Father

So I got a new nickname last week: Face. Seriously. It was my mom's birthday last Monday, and we were sitting around having dinner and started telling old stories. One time when I was 2, my mom was busy in the living room with my brother and I wandered into the kitchen. Nobody saw exactly what happened, but somehow I managed to knock a cup of steaming hot coffee off of the kitchen counter and onto my face. One second it was a normal day and the next everything erupted into chaos. I was screaming bloody murder and Julie was crying and Joey started freaking out just because everyone else was freaking out. My mom called an ambulance and I had to go to the hospital, where they treated me for 2nd degree burns all over the left side of my face. My head was wrapped up like a mummy for weeks and I had to go to physical therapy while everything healed, I guess just to make sure everything was healing right or something. My mom showed me a picture she took from a few weeks after all this happened, when I could finally walk around without all the bandages, and even weeks later my face was still swollen and red and scabby. The doctors all said it was a record recovery, and that if it hadn't been for my dad's actions I wouldn't have healed and my face would still be covered in scars; but as soon as everything happened, the second that cup hit the ground and I started crying, my dad picked me up and held me up to the kitchen sink, and despite all my screaming and crying and squirming he poured cold water over my face until the ambulance got there.
I do not know how to handle this information.
Those of you know know me well know that I don't exactly have a good relationship with my dad. We've fought since I was in elementary school, and he's completely hung me out to dry more times than I can count simply cause that was more convenient for him. The only thing we can discuss at any length without arguing is politics, and really I feel like I hardly know him at all. I know that his favorite color is yellow, he's a pack rat, and he keeps up with current events. I know shallow things like these, but I really couldn't tell you much about who my dad is as a person. I don't know what he wants in life, what's important to him or what his goals are. I know it's sad, but I've gotten used to that. That's the way it's always been and I've gotten used to that, but now I really don't know what to think. If my dad hadn't acted so quickly and held me under the sink like that my life would've been completely different. It sounds like an exaggeration but my face would've been horribly scarred, and I probably would have been stared at and bullied and my self esteem would likely be in the toilet. The image of a dad whose quick action saved his daughter from a life like that doesn't fit at all with the images and memories I've gathered of my dad over a lifetime.
Like I said, I really don't know how to handle this information. I don't know how to reconcile these opposite images in my mind and to somehow piece them together to make the dad I interact with nearly every day. I've been mulling this over for a week, and I still have no idea how to make it work.

Snow!

It snowed yesterday! I don't think I've ever seen that much snow in Georgia before. It was beautiful. My mom was really worried about me driving from Norcross to Gainesville with the roads all snowy, but it was worth it just to see everything. I really think snow is magical. It has a way of making even the interstate look wonderful, and simultaneously making you feel like you're going somewhere significant while at the same time where you're going doesn't really matter. It was wonderful. Everything was quiet and white and muffled. It was like the world was taking a nap and suddenly all the things we think are important and all the things we rush to didn't matter so much anymore. I'm sad it's melting, even though melting snow itself is still beautiful. I wish I had my camera and I could take pictures, but my friend still has it.

On another note, I've been reading this amazing book. It's called The Sacred Romance, and it's by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge. It's all about how we tend to divorce our heart from our external life, and how we've been trained to think that such things like making major decisions based on feelings is silly when in fact our hearts our like our direct line to God and to the great love affair that He's offering it. To say I highly recommend it would be and understatement. It's one of those change-your-life sort of books.

Here's a picture of snow, even though it's not Georgia snow.

Hi!

So this is my blog. I just made this on a whim, mostly cause I remembered that my friend Andie has a blog and I haven't looked at it since November, and I wanted a way to get notifications or something when she updates, because I enjoy her thoughts : ). But while I was thinking about that, I decided that it might actually be fun to share my thoughts as well as take advantage of another cool way the interwebs allows people to keep up with each other. Plus I'm at work and I'm bored. And I promise to do my best to avoid becoming one of those super pretentious bloggers that just annoys people and gets in internet feuds or whatever.

More later