Life

finding perspective: there’s always someone else.

~ mollyflinkman ~ 1 Comment

The long awaited First of July is finally upon us!

Maybe you didn’t know that today is an important holiday. That today new doctors all around the country, fresh from medical school graduation and their Hippocratic Oaths, are coming to a hospital near you.

But everything’s coming up roses over here because we’re walking our way out of Jake’s second year of his medical residency and into year three.

(You know, pushing play on season three of Grey’s Anatomy.)

WE’RE HALFWAY DONE, and this is something that cannot be said in lowercase letters.

Last year I processed this important holiday by writing about how I’ve learned to deal when the hours are long. I think I thought I might have a lot more to add to the list this year, but, as it turns out, things like “Communicate” and “Die to yourself” still prove to be incredibly effective relationship tools.

There is this one thing though. This one phrase that has been on repeat in my brain all year and never fails to jolt me back to perspective just when I’m about to staple the “Feel Sorry for Me” banner across my entryway at the end of an 80 hour week.

There’s someone else.

My life always feels less hard when I think about my friends or acquaintances whose lives are, indeed, much harder than mine.

Yes, Jake works long hours, but then he comes home.

That sentence alone gives me reason to never complain.

Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about the “someone elses” in a different way.

It all started when I read 2 Corinthians 1:3-4:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Two years ago we were uprooted and transplanted to Cleveland and God met us here. He has provided comfort in the affliction and constant reminders that this is where He wants us right now.

That doesn’t change the residency requirements though. And, when the long weeks start to feel agonizing and like I might indeed sink through the hatch and into the sea, I think about someone else.

It’s like five years from now and I meet her in line at the grocery store. She has more kids than arms, and I only have one (kid, both arms still) because the rest are in school. She tells me that her husband is about to start his first year of residency, so I invite her over for coffee. We talk about all the things and become fast friends and then scour places like the library and preschool parking lots for other new friends because when things get hard, we both know the importance of rallying the troops (a perfectly normal and realistic hypothetical scenario).

There’s someone else.

So that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

I’m learning that, with an eternal perspective, nothing is without purpose. That God promises to comfort me during the challenges of my life and then, in turn, comfort others through me.

That doesn’t make the hard things any less difficult to paddle through, but it does fill me with a lot of hope and the good kind of anticipation about what the future holds (and this applies to a lot of things in my life outside of medicine).

So, here’s to year three.

To the new lessons, new challenges, and new relationships born from hypothetical dreams.

And, in case, you’re out there celebrating this holiday too, make sure you don’t wind up in the hospital. I mean, give them until at least September to get the hang of things.

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the metaphorical preschool plant.

~ mollyflinkman ~ 1 Comment

I have never been much of a gardener.

Years ago, Jake hand delivered a peace lily to me at school and I promptly killed the plant which was marketed as “easy to grow.”

(Also, it’s worth noting that I didn’t even know it was called a peace lily until about 5 minutes ago when I Googled “plant with white flower and spiky center.”)

My green thumb doesn’t have a great track record, really.

About a month ago, I got to spend a Wednesday morning with Lily at her preschool. We did all kinds of crafts, and, at one of the stations, we were provided dirt and flower seeds. Together, Lily and I filled her hand-painted pot with soil, dumped in an entire packet of flower seeds (because, you know, my green thumb forgot you really only need one or two), and sprinkled them with water.

And then we brought it home and waited for it to grow.

Now, I’ve grown things before, but most of the time, I buy them pre-grown. My tomato plant last year came with teeny green tomato buds all over it. The petunias in my front yard? They were already blooming when I thrust their roots into the ground.

This little preschool plant was the first thing I can remember growing from a seed.

And grow it did.

And then do you know what happened? It outgrew its container. The roots needed to be able to dig down deeper, so I had to transplant it.

I had to move it entirely, so that it could continue to grow and flourish.IMG_0224.JPGWe moved to Cleveland almost exactly 2 years ago.

If I close my eyes, I can still palpably remember the anxiety I felt while watching Jake haul the contents of our well-loved duplex to his hand-built trailer.

Everything was uprooting around me.

And then a few days later, it was all transplanted here.

As I helped Lily take our literal plant out of its tiny pot and place it into its new home, I was filled with an immediate sense of overwhelming gratefulness. The metaphor is not lost on me.

I know that God moved us here, so that we could continue to grow and flourish in new ways.

He took our roots and thrust them into the ground here, and, while very few things about this move have been easy, I can’t not see how this change has trellised our family to the important and lasting.

(Raise your hand if you’re impressed that I know what a trellis is.)

I never want to reach the bottom of the pot.

I don’t want to run out of room to grow.

I want my roots to run deep but also stay ready to be uprooted.

Our plant now sits on the front porch, growing steadily in its new space.

And, as I look at it each day, it serves as a reminder: I may not be a very good gardener, but I serve a God who is. And if I abide in Him, He will prune every branch that bears fruit, so that it will bear even more.

a story about a worm.

~ mollyflinkman ~ 1 Comment

I saved a worm’s life today.

Lily spotted it on our morning walk. She stopped her scooter just past it, knelt down above it, and said, “Mom! It’s still squirmin’!”

Sure enough, there it was, smack in the middle of the sun-soaked sidewalk, baking on the concrete, and squirming ever so slowly.

I really only did what any good, conscientious citizen would–scooped it up with a nearby leaf, dropped it off in some dirt, and laid the leaf on top of the grass above it so the sun wouldn’t keep drying it out.

And you know what? I feel preeetty good about the whole thing.

I find anymore that it’s so easy at the end of the day to focus on all the things that have gone poorly.

The sharp tones. The unnecessary impatience. The moments of divided attention.

Recently I have found myself fixating on these moments during the quiet of the evening after all the kids are in bed and agonizing over my shortcomings.

Of course there’s something to be said for analyzing the day’s game tape and making changes as necessary, but there’s a lot of good in each day too. And I think I spend too much time overlooking it.

My new practice, then, is to pay more attention to the good as I end each day. In those quiet evening moments, I’ve been trying to make a habit of thinking about all the ways we loved and responded well throughout our days. To cut myself some slack and celebrate our successes.IMG_9947.JPG

So, here’s to the worms.

I was present with the girls in that small moment, and that’s something I want to remember.

Here’s to the books read. The twisted flower crowns. The patient correction.

Here’s to the times I left my phone in the other room, so my attention only had to be divided in thirds rather than fourths.

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These are the kinds of things I want to end my day thinking about, so that I’m more likely to repeat them tomorrow.

That’s right. We’re gonna keep on saving all the worms.

It’s definitely worth it.

april book review + giveaway

~ mollyflinkman ~ 4 Comments

I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I read two books this month. Two! With days to spare even!

I started the month off with No More Perfect Marriages by Mark and Jill Savage (more on this one later).

Then, a couple weeks ago, I caught word of a newly released book of essays called The Magic of Motherhood.

Now, since this is a space of complete honesty, you should know that the only reason I bought this book was because I wanted to be entered into a drawing for a $100 Target gift card. (I know. I’m a walking cliché.) All I had to do was buy the book, take a picture of it in my Target shopping cart, and post it to Instagram. Easy enough.¹

All this to say that I had no expectations for what I would find inside.

And, subsequently, what I found inside was something really, really wonderful.

The book comes from Ashley Gadd and the contributing writers of her blog, Coffee + Crumbs, a site which, as far as I can tell, exists to connect and unite mothers. A sort of virtual, “You are not alone,” if you will.

The writing I found inside this book is some of the most beautiful non-fiction writing I have read, and I don’t throw around writing praise lightly. I read essay after essay after essay and the writers kept putting exact words to so many of my own feelings about the various facets of being a mom.

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But I think what I love most about this book was that each writer was able to extract something good and beautiful from every challenge faced on the road to or during motherhood. It was honest about the sometimes brutal realities but also heartening. There was no wallowing or complaining. Instead it focused on how the hard parts make us stronger. More beautiful. More centered on the important.

If you’re a mom this book will speak to your soul (whatever the circumstances surrounding that journey have looked like for you). It will remind you that you are not alone in your feelings and fears and joys and sorrows and loves and aches.

And it will, I think, help you see more beauty around you.

•••••

You had better believe I’m giving The Magic of Motherhood away this month. (A new copy though because I’m not parting with mine.) If I could fund it, I would buy this for all my mama friends, but one is better than nothing, I suppose.

(Oh, and shout out to Rachel who should be somewhere in the middle of All the Light We Cannot See by now.)

So, if you want me to send you a copy (no strings attached AND just in time for Mother’s Day!), you have two options:

  1. Comment straight on this post.
  2. Comment on or reply to whatever social media outlet led you to this post.

Just throw up those hand-raised emojis or give me another recommendation and I’ll add your name to the drawing. Next on my queue are Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L’Engle and Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult.

(The latter of which is thanks to many of you!)

I’ll pick a winner for this one on Tuesday, two day. And if it’s not you, well then, that’s a pretty good excuse to get yourself to Target to buy it. You won’t regret it.

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¹ I didn’t win the gift card. I do feel like I won in the long run, though. 🙂

motherhood and when you lose sight of who you are.

~ mollyflinkman ~ 4 Comments

For me, it happened right around the time my first baby, Lily, turned one. Our first real summer.

Gone were the days of toting a sleeping infant wherever I wanted to go. She was mobile and had fallen into a routine, and so, by 7:30 every night, I was on my couch scrolling through pictures of all the summer fun my childless friends were having.

It was in those quiet evenings in my own home, that I started to feel lonely and trapped and a little aimless.

It’s strange in those early days of motherhood, I think, because your former life is still such a tangible relic. You feel the same as that carefree version of yourself and yet a million miles away at the same time.

You lose yourself a little. You forget who you are.

It probably happens at a different point for every mom, but I don’t think it’s an avoidable reality. At some point, you’ll likely find yourself staring into a mirror and wondering, “Who am I?”

Now, I (obviously) don’t know everything about parenting. I don’t know how to get babies to sleep through the night or how to convince a three-year-old to wear shorts or how to get two preschoolers to play longer than 10 minutes together without someone crying.

But that question? The one you ask yourself while staring into the finger-smudged mirror? Well, I do know that the answer changes everything.

Sure, you’re a mom, and that fact has great implications and impact. But that’s not all you are.

And, if you spend your days defining yourself only by your ability to put kids to bed or feed a tiny army, well, unfortunately you’ll always come up short.

Because that’s not all you are.

We’ll always come up short if we base our worth on the things we do.

There’s not much sure footing in parenting anyway, is there? Just when you’ve got a handle on something or feel pretty good about where you’re at, the tide comes in and shifts the sand underneath your feet.

Nothing stays the same. It can’t. When people are involved, tiny or grown, everything moves and adjusts and muddies and changes.

Well, except for one thing.

One Person.

I lose sight of my identity still sometimes.¹ It happens on long, whine-filled days or weeks where Jake and I pass only like ships in the night. Weeks when I remember how much easier it all used to be before this season.

And it’s in these moments that I remind myself who I am.

Loved. Chosen. Redeemed. Confident. Complete.

I am who He says I am. Nothing will change this fact.

And that’s all the matters.

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The days are still whine-filled (we’re working on this one, believe me). Jake’s hours are still long. The sacrifices parenthood demands are still real and hard and draining.

But I choose to live in light of Truth.  I choose to wake up each day and hang my hat on who Christ says I am. To be thankful for the sacrifices asked of me because I see how they have refined and shaped me; how they have taught me to love more fully. How much better I am because of them.

I know that lonely, aimless feeling of motherhood well. Doesn’t every mom?

But I also know the feelings of joy and restoration and wholeness that come from knowing who I really am. 

That girl on the couch three years ago? She was just on the cusp of the good stuff.

I think we all are. It’s just a matter of choosing.

 

¹ This is a recurrent theme in my life. I started thinking about identity 13 years ago (what!) when I read the book Victory Over the Darkness by Neil T. Anderson. In it, Anderson lists 27 aspects of who we are, and because the Internet is a magical tool in which everything is hidden, I found them all here in this handy PDF file in case you’re interested in reading more.

march book review + giveaway!

~ mollyflinkman ~ 1 Comment

Three months in, and I almost didn’t meet my one book quota for March.

However, I am proud to say that, thanks to Jake’s shift schedule, my kids actually staying in bed at bedtime, and my ability to sit in one place for hours at a time, I read 399 pages across two nights and finished All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr juuuuust in the nick of time. 

Everybody told me to read this one after I read The Nightingale in January and asked for light and easy suggestions for my next book.

So, another WWII novel it was!

This particular one follows Marie-Laure, a young French girl who became blind at the age of 6, and Werner, a German orphan recruited by an academy for the Hitler Youth because of his mechanical prowess. The book tracks their respective stories from the beginning of the war to the end until they ultimately (you guessed it) converge.

Someone aptly described Doerr’s writing style to me as something like a scientist with an art degree. His descriptions are so intricately woven together and his voice so captivatingly unique that my tendency to skip entire paragraphs while I read (I know. It’s a terrible habit.) had to go by the wayside for this one. 

Like The Nightingale (or most novels I read, for that matter), there is a lot to take from fictional lives within these pages, but one particular conversation keeps running through my mind.

Someone (I’ll never tell who!) tells Marie-Laure that she is very brave.

She responds keenly:

When I lost my sight, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don’t you do the same?

I’ve been thinking lately about how sometimes the most extraordinary people don’t even realize how extraordinary they are.

They wake up, take what they’ve been given, and make a choice to do well with it.

No matter the obstacles. No matter the difficulties. No matter the fact that they can’t see to the other side.

They wake up and they live their lives.

And that’s something, if you ask me.

•••••

Yes, of course I’m going to give this book away. Like I keep saying, books are worthless when you keep them all to yourself. (Cheers to Jess for getting my highlighted copy of The Screwtape Letters!) 

So, if you want me to send you my copy for FREE, you (anyone who is reading these words) have two options:

  1. Comment straight on this post.
  2. Comment on or reply to whatever social media outlet led you to this post.

Throw up those hand-raising emojis or give me another recommendation (bearing in mind that I’ve decided to take a break from war-related novels for a few months).

Happy reading! (I mean this literally.)

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accepting the invitation to wholeness.

~ mollyflinkman ~ 4 Comments

I set out into this year with a pretty simple, albeit, kind of intangible goal: Let hard things change me instead of trying to change the hard things.

So, about that.

I have been reminded lately that when you start praying to see change in your own life, you will, in turn, start to see the things in your life that need changing.

Shocker, right?

And, as it would be, I have recently become convicted of some pieces of myself that need changing.

They are things which, were we to sit down and discuss them over coffee (that sounds nice, actually), wouldn’t overly alarm you. They are “small” things–mindsets, habits, tendencies. They are pieces of my personality that I could probably chalk up to, “Well that’s just how I am,” if I really wanted to.

But I’ve always believed that particular excuse to be moo¹ and sneakily able to hold me back from who God wants (and calls) me to be.

And so, for a few weeks, I tried to change. I said various generic statements to myself:

Stop feeling that way.

Stop thinking like that.

Stop worrying about this.

But then nothing changed.

I still felt like the ugly things had some fingernail holds, and I couldn’t shake them despite how many times I prayed that they would just go away.

It was then that I stumbled into a few verses from Psalm 119.

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Those verses stuck in my brain. I thought about them and thought about them and thought about them, and realized that I had been trying to get rid of the ugly parts of my soul without replacing them with anything Good and Worthwhile. I was just willing them to leave and then hoping to just move on without them.

I don’t think that’s how transformation works.

It was when I started inclining myself toward Truth that I noticed my heart start to change. It was when I started to prioritize the time I spent reading through what God promises and wants for me that I realized how futile it was to try to change without actively acknowledging what He actually had to say about any of it.

And it was then that I started to feel the life in His ways.

(Although I certainly still have a long way to go.)

And then, a few days ago, I read an essay Sarah Bessey wrote² which subsequently helped cross a few more “t’s” in this particular train of thought.

Here’s an excerpt from the end of her essay:

I think that conviction has gotten a bit of a bad rap in the Church over the past little while. It’s understandable. We have an overcorrection to a lot of the legalism and boundary-marker Christianity that damaged so many, the behaviour modification and rule-making and imposition of other people’s convictions onto our own souls.

But in our steering away from legalism, I wonder if we left the road to holiness or began to forget that God also cares about what we do and how we do it and why.

Conviction is less about condemnation than it is about invitation. It’s an invitation into freedom. It’s an invitation into wholeness.

Perhaps our choices towards those invitations from God are really an intersection for our agency or free will and the Holy Spirit’s activity – maybe that’s where transformation begins.

Conviction is less about condemnation than it is about invitation.

It’s an invitation into freedom.

It’s an invitation into wholeness.

This is the kind of change I want for myself.

And what I’m seeing clearly is that accepting the invitation into wholeness is not passive.

Transformation will not just happen to me by sheer willpower alone.

It starts with the choice to change and is heavily dependent on what I choose to fill myself with. And then?

The promise of life and wholeness through the transforming work of the Spirit.

And, well, that seems pretty worth it to me.

¹ If this reference is not lost on you, then we are already friends, and you understand me on a very deep level.

² Here is the link to Sarah Bessey’s essay again. It made me think about a lot of things. It might make you think about a lot of things, too. You should read it in its entirety, and then we can discuss it over coffee.

the thing about winter.

~ mollyflinkman ~ Leave a comment

I realized the other day that I was willing it to be spring.

Much like many of you, we’ve had some unseasonably warm days over the past month.

And, on each of those days, I would find myself wishing emphatically that they would stay.

I’m over snow and mittens and the fifteen minutes it takes me to get three kids bundled up before we can even get outside. I’m ready for flip-flops and after-dinner walks for ice cream while the sun still peeks over the horizon.

I’m over winter.

But then I started to feel bad for winter. (I did, really. It’s weird being me sometimes.)

I mean, people go crazy for fall and get twitterpated about spring, but winter, I think, tends to get a pretty bad rap. (And, often, rightly so. I mean, stop slapping us in the face with your cold wind and maybe we’d like you a little more, you know?)

Anyway.

I love the symbolism of both fall and spring; the letting go of dead things to make room for new growth.

Surely winter has something to teach as well, right?

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So I started looking for it. Amidst the bare trees and cold, hard ground, I told myself winter had to be good for something.

And when I shifted my lens, I started to feel the anticipation of everything around me.

Now, it’s worth noting that I already live in a fairly constant state of anticipation. I’m always thinking about things to come, guessing endings, and consuming myself with what-ifs.

It keeps me very calm and loosely wound all the time, and Jake loves this quality about me.

The anticipation of winter feels different though because there are no hypotheticals.

I don’t have to worry whether or not spring will come. Of course it will. New life always gets breathed into the death of winter.

Much like my own personal seasons, really. While I wouldn’t describe my life as particularly dead or barren right now, there is a constant presence of some shortcoming or fault being laid bare (as there should be).

But winter reminds me to live in hopeful anticipation of the growth. It reminds me that new life is promised if I resolve to fix my eyes on the things that matter. The eternal, lasting things.

And, there’s no worry or what-ifs in that.

So, after all this, I’ve decided you can stay for a bit longer, winter. You’re not all bad.

Just cool it a little with the wind, okay?

Today is your day. You're off to great places! You're off and away!

thoughts on fiction and reality (and also a giveaway!)

~ mollyflinkman ~ 10 Comments

I set a pretty intangible goal for myself in this new year with the whole “pray for hard things to change me” business.

And, while it’s one of the better resolutions I’ve ever set for myself, I also made a tangible one (I love a good SMART goal as much as the next, people).

Read (at least) one book a month.

So far? So good.

Although, I almost didn’t make it because I literally chose the most stressful book of all the books: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah.

I know, I know. I can’t believe I hadn’t already read it either.

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This particular novel is historical fiction, and, in its briefest terms, follows two sisters as they struggle to survive the German occupation of France throughout WWII.

It only took two chapters for me to realize I was going to read the entire thing with bated breath.

You likely know by now that I am a naturally angsty (my second favorite adjective) person. I don’t disconnect wires very well. When I think about something, I also think about how it connects to everything else I am also thinking about.

Anyway, I was telling Jake about the book a few nights ago, and as I tried to convey just how anxious I was about where the story was going, he responded as anyone would expect him to:

“You know it isn’t real, right?”

And I’ve been thinking about that question a lot since.

Of course I know that it isn’t real. The characters were fictional. It was a novel, after all.

But a good novel, I think, blurs that line between fiction and reality. And, you can’t reinvent the human condition. Love and sacrifice and fear? They are real even if a story is not.

I’ve been thinking a lot about love and sacrifice and fear lately. Wondering what exactly my responsibility is in the numerous small-scale and global problems I see or hear about on a daily basis. Feeling vastly insignificant in my desire and ability to incite change. I’m only one person after all.

But my wires crossed while I was reading The Nightingale yesterday.

In the end, fifty years after the end of the war, one of the characters (no spoilers!) remarks:

It strikes me suddenly: These are the families of the men who were saved. Every man saved came home to create a family: more people who owed their lives to a girl and her father and their friends.¹

I think the ripple effect is real, and I honestly hope that someday I get to look back on my life and see how far-reaching each moment was. To especially see the things that felt insignificant at the time and the lasting impact they had for the Kingdom.

To see how love and sacrifice and fear worked together to make a difference.

A large-scale impact can start small after all.

And that’s a reality I hope never to blur.

•••••

Now, here’s something fun: I’d like to give away my copy of The Nightingale. What good is the literary experience if you don’t share it with others?

Also, I’d like this book to wreck somebody else’s life for a few days like it did mine (you’re welcome and I’m sorry in advance).

If you’d like my copy, there are two ways you can let me know:

  1. You can comment on this post.
  2. You can comment on or reply to whatever social media outlet led you to this post.

Whatever route you choose, either type in a few hand-raising emojis OR tell me a good, non-stressful book to read next. Goodness knows my blood pressure can’t take another one like this for awhile.

I’ll put all your names in a hat and make Jake draw one out Friday!

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¹ I altered this quote slightly so as not to spoil one of the plot lines.

you CAN just be whelmed.

~ mollyflinkman ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been feeling whelmed lately.

Yes, of course, this is a cultural reference from the late 1900s.

Specifically, it’s a nod to the acclaimed 1999 hit, 10 Things I Hate About You¹ in which high schooler Chastity wonders aloud, “I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?”

Anyway, Chastity, you can be.

The end.

Oh, sorry. You were hoping for something shorter this time?

I realized it the other day. It was 7:30 and all our kids were in the bed (all the praise hands for that one – we’re getting there when it comes to sleep!).

Jake and I were sitting on the couch, and I was trying to put words to an anxiousness I had been feeling.

And as we talked through it, Jake articulated exactly how I had been feeling: equal parts underwhelmed and overwhelmed.

So, whelmed.

The life of a parent is as such.

It’s underwhelming because every day is exactly the same. The same regimen of wake times and meals and toys and bedtimes and negotiations (while being sprinkled with the periodic play date or library story time, of course). And then the weekend comes–those days of rest you used to live for–and nothing changes. You do it all again.

But it’s also overwhelming, and I feel this at the end of each of these predictable days of preschool transit and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when I wonder if I’m doing a good enough job. Am I loving them well enough? Am I offering them enough undivided attention? Are they eating too many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

(Answer: Yes, of course they are. Whatever, okay?)

So whelmed, although I will admit this to be my own personal definition, is somewhere in the middle.

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I suspect I’m not the only one to feel this way. To go through my days spinning my wheels a little as I try to balance the enormity that is life with the ordinary, particularly simple things that are present all the same.

The more I think about it though, the more I have decided that my general “whelming” feelings aren’t so bad because they keep me rooted in the things that matter.

On one hand, the place in the middle reminds me to love my people well in the simple and understated moments. To unplug from my distractions and pay attention (which is, unfortunately, easier said than done). To engage with them and listen to them and really be with them.

On the other hand, those moments in which I begin to feel overwhelmed are important too because there is a world outside our home that I will one day send our kids into, and the only people wholly responsible for preparing them to face that world are Jake and me.

I want to feel the weight of that because I want to do it well. I want their love and compassion and kindness someday to be rooted in the eternal. To be saturated with Truth.

Which is something that certainly won’t happen by accident or happenstance.

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So, in the end, I guess I don’t really hate feeling whelmed.

Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

¹ Great news: 10 Things I Hate About You IS ON NETFLIX. (In case anyone was wondering what we’re doing tonight.)