And this is why social media was MADE for snowball fights.
Take these three things: #1. Nashville #2. Snow and #3. People who love social media. Put them all three together and what do you get? A whole bunch of snowball fights and even more hashtags.
It was the day before the big snowstorm, aka #TheSituation2010. (By the way, when I refer to a big snowstorm, in Nashville this just means any snow at all.) While most Nashvillians could be spotted filling all of the nearby Kroger and Publix stores, one Nashvillian was busy planning. It was the second time this year that @EricShuff, social media director for The Tennessean, had planned a snowball fight in Nashville.
But the first one, The Snowpocalypse, ended 
without enough snow to make a snowball, and was abruptly canceled. But yesterday was different. Yes, this day marked the day that meteorologists across the city celebrated their success in predicting 4 plus inches of snow in Nashville. And the snowball fight, Snowballapalooza, that Eric planned for noon in the Gulch actually happened. A few young Nashvillians braved the icy streets down to 12th Avenue to toss around some of the first snowballs of the day. Despite forgetting my gloves, I had a blast. Here’s the video from #Snowballapalooza:
And, quickly after the making of the video, others wished that they had made the snowball fight. So, even quicker than Snowballapalooza was planned, Part Two was set. 5:30pm in the city’s best park. And, from the stories, it was an even bigger success. Or so Channel 4 News and Yazoo Brew say. The only evidence we have is this picture. 
And, those were just the first two stories. Since then, at least one more was planned for today. This is why I love social media. Impromptu city wide events can just happen. New friends can be met while snowballs are being thrown. And it just makes me love the city I live in even more. If that’s possible.
I’ve found that when I set out in search of happiness, I rarely find it. Mostly I just end of with more choices of places to go, things to see, people to meet. Only leading to more confusion.
But, when I set out and work to make someone else happy, happiness always finds me too. (I don’t mean working to have someone else approve of me, but doing something that’s important to them.) Volunteer marketing for a stranger’s small non-profit. Organizing a fundraiser for a coworkers charity. It’s a strange thing in this life, something that reaches our inner nature and design. I get much more happiness out of that, then even when I reach my own personal goals.
I was standing there in the bread aisle trying to decide between bagels and mini bagels. Bagels or mini bagels? BAGELS OR MINI BAGELS?! I must have been standing there for 3 minutes or so when the tears began dripping off my face. A 24-year-old grown man wearing a members only jacket crying in the grocery store. Quietly sniffling, but not so good at hiding it in the crowded store.
I’m not sure if this is a rare occurrence in the 8th Avenue Kroger or not. But based on the looks of the faces around me, this crowd sure hadn’t seen it before. It was in that moment that I realized I probably shouldn’t have really worried about my groceries tonight. I probably should have just gone on home after work. These people sure did think that bagels stressed the hell out of me.
It was a damn tough day. Not for me. But for one of my very best friends, whose dad had passed away just hours prior. My friend, also a widow, is in her twenties. A damn tough day. A damn tough two years. And a damn tough time ahead. There is nothing I can say to fully express my love, my sympathy. But there again, no words will really ease this pain.
Sometimes we have no way of knowing the direction life will send us in. We can make the best of it while we are here, but even that doesn’t make it easier when love is lost. We will still spend a lot of time trying to fix things that have already gone wrong. Looking for ways to make wrong things right. But when we realize we can’t change things we will find a way to overcome.
But still many of us get stuck. Not knowing how to ask for help. Not knowing other people have suffered in our same way. And we feel like we are in the bottom of a dark well, and the rainwater just keeps pouring in. But no one can see us down here or hear our cry for help. We may spend years in the darkness trying to climb the vertical rock walls only to slip back in where we’ve always been. And sometimes we are more content with just swimming at the bottom, treading water. Always tired, never tiring. Swimming, nearly drowning, but always somehow finding that next breathe of air.
And how do we know where these wells are? They are all around us, and our neighbors are in them. People we work with, people we pump our gas next to. People that check us in at the doctor’s office, people that sit next to us in church. There’s a lot of wells in this world and a lot of people lost inside. How do we know where to find them? How to help them?
And my friend, she’s not in a well. But she deserves a good break. And had i not known her and her story, I’d never know. I’d work beside her and drive past her, never giving it another thought.
Shame is paralyzing.
No matter what you’re shameful of. It inhibits you. Keeps you from moving on, from forgiving yourself, from living fully.
Shame is detrimental.
What good can come out of feeling guilty? It weighs heavy on the heart and keeps your feet from moving. Slows progress and creates pain.
Change can use bad experiences to create good. Never looking back or regretting, only moving forward with memories in mind. Motivation for a better future.
And I was already at 2.3 miles when I realized it.
I’ve always wanted to be runner. Not bad enough to do it, but enough to feel guilty for not trying. I’m not talking about being a marathoner, I’d be satisified with any type of regular running schedule. Perhaps it’s because of my body type and knowing that I’ll never be a weightlifter… but wanting to exercise somehow. However, in my experience, running one mile indoors on a treadmill or track has always made me feel like I was going to have to crawl out of the Y and into my deathbed afterwards. Whoever said running releases endorphines in your brain, obviously had a more willing brain than me.
There’s something terribly hard about challenging yourself to do something you don’t believe that you can do. And it’s seemingly impossible to do it by yourself.
Maybe this just my perception, but I realized it in my own life very recently. A good friend of mine asked me to run with her. Outside. In 30-degree weather. For 2.5 miles. I was thinking ‘Ughh’. Which I voiced as ‘Okay’!
This is when you runners will laugh at me. But, that’s okay. I respect your discipline after being nearly beaten to a pulp by my own legs. Somehow, I found the energy to run with her. Outside. In 30-degree weather. For 2.5 miles. Three times now. And the best part is that I have felt good after these runs.
There’s something magically compelling when you face a challenge with a friend. Together you may decide that you can do more than you even imagined.
I’ve always heard that two heads are better than one. And I understand that. It’s logical that more people can do more things. But the most surprising part to me is this:
I, myself, can do more when working together with others. Sharing passion makes my own personal passion only grow.
If each of us can only run 1 mile on our own, but together we each run 2.5. Then 1 + 1 can equal 5. This is why we’re better together.
This year I did something a little different. Instead of writing goals for myself, I’ve written a personal statement. Something I hope to read often and remind myself, not of where I am now, but where I hope to be in a year. Cheers!
In 2010, my mission is to selflessly serve my community by speaking for those without a voice, praying more often than I preach, understanding those I disagree with, and realizing that the true value of every single individual is great.
Now back to my regular scribblings 
Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year. No matter where you find yourself in the coming year, may grace follow you there.
Looking back at ‘09, this year sure has been fun. I launched my blog in August, and I thank you for joining me since then. I enjoy reading your thoughts and blogs much more than mine, and I hope our past conversations lead us to further future ones. As a reflection, I’m sharing some of my favorite posts from Her Name Was Grace this year in case you missed them!
#1 – Love is always a topic that stirs up passion within us. Like politics and religion, it’s something deeply personal. Check out the conversation stirred when I asked: Does {True} Love Really Exist? 9-8-09.
#2 – Whether you realize it or not, everyone is fighting for something in their life. Life in itself is a fight sometimes. And sometimes people need a little help in their own fight. The Fight of a Lifetime. 12-2-09.
#3 – Many times our feelings can’t be put into words, so we settle for a few sentences brought to mind by something in nature: When It Rains. 9-1-09.
Other random posts:
Most Views – I Think I’ll Go to Boston
Zero Views – Complication
Today I Climbed a Mountain
Here I Am
My favorite, because gratefulness is so needed – Thanksgiving Post
THANK YOU again for your encouragement since August. My 51 posts are only here because someone like you encouraged me to write. They assured me someone else in this world felt the same as me. I didn’t really believe until now. I encourage you to keep writing as well. I will keep reading and learning! You are all great people with wonderful insights, and I really look forward to Twenty Ten. Happy New Year!
His skin with a tint of deep red
Sensing the burn from the cold winds
His hair and a knit cap to cover
Unwashed since God knows when
His feet sticking out of tattered shoes
Numb from the morning walk
I’ve always heard
If he walks to the right,
You walk to the left.
If he asks for change,
tell him you’ve got none.
Suggesting he is unfit for loving.
Perhaps unfit for living.
And so we stop.
Stop caring. Stop loving. Stop giving.
Giving of ourselves. Giving of our gifts.
And we leave.
Leave him without.
Without a hand. Without a word. Without.
Until One.
One day. One man stops and gives.
One hope. One gift. For another man.
Gives him freedom from his fear.
Freedom from his pain today.
He loves because he is loved.
7th Street and North Carolina,
The fire took all but the walls.
Visibly charred,
Patrons symbolically scarred.
A man stands trying to find out,
peering through a makeshift door.
Strength and its recent demise.
Tears fill his eyes.
Every weekend since she was gone,
He came here to get away.
Not the fresh foods and pancakes.
The survival of his own mistakes.
Like the walls of bricks
It pulled him through
His own fire
Never to grow tired.
Now that it was gone,
His broken heart spoke
A promise to everyone there
An act to end their despair.
United they did their parts
To save this place in their hearts.
For the walls that diffused his own fire,
He would restore even higher.
