappy died my brother and i were driving somewhere and i wasn't crying, but certainly talking colby’s ear off as i verbally processed everything and i said, "it's just so sad, he was so young!" brother bear hadn’t been saying much up to that point, but then he blurted out, "chelsea he was 75! what are you talking about!" we started laughing because colby was right. pappy wasn’t that young, and he wasn’t a picture of health, but it was still devastating.

growing up i had a strange preoccupation with death. i was obsessed with keeping diaries and journals, but what made those so strange was that i wrote out my will in the back of each one. full of essential details like "give my american girl magazines to melissa" and "bury me by the tulips."

i was in eighth grade when pappy died, so perhaps the combination of my age and personality intensified the way that the death of a loved one can affect anyone. i guess feeling so close to pappy is why it really impacted me. i felt like i was just starting to get to know him and then he was gone. when he died and everyone finally talked about him and the memories they had i felt even more jipped. there was a whole side of pappy that i never knew, an entire life i had no idea about.

hearing everyone talk about him confused me, and made me want to make sure that i always always told people how much they meant to me. i felt like pappy would have had no idea that so many people would say so many incredible things about him after he died. so why didn't they say it when he was alive? and maybe they did. i was little, i wasn't always around him.

when my brother and i spent weekends with our dad we usually hung out at grandma and pappy's for awhile. colby controlled the tv and playing boggle with grandma shank is only entertaining for so long, so eventually i decided to be brave and start hanging out with pappy.

i was so curious. it seemed like everyone was afraid of him. he was this giant that you didn't want to mess with or upset. i felt a sense of fear and awe. he scowled a lot. at family get-togethers he wasn't the patriarchal norman rockwell grandfather saying the prayer or welcoming everyone, he was off napping or pretending to be.

pappy had a beautiful face. i should say handsome, but when i think of his face i picture him laughing. and he had a fantastic laugh. a big deep drawn out belly laugh, and sometimes it sounded like he was choking, i could never be sure. maybe he was. he smoked his whole life and while his own dad and grandpa never smoked, he said that they died young anyway and missed out on all that pleasure.

it’s easy for me to remember him smiling, or laughing at me. and saying "ohhh" in a scowling but shy way. sometimes he'd scowl like that when he didn't want to answer whatever question i'd just asked him, but not because he was angry. i think he just didn't want to be open. i think he had a very sensitive heart and felt like he had to hide that, so he did.

i spent hours in the basement with him putting jigsaw puzzles together. when we finished puzzles i would be really excited (of course) and he would laugh at me. then he’d say let’s tear it apart and i’d protest. i knew he was secretly thrilled too and i had to be enthusiastic enough for both of us.

when grandma sang or yelled down the steps that supper was ready he'd act like he didn't hear her half the time. i'd scamper upstairs and say he was coming. sometimes grandma would get tired of waiting and we'd say silent grace and start to eat before he came shuffling in. he'd scowl if there was pizza on the table because he hated pizza, but grandma, the most amazing wife, always had a separate meal of meat, potatoes and vegetables prepared for him.

one time grandma and my dad both seemed concerned about pappy. something about a surgery the doctors thought he should have, but he didn't want to. i didn't want him to die so i set out making him a list of 101 reasons to get the heart valve the doctors were telling him to.

that list wasn't as easy to write as you might think. for most people there would be scads of things to include. for instance, i could name 101 foods alone that would be worth staying alive for, and pizza would definitely be one of them. for pappy, it was harder to figure out what would truly motivate him to stay alive.

the list was silly. i wrote down every family member he had, so that took up half the slots and then i got creative with things like "the clock needs fixed,” “hauling the amish,” or "who will we ask to ride the five-wheeler?"

i forget if i gave him the list face-to-face or was a scaredy cat and left it lying on the counter for him to read later, but he loved it.

he got the heart valve. and i hated calling him in the hospital (but a genuine thanks for making me, mom.) and visiting him in the hospital (and a not so genuine thanks for making me go in the room first "in case he's dead" dad!). next pappy needed to get open heart surgery, and he died a few days later. or something like that, i'm not good with logical details.

it took all ten of his husky (classic grandma shank word) grandsons to carry his casket. i don't know if they shuffled so slow out of reverence or trying not to trip, or because it was just that heavy. pappy's beloved amish friends didn't speak at the funeral, but they gathered at the cemetery and shoveled his grave full of dirt, telling stories about him while they worked. they loved benny shank.

someone stuck a liter of pepsi in the ground with him. he loved his pepsi. i don’t like soda, but the other day i talked my way into a sales position with pepsi. i have no interest in this AT ALL and after i left the job fair where i met the pepsi rep i was laughing at myself trying to figure out how that even happened. maybe it was just to give pappy a good laugh, or maybe he set it up so i’d remember him yet again – but i could never forget him.

i hope pappy shank knew how much i loved him. i wish he was still around. he'd be really proud of colby - my brother reminds me so much of pappy. i tell myself he'd be proud of me too. he wouldn't be surprised i'm pursuing journalism - i fired questions away at him like a pistol. maybe he'd come to my college graduation in a van and drive home super slow with a long line of traffic behind him while he smoked and nearly fell asleep.

i wonder what he'd have to say to me now. i imagine him meeting my boyfriend and saying something pithy. then he’d laugh with with his whole body shaking and eyes disappearing, leathered skin scrunched into a big smile. his smile drew people in. he was a magnet, and - my favorite comment from someone at his funeral – “an icon in the community.”

ephraim benjamin shank
may 18, 1926 - nov. 8, 2001