OK, so I've been accused to being "too deep." I cannot deny this accusation. Heck, I was voted "Deepest Thinker" in high school my senior year! Please, do not think I am saying this to make myself sound smart. I'm not. In fact, most of my friends and family are much more intelligent than I am. I guess I just get lost in certain thoughts, especially when it comes to thoughts of God or life in general. These thought processes seem to come out even more when I am writing, so to remedy this issue I have written a short list of things that I severely dislike or hate.
1. Onions
I don't really know when my aversion to onions started. It's just always been that way. Raw onions just have too strong of a flavor for me to enjoy. They're gross. I can't stand them. Their taste lingers in your mouth, and their smell is overwhelming. I don't care if they are sweet onions, red onions, yellow onions. I don't like them. Cooked onions are slimy. The texture of cooked onions sends chills down my spine just thinking about it. They don't even look appealing to me. They look like translucent earthworms, or burned earthworms when you "caramelize" them.
I will stop eating whatever I just took a bite of if I detect an onion in it. I will try to pick the onions out (which I am a master at doing) or power through and eat the dish. More often than not, if I can't pick the onions out, I will just go hungry. This happened many times when I was growing-up. My mom is an amazing cook. Her food is full of flavor. She LOVES cooking with onion. There are very few dishes I remember that she would not put the onions in just for me. (My Momma's enchiladas are A-MAZ-ING! She would always point out which ones were onion-free in the pan before she put them in the oven to cook. I would hang-out in the kitchen when I knew she was making enchiladas just so I could get this vital piece of information that would affect my dining experience. If I wasn't there when she was rolling the enchiladas, then it was a guessing game that I typically lost.)
Here's the thing, now that I am in charge of feeding myself, I cook with onions. Many times I tried to recreate my mother's dishes without adding onion, and they just didn't taste the same. Finally, I caved and learned to mince the onion so small to where I was unable to detect the onions in any way shape or form other than the flavor they gave to the dish once they were cooked. Now, I will actually cook onions when making fajitas or something that people expect to have onions with, but I will never eat those onions myself. This is my adult compromise with onions. Still hate them, but I will not exclude them from my life completely.
2. Scorpions
Scorpions are evil and must die. All of them. No exceptions.
I do not have a fear of scorpions, so don't expect me to freak-out, scream like a little girl, and run away when I see one. I do however have a deep internal need to kill a scorpion every time I see one. No joke, I saw one in my bedroom last summer and thought for a moment to grab my .380 pistol and shoot it. (I didn't, in case you were wondering. Reasoning set-in, and I didn't think a stupid little arachnid was worth shooting a hole in the floor of my house.) I saw one outside while I was working in my front yard, and I smashed it with the hammer I had in my hand. There was no thinking involved. My instinct told me to smash it, so I did. (Did you know that if you smash a scorpion with a hammer, it will be vaporized? Seriously, there was just a greasy wet spot where a scorpion used to be.)
Again, I don't know when the aversion to these creatures began, but it's there. They're just creepy! Pincers. Curly, stingy tail. How they seem to crawl on their bellies like a snake. The adults with hundreds of tiny scorpions chilling on their backs. Yeah. All of it. Creepy. I was stung by one that decided to take up residence in my rugby bag last spring. I was trying to pack for a weekend-long tournament, reached my hand in, and POW! SEARING pain in my hand! You can bet I checked that bag a bit more thoroughly every time I used it after that little incident.
One day while I was reading my Bible, I was super excited to have my inborn desire to destroy these creatures supported by scripture. Luke 10:19 says, "Look, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and on the full force of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you." This scripture puts scorpions and snakes in the same category as demons. Makes sense to me. I will gladly step on a scorpion!
3. Moving
Unlike the other items on my list, I know when I came to realize that I hated moving. August 22, 1997, my family and I packed-up our house in Phoenix, Arizona and moved to East Texas. Now that I'm older, I realize this was the best decision for our family, but a young girl really doesn't care about that sort of thing when she's going through it. Nope. I didn't care that we would be saving money by not having to pay a mortgage. I didn't care that I would probably do better in a small school. I didn't care that I would have different opportunities being raised in the country rather than in the city. I really didn't care. I just wanted things to stay the same. So, I learned that it didn't matter what I wanted, things were going to change, circle of life, gotta go where the Lord takes you, yadda-yadda-yadda. (It took me six years after we moved for me to forgive my parents. I was a freshman in college before it hit me that my life was truly blessed when my family moved to Texas.)
Fast forward fifteen years. I have been given an amazing opportunity to be a part of a new ministry, but I have to move from the house I have been in for the past year in order to do my work effectively. The place I live in now was a total wreck when I got there, but over the past year it has been transformed into a place that is very comfortable to live in. Well, I was asked if I was willing to move last Wednesday, and I enthusiastically said, "Yes!" I don't regret the decision. It was the right one, and it makes total sense for me to move...BUT I HATE MOVING! As I started to break down my bedroom suite the other night, I began to recall how many times I have had to move. I have moved 13 times in the past 15 years, and 12 of those have been in the past 10 years. When I did my calculations, I counted my entire Army experience as one move, so the actual number could be in the 20's. I have rented a storage unit in the College Station area for the last seven years! Seven years! I should own that space by now! (Side note: my roommate doesn't think this storage unit really exists. It's like Aladdin's Cave or something. She'll say, "Oh, we need such-and-such," and I'll say, "Oh, I have that in storage!" but I rarely go to my storage unit to get such-and-such. So, she thinks I'm just making it all up.)
This severe dislike of packing my stuff up and moving really stems from the desire that I want a place to call home. I know I am always welcome at my parents' home, but it's no longer where I truly belong. (Sad by-product of growing-up, isn't it?) No, I want a place that I can look at and say, "This is my home. This is where I live life." I hope this next move will stick longer than a year. If it doesn't, I'm just going to sell everything I own and buy a travel trailer. If I am meant to be a vagabond, I will be one of the best, and I'll never have to pack my junk EVER AGAIN!
So, that's the short list of things I hate. I don't dwell on these things, but I do admit the fact there are things in this world that I do not love and enjoy. More people should be willing to admit this. Now, back to more deep thoughts.
