The Wiig Effect

I was having one of my Kristen Wiig moments this morning as I got in touch with my emotions after this week’s events. When I am tired, I get emotional and then I go into a Kristen Wiig spiral. No offense Kristen, but those are kind of your movies (watching two is enough to judge, right?) – girl thinks that she has it all and then loses everything -apartment, boy, job- then ends up moving back home but has quirky friends who show her how much she still has because they love her. Then there’s a redeeming plot twist at the end where she gets the guy and shows the world it can’t keep her down. Everyone feels warm and fuzzy, and, most importantly, that life may not suck after all.

But life does not find its full completion in the same way as a two hour movie. The working at it part kind of seems to go on forever. Until we get to the end (hopefully with you, Lord), can you just expedite this growing pains and groaning process? I know it’s supposed to build endurance and lead to hope, but really, can we just speed it up a little? Life is short. I only have 50 some years of average American life left to live and my age range has the highest rate of death from injuries and violence, so there’s really no guarantee. And at the rate the polar bears are dying, I may not even get to all those years with fresh air.

And it would also be cool if you could speed up the meeting-cool-guy-and-gettting-married process. I don’t really care for the awkward dating, not knowing, maybe he’s “just not that into me” ish. Just get me to the he-put-a-ring-on-it-and-sealed-the-deal so I know he’s committed. It’d be nice if you could give me a sign and I’ll quickly move on if a guy’s not good for me or vice versa. Kthanksbye.

Unlike Kristen’s characters, there are no friends today to interrupt my random morning of trailing thoughts that lead me to feeling miserable about myself. There is just me and my willpower (and I guess truth) to fend them off. Although it is tempting to believe, I am not a girl who has no friends. The world does not hate me. Guys do not suck (ok, maybe just the boys). I am not a miserably jaded Kristen Wiig character, or maybe I am, but she always finds herself among faithfully loyal friends who may beat her up, take her to bars, or lend them their life sized replica of an hermit crab’s exoskeleton. Well, really if any of those quirky friends are Darren Criss, that would be enough for me.

Anyways, I am a deeply flawed character without a concise two hour run time that ends with a hope for the future. However, I am hopeful because of the one I hope in. Things don’t automatically get better in the rough seasons (or days) but I know how to love and I want to love more. And that’s going to make everything progressively better.

 

 

P.S. For those who may not know, I was referencing the movies Bridesmaids and Girl Most Likely, with Kristen Wiig starring in both.

Speaking from Woundedness

Maya Angelou, when asked what she would say to her younger self, said, “I would encourage her to forgive. It’s one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself…You can’t forgive without loving, and I don’t mean sentimentality. I don’t mean much. I mean having enough courage to stand out and say, ‘I forgive. I’m finished with it.'” (The interview is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcOzaMGQzPg.) Her poetry, literature, and person speaks deeply to the spirits of those who encounter her words.

Today her words spoke wisdom into my daily task of choosing to forgive. Although those whom I need to forgive are still on the very mild end of the “offenders of humanity” spectrum, my experiences have taught me the deep resolve it takes to forgive. I can only imagine what the forgiving process looks like for those whose life and/or dignity have been threatened or taken.

I would like to say that today, I forgive and I’m finished with it but that’s not the case. I find myself needing to work at it every day, choosing to forgive despite the pain I endured and still will. In an untrue, but easier to accept, reality, I feel like I lose out when I forgive. My offender gets away scot free while I agonize and wallow and claw my way out of a dark pit. But true reality is that until I can fully work through forgiveness to my offenders, I will respond to life with a sense of woundedness as well as act out because of my woundedness. In such a state, I am unable to see in color and unable to experience wonder because I feel personally jaded by everything that goes wrong.

So on these hard days when I can’t profess that I forgive, I can remind myself that there is one who says, I know you, I love you, and I forgive you, when I can’t. I need that gift too.