yo-yo

It’s been a few weeks now, and the sudden infatuation has diminished considerably, but about three weeks ago I was struck with this complete fascination with the yo-yo. I don’t know why. But all of a sudden all I wanted was a yo-yo. I didn’t run out and get one right away, letting the inkling settle for a few days all the while wondering, what’s my deal with the yo-yo.


I do this every once and a while, I’ll get an object in my head, or a picture and it just keeps coming to mind. I’ve learned long ago that usually it has some other significance than just a frivolous thought or the need for a new toy. So I started thinking on it….what’s up with the yo-yo? What does it mean?


I know, I’m a little nutty, I mean who else would sit and ponder over a yo-yo.


I couldn’t wrap my head around it (pardon the pun), so I decided I needed to get one. A frustrating Target experience which ended in them not actually having “real” yo-yo’s (I know. And I thought Target had EVERYHTING) left me yo-yo less and still perplexed over what I was supposed to be learning. A couple days later I ended up at a random HobbyLobby digging through a bin of yo-yo’s like a 5 year old at a toy store, excited about the new world of possibilities at hand. As I walked out of the store I busted out the new yo-yo and began to test my hand at some old skills (yo-yo’s were a VERY big deal when I was in elementary school).



Over the next few days I carried the yo-yo with me. Praying over it (yes the yo-yo) and trying to divulge the hidden meaning like it was some great mystery (I’m fairly certain those endless hours spent with Nancy Drew in my younger years aide me in situations such as these). In the end, I realized a few things. 1. Sadly, you cannot yo-yo in the car. 2. 50 cent yo-yo’s really aren’t that great. 3. I’m really not that great at yo-yoing. 4. Yo-yo’s make excellent conversation pieces. 5. Most importantly, I settled on the fact that all this yo-yo nonsense had to do with my relationships…as this has been a key word in my life lately.



So I was thinking about relationships and relating it to the yo-yo and I came up with a few things. Below they are listed and described…in no particular order...


1. You can yo-yo with other people. Sometimes this is the natural ebb and flow of life, where sometimes you are close with a particular person, and then you tend to drift apart. Other times this is just a character trait that probably should be dealt with…point here being there’s no consistency. Its Hot and cold. One minute you’re feeling the closeness of being a yo-yo in the grip of the other, and the next you are dangling free hoping to be snapped back into the clutch of the hand. I can do this in relationships. Someone gets to close, I push them away, and then they tend to creep back into life later. This also saying one can push an unhealthy relationship away intending to “cut the cord” however the relationship creeps back in on them.


2. You can yo-yo with God. I wouldn’t recommend this. I’m learning more and more that my relationship with God is a lot like my relationship with others. As I’m holding the yo-yo and release…I know it’s on a rope and its going to come back….so why not hang out and do my own thing for a while? God will come back…he always does.


3. At some point…it always gets all unraveled and messy. I tend to do this part of yo-yoing very well. I yo-yo on average 4-6 times and then the yo-yo doesn’t come back and instead just unravels itself all up. I spend a lot of time re-winding the yo-yo. Ironic the messy and unraveled happens when you hang out too far from God for too long…


4. The wind up… After the unravel there’s always the wind up. This is probably the least fun part. This is the part after the unravel. Anxiously waiting to be completely wound. Put together and safe in the hand of the person in control of the yo-yo. The wind up takes some time from the game, focused energy as to not tangle the string. There is a point in here though. “Draw near to him and he’ll draw near to you.” The wind up might in fact be the most beautiful part of the whole yo-yo experience. Without it, there wouldn’t be a complete yo-yo, wound and ready to be used for its intended purpose.


5. I feel like there should be a #5 and there probably is…but I don’t got it right now. I just couldn’t end on 4…

Yeah. All this from a yo-yo. It makes me laugh.
My 50 cent yo-yo now hangs out in the center consul of my car. It reminds me of my relationships, the importance of consistency, and this winding up I’m doing with God right now.