Enjoy Your Youth … oh, and life's a bummer.

I wrote this almost a year ago while listening to "Forever Young" and other classics The O.C. bestowed upon us. I then decided it was too much honesty, possibly sappy, and for fear that people would read and comment on it, I decided not to post it.

This, in a pistachio nutshell, is why I'm a lousy blogger. :P

Upon a second viewing, and with my 25th birthday coming up (IE, "quarter-of-a-century day"…hah…hah…hah…) I thought it might be worth sharing after all. But like my mom always said when I had to sample suspicious-looking food, "It's okay; you don't have to finish it." ;) 

Happy Day to you. :)

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There is this oft-repeated phrase which I believe is meant to be rallying, inspiring and exciting for my generation: “Enjoy your youth.”

what Em called my "Teen Fiction cover" photo lol

I have never found this phrase any of those things; I find it depressing. Believe me, I’ve tried to like it! It’s been the plotline of too many bright, indie-music-filled, teen-pitched movies and TV shows I enjoy for me to dismiss it outright. But to me, there is an unspoken follow-up sentence: “…while you can.”

You’re going to get old, these motivational speakers, bloggers and script-writers tell us in a stage whisper. It’s not going to be fun forever. One day, you will have to fight harder to be pretty, go to bed earlier to be rested and you will never be this skinny again. Your doctor (because not-young people have to go to doctors practically every week, it seems) will begin telling you how you have to lay off the coffee, eat more flax, try water aerobics (running is just killing that now-fragile cartilage in your knees) and that you must drink more water. …well okay, you’ve been hearing that one your entire life. lol

The worst part is, it’s true; we know we’re going to age. But when a well-meaning writer tells me to enjoy my youth, I can’t help thinking of two things: How I already regret being older than I was a year ago, and how much worse it will be when I’m looking on in envy upon the teens and 20’s living their young, enjoyable life while I cruise on through 30’s and 40’s, hoping I, too, did enough enjoying when I had the chance.

Now, if you believe, as I do, that God created us to find our satisfaction in Him, then you have to ask yourself: If the very process of progressing through this life, one year at a time, is so very disheartening for me, where have I gone wrong? The world is bursting with imperfection. But we have been “redeemed” in Christ (literally: “compensation for the faults or bad aspects of something”) so, in short, life with Him is not meant to be a bummer. Hard, but not a big disappointment.

Here’s a thought: “Enjoy your everything.”

The fact is, it’s easy to enjoy yourself when you’re young. As Selena Gomez put it, it comes naturally! You may find that it takes more effort to enjoy yourself as you get older (life gets busy, you get tired, responsibilities complicate things) but does that mean you missed the “loving this life” bus?

I’m not going to pretend this notion of “live life to its fullest” began with me. :P Throw a Jelly Belly (because they’re tasty) in any direction, and you will hit a song, movie, celebrity, book, or bumper sticker that already shared this concept. But often what they’re talking about is this kind of thing:

•        Go skydiving
•        Stay out all night with your friends
•        Date that person you like; take a chance!
•        Run down the beach while the sun sets, jumping up and down, making flying silhouettes (I blame this one on Pinterest…)
•        Learn a new language or instrument
•        Just pack your bags and GO somewhere!

All sounds like fun to me, and hey, if it’s on your bucket list, maybe you should consider getting it done! But notice how little room some of those things leave for being married, having little money, feeling exhausted most of the time or having a couple kids? Does that mean you’re living less because you can’t do those things?

It’s not an easy question; it frequently makes me anxious to think about how

Natty and me at the Disney Store ♥

my life might be a washed-out photograph in future years compared to the vibrant watercolor it is now. What if life just…isn’t as good later on?

But there’s so much more to life than the way you lived it at 20.

There’s other people, there’s pain and going through it together, there’s learning how to take care of yourself, there’s getting old with your friends, there’s discovering the confidence to recognize beauty that Hollywood can't market. There’s putting fear behind you because, that day you were dreading has arrived, and you’re still you and the life you lead continues to hold surprises. It’s actually being a better friend, it’s actually discovering sustaining joy in your life, it’s actually being more than you used to be…because God uses time and experience and growing to make those long sought-after things slowly appear.

There will always be someone younger than you. There will also always be someone older than you (unless you’re the 115-year-old lady in Japan, but she has her own bragging rights.) Age is relative and in the end, is it so very important?

I know that doesn’t feel true. Age has pretty much bothered us since we were kids in a hurry to grow up, teens eager to have the freedoms of childhood and adulthood at the same time, and all the way to adults who regret every day that they get further from “the good years.”

Oh, dear friends, every year is a good year in the best sense of the word when your life is about living and not about what you’ve left behind.

I’m pretty sure I don’t wake up believing this yet. But I think it’s true. And if it’s true, it’s gospel; it’s good news. So be encouraged. ♥

June 29 - July 1, 2012

It's hard to complain about the Great Outage, because I happen to know it was harder for a lot of people than it was for us. We didn't lose any of our cars, our house, none of us were injured...we weren't even on our Independence Day Weekend vacation and then got evicted from our hotel because there was no power like I'm sure happened to a lot of folks.

That said...I mean...no AC? On the hottest weekend of July? Can I squink by with a "bummer."? lol

DZ's parents arrived at around 10pm on Friday night, and we'd unloaded their luggage, sat down in the living room, and had just started eating our orange sherbet, when the wind started blowing so hard, it made the house creek. In the flashes of lightning, we could see the trees tossing side to side, back and forth, like a bunch of wild, club-hopping tree-teens.

Then the lights flickered out and flickered back on.

We laughed. "Woah! What a storm!"

Then the lights died.

Dad Z said, "It sure is hard to eat sherbet when you can't see it."

Now-- it was Dad & Mom Z's first visit with us since DZ and I got married, so I'd been nervous about two things: trying to be a half the host Mom Z is famous for being back in Bryson City, and figuring out what to serve for dinner while they were there. At least I'd figured out which Fiesta plates to use (the peacock and lemon grass look nicest with the burnt orange tablecloth they gave us. what? I'm not type A, how dare you. :P )

So there I was, using my mobile phone as a flashlight, hunting down guest sheets, pillows and towels, so we could set up the parents on the futon in the basement where it would stay coolest without the AC.

Welcome to our home, y'all! :D lol...

Everyone was in decent spirits, however, and I think we all enjoyed the challenge of hunting around in the dark for everything and spending an evening visiting by candle light.

candle-lit Boggle. so romantic. :P

The next day, the house was still quiet. I never realized how much a house subconsciously reminds me of a living thing until all the power was gone and somehow it felt like a giant animal that stopped breathing. We had grapefruit and granola for breakfast, neither of which required opening the great cold air vault that was now our refrigerator. :P


We then unloaded all my left-over-from-home stuff!

...the house really was company-clean before, honest. :P

The Z parents also were kind enough to do a bed-swap with us! We gave them the mahogany-colored frame we'd bought off one of DZ's ex-housemates, and they gave us their Pottery Barn-inspired frame. A happy trade for all. <3

^ old bed, new bed ^

Our original plan had been to re-paint the front of the house while Dad and Mom Z were there, and since it was a decently cool and breezy morning, we decided to at least start on that. We'd just finished the first coat as the sun came over the ridge of the house, and the temperature shot from "aaah, a balmy 70-degree morning" to "wow. 90. quitting now."

taking advantage of DZ's distracted-by-painting-tude to photograph him. 

painting-ness

By the time we'd cleaned our brushes and fled indoors, it was pushing 100, and the breeze had shriveled up and died. :P We ran tree branches and uprooted shrubs to the dump, and then trolled around town looking for a store that still had ice, half because we needed it, and half because we didn't want to get out of the air conditioned car. lol

is there anything better than watermelon on a hot day?
i submit that there is not.

Then I got to serve my first dinner-to-the-in-laws: perishables from our refrigerator on paper plates. I decided we'll get out the seasoned fish fillets and the pretty plates next visit. ;)

The original plan for Sunday was:

• get up early
• go to service with Uncle Jack & Aunt Bev at their church in Maryland
• go back to Uncle Jack & Aunt Bev's house for lunch and games
• maybe head back home in time for Harvest at 7

However, Sunday went like this:

• slept in cause none of the churches had power
• had some devotions in the basement where it was cool
• went to cousin Darin & Charity's house in Maryland (because they had power and are amazingly flexible and generous and pretty) where we met up with Uncle Jack & Aunt Bev, who also lost their power
• had lunch and games
• went out for dinner at Ledo's House of Truly Amazing Pizza (actually it's just "Ledo's Pizza", I added the "House of Truly Amazing" because it's true)

It really was a splendid afternoon/evening; we all felt like it couldn't have worked out better, and by the time we got home, we'd quite forgotten we didn't have power. Until we walked into our living room, which was 95 degrees and sticky with humidity.

That's when we remembered our dear friends, Liz, Marianne and KP.

Now-- Liz, Marianne and KP are three vivacious, lovely, parade-float-worthy gals who live just a hop skip and a jump down 29 from us. They love to host people at their house and give them snacks and ice tea and things. They offered for us to come over if we were interested. We love them. ...and their power was also working, but I just want to point out that any evening is a good evening to spend with the girls of 5 Doors Down. It's just this was an ESPECIALLY good evening. ;)

Dad & Mom Z, Dan, a big, fat watermelon (our snack contribution) and I arrived at their house in time for the last five minutes of Pirates of the Caribbean, followed by the 2012 Olympics Gymnastics trials.

aren't they cute??

I was having the best time, watching them twist and twirl through the air like the little kids you see on the trampolines at the mall. What grace they have! What poise, what focus. What fun it must be to have such flexible limbs and weightless bodies!

And then 22-year-old Nastia Liukin fell flat on her face and the whole thing looked completely different. Suddenly they were sparkly, lovely young girls who were risking life and limb to win a medal. Hurling themselves through the air with only fingertips and perfect timing to keep them from flying away like origami butterflies in a strong wind. Suddenly, they were on the brink of not just crushing their dreams, but being crippled for life.

Whose idea was gymnastics???? Don't they LIKE little girls and happiness? :P

That said, we had a great time watching the trials; every girl was wildly talented, and even the ones who fell took it with grace. It made me want to go buy a sparkly leotard.

We went home, and got ready for another night of heat and stickiness which, by this point, was even seeping into our dark, cool basement.

Then, just ten minutes before midnight, Dan and I were hunting around in the dark for our pajamas, and I looked up at the desk and said, “Dan, your computer’s on.”

Dan said, "The fan is on."

We both said, "The neighbors' lights are on!"

And there was much rejoicing. <3

A lot has happened for just two weeks! But I can't remember what happened when. :P So here goes:

First, got rid of the refrigerator! A guy and his wife came with a dolly and a pickup and paid $40 for it cause they had a third boy on the way. lol Clearing that out of the dinging room got DZ and I excited about clearing out the junk. :P So we took this living room:

...added this bookshelf we picked up at the Salvation Army in Manassas:

...spaced the couches out so the arms didn't touch at the corners any more, cleaned out the extra lamps, the lumber hiding behind the big couch and the unwanted cords and cables left over from when we had Verizon Fios, and voila!

perty, yes?

Also, yes those are new peacock toss pillows that perfectly compliment the coral ones that came with our sofas. ;) I know it's like...decorator geekdom, but if you've ever tried to buy toss pillows you know that they run $25-$40 a pillow for absolutely no reason. These, however, we fond at a thrift shop in Fairfax called Unique for $4.99 each. 0_0 And they've got real feathers in them and everything!

hehehe...being proud of yourself is a fun emotion.

What else did we do...oh! We went for a picnic at Burke Lake park in Fairfax. We set up our picnic blanket right next to the golf course and watched people tee off. A rather soulful park ranger pulled up halfway through our lunch to inform us that getting hit in the head by a golf ball hurts a lot, and then drove away on his little cart thingy. lol

After lunch, we lounged around for awhile and watched a bunch of guys play ultimate Frisbee in the field across from us. We were pretty sure they were playing shirts vs. skins starting out, but it was so hot that afternoon that by the end of it, it was skins vs. skins and DZ and I pondered how they knew who was on which team anymore. :P

When the Frisbee guys left, DZ and I went over to the foot of the hill where they'd been playing, where a park bench was sitting just close enough to the tree line to be in shade. We played Rummikub. He won both times. As you can see, it's clear the double orange 3s that did me in. :P

...somewhere in there we made quesadillas and fried rice. lol By the way, those salt and pepper grinders the Middendorfs gave us have been quite popular with our guests. It's like having giant ballpoint pens that shoot spices out! :D

PAINT! I totally painted a bathroom. lol All the bathrooms, like most of the house, is a sort of non-committal shade of almost-white/close cousin of yellow. So I painted it "Gentle Rain" which is Behr's version of a very mild gray. <3

It was a rainy day, which was a perfect time to be inside for most of it anyways, and I just painted and painted and ate Butterfingers and watched Gilmore Girls. I don't know if it was the paint fumes or the chocolate, but I had the most fantastic time. lol

...took a break to do my "Buffy the Paint Slayer" pose that I didn't even know I had. :P

Also, Stephanie came to visit!! :D We sat in the living room and talked for three hours straight, and then she had to go before the traffic got bad. lol She also brought DZ and I presents, including these Winnie the Pooh-esq little jars with chalk boards on the front:

As you can see, I made them sweetener jars. I've been dying for someone to ask for coffee or iced tea ever since. ;)

Also, DZ and I did some de-junking. Usually, if you have junk that's too big for the garbage crew, you have to haul it to the dump yourself. Which is like...30 min away without traffic. But fortunately for us, the neighborhood occasionally does this thing where right around spring cleaning, the garbage service brings a dumpster to Circle Woods and people get to just throw whatever they want in it for two days! :D

So DZ and I hauled all this scrap building material, no-thank-you busted furniture, an old grill that was so rusted out that when we set down out front, it disintegrated ("I didn't know that could happen. 0_0 Can that happen??") and about 7 cans of old, glompy paint.

We also found a box of doorknobs.

Yup. Doorknobs. :P

So we got it all cleared out, and now we have more of a basement! :D  Awesome. Room for all the rest of my stuff which is coming up in a few weeks. ;)

This last Sunday, DZ and I went to Van Dyke park for the incredibly beautiful warm-and-breezy afternoon. We laid out a blanket, played a few games of Slap (it just sounds fun, doesn't it? ;) and then Dan read the Horatio Hornblower book we got from the library out loud while I relaxed and took pictures...

of the sky...

of the grass...

of the drop of pitch on a nearby pine tree which looked all sparkly...

and of Dan, which it turns out, he doesn't like. Tough. He married a girl with an SLR. ;)

I didn't get any pictures of my adventures in Manassas, but that happened too. I drove all over tarnation and practiced using my GPS while DZ was up in the air getting some flight hours towards his private pilots license. It was fun and adventurous-- I got lost, got honked at, got cat-called by a big fat boombox car...I was very happy to see him when he got back and more than happy to let him drive home. ;)

Oh! Just one more random note on Manassas-- I went to the B&N while I was there, and it is laid out EXACTLY like the one in Biltmore Park Town Square. It was hilarious-- I walked in and I was like, "Um...where am I?" *hehe* In a weird way, it felt like home. ;)

The stores I know how to get to right now:

Basically I can get orange juice, turkey bacon, paint swatches and coffee...I may not need to find anywhere else... :P

When DZ got home, we went to Home Depot and got some wood so we can build our own Corn Hole game! We're thinking we'll play it on the community grass areas in Circle Woods and see if we can lure some neighbors to come out and play with us. ;)

Turns out my car can fit a 24x24" sheet of plywood in the back. Good to know.

And then I stood around while Dan unloaded the car going, "I'm taking pictures of you carrying plywood, haha, I'm taking pictures of yooou..."

...until he got annoyed and hid. :P

Then we went over to The Blake House for an open-invitation dinner thing they do every Tuesday night. SO much fun-- we sat on the back deck and grilled chicken and ate cheesy bread and talked about responsibility in photojournalism and The Avengers. lol I'm glad they're our neighbors. :)

Was feeling industrious, so I put up a shower curtain:

Yay!

Flushed with my success from hanging up a shower curtain, I decided to something brave...

I grocery-shop'd! :D

And if that doesn't entertain you, imagine me getting home and photographing the six grocery items I purchased. :P Then I water the flowers and ran some laundry.

At this point, I was very proud of myself.

   

I looked around at the clean house with grocery stuff in it, and I thought to myself...I'm industrious and pretty much amazing. I'm going to lay on the living room floor.

And NAP.

Woke up automatically around 7, thinking I'd slept in too late. Dan muttered something about "another hour" and "go back to sleep." I lay buggy-eyed for awhile, staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of this "get up at 8 o'clock on a Sunday" situation.

And then, if you please, we got up at 8, leisurely got dressed, leisurely made and ate our breakfast, got all our stuff together, and had to actually kill twenty minutes before we left! And DZ was ushering today, so we had to get there "a little earlier."

This will take some adjusting to. :P

Had a fantastic time at church; was nice to see everybody, and lots of people were excited to see us. James appeared out of nowhere and gave us both a bear hug, shouting, "THE ZIMMERMANS!!" He asked how we were doing, we said just fine, he said, "Good! Still together and everything, good sign." :P

Also, I filled out a "keeping connected card" during service (DZ usually does that, but since he was ushering, he didn't sit down till after the offering) and had put it in the little golden tray before I realized I'd written "Chloe Zimmerman" for the first time. I had to refrain from grabbing the offering plate back from the Deacon so I could scrapbook it. :P Fortunately, my nostalgia has its limits. lol

lazy afternoon flowers. <3

Harvest was wonderful. <3 Everyone who had been at the wedding wanted to know when I was going to get my sisters to move to DC. lol I told them I'm working on it. ;)