To snatch them from the fires of Hell

I'm putting together a little talk to present here in a couple of weeks. It's for a program for families whose children have had their first run-in with the law. I've been thinking about what might possibly be helpful under the circumstances. Mostly what I am thinking is:
"Heck, the road only gets tougher from here. My kids started with the odd herb smoking, too! Now they are certified Felons. Welcome to the dark side!"
Somehow I don't think that is likely to strengthen the fainthearted. Do I really want to scare them?

What I really want to say would be far more personal, though along the same lines. I want to tell them that if their children are bent on self-destruction, there is very little that they can actually do to stop it. They can cry and pray and scream, but they cannot make a child chose wisely. I would tell them that these little beautiful blessings are capable of catastrophic decisions way,way,way before we are ready to face it; certainly before they turn 18. I would tell them to discipline, set boundaries, and parent with determination, but to understand that at the end of the day these children are responsible for the blessing or the curse they bring into their own lives. It seems cruel and unfair that a 13-year-old can use drugs, run away, or get pregnant. But the simple truth is that they can, and they sometimes do.

I want to tell those kids to listen to their parents so they can stay safe. Most of them won't listen. They need to know that there is an invisible line, and once they cross it, not even their parents can help them. That is when the State takes custody, or commits them to incarceration, or they do permanent physical damage. They should fear that.

Those parents need to know that the proverbial advice to put on one's own oxygen mask first applies here. Keep yourself healthy, and relatively sane, so you can navigate the nightmare. Make your marriage a priority. Enjoy a hobby. Find Jesus. Do something frivolous and fun. Force normalcy where you can. Protect the sanctuary that is your home. That means making excruciatingly hard choices, and living with them.

....But these are families whose kids got in trouble for smoking pot. Or maybe shoplifting. I think I'm maybe over-reacting.
Or maybe not.
The first time my child got caught shoplifting felt earth-shattering... until the first time my child got committed to State Custody... which shook me to my core...or the first time I called the police on my son...or the first time I saw my boy in shackles... or the Drug Overdose. It's all a horror, every step. When a child gets busted for the first time, it's just the worst thing a parent can imagine. Perhaps it is unkind to tell them that this may be the first rung on the ladder. Things might get much, much worse.

These kids have a chance to stop. Today's crisis could be the worst they ever bring upon themselves, if only they will listen. Perhaps it is kind for me to scare them, after all.

Ah, and those poor parents. They have no control.
My heart aches for them.

In which I rehash my past, and shock you with tales of TV viewing

In church today we were singing a song about how God makes "beauty from the ashes," and how He's a "Father to the fatherless," and mostly really does nice things for lonely people. I had to dab at my eyes so my mascara wouldn't run, because I was touched by a truth in that message.
There I was, in church, feeling all loved and happy, and I remembered how it once was. Those days when I was the loneliest person ever to be married to a Meth addict. There were days when life was so horrible! But it's all way back, a decade ago. Things have been relatively calm for a very long time.
Being in love with Tim shows me that those wounds have healed, in such a way that I have a greater capacity to love, and be loved. I like this relationship, and I am pretty sure that any normal woman would. But I think I am able to exalt in it all the more because of the horribleness from days-gone-by.
Every once in a while you get a glimpse of reality, like a perspective shift that shows things from a different angle. That's the way this hit me.
I know it must get annoying to hear my sappy love story. But the truth of it is that I ain't never seen nothin' like this.
No one has ever been loved so much as I am.
There was a time when I could not conceive of being happy. There were days and years when I was more lonely than I can say. There was an entire section of life colored by shock and hopelessness. It's a distant memory, now, and that is an act of God.
Today is as glorious, as yesterday was malicious.

But enough of that.

You are dying to know about my weekend, aren't you?
I have been cleaning out my junk. My garage has a great big pile of stuff to give away. "If you want it, here it is, come and get it"....isn't that from a song? Come and get stuff from my house, and take it to yours. Who wants my sewing machine? Patsy, come get my fabric. Who wants some useless junk? Broken patio furniture? Anyone?

Tim has roped me into watching a TV show. I know; don't faint. It's called "24." Do you watch that? He records it on his fancy-shmancy TV, and we watch it Saturday evenings. I am so sucked in! TV is like watching a really long movie, all stretched out over months. It's inefficient, if you ask me. But compelling.

We ate out this weekend, twice.
Tim and I had a grown up dinner on Friday evening at a very nice restaurant. I drank an entire bottle of wine over the course of the evening, and became somewhat verbose. I didn't mean to. We had a glass of red before we left the house. A glass of white with the appetizers. Then the bottle of petite Shiraz, which we split. When it was time to stand up and leave, I found myself rather unexpectedly dizzy. I should have been mindful, apparently. Although, upon reflection, the dizziness did explain why I was talking so freely.
The other time we ate out this weekend was today after church. He took us all to Panda Express, and Burger King. I know, he's classy. But, it was the two requests made by the children, and he bought all they wanted. My kids think they've died and gone to heaven. Such decadence! Two restaurants on the way home?! Order anything you want?! Even if it's not on the dollar menu?! They pretty much want to marry Tim.

I am now sick of sitting still. And those dinner dishes aren't getting any cleaner. Besides, I said "ain't" and discussed TV. I should quit while I'm ahead.

For rememberance

My thoughts ran philosophical today.

I don't know anything about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, save it's name.
It occurred to me to wonder today, if people who suffer from that, face the irrational expectation of continued horrific occurrences during the course of everyday life.

I have a friend who has lived in a heightened state of anxiety for years. Her troubles spring from the victimization of her beloved child, and the ensuing court battles. She's dealt with alarming financial difficulties, custody battles, and emotional fallout from the central tragedy of their lives. I'll bet she stands in bewilderment at the mundane irritations of skinned knees, and dinnertime telemarketers. Her nerves must always be braced for the next horror, because horror is what she knows.

There was a time when my life was a daily series of shocks that were so mind numbing as to become .....common. My husband pulled a loaded weapon on a child. Went to jail. Had an affair with a heroin addict. Built a meth lab. My car was re-poed. The business went down in a haze of local news coverage. The house began foreclosure. All this and more!
When every morning is the set of a new, and stunningly-cruel measure of nightmare, how is a person supposed to think?
One does what one must.
The human being is surprisingly resilient in such cases.
It's when life goes back to what ought to be normal, that such a person wonders how to live.
There is no real problem among such minor irritations as the price of gasoline, or being late for work. Someone who has lived through Chernobyl, is always expecting the Next Horror to explode into their world. How can one relax?
It takes years, in my experience.
One day, I was sitting my the fireplace, with my two children. We were reading, as I recall. It just hit me like a bolt of epiphany that I was happy. I had been for some time, and I didn't remember when it had started, but there it was. Life had become normal.
I never, ever, want to forget what it's like, though. Bombs crushing every vestige of my life, and a shattering of my world that leaves me shell-shocked. I need to remember that precisely because I am happy. It mattered. It has everything to do with who I am today. Others need to know that in the face of such things, God is Good. And life is worth getting back to normal for.

Flashback

He had hung a fragment of carpet over the entrance to the office. It served as a crude curtain, to separate him from inquiring minds in the businesses foyer. He needed privacy. I hesitated to bolster my nerves before pushing it aside. A deep breath....
It was quite heavy, really. Effective.
I don't remember what I was looking for. Paperwork of some kind; either for the attorney general, or the tax commission. A visit to his files was in order. It was a task that fell to me, since he was in jail.
I leaned into the carpet-curtain.
The office beyond was littered with trash, so deep. I kept losing my footing because of the shifting papers beneath my feet. They were mostly magazines, That kind of magazine. A thousand pairs of hopeless eyes gazed sightlessly up at me from the glossy pages.
The place was silent.
Such a barrage to my reeling senses, that the smell was the last thing that registered in my catalogue of sensations. Revulsion was among the first. A staggering horror. Confusion. Then the musty smell from layers of damp garbage.
Why was it damp?
The filing cabinet was largely empty. The papers I needed, unfortunately, seemed mixed among the periodicals.
So I began to rummage.
I found a hypodermic needle, and then another. One more call to the police seemed to be in order. There were other things amid the trash, things I didn't recognise, but knew a nice girl shouldn't see. They were used. The papers were nowhere to be found, and the mess was driving me past the point of utter despair.
Digging was obviously a matter of personal endangerment, even were I to avoid more drug-polluted needles, the spores of mold wafting into my every breath must cause some endangerment to my life. And the filth...
I called the police, yet again, and staggered back to the safety of my car.
My eyes were dry. There were no tears left.

Submission

Every once in a long while, I fall to telling stories from ages ago. There are moments, years even, from my days, which stand out in stark tragedy against the generally sunny backdrop of my life. I find this hard to do. It is a vulnerability that I am uncomfortable with.
How can I share stories without weighty emotion? The echo of those memories is quite strong, but not overpowering anymore. I can remember sorrow and grief without spinning into despair. Time is good that way. The events get folded into me.

My ex-husband is living in town.
Those of you who have been with me for a while, have heard bits and pieces of those days long gone: drug addiction, and violence, and betrayal. It's quite a story.

J', (we'll call him J'. Even those who are not so innocent can stand a bit of protection.)
He's been clean and sober for a while now. Two years, I think. And he is moving, bit by bit, back into polite society.
M' is interested in knowing his dad. D' is really not. Now, because I have sole legal custody, I have a bit of freedom to oversee the kids and their comfort level with this man. He had been utterly absent from their lives for a long time, like 5 years. They neither heard from him, nor saw him.
Now he wants a relationship with them.

I came from a divorced family, you know. My family shattered when I was 10. October of 1980, if I remember correctly. I know what divorce does to a kid.

My step-mother died when I was in my early 20's. My mom went to my dad's house to bring some food, and they greeted one another with a hug. Even as an adult, this simple sight gripped my heart. How I longed, even then, to see my parents together!
There's a mysterious something that a child feels for a parent. We long for their approval, and for their involvement. We love them, no matter what.
My boys are no different.
And so J' has come to M's lacrosse games. It's a tenuous beginning.

I have always been honest with the boys about their dad. They know most of his story, as it's their story, too. The very most shocking elements have been, not diluted, but shared in age appropriate terms. I have insisted on their respect for him.
It's crucial to respect those whom God commands us to respect. Respect does not have to be earned. Respect is an act of obedience, to benefit the one doing the respecting, and not necessarily the one being respected.
The boys may ask honest questions about their father. They may also speak of their concerns or memories or emotions, but they may not be derogatory, nor contemptuous. They look him in the eye when he speaks, and they respond to him as "sir."
They also understand that they must develop a relationship with him based upon who he is, and not on who they would like him to be. This is important. J's future is uncertain, and his past is a shame. To love this man means accepting his weaknesses and limitations. It means respecting someone who has never earned it. It also means that the boys bare their chests to the very real possibility of further betrayal.
But, it also affords grace. My children extend, to an undeserving man, a very tangible example of God's Grace. They gain a deeper understanding of Who God Is, and His relationship to all of us sinners.
J' has a chance to actually become respectable, and to learn more of Jesus through the love of those whom he has most hurt.
That's powerful.
I hold my breath to observe the intensity of it. For me, all fear and desire to protect must be Godward. Any bitterness. or shade of suspicion from me, will only harm those I would wish to shelter.
God be Praised. He can take even the worst consequences of sinful man, and weave them into beauty.

In the Beginning

We were married in 1992, September.

I'd met him back in January, at the single's group at church. He walked with a swagger. My mother and I were single, and we thought that the single's group would make for a fun outing.

It was.

The men were buzzing bees. The women were flowers.

I noticed him right away, when he sauntered into the room. He was one of the few men in the room who was neither balding, nor overzealous. He sat at our table.

Mother struck up a conversation with him, or he with her, I don't remember. He had a slow way of speaking, and a lazy smile that lit up his eyes. I told my mother later that my mind had time to wander and return before he finished a sentance. He drove me nuts.

He hung around, and became our friend, through the rest of that winter. By Spring break he announced that he was going to marry me. I rolled my eyes. We weren't even dating.

We were engaged in May.

And why not? He was handsome. He spent loads of time with my family. He owned his own business and his own home. He loved the Lord, he knew his bible well, he served in ministry. All those checked off my list.

My friend Cathy said, "I hate you for marrying a home owner." By which she meant that I was marrying a grown up and established man. I was lucky. (Do you remember that, Cath?)

It was the beginning of the loneliest days of my life. I was twenty-two years old.

And the world keeps right on spinning

You know how sometimes you write and erase, and write and erase? Because appropriate articulation is just lacking?
That would be now.
I had a weird experience tonight. I didn't do such a good job of expressing myself to someone with whom I was speaking earlier, so I am mulling it around in my brain to figure out how to better say what I mean.

Did you see the movie Walk the Line? It's the whole Jonny Cash story.
He decends into drug addiction.
There's this scene where his wife is losing it and yelling and crying, and he pins her to the floor in a fit of temper....when they both realize that the kids are standing there. The first time I saw that, in the theatre, I felt like my most private moment had been displayed on screen. Remember my diary on the mattress in the Meth lab? It was like that.
I cried in the produce section of Fred Meyer after the movie, because it welled up, and I felt it all again. (I'm not really a crier)

So tonight, I was in the local homeless shelter.
(What? You don't go there on Friday nights? Perplexing.)
It was a volunteer opportunity. There were several of us.
Anyway...
My husband used to be a regular there. You know, after he grew up to be a drug addict, he ended up living on the streets. We used to pick him up, and buy him a burger sometimes. One time we bought him shoes, because his had been stolen.
He didn't shower very often in those days. My kids remember.

Tonight, M' and I were helping to serve dinner to these guys who smelled like alcohol. They were hungry, and desperation was in their eyes. (They also had cell phones, which was odd.) Every man there was my husband.
Did they have families somewhere who were needing them?
What had they walked away from to be there?
I was shell-shocked.
The world retreated in a moment and the sounds were crystal clear, but distant. Sharp and hazy at the same time. I wanted to go and think somewhere. Cry, maybe.
"How ya doin' tonight? Are you hungry?" I asked as I slopped more tater-tots on a plate.
I was there with a friend who was chatting merrily, as though this was the very most normal thing on the planet. She was happy, and beautiful, and comfortable as can be. Her words were a hummmmm.
And my ex-brother-in-law walked by.
"How ya doin"? How ya been?" What do you say when you see someone you know at the local homeless shelter?
"I'm between jobs right now," He told me. Apparently so.

Past meets Present.

My life right now is good, you know? I love my little life. Those moments that wisk me into memory are shocking. It's like I somehow forgot that my life was all tangled with a homeless drug addict. That I lived that.
I think it's important.
I don't want to forget. I don't want to get used to those experiences, as if that was my life, and it's not big deal.
It was a big deal.
It is a big deal.
It matters.
And the feelings are big. I never want them to diminish.
I want to embrace the power of that, and be made effective.

More of my story

There were maggots on the dog. He was old, but he was not dead, and so the maggots were wrong. Yet, there they were, eating.

The dog had belonged to Dan.

Dan was dead.

Long since, in fact.

Like Marley and the Ghost of Christmas Past, all of yesterday was wrapped up in today. Dan had loved this dog. My sisters were still quite young, and their rememberance of Dan, their daddy, was fond. His dog was a link to him, the dog's death was a new grief.

Chloroform over his nose took the horror of the maggot's dinner into a new kind of pain. The girls were in tears.

We got shovels from the garage.

For my part, I had gone to Mother's that day for a distraction. It was sunny that day; was it Spring? Things were bad for me, and worse by the moment. Like that dog, I was being eaten alive.

The question of the dog was easily resolved. Unplesant, of course, but not hard to discern. So we began to dig.

My situation was less clear.

Fresh in my mind was the phone conversation, in which I had discovered yet one more detail in a string of unimaginable revelations. Today I had learned that my husband was living with a woman and her four children between his stints in jail. His own wife and two children had lost their appeal.

And so I dug.
The death of the dog had unlocked a fountain of tears that I did not need to hide. It felt good to apply my physical strength and aggression. We attacked the hole in silence, pausing from time to time, to wipe away the sweat or the tears.

A piece of my story, PG-13

I pulled up and parked with a heavy heart. This was not where I wanted to spend my day.
Looking back now, I do not recall who was watching the boys for me. Someone, surely; they were so young at the time. 2 and 4, I think.
The building looked unkept.
I had been forbidden to come here for quite some months. We owned the business, but as my husband had grown more secretive, he had insisted that I stay away from his work. With him in jail, it seemed important for me to come down in spite of his wishes, to assess the situation. How else was I going to pay the bills?
As I pushed the door in, a bell sounded somewhere in back. An unfamiliar woman stood at the counter copying information from the computer onto CDs. I offered a shaky smile.
"Hi. I am Kelly."
She kept feeding the computer. She looked different than the ladies I knew. Hard. Used up.

The foyer was filthy. I took a seat and chatted with the woman. If I was to be effective here, I figured I should get to know her.

My mindset was foggy, to say the least. My entire world was turned on it's ear, and I had no frame of reference to process all that I found around me. As a young mother with two boys and a bible study, my situation was absurd. Chatting with the woman at the computer I found my mind registering information from my surroundings with a disjointed neccessity. There were mouse droppings on the floor.

I excused myself to explore a bit. If the foyer was filthy, the back was unimaginable squallor. There was a long-dead mouse on the microwave. A mason jar of urine in the fridge. Layers of dust and grime coating every surface. It was way too quiet.

This was a bustling consumer electronics repair business. This room had been filled to bursting with men and equiptment. Laughter and phone calls and good natured chiding. My husband had run a pleasant environment. His emplyees were happy, and they worked hard for him. Good men, all. Not only were there empty chairs, but empty counters as well. Where were the tools and electronics?
At the back of the room, I noticed that the pull-down ladder to the attic was extended to the floor. With a glance over my shoulder, I could see that the woman was not interested in my wanderings. I began to ascend the rungs.

I had never been up here before. It was a good sized space with low rafters. The bare lightbulb was on. It took me a few moments to register my surroundings, it looked for all the world like a bad movie set. There was a dirty mattress on the floor in the center of the room. Upon the matress was a solitary book. Several of the rafters had been employed as shelves, and they held an odd assortment of chemicals. There was a hot plate. Maybe two, I don't remember for sure. There were a couple of buckets, too, coated with some resudue from a recent mixture.

My insides were spinning again, like the balance of all reality was no longer ruled by gravity. This was a familiar feeling, by this point. It was my new state of being.
It had begun, in earnest, the day that the policeman knocked at my door with the request to search my home. Was that a month prior to my search at the business? Three months? I no longer remember the time frame. That poor policeman! He had to give substance to the shadowy fears which had haunted my marriage. Meth was the something I had been unable to identify. And all I knew shifted into nightmare, as my world disolved into horror.

And now I stood in the attic. The woman downstairs was on the phone. I could hear her lowered voice more readily up here.
I walked over to the mattress.
The book in the center had a unicorn on the front. I recognized that book; but how did it get here?! This was my diary from when I was about 12. I opened at random and began to read the dramatic drivel of a preteen me.
For some reason, this was personal enough to shock me into myself.
These people had read my diary.
I clutched the book close to my heart, and decended the stairs with a purpose.
I marched right up to the woman at the front counter and announced that I was calling the police. I told her that I had found the Meth lab upstairs, and I dialed 911.

Marching to my Beat

Do you realize that your age always marks the end of the year, and not the beginning? When you turn 40, you are done being 40? When you are 41, you are beginning your 50th decade. Weird, huh?
I was thinking, just today, that my life runs in these cycles that are roughly a decade each.

The first decade of my life was spent within an intact family unit.
You know... mom, dad, sister. 1970-1980

The second decade was a broken thing...involving heartache, step-people, half-people, and the like. 1980-1989ish

(College sort off took place in here, and was a parenthetical reprieve. I lived with my wonderful and amazing GrandParents for that. It was like a vacation from Life Itself. And sometimes I even went to class.)

Decade #3 was married me. If decade 2 was heartache, then 3 was unfathomable anguish. 1992-1999, although the divorce wasn't final until '01 or '02.

Decade #4 has been peace and serenity. It has been me and my boys. This has been the 2000's.

It occurred to me today that I may be in for a change. If destiny keeps her rhythm, then the next year or two should bring something new. Seriously. Isn't that a cool thought? I, for one, am on the edge of my seat.
Any guesses?

The End

...of 2007
I loved watching my children grow and change this year. It's hard to summarize all that happened. For me, so much of the activity has been internal.
I've had a lot to think about.

For D' this has been the year of the guitar.
For M' this has been the year of hunting and football.
For me it has been the year of owning a business which requires me to work every afternoon from a sedentary desk position and travel a bit.
Plus, it was the year of the black belt.
Our house church has been a huge focus, and the central point of relationships this year. I am so thankful to God for that, and so incredibly grateful to the beautiful people who have committed to be a part of that.
Our family got a little bigger with the addition of Mika, my sweet niece.
My mother moved from her home of 25 years, and that was a major change. Her new home is quite lovely, even if it does have a TV in it.
We had an interesting twist with the reappearance of the father of my children. He reemerged after an absence of many years (like 5 or 6), and brought to town chaos including threats of eviction, and emotional dynamics like fireworks in my children. The good news is that he seems blissfully unaware of all that he excites.
God took care of us this year. He is Good. It was yet one more year of miracles in provision. I have worked from home and home educated my children. That is a continual miracle. I am so thankful for the life we have here.

What will 2008 bring? What do you hope for?

May you have a very fun celebration this evening. May the Rose Bowl go your way.
May the new year give you all your heart desires, and some things you can scarcely imagine.

"Now to Him Who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory...." Amen

No Visible Protection

I love Charles Spurgeon with all my heart.
You would think that the fact that this man is dead would inhibit that somewhat, but this is not the case.
I have a copy of his devotional called Morning and Evening, and I read it from time to time. This particular book belonged to my Very Great Grandmother Who Disappeared. It is one of those treasures that I would enter a burning house to redeem, on account of it being so precious to me. For Grandmother's sake and not for Mr Spurgeon's. I wouldn't enter a burning house for Mr Spurgeon.
My Grandmother really did disappear, have I ever told you that story? She was a beautiful woman, who loved the outdoors, and lived the sort of life that left a lasting impact upon several generations of her family. I want to be like her, even if I am not all that outdoorsy.
And she disappeared one day.
We panicked.
We prayed.
People searched.
No trace of her was ever found.
And, though the questions broke our hearts, her dramatic end was appropriate to her powerful life. Mystery suits her.
Once again, I am way off my point.
I was talking about Charles Spurgeon.
In yesterday's devotional, which I read today, Spurgeon wrote to me thru the ages. He was talking about Ezra, who was this guy from the bible. Ezra had to go talk to the king, and he was all bragging about how powerful God is. He said that God does good stuff for those that are His, and His "power and His Wrath are against those that forsake Him." But, once Ezra said all this to the king, about God being all protective and powerful, he couldn't really ask for a contingent of soldiers for their journey. See, he would appear to be a bit false if he said that God could do all this stuff, and then put his faith in soldiers.
And this relates to me.
Years ago, I determined to trust God to be my Provider and Protector. He has never once let me down. For over a decade, I have worked at home and parented full time, even as a single parent. At the moment, I am in a situation where God is allowing the manner of provision to change. A lot. However, I can hardly do less than look to Him to continue to Provide and Protect. I keep telling you this, but I am really reminding myself. The truth is that my faith is very small, and I get pretty freaked out. However, God is as real in my life as He was for Ezra. His protection is as sure. And whether kings or peasants watch my story unfold, I will march ahead on my journey with whatever means of support God sees fit to allow. Ezra didn't depend upon flesh and blood, and neither shall I.
Pretty cool, huh?

Livin' the dream, baby

And the fun just keeps on coming...
What with the felicitous delight of ex's, lawyers, and poverty, you wouldn't think I could possibly enjoy much more. You would be wrong.
The whole ex-thing is just annoying. I think I covered that for you in my last post.
The lawyers? Gotta love em. If I go back to school, I think I'll be a lawyer. Honestly, where else can you make so much money justifying any horrible action on the planet with the force of mere words? Seriously, I could be good at that.
And Poverty? I can't really plead poverty. Despite all the crazy life situations, God always provides for us. If my God is all that wealthy, then I can't really claim to be poor.
My life just seems to be one freefall of faith after another. What could be better? A root canal?
There was an ad on TV a hundred years ago where a person was standing with their back to a swimming pool, and they would throw their arms out to the side and fall back into the water. This became known as the Nestea plunge.
I live the Nestea plunge.
It's a stunning series of situations that are so far beyond the realm of normalcy. They are what we refer to as "God things" because they are the sort of thing that only God can manage. No one else can get their mind around these. All one can do is trust and ....fall.
I kind of think that these Big Situations are because I am, in fact, the original Drama Queen.
I know someone who overreacts to every single situation. When SOMEONE IS DRIVING 5 MILES PER HOUR BELOW THE SPEED LIMIT, This individual is in danger of having a stroke. No kidding. It's not healthy. But the problem is not that his life is really that bad, it's just that he REACTS TO EVERYTHING IN CAPS LOCK.
So, I was thinking that maybe I do that.
Maybe my life is really not that abnormal, just I am.
Which is entirely possible.