Have you ever wondered

http://http//www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/27/california.kidnap.shed/index.html

I'm a thinker. I can sit at my picnic table in my backyard just thinking for literally hours on end about nothing of real consequence. I'm an odd duck, I know; we've been through that particular discussion before. Sometimes, when my nearly six month old son is just sitting and staring off into space, I wonder if he's going to be a thinker like his momma (in between his spastic bouts of energy that come from his fathers genes) and if so, are we going to just sit and think together at that picnic table? Hm. That'll get the neighbors talking. Those weird Hahn's are out there thinking again.

Anyhow, something I've thought about since I was old enough to comprehend it is how fortunate I am that I grew up in the circumstances I did. I've wondered about how we really have zero control over what we are born in to. I've thought about how I could have been born into an impoverished african nation to an AIDs-ridden mother. Or to a Poland Jew in a concentration camp. Or to a slave in Georgia in the 1800's. Of course, I could have been born into a wealthy dynasty, too, but I try not to let my mind wander that way... (kidding, mom)

Anyways, it is facinating to me to ponder how God chose this particular time, place and family for me. Which of course leads one to further expect that He chose that particular time, place and family for that african orphan or for Paris Hilton. Then I have mornings like this one, where I read about a young girl, abducted at 11 years of age in 1991 to be locked away in shed and raped by her kidnapper only to become pregnant and raise her two children in that very same shed until they were, in turn 11 and 16 years old.

I think of those children who were literally born and raised in a shed. A shed in the backyard of their kidnapper father's house. Where everyone just lives their mundane suburbian lives around them and doesn't even realize that they are there. Could they hear life passing them by? Did they know there was more out there? What did that mother say to those children while they were growing up about their circumstances?

Incredible. That could have very easily been any of us, but it wasn't. It was her and it was them. Why was it them?

I have no idea.


Wow... overthink much? These entries are the ones that I kinda wish I could just erase... only because they are rambling... but I won't do it because its all about the growth, right? So. Yikes.

Emily Post is not my friend.

I hate thank you cards.

Truely, I do.

It is in the opinion of this blogger that they are a completely unecessary and impractical notion. Think of all the occassions that require thank you notes. Weddings, babies, graduations, funerals. Giant, life-altering events that are often times preceeded and proceeded by the most hectic and emotionally exhausting weeks or months or even years of ones life.

Not exactly the perfect set up for thoughtful communication, is it? Furthermore, I have yet to really receive and/or write a seriously meaningful thank you card. For starters, the cards are too darn little; and if you have been blessed with large handwriting (as I have been), that limited space isn't much for lengthy sentiments (and those are the only kinds of sentiments I do). Inevitably, I end up continuing onto the back, because I can't control my rambling in my efforts to fully express my gratitude, and since I write in pen (because pencil is tacky, right?) I can't take that rambling back.

Secondly, they are, in general, impersonal. Honestly, when have you recieved a card that did not contain the following format: Dear (insert name here), thank you so much for the (insert item/s here). I can't wait to use it when I (insert occassion here). It was wonderful to see you at (insert festivity here). Again, thanks. (insert chosen adieu here)?

I mean, come on. The problem I have is that I see a handwritten envelope in my mail box that is typically filled with impersonal bills and commercial junk and my little adolecent note-passer heart leaps, only to have my hopes dashed with a generic thank you note.

Now, I need to stop here and clarify in the event that I have hurt anyone's feelings. That is certaintly not my intention. I appreciate the thought behind thank you notes. The idea is refreshing and polite and wonderfully victorian. Its just that I would sooooo much rather even a random email or facebook comment on my wall then a standardized card that someone was forced by the unforseen ettiquette police (and perhaps the memory of their grandmother and her impeccable manners) to write me.

I bought you the gift because I love you and I care. No need to thank me for that. And if I buy something for someone I barely know, then a card is needed even less. Likely, I forgot I even did it and there is no need for you to go to all the trouble of finding my address on yellowpages.com for something like that.

Which brings me to another point. How crazy difficult it is to find out someones address nowadays! Heavens above, no one under the age of thirty is listed in the phone book and therefore, no one under the age of thrity knows how to navigate those paper wasters anymore anyways. Of course, as aforementioned, you can google someone, but that traverses the way too fine line between inquisitive and creepy. one minute you're researching an address and the next you've got college transcripts and police blotter on your screen. Yikes TMI.

All in the name of ettiquete.

I guess you could say that I am likely writing this out of guilt. After my son was born we were blessed with an overabundance of beauitful gifts and I haven't gotten around to writing even one thank you card. I've thanked many people, personally, but never actually written a word. Baby, full time work and just plain old life has gotten in the way and I hate hate HATE that it is eating me up inside that I haven't begun the monumental task of writing out those small curtesies. And now that its been six loooong months, and I'm frankly embarassed.

So there you have it. Make what you will out of this. But don't expect anything so polite as a thank you from me for reading. Homegirl don't do that kind of thing apparently.