Oh, the oddity that is humanity.
Here’s hoping Love wins out among all the things we think we need!
Tag: people
Stay in Saturday, Ep. 7: “CREATING” JOBS!
This week we’re taking on the topic of, drumroll please…
JOBS!! No easy thing in Quarantine!
I don’t know how to create more, but I know how to create!
Whether you have a creating type of job and are trying to get creative with how to do your job, or you’ve lost your job, or you hate your job anyway… if there’s one thing most people have an opinion on, it’s jobs.
I don’t have answers, but I have a few ideas, some of which I’ll expound more on next week. Others are me just trying to make the best of things during a tough time! Here’s to hoping things work out with everyone’s job or job-to-be!
SHOW NOTES:
To see my full stand up special: http://www.drybarcomedy.com/jjb
View/buy my Art: http://www.instagram.com/jjbarrowsart and www.society6.com/jjbarrows
Check out my book: http://www.itscalledaspade.com
GET THE SAME COOL SHIRT AS ME AND SUPPORT ANOTHER ARTIST: http://www.juliescoolshirts.com
Anything else: http://www.instagram.com/jjbarrows OR http://www.jjbarrows.com
Happy Saturday! Episode 2.
Welcome back to another episode of Stay in Saturday!
Thank you for joining me on this journey as we continue to create something together! I have so enjoyed getting to hear from everyone what this time is like for them. I have received a lot of great suggestions for the show, some of which aren’t mentioned in this episode, but I’ve taken notes and am already planning things for future episodes. I hope those go you who signed up for a goldfish have received them by now… please send pics, I’d love to share them!
This week not only will we lose track of time and spend half the day trying to figure out what day it is, I’ll introduce you to some of my talented friends and how they are using this time to channel their creativity. We’ll also hear from our friends “across the pond” about what quarantine is like for them, and I’ll try to do a better job convincing my husband to do a workout video with me!
Each week I’ll have an inspirational quotes segment, so if you got one you want to see in a future episode, share it with me!
On a slightly more serious note (Why So Serious? segment), We’ll touch on what it looks like to be a neighbor at a time when we’re technically “avoiding” our neighbors, and how social distancing is increasing our desire to connect. I think there’s certainly more to be said on that, but again we’re in the early stages of this show so that’s something we can bring up again!
I hope everyone has a great week and a happy Easter!
Tune in next week to possibly see me try to cut my husband’s hair. He said if I do a bad job he gets to cut mine so we’ll see how the goes!
Happy Saturday! Stay Inside! 🧡💛💜💙
*** If you still want a goldfish I have some left, just sign up for my email list on my website at http://www.jjbarrows.com See more life happenings and quarantine throughout the week on Instagram: @jjbarrows https://www.instagram.com/jjbarrows/
🎵🎵 Music in this episode:
O Tannenbaum– Vince Guaraldi Trio
I Want You Back– (acoustic cover) by Kenny Bern
Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright (acoustic cover) The O’Neill Brothers Group
carbonated holiness
I just got off the phone with Richard, my old neighbor— old as in I used to live by him, and well, yes, he is of an older generation.
I mailed Richard a copy of my book a few weeks ago. I wrote about him in the last chapter and I wanted him to read it, to know he’d been the kind of friend worth writing about. I had written about my Grandmother in the chapter before and I planned to give her a copy for Christmas but then she passed away on Thanksgiving. “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” I love the song but sometimes I hate that it’s true.
More and more I’m sad I didn’t send a copy to her sooner, to let her know she’d been the kind of woman worth writing about, something I don’t think she thought of herself as. It was after my Grandma passed that I knew for sure I needed to send Richard a copy, I needed him to know he was loved and missed, especially because I knew he lived alone and I didn’t know how often he got to hear those words anymore.
So a few weeks into the New Year, I mailed Richard a copy. Last week he texted me, “Thank you so much, it is so good, give me a call sometime.”
I called him tonight and he was elated, “I’ve read it twice!” he said, “the whole book!” I was shocked, was that even possible? I guess it’s not that long. He kept going as I pondered the amount of time he’s had it to be able to read through it twice, “I couldn’t stop reading it, oh I just love it. It’s answered a lot of questions, you know!”
“I bet,” I said and we laughed.
“You know, I loved very much that you called me your favorite neighbor, but you know, you made a big mistake in there.”
“I did?” I asked. (Oh no, what?)
“Yea, a big one. You called me your 70 year old neighbor, and I’m not 70…” he paused.
“Oh, you’re not!?” I said a little embarrassed, “how old are you?” Hoping I didn’t offend him.
He was quiet a second more…
“I’m 88!” And he let out a huge laugh. I was so relieved. “Boy, you really made my day with that one,” he said.
“Well see, Richard, there you go, you look great for your age, even better than I thought!” I laughed, still slightly shocked.
Richard just kept laughing, “oh that made me feel so good, I thought to myself ‘why, I outta go out tonight!’” And I could hear what sounded like him slapping the couch as he laughed. “Laughter really is carbonated holiness,” I thought to myself, something I read by Anne Lamott earlier in the week.
Richard has been getting cancer treatments the last 7 years and he told me he had his last one this past Wednesday. “I’m good now!” He said, and I tried not to cry as I told him how happy I was. He asked me repetitively if I was good and if I was happy, the same Richard I wrote about years before when I used to live by him.
“You know, I loved your book so much, I took it with me to my doctor and I showed him the part where you called me 70! He laughed and said ‘See, Richard, I knew we’ve been doing something right!’ Haha, can you believe it!?” And we both laughed at my “big mistake.”
He thanked me for calling him 70, he asked me to please stay in touch and he told me one more old war story. “I love you,” he said as we got off the phone. “I love you too, Richard,” I said as I tried not to cry again.
I don’t know the totality of what life is about, but I do know there’s these little portions of each day in which I get a glimpse of it, overwhelmed by the beauty of it and moved by the connection found in it. I know no other option, and so even on the hard days I move forward, thankful for these glimpses, these portions of day in which to laugh with an old neighbor and celebrate that “he’s good now!” That is all we really have— right now, and right now is what I am most grateful for. That, and carbonated holiness.
More stories and adventures at: jjbarrows.com, and itscalledaspade.com
The Tension of Life
There is a tension of dark and light, dust and divine breath.
There is a tension of good and bad, heartache and humor, deep sorrow and overwhelming joy.
There is a tension where I feel I don’t belong because there are no answers or quick fixes, no boxes or formulas, no way of knowing if I’ll ever make it out.
There is a tension everyone either wants to resolve, avoid or deny exists and yet it is in that very tension where life in all of its fullness is found.
It is okay to be both sad and happy, lost and found, hurt and hopeful.
We try to be one or the other and fix both ourselves and others if bent too close to the sadness. We function in the safety of our emotional comfort zone and expect others to function in theirs, meanwhile dismissing their pain and only prolonging the process of their feeling too stuck, too sad, or too lost to continue on this journey.
Life is messy, being a human is hard. I say that hand in hand with the belief that life is good, and being a human to be a gift. But some days, I totally forget. I forget the goodness, I forget the gift, and I struggle.
I struggle in the unknown of pain and sorrow that isn’t even circumstantial, just present, and I don’t know why, which makes it seem even worse. When there’s nothing to pinpoint your pain to, it feels hopeless.
It’s when we think the hopelessness is our ultimate reality, our final truth, the end of our story that we consider giving up. What’s the point anyway? If no person, place or thing can fix this and I will always feel this way somewhere deep down inside no matter how many accolades, awards and acknowledgments I receive, what’s the point? There will always be a void and I can’t avoid it.
The truth is, sometimes I still don’t know. Even as someone who believes in a Higher Power and the gift of life and purpose in the pain and God in the details, some days I still just don’t get it. “Only God can fill the void,” they say. “I know,” I say, and I do know, but I still just don’t get this God I believe in and this Life that He “gifted” us with. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like a gift at all.
I don’t need pad answers, I don’t need declarations of holding on and Jesus loving me. I know the answers in my head no matter how much they disconnect with my heart. I need to live in the tension of life being hard and good, I need to affirm to myself and others who feel the same way that we are not crazy, or too lacking in faith, or lost causes. We’re human and there’s not only grace for our humanity but also love for it… love for our human selves no matter what state we find ourselves functioning in.
I have to admit, sometimes saying “hold on” isn’t enough, but I can at least say, “you are not as alone as you think you are… not in how you feel or in what you think.” Sometimes it just takes one person to voice their struggle for someone else to say, “Oh my God, me too,” and in that small spec of commonality is a glimmer of hope in the connection of our humanity.
It’s often in our isolated hopelessness that we go to extreme measures to rid ourselves of it by numbing out or checking out, not knowing the pain and sorrow we are leaving in our wake, hurting those we’ve left behind and out of the process, leaving them to figure out the pain on their own while we took the easier road of self destruction. Self destruction never seems easier in the moment, but it is always easier than dealing with the pain that life holds, having to be awake for it, alert for it, and gritty enough to actually work through it.
Today I do no feel gritty. I do not feel like making the choice to live in way that life matters. I feel like disappearing into the darkness that is my room and numbing out to Netflix, no bad thing in and of itself, but if I continue to make small choices to numb out every time something seems hard, I will have practiced living the kind of life that gives up when things get too hard.
And so, with that said, I acknowledge the tough day, I say hi and I sit with it for a bit. I live in the tension of feeling dark inside while the sun shines outside of my window. I sit just long enough to own my feelings, to sort though my thoughts, to figure out what is me and what is a lie I’m believing. Some of it I write out, as I’m doing here. And then, when I feel a little more free to be me, not me the entertainer who everyone expects to make them laugh, but me on an off day when I myself don’t feel like smiling, I set about to go outside and take in life in other places… grass, flowers, trees… there is evidence of life everywhere.
What better example of living in the tension than the flowers and trees that have to break though the darkness of the soil to get to the light and grow till tall.
With that said, it’s time for me to go outside.
To those who are struggling, you are not alone, I grieve with you. And to those who are doing well, that’s great too, I celebrate with you. Both are okay.
May you live in the tension of the fullness of life today, feeling neither like you have to fix everything, nor like you have to give up.
Life is hard and good, and you are more okay than you think you are.
Sweet Tennessee
After braving the storms in Arkansas, we arrived in the sweet and peaceful arms of family in Tennessee… our last stop before South Carolina!
While still doing my best to document, I’m learning the value of setting the phone down and just being with the people you’re with. We’re tired, but we’re almost home!
happy new year!
While this video is wishing you a Merry Christmas (why not wish merriment year round!?), it wraps up a bit of my year last year and what I’m learning about life and how to love well. I hope this year breathes refreshment and revitalization back into our weary souls.
If you’re looking for a fresh start and don’t know where to start, start with gutting, deep cleaning and rearranging your room. I’m finding that cleaning out the junk and getting a fresh perspective is already helping me approach what lays ahead.
May you have a hopeful new year, with bursts of happiness and the courage to press into the pain when necessary.
van realities
Me again with a riveting new video update!
As most of you know, my home base has been a VW van for the last four-ish months. Good grief. It is neither as creepy nor as adventurous as it sounds. I mean, it’s both of those things, but they are not mutually exclusive… nor are the pictures on Facebook or Instagram the full story (which I’m sure is true for most people).
As I’ve already shared with the people who have supported my book campaign, I’d like to also share with you a few of the real thoughts that come along with van life. I’m in a transitional season of life, not just because I live in a transit system, but because Aslan is on the move, as they would say in Narnia, and a change is gonna come, as Sam Cooke so perfectly sang back in his day.
With van life weighing on me while trying to do ministry and work another job to help supplement, and now having my book funded without much time or energy or goodnight-sleeps to be able to work on it, my season of van life is soon coming to an end, at least as a home base (Reggie June will still very much be a part of my life). I’m in the process of figuring out what my next steps are, as my time working at church is also coming to an end this month.
While I am excited, it took a lot of processing and admitting of my own struggles to be able to start moving into this next season of life, one of more stability… and one that gives momma a lot more reassurance about where her daughter is sleeping at night 🙂
I do not know exactly what is next, aside from lots of writing and coffee, and I do not know exactly where that writing and coffee will take place, my compass seems to be a bit broken. BUT, I do know that though much of my time and attention will be devoted to writing, my life has to include they very thing I sometimes forget I need, which isn’t a thing at all, but in fact, people… relationships built on human interaction. For as much as I love venturing off on some grand adventure, I think that doing life with people is perhaps the greatest adventure… even if it means staying put long enough to see their ugly, and long enough for them to see yours. Being loved through your ugly is quite an adventure.
To those who have been with me on this journey, and those who have shown their support in countless ways… Thank you, thank you, thank you for your help.
jj barrows 