The Pursuit of Happiness

One of my all time favorite movies scenes is in the Pursuit of Happiness, where the character played by Will Smith gets told that he's been promoted and life is about to get very good for him. He is so relieved and so happy, that you can see the joy with out him even breaking a smile.

The giant joy and relief he felt in that movie, kind of captures how I have felt this week.

As you may or may not know, a little over a year ago marked the start of an extremely hard time for me. I had been attacked in the night by a violent teenager. While I was left fairly uninjured physically, it shook me up bad emotionally. Within a month of that I witnessed a suicide by hanging, and a friend collapse and die of a brain aneurism. 

Each event I tried to shake off, and tell myself I was ok. But all the events combined did in fact take a huge toll on me. The nightmare got worse when my doctor said the answer to my problems was anti depressants.

I learned later when I switched doctors, that anti depressants were NOT the answer, because I did not have a chemical imbalance causing my troubles, I just needed to talk and process about what I had been through. But the road to learning that was extremely costly. The anti depressants made me manic, which lead me to spend a gut load of money, money I didn't have, and I racked up a mountain of debt. All my life I have been remarkably skilled with money management. I had never had to deal with debt, because I always found ways to deal with it right when a cost came up. But due to this fiasco, I was in over my head.

Fast forward to this year, I have bounced back mentally and emotionally from the whole ordeal, but have still been dealing with a ton of debt that I couldn't pay. I have been trying my best, but still haven't been able to get the collections calls off my back. It has been very stressful and felt like there would be no end to it.

Then last Thursday came. The day of grace. A check came in for some grant money I had been awarded 2 years before. As I was handed the check I could hear Jimmy Cliff playing loudly in my head... now sing it with me, it's gonna be a bright, bright and sun shiney day....

With it, I was able to pay off all my debt, get some much needed car repairs done, and actually go out to eat at a nice place for a change. `Tis a good day!


Btw, have you seen my new haircut?

Chasing the sun

Found while walking out in the woods.  How perfect?

Easter was a cold and rainy day in Tulsa. I decided that's not how I wanted to spend my day. So instead I went chasing after the sunshine.
I got online and looked at the radar and found where there was the nearest area with no cloud coverage. Then I headed that way, hoping the road would lead me to a sunny place to have an adventure.

It took me 2 hours west to Boiling Springs State Park.

There I spent all day in a tank top and shorts, enjoyung the sun while walking through hiking trails.

While 98% of the population spent the day hunting for eggs, and the 1.9% of the population spent the day stuck at work, I was the 0.1% that spent the day hunting for the sun.

`Twas a good day.

My Easter Lily...Totally didn't notice the cross beside her before taking the picture

Conked out on the whole drive home after a long day of playing

The final pictures I took for the day before driving back into the storm.

Sitting in a bathtub....with 4 people and a dog

At this moment, one week ago, I was having a first time experience. It was my first time ever being huddled into a bathtub with 3 other people and a dog.
Spring has just begun, and weather experts are saying Oklahoma is in for a wild tornado season. Last week we had the first twister of the season. It was almost a complete disaster, but a miracle happened.

I was driving when I saw the lightning begin. About 5 minutes later the hail began coming down. It was a normal pea shape sized, but I saw later that just 10 miles away it was coming down baseball sized.

Here is a picture of the hail that was 10 miles away from me:

Just as I got inside the house, the sirens began to blare out. At ORU there are underground shelters. In my 3 years of living in Oklahoma, there has only been one time that a tornado was ever close enough to sound the alarms. When the alarms sound, in means that there is a tornado and there is potential of it hitting where you are at.

Last week was my second time having the sirens sound, but there was no underground shelter. So I followed the lead of my 3 companions who have lived through many tornadoes. They took part in what I am told is an Oklahoma tradition, of standing outside watching.

They said on the radio that a tornado had touched down in Sand Springs (About 15 minutes away from me) and that there was potentially another one forming over Tulsa near the airport (really close to me...too close).
We were out in the back yard looking out in the distance towards Sand Springs, trying to figure out if we could see anything.
All of a sudden one guy, Michael, says, "Uh, guys..." I turned back to look at him. His jaw was dropped and he was looking up, pointing at the sky right above us.
When I looked up, I realized that there was a massive circular cloud in the sky all around us. I later heard that it was a low and wide formation, about half a mile wide. They said if it had touched down, it likely would have wiped out half of the city.
I don't remember who said it. Everything in those moments after seemed to happen in less than a second, even though it was longer. I just remember someone shouting, "Get inside!" and almost instantly all four of us, and Lily, had run through the house and shut ourselves in the bathroom, and were huddled in the bathtub.

There was a loud roar, that amost had me believing it was a train driving by, that rattled the house. I was gripping on to my dog, and closing my eyes, and holding my breath thinking any second the top floor of the house was going to be ripped off and I was going to be soaring through the air. The power went out and the radio station and all of our cell service died.

After a few minutes of sheer panic, the roar went away. A few more minutes and the radio came back on, saying one of their towers had been knocked over by flying debris. About 10 minutes later the radio announced that the storm was moving away from the city, and we felt safe enough to come out of the bathroom.

It took about an hour for our power to come back on, and my cell service was out for about 3 hours.
There had been some strong wind that damaged some things, but everyone agrees that the tornado  forming miraculously dissolved before something horrible happened. I might not be writing this now if it had.

It was extremely cold the next two days. Now, it's been extremely hot the last two days. Tomorrow they are calling for more severe weather that may produce tornadoes.

Please keep Oklahoma in your prayers. 

Spring break fun

It's over. One milestone down, only a few more to go. My final spring break is over.  I have been a student all my life, and now I am only down to 4 weeks and then one semester left in school.
Three of my closest friends were all on missions trips. Two others went home for break. My dear friend Dawn was one of my only close friends that remained in Tulsa with me.
We were both sad that our final spring break was going to be filled with working overtime and having no wild adventures. But we did promise ourselves that at least one day would be dedicated to having fun.

So on Tuesday March 17, she and I and her little sister Lun, got in the car and drove 3 hours to explore Petite Jean Sate Park in Morillton Arkansas.

I first visited Petite Jean in June 2 years ago, when I was in Arkansas researching the baby Melissa McGuinn case. Her mom told me about the park and said I should try to check it out if I had some time on my way home. Sure enough, I did, and was very glad about it.

Now it's one of my favorite places to adventure "nearby".

Dawn and Luna had never been there. Luna thought we were in another country. She said along the drive, "This country has a lot less pollution than America." That made me laugh, and ironically 10 minutes later we drove by a nuclear power plant.

Once we arrived the fun began.

On the drive back home, we started out being our silly selves, dancing around and singing and teasing each other for various reasons.

But somewhere along the way, a giant rainstorm hit. It was totally out of the blue.
But it led to even more fun.
When we got to a red light, a song came on the radio about being in the middle of a storm. Singing got pretty intense then.

Burma

It's hard to believe that at this date 10 years ago, I functioned daily on less that 2 hours of sleep. I couldn't remember what it felt like to be sober. There was not a single clear spot on my stomach or legs where I hadn't cut. I had people threatening to kill me if I didn't show up every night for sex with strangers. I couldn't tell the truth to anyone, because I was buried in so many lies that I couldn't remember what the truth was.

 I've shared my testimony of coming to Christ countless times to many people. I was living a double life. I truly believed God was nothing more than another Santa Claus. "God" was a word to me. It was just a tool, used to make unruly people behave, with a promise of heaven or hell instead of toys or coal. My life revolved around pleasing others, and I got lost in trying to impress everyone. I was a bad ass to the rebel crowd, and a goody two shoes to the good people. I spent my days in church and and Christian school, and spent my nights sneaking out and breaking every rule I could find.

Since the night of my father's funeral when I was 11, to the night I almost ended it all when I was 15, my life was consumed with lies, deception, insincerity, and addiction.

All that changed when I cried out to God and he answered me, on 7/15/2005.

For the past few months, my friend Dawn and I have at separate times talked about Burma. I have said I wanted to be doing something very remarkable for the 10 year anniversary of God changing my life and I thought going to Asia would be a great way to celebrate my rebirth because it is one of two continents I have not been to.
Dawn talked about how this is her last year in college, and that she wanted to reward herself by doing something extraordinary this summer.
Then one day we got to talking about Dawn's birth country of Burma. She mentioned how much she wanted to go back and visit someday, as she hasn't seen it since her family came to America over 10 years ago.

That's when we came up with the idea, "Why not now?"

Since that day, we've talked about it as a "maybe some day", then we brought it up more frequently and spoke of it as "When we go to Burma", until now.

Now we've got a date set, and I took Dawn yesterday to apply for her passport. We have looked at making reservations at tourist attractions we want to see, and Dawn is in contact with an uncle who owns an orphanage, and a cousin who needs help running a free dental clinic.

We are in full on planning mode.





Stay tuned.

Sara

Many, many moons ago, I picked up my laptop, set it on my bed, and began typing a story that had been building inside my head since I was a small child. It was the story of a young girl, going away to a prestigious boarding school, and many experiences surrounding leaving the school. I finished writing the story while making the long drive to my new home in Oklahoma in 2012.

Since then, I have very sloooowly worked on editing and now submitting to agents for publishing, my story 'Visionary'.

Now that I am in my final year of college, things with my writing are taking off more rapidly, as I have more time to put in to it.

One key character in Visionary, is the teacher, Professor Sara, who the main character, Annie, grows very close to. Throughout Visionary, you can tell Sara has an interesting side story for her own experiences. Sara clearly has separation and anger issues that explode in the story, and Annie has an impact in leading Sara to recover from her problems. But not much is elaborated on how severe Sara's issues were, or how she learned to overcome them. My mom had pointed out in the past, that the story makes learning more about Sara very intruiging and suggested in the future that I write another story telling Sara's experience.

This January I began doing just that.

Sara starts out as a toddler in this story, and will go through the entire backstory to many of Sara's issues that are brought up in Visionary. From losing her parents, to being moved around in foster homes and mental hospitals, the story will develope to explain the reason for the skeletons in her closet.

I am 20 pages into it, and I had to share, because I'm excited about it.

The end.

My week in pics

While my week has been rather uneventful, I've gotten a few nice pictures.
This first one is the sight I woke up to on Saturday morning.
I laughed.

She was asleep like that.

And of course, my favorite thing about Oklahoma, the sunsets. After two weeks straight of overcast and snow, we got a few days of sunshine before the rain returned today.

 

Spring break is next week, and stores are having sales to make room for the new spring merchandise. I scored this 16 piece bedset originally price 119.99, on the clearance rack for 39.99. That's probably been the biggest highlight of my week.

I am currently waiting on the sheets to be done in the dryer before setting up my bed with it.

As I mentioned, spring break is next week. I plan on picking up a lot of hours at work, but on Thursday of next week, I plan on going on a day trip with some friends to Petite Jean State Park in Arkansas. I am looking forward to that.

I've been dedicating some time to writing, I had gone almost a year without doing anything, but in the past 3 months I have finished editing one story, and begun writing a new story. This new story is called "Sara". I will probably dedicate my next blog entry to sharing about it, if nothing more interesting happens between now and then.

What do you want to know?

I've hit a bit of a writer's block on my blog. It's been 20 days since I last wrote. I'm sitting here trying to tell myself to write something, but I am drawing a blank. There's a lot I could say, but most of it, I don't think anyone else would care to spend time reading. So I want to know, if you are reading this, what do you want to know? Is there anything I should be writing more about?

I tend to write about my travels and mishaps, but honestly, I don't think anyone reads this blog without me begging them to.

So, I'd like to hear from you, what do you want to hear from me?

As a reward for reading my blog without me advertising it, you get to be in on a dirty little secret of mine.

Some friends and I decided to take part in a new sensation of dyeing armpit hair.

So for a month, we grew out our armpit hair, then dyed it hot pink. We had a blast, but not something we'd blast on the internet. But I'll let you in on the secret.

UPDATE:
If you are just now reading this, you've reeeeeally missed out on some funny pictures, as I have now deleted them. Thanks to Jodi for being the ONE person who responded.

Accidental Safari

When I look back, the story of accidentally going on an safari adventure, will probably be one of my favorite memories made in college. A few months prior I had accomplished my life long dream of going to Africa. On our last week there we went on a safari.

Uganda was so different than the Africa I had pictured in my mind. I imagined vast flat lands made of sand with lions and leopards and giraffes. Instead I got rolling vibrant green hills with alligators, caribou and elephants. All that to say, I was very sad when I learned that my favorite animal, the giraffe, did not live in Uganda.

 Craziest thing is that, even though I had traveled through an African safari, my first time seeing a giraffe didn't come until months later, in middle of nowhere Arkansas.

I told my friends I wanted to go on an adventure. Two friends, Jessica and Melanie, stepped up and said they would go with me. When they sat in the car, Jessica announced, "Alright, where we going!"

I smiled mischievously and said, "You won't find out until we are there."

The truth was that I had no idea. I knew I wanted to drive out of state, and figured I would think something up along the way.

Two hours later we hit the Arkansas border, and as Jessica and Melanie got out at the rest stop to use the bathroom, I frantically turned on my gps. I was thinking, "Oh no, I have to find something, and quick, or we will have driven all these miles for nothing."

I selected the points of interest tab, and squealed with excitement at the first result, "Yes! Spirit of adventure, you have rewarded me once again!"

When Melania and Jessica got back in the car, they were concerned, "Okay Anna, you've taken us across state lines, how well should I have prepared for this trip? Where on earth are you taking us!"

I smiled, "We're almost there, you're gonna be so surprised."

The gps said it was only 6 miles away. We drove down a road that seemed like just another normal neighborhood drive. Until we saw the peacocks cross the road and hop the fence where a kangaroo was resting.

As we pulled into the drive, everyone in the car shouted with excitement as we read the sign out loud:

Jessica and Melanie both questioned with intense excitement, asking how on earth I had found this place. That's when I admitted to them that it was a total accident. I had no idea where we were headed when we hit the road.

We had to leave and come back when we found out the $5 entrance fee was cash only, and they did not have an atm. But once inside, we had the time of our lives.

Meeting Wanda

When I was in 5th grade, I had the joy of meeting the local weatherman, Dave Salesky. I thought it was the most memorable meeting I would ever have.

Since then, I have met famous singers, congressmen, mayors, senators, and more. But of all the people I have, and have yet to meet, I truly believe that at the end of my life I will look back and think of Wanda as one of the most noteworthy people I have ever met.

She lives in a simple house, in a simple town, and  has a simple mind. And yet meeting her is one of the most memorable encounters I've ever had.

Wanda is a woman in her mid 50's, with the i.q. of a 4 year old, who for nearly 30 years has been the prime suspect in the mind baffling abduction of her roommate's 7 month old baby.
For years people have wondered what on earth Wanda could have done with the baby.
For years people have wondered what kind of person Wanda must be.
For years, no one in the public ever heard from Wanda herself.

When I first learned of the story in 2012, there was hardly any information on the case, but there was just enough to get me very intrigued. In 25 years there had only been 3-4 news reports on the abduction. Hardly anyone had ever heard of the baby Melissa McGuinn.

 
Soon I found my self so badly wanting to know more, that I ended up driving to Arkansas to meet Baby Melissa's mother.

I learned more from her than I could ever imagine. The story was even more crazy, and intriguing, than I had imagined.
Previously there had only been one photo of Melissa released to the public. With her mother's help, I got nearly a dozen of Melissa's pictures on the internet.

I created a facebook page about the Mystery of Melissa McGuinn and soon over 7,000 people were following my journey across the nation, to find the truth.

I met with family, friends, detectives, and neighbors and published it all on the internet. Soon major names like ABC's 20/20 and Dr. Phil were voicing interest in the case.

I was interviewed via skype by a major east coast news station


After meeting everyone, there was still one burning question in my head, what ever happened to the suspect, Wanda Reed.
I wanted to see her, to understand her, to try to imagine what she was like.


Soon, through the power of social media, I met the TINY woman.

Wanda is very simple and very sweet. She has an adorable smile, and liked giving me hugs. When I met her, it was hard to believe this woman was at the center of such a giant mystery.

Meeting with her, I was the first person to EVER publish anything public from Wanda. Meeting with her, hearing her feelings on being arrested, and how she has missed her own son that she lost custody of, made the whole case that much more interesting to the rest of the world.

Here is parts of my interview with Wanda

It's not so bad...

It's seems to me that every hour of every day, we are hearing of how heartless and uncaring society has gotten. In fact, there are entire television channels dedicated to 24/7 reporting of all the bad that is going on all over the world.

But I want to share with you, some of my recent observations.

We have a levels system at my work, to reward kids for good behavior. Once the kids get to a certain level, they get to pick a special food once a week as a reward. Last week, they all voted that they wanted burgers from McDonald's.

I left the premises and drove to a nearby McDonald's. As I pulled into the driveway, I saw two small children hurry over to a truck in the parking lot. A heavy set man with his leg in a splint and walking with a walker, followed slowly behind them.

As he got half way through the driveway, I watched him lose his balance and fall on the ground. I quickly realized he was struggling and didn't have the strength to pull himself back up. The two small children tried desperately to pull on his arms to help him up, but none of them were having any success.

I stepped out of my car to go help him, and as I approached, I was just one of a swarm of people that rushed to his side. It only took me, and a well dressed business looking man, to help him up. I grabbed one arm and the business man grabbed the other, I counted to 3, then we lifted and the man came to a stand.

As he thanked us profusely, I looked around and saw the large crowd of people that surrounded. People had run over from the other side of the busy street, people had gotten out of their cars in the parking lot, and people had come running out of the McDonald's lobby. All had hurried to his side, hoping they could do something to help him.

 I was left inspired and uplifted by the sight. No one had ignored him, no one laughed at him, and everyone who had witnessed it seemed to care. I was left thinking, Wow, there are still some good people left in the world. 

 It reminded me of this past year, when I had many times metaphorically fallen down. Each time, there were people there wanting to help me up.

At the beginning of 2014 I was involved in 3 separate and major incidents in about a months span, from February to March. Each were very traumatic, and left me feeling rattled to my very core. I tried my best to shake it off, and make myself believe I wasn't effected by what had happened.

By the end of March, I was still feeling very "off" but couldn't pinpoint what was the problem. Many months later I found through talk therapy that the problem was me going through a very normal process of coping with what had happened early in the year. But in the beginning, I did not correlate my exhaustion, lack of joy and excitement, and loss of interest and motivation, to be related to my earlier experiences.

In the beginning, I spoke to my general practitioner about my struggle, and he thought it sounded like I was depressed and he prescribed me some anti depressants. The drugs were great! I bounced back. Life was enjoyable again, I felt motivated and interested in tasks again, and was having a heck of an adventure every day of life.

But there was one very pricey side effect. A side effect I am still paying for to this day...literally.

I loss all self control. I became impulsive. It was a logic of, "I thought it, therefore I did it." I would get an idea in my head, get overly excited about it, then would make it happen without thinking of the consequences. I wanted this merchandise, therefore I opened up a line of credit and got it. I wanted to go see this place, therefore I got in my car and drove there. I wanted a dog, therefore I went and picked one out, without taking into consideration how expensive caring for animals can be. Never did I stop to think if I could really afford it, or what important things (like school or work) I would miss if I left town, I just did stuff with out ever thinking.

I have to admit, it was extremely fun. I had a blast while it lasted. But the long term consequences were so not worth it!

My actions did not begin to catch up to me until early June. I was driving though Kentucky, on my way home from an excursion across the entire east coast, when my car engine began to struggle. I looked down and realized my gas tank was empty. I was relieved when I looked out and saw a gas station right by me. I pulled up and swiped my debit card, and was shocked to discover my card was declined. I swiped it a couple more times, standing there in denial.

Remember how I said I opened lines of credit when I wanted something? Well the payments had begun with me totally forgetting about them. My checking account was empty and I was still over 500 miles from home.

This was the beginning of my trouble, and the beginning of me seeing just how much beauty still exists in humanity.

I was stranded. I made a remark on facebook, that I was about to get my first experience panhandling for gas money to get home. I was so scared, but I tried to make a joke out of it all. I went to sleep in my car praying that a miracle would occur when I woke up. Sure enough, it did. A relative that I have not seen in years, sent me a message to give them a call, because they had wired money to the gas station I was at, to help me get home.

I would like to say that was the end of it, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Soon, money was being demanded from everywhere. I had to begin working 80 hour weeks just to be able to pay rent. Cable got shut off, electric got threatened, my bed was nearly repossessed, and I had no money for food or clothes. I was working more hours than anyone should ever have to, and seeing no end to it, and getting no reward. I worked like crazy and never had any money. I had to eat the food staff was given at work, and sell my blood plasma to have enough money to fill my gas tank and feed my dog.

This was when I heard about the Tulsa Dream Center. I had no work pants, because they were all ripped and stained and worn out. I found out the Dream Center gave free clothes out to the community, no questions asked. I felt ashamed as I walked in, thinking, "I'm stealing from poor people" but then remembered, "oh wait, I am poor."

They were so warm and welcoming. They prayed with me, listened to me vent about my recent financial woes, connected me to their free grocery program, and walked me in to their clothes closet. It was so ironic when I found some old clothing that I had donated in the past. I said to myself, "Wow, the giver has become the receiver."

My paycheck looked like I must be rich. I made tons of money. But because of all I had done in the months before, I had nothing now. I thought for sure there was no help for me because I made too much money. Soon I found lots of caring people who understood my situation and didn't judge me by my mistakes. I was networked to organizations that could help support me even though I didn't fit the mold of a needy person.

I was directed to an organization that helped me find affordable therapy, which was able to help me deal with what was the real problem, and slowly wean me off the anti depressants that had messed me up so bad.

And it wasn't just organizations that helped me. Every time I had an important need that I couldn't afford, someone stepped in to cover the cost. Every time I thought I was going to have to miss a meal, a friend or co-worker offered to take me out to eat as their treat without me even mentioning I was about to go hungry.
My car once ran out of gas on my way to work. I only had $2 and buying a gas can alone cost more than that. Not to mention I would then have no money for gas. When the gas station clerk said they could not lend me a can, a person in line offered theirs.  They drove me back to my car, and helped me get it started. Then they surprised me by saying they wanted to fill my gas tank for me.

As school began again, I realized the wisest thing to do was to move back into the dorms. That way I would not be struggling so much to pay rent. But I was faced with a dilemma... my dog... my sweet, snuggle, hyper, obnoxious, intuitive, protective, best friend Lily. If I moved back into the dorms, I would have to give her up, and the thought of doing that crushed me.

I moved into the dorms, but out of desperation in wanting to keep the dog, I kept the apartment just for her sake, until the lease was up in November. I kept working 80hr weeks, trying to pay rent and bills on top of going to school and by the time the lease was up, I knew there was no way I could keep working that much and keep my grades up. My grades were plummeting.

That's when another beautiful thing happened. People stepped up to take care of Lily for me until I could take her back. One person kept her for two months until their living situation changed and they couldn't anymore. Then another person stepped up to take her for two weeks until their living situation abruptly changed, and then a third person stepped up to take her in. All complete strangers at first, who I am so very thankful for. People who didn't know me, didn't know Lily, and had no obligation to help, but offered to take her in for a few months so that I would not have to give her up forever.

Another beautiful act of humanity, was my teachers. When I told them the struggles I was having, and the hours I was having to work, they all had grace on me. You know, grace is such an amazing thing. Thinking you are doomed, when someone gives grace and changes the entire experience. The teachers pushed back deadlines for me, gave me more time on things that had passed, and created extra credit opportunities for me to make up for things I had already missed or failed.

You never know how much you have, until you have nothing left to give.
Family, friends, teachers, co-workers, and complete strangers all stepped in to help me up, each time something knocked me down.

Humanity is wonderful.

Waiting Game

Something that has always been very funny to me is elevator etiquette. Everywhere else in the American culture says to smile at people, make eye contact, acknowledge people, and just generally try to be friendly and try to make others feel comfortable. That's the rule in every situation except in elevator etiquette. In the elevator it is the complete opposite. You are to remain silent, stay as far away from other people, and do everything in your power to avoid eye contact while all of you in the elevator feel as uncomfortable as possible in each others presence.

Yesterday I was waiting to get on the elevator and found something just as funny to me as elevator etiquette. It's the waiting game. Have you ever watched someone who is waiting for something? The behavior would be considered insane in any other circumstance.

At my job, we are trained to recognize the warning signs that a person is escalating in emotions and needs intervention. They may start pacing, swaying, huffing, mumbling, and seem irritable. They may clench their fists, or have a change in posture, become unusually quiet, or do something repeatedly like looking at their watch. These are the same exact things people do when playing the waiting game!

As I stood there waiting for the elevator to come, I laughed to the person next to me, "Gotta love the waiting game".

He laughed and agreed, "It's America's favorite past-time."

"Not!" I jokingly shouted.

The truth is that patience is a virtue, a virtue foreign to American culture. Americans HATE waiting for anything. Even waiting in line for fast food, you can spot at least a few people showing the same behaviors as someone about to have an emotional outburst.

In that aspect, I am very American. I'm probably one of the worst. I hate, hate, HATE the waiting game. When I want something to happen, I want it to happen now.

The waiting game is a big part of my life right now though. Recently I decided to take the next step with my writing, and am trying to get a book published. It's been a week now since I started submitting my work to agencies, and the waiting and anticipating to hear back from them has been torture.

But just as the waiting game for the elevator, I know the next step after the waiting is over, is stepping in to elevator etiquette. It will be unusual, out of character, and uncomfortable. Once I find someone who believes in my writing potential as much as I do, the waiting game will be over and the correction, criticism, and hard work will begin. But once it is all over, the elevator door will open, and I will have reached my destination to a higher and better place in my dream.

But for now, I have to just sit back and try to enjoy my favorite game....... the waiting game.





I'll try not to look like a lunatic.