the pressed olive

Isn't it funny how sometimes it is often the things that you hate most in the present that often turn out to be the most dazzling parts of your past - from the rearview mirror of life?

At the ripe old age of 28, I am finally beginning to understand this weird concept, and so I am doing my very best to sort of embrace everything about life... even the hairy scary, irritating ones.  

My Mom says it is because I have McCaleb genes.  The McCaleb's say it is because we are Scottish.  Van thinks it is because somewhere in the past, my Mom's ancestors ruled the Indian war paths... I really have no idea, but for some reason, maybe a mixture of reasons, I have a tendency to walk into the midst of conflict... and often happily.  When I was a little girl my Grandmama McCaleb had these two little  porcelain raccoon statues that sat in her kitchen windows.  My Pa loved to put me up on the kitchen countertop and let me "fight, 'those coons'".  I would swing punches into the air, faster and faster as he encouraged my fiery spirit.  

The person I never enjoyed fussing with, however, was my Dad.  He has this way of getting you all turned around, back peddling on statements you've made.  It's very frustrating.  But the most frustrating part for me was after I had realized I had no chance of winning, my next move was to toss my head back at a slight angle with my nose up in the air.  If any of you have ever seen "Anne of Green Gables"/"Anne of Avonlea", it's sort of the same posture that Anne gave to Gilbert during their early years.  But just as I got my nose as high as I could get it in the air (high enough that if it was raining I could possibly drown), my dad would make some comment about me looking like "Olive Oyl" from the old cartoon, "Popeye".  And that made me more irritated, more furious than any other thing he could say.  I HATED being called "Olive Oyl".  As a matter of fact, I hated it so badly that when I started dating Van, I refused to tell him what the nickname was.  And he spent seven years - ¡SEVEN years! trying to figure out what it was... and he did not learn what it was until our wedding day.  (I had it engraved on his ring... as a symbol that he now could have all of me -- even my deepest, darkest secrets.)... but anyways!... 

It's funny how the nickname I hated so much, has come to have a lot of meanings to me.  Now it is funny, sweet, and even sentimental to me.  And if I am an Olive, then I hope that the "presses" of life... I mean... the pressures of life, will help this little Olive to someday become the purest, most refined, olive oil. :)  

And so I embrace my role as the little pressed Olive. 

These are my thoughts... my attempts at learning, growing, and understanding all of life. The good. The bad. and definitely the presses. :)