True Swag

Although the main reason for my blog's name is that it doens't fence me in and allows me to focus on writing about pretty much anything, it is also because I have so many things I'm interested in, and am made up of so many different parts, wear so many different hats (except that I never actually wear hats...), that it just felt right to call this place A Great & Many Things.  I think its actually a movie line, but I don't know which movie, so...

Whatevs.  I'm a great & many things, which is not to say that all of the things that I am are great.  I'm a terrible housekeeper, which is not awesome (just ask my husband).  I'm perpetually late, and bad at phone calls.  I also text in my head but forget to use my fingers and actually send the reply that was timely and witty and thoughtful.  So not everything I am is awesome.  Some are, some aren't.  

Lately, though, I've been pulled back into the past, and realized that I've been holding on for far too long to labels that I have outgrown.  Awkward.  Poor.  Unwanted.  Backwards.  Overwhelming.  Out of touch.  Basically, the annoying kid that people don't really like but that their mom said they had to be nice to because you know, things aren't easy for her at home.  Growing up was good and bad, a mixed bag, but highschool actually improved things, although some of that stink lingered.  Now, I'm an adult.  A relatively successful one, by my measurements anyhow (and God's - which seems weird to say.  Not that God told me I was ki-hil-ling it or anything, but I feel like I should mention that I'm not measuring by only the world's standard... baptist kids, you know what I'm trying to say, right?).

And yet, there are times when I think, "Wow, that was really nice of them to be kind to me, even though I know I don't really belong, they are all so much more <blank> than I am."  Put together.  Awesomer.  On top of things.  Un-awkward.  Although I fight through it, I often have a moment or two of hesitation when coming into a group of what I would call the "cool kids".  The other day, I wanted to get some info from our local Crossfit gym.  And c'mon, you KNOW that crossfit people looooOoooOove to talk about crossfit.  But right before I went in, I was super nervous, because what if I'm not good enough to join or what if its exclusive or what if I'm coming at a bad time or or or...

I read once that a seriously obese person, even after they lose a bunch of weight, often still sees themselves as being "the fat guy" (or girl).  That they still respond to things as they did when they were heavy, that they still think like an obese person.  They walk in the room and people look at their clothing, they feel self conscious as a knee-jerk reaction, even if people were just thinking "whoa, what an awesome dress!".  The labels that we believe about ourselves stick with us, often long after their veracity has faded.

All of the "I'm not good enough" words, they're lies.  All of them.  I'm not trying to say to the world, "I AM ONE OF THE COOL KIDS".  No.  The lie is that there are any cool kids to begin with.  There's not.  There is no club, and life doesn't have to be middle school.  Its about swag.  True swag.  When I was a kid, I had no swag, all I had were labels, and they were ugly.  But I don't have to hold onto those labels.  I don't even have to accept that they applied to me back then, except that is probably a conversation for a psychiatrist's couch.  No.  I reject those labels.  Instead, I have a confidence born of knowing exactly who I am, and knowing that I am (or am becoming) the person I want to be.  That's where swag comes from.

When you have swag, you live sort of separate from people's opinion of you.  You are free to like or dislike me.  Although you likely won't dislike me because I believe that who I am is a daughter of God, and that He wants me to consider other people before I consider my own self, and who dislikes a person who treats them that way?  No one.  Swag lets you wear what you want and own it.  "Does this look good?" is irrelevant.  "Does this make me feel awesome?" is a much more swag-ish question.  "Does this allow me to be awesome?" even works, because sometimes you reeeely just need to throw on shoes so that you can go have an awesome lunch, and so although the red ballet flats don't look right, it doesn't matter.  Just commit and go, they'll let you get the job done.

Swag is about being intentional all over the place.  I have found through repeated trial and lots of errors that the decisions I intentionally make are the decisions I feel good about.  The decisions that I allow myself to be goaded into, the ones I abdicate, I don't often love those.  Like clothing, again.  The jeans I bought because they make me feel like I have rockstar legs (even though I couldn't define it any better than that)?  I LOVE wearing those.  Are they in style?  Are they the right wash?  Am I wearing proper footwear with them?  I don't know, I don't care, and probably not.  But I love when I wear them.  I mean, c'mon, they give me rockstar legs.  However, when I throw on that top that I didn't really love but I let someone talk me into and they say it looks nice although I don't quite see it, well, I never feel awesome in that top.  Unless I am also wearing the rockstar jeans, in which case I kind of just focus on the positive and forget I hate my shirt.  But do you catch my metaphor here?  Intentionality (born of innate confidence and sure identity) produces AWESOME.  

I want you to know that I paused up there, searched for a word other than awesome, but I can't quite find anything else to describe it.  The more places that you take your swag, the more intentionality that you bring to your life each day, the more awesomeness that will be produced.  Perhaps not in your circumstances or consequences, I'm not saying that you'll get a million dollars in your mailbox (but seriously, forward this email 17x or a cat will die).  But internally?  In the way you view yourself, in the satisfaction you find in your life?  When you own it, awesomeness abounds.

For me, my identity is found in believing what God says about me.  That I am dearly loved, that I am made to bring glory to Him, that loving others sacrificially is my purpose, those truths give me identity.  I also pay attention to myself.  I am a creative - I feel most alive when I've made something, be it a meringue icing, a leather folio, a garden bed, or a condensed and tightly formulated optimization model.  Like I said, a great and many things.  I am an introvert - sometimes I need to own up to the fact that I need my space.  I'm a passionate friend, if you can look past the unreturned text messages and 2-month-late birthday presents - I love, LOVE, to help.   I know these things about myself.  I am aware of what makes me strong, what makes me crazy.  

Knowing who I am allows me to move throughout my life with true swag.  Not all the time, because sometimes I forget and sometimes I believe the lies and sometimes I just get tired and have no more energy to make intentional decisions, because believe you me, intentionality requires effort.  But when I make the extra effort, when I spend time reading God's word and internalizing it, when I do stuff on purpose, swag abounds.

These are the things I think about on my 4 minute walk to the office in the mornings.  I realize that once again, I did not make the extra effort to pack my lunch, and as a result, I feel no swag regarding my afternoon eating plans.  I think about how happy that friend was who I made time to call, and I'm glad that I put in that effort.  I think about how awesome my legs look in these jeans.  I don't know if this is the same for everyone, but I do know that I've been thinking about it a lot, and so I wanted to write it down where I won't forget that swag is where its at, that I'm not who I used to be.

<3 M.

p.s. - You're not who you used to be, either.  Just FYI.

p.p.s. - The pictures of RG have nothing to do with this post.  I just loved them and wanted to remember them for all time, or until the internet is obsolete.