Christmas Eve, New Years Eve, and Masks

So Christmas Eve find my cousins talking in the basement of my house. "I'm going to call 911," the one boldly declares and pounds the buttons vehemently. The other one stare in awe. A couple minutes later we get a phone call which my brilliant brother answers, "Pickens Nut House, this is Peanut speaking." After stumbling over the next couple sentences he hands the phone to Mom. She hangs up and we try to find the culprit, which we locate with amazing speed. Life is never boring when we all get together.

We didn't deliver Christmas packages after all. The male half of our youth sponsors went over to get the packages and we find out that they had delivered them the day before. So I went back to bed. Then spent the rest of the day with my eyes glued to a book. It was great. . .

We had a New Years Eve "party" at church. We ate and then looked at pictures of the past year. It was very interesting. People/things can change so much in a year. It's pretty cool to have a visual "going-over-the-year".

I have a job, which I have sort of needed. I now work at my dad's shop answering phones and other such things. . . I think I'll like it but I've been working all of two days so I don't know.

Introspection

Last night, I found out one of my dad's dealers shot himself. I talked to him (the dealer) on the phone earlier that day and he sounded fine. Didn't sound a thing like someone who was about to shoot themselves. Talk about the unexpected. It makes me think a bit about masks. Like the masks we put on whenever we walk out the door or pick up the phone. The one that has the smile just right, the clothing starched into place, hiding the person behind it--the person who cries, gets angry, doesn't want to smile, gets hurt, the one who feels. We march around with everything covered up, making sure nothing is out of place. We wonder why no one cares, and why no one wants us to care. We're these "happy plastic people under shiny plastic steeples".* Then we end up at the nut house or dead and everyone wonders what happened.



*Stained Glass Masquerade, Casting Crowns