In the Cocoon

It's incredible how restorative 2 hours with my husband can be. We've been really busy lately juggling 2 kids, 2 jobs (his is crazy) and only 1 car. We're managing it all but it's really cutting into our time just the two of us. And we are a couple who loves time alone. As much as we love our kids and we spend a lot of time with them, there is something so restorative about climbing back into that cocoon that is us. 
Because we used to do youth ministry and we stayed in our town afterwards, we get to be involved in many of our "kids" lives. And they are reaching adulthood. Many are married and have kids from our earlier years and our latter year kids are just starting down these paths. I absolutely love teens and young adults. It's such a critical time in your life, when so many decisions are made that have a huge impact on your future. As I talk our kids through these choices, I can't help but be brought back to my choices. Tim and I have been together since I was 21 and he was 23. It's unbelievable to me. I was telling him in the car today that the only reason I married him (at 23) was because of him. I wasn't necessarily ready to get married. I was not looking for a husband when we met.  I was celebrating my singleness and planning my new life as an adult in Dublin. 
Sometimes settling down isn't about readiness. It's about that person. I met THAT person. My nana had an epic love story and she always said, "Don't marry someone you can live with; marry someone you can't live without." And my dad always said, "Begin your adulthood. Decide what you're about, what your values are and where you want to be. And as you go along your way, look to the right or the left. One of those people is probably your future spouse." Good advice, right? Tim was that person. He was the guy I couldn't cut loose. And how much fun I had with him in the middle of the day on a Friday while he was in between shifts, with Macy at school and Penny at the neighbor's house, just reminded me that I made the right choice. I got really lucky. 
I recently read an article about there not being a "right person." It's about choosing what you can tolerate. There's some truth to that. There are many people I have loved and could have easily married and I think been happy with. Care-takers are like that - flexible, adaptive. But the fact that Tim and I keep coming back to the well of our relationship and it's still providing that life-giving water, that's a gift.  And it's one you don't know if you're getting when you get married or not. There's no way to know and that's crazy unfair. 
My brother is totally transient, almost allergic to normalcy. And my sister had kids really young and was the only stable force in her life for a long time. She's the responsible, strong one. I'm somewhere in the middle. Committed, responsible and always leaning into freedom. Sometimes being married doesn't feel like freedom, no matter who you married, especially when you're raising two young children and you're struggling with mental health. And yet somehow, in the middle of that commitment, Tim and I create that freedom in our safe cocoon. It's wild. It's the only way I think I could have done the traditional thing of getting married and having kids without losing that wandering spirit. I don't know how this crazy gift happened, but sometimes I just hold it in wonder. 

When Daddy Takes the Reins

It's such a strange thing to get married. I remember when Tim and I were in our premarital counseling and one of the books we were reading said that behavior before marriage is no indication of behavior after marriage. What, WHAT? That was reassuring! I was a bit of a basket-case throughout our engagement. I knew marriage was forever and that I couldn't and shouldn't try to change my spouse so I was trying to keep my eyes wide open about who this man was and if I could commit to love everything about him, with unconditional acceptance. As you can imagine, Tim was cool as a cucumber. Completely confident. So confident in fact that as he was proposing, he handed me a Bible with his last name engraved on it next to my first name. I was going to be his wife. It sounds kinda douchy when I put it like that, but it didn't come across that way. He was just 100% sure of me, of us, of forever. It was weird and sweet and probably a big part of what gave me the confidence to walk down the aisle that day.
If pre-marital behavior is no indication of post-marital behavior, you can imagine how much of a risk it is to become a parent with your spouse. Getting married is about the two of you, a cementing of a relationship that you've already been building for awhile. Becoming parents is a real and total crapshoot. You really have no idea what kind of parent you'll be, regardless of how much babysitting you've done. There's just no way to really be prepared. It's such a huge transition for both people and changes so much of who you are. And depending on the child you have and the circumstances you're in, you continually get shaped as you parent your child who is in a constant state of transition as well. 
I was confident Tim would be a good dad. He was always great with kids when we were around them. He was a youth minister, so he obviously had great rapport with teens. I was sheltered as a kid and he grew up in a much more diverse neighborhood. So what I lacked in street smarts, he had in spades. I thought we'd be a good team, as I had more experience with young kids and he was so good with older kids. 
He and I have so many shared interests and talents but we have completely different personalities. We've found that if we're out of balance, our kids aren't getting the full advantage that we bring when we share the load of parenting well. If I'm leaning in too hard, our kids don't get pushed. If he's leaning in too hard, our kids don't receive enough coddling. It's a balance and I feel our kids are pretty lucky to have us, if I do say so myself.
One of the things both of our children hated as toddlers (which is where Penny's at right now) is having their hair washed. As the stay-at-home parent, many of our regular parenting responsibilities fall to me, but once Tim is home, it's all-hands-on-deck. It's always been that way. Some of my friends are basically single parents with a husband roommate. Her responsibilities don't shift into co-parenting when daddy gets home. It's almost like it doesn't matter if he's there or not. It's baffling to us and I don't understand how that works. People are always praising Tim for being an engaged father and/or telling me how lucky I am. While those things are true, I always thought it was harmful to the child and the father (or the non-primary parent) when one parent shoulders the full parental responsibility unnecessarily (I say unnecessarily in this case because of course, many single parents don't have a choice in this matter and are awesome warriors for their kids in having to essentially fulfill two peoples' worth of work). So for us, it's not so much that "we're so lucky" (though I know we are) but more of a "this is what is best for our children."
Because of this dynamic, Tim has washed his fair share of screaming toddlers. And as I've illustrated, Penny has some things going on in her development that can make these kinds of things particularly difficult. My strategy is to avoid bathing them as much as possible and then when it's necessary, bathe them in 30 seconds flat and get them the heck out of there. Tim's approach is different. The other night while Penny was howling for me, Tim very patiently bathed her for about 15 minutes. He soothed her. He never lost his cool. He engaged her in play. Any time she would start to get worked up, he'd catch her before she got too far down the emotional path of full tantrum. He tried to give her an experience that wasn't traumatic and re-enforcing her hatred of getting her hair washed. In his mind, if she starts to rack up positive hair-washing experiences, eventually she'll grow out of her fear. Pretty genius, right?
I sat in the hallway where she couldn't see me but where he knew I was present, supporting him in his process and available if needed. While my heart wanted to push him out of the way and pull her out of there, this was one of those moments (there are many) where I need to back the fuck off and let him be a dad. And it is to the full benefit of my child, let me tell you. It was just so incredibly precious to hear them sharing this experience. While I was sweating bullets, he remained present in the storm with her. 
He's the parent that stays the course when things get hard. I want to cut our losses and take it to the professionals or stop altogether and Tim is the one who can tune out the chaos and do what's best for our children in that moment. Sometimes that looks like continually fishing that splinter out while Macy howls in fear. Sometimes that's washing Penny's hair while speaking soothingly to her and taking his time. He's the one who gives Penny many opportunities to take a bite of her dinner, when I would have given up after 3 tries. Granted, sometimes you have to cut your losses and that's where the balance of he and I come in. I'm much more likely to let my children lead. But sometimes they need a parent to lead them. And that's where daddy comes in, showing our kids that scary things can be faced and can be overcome with our help. And I could not be more proud and grateful to have been able to carry this man's children and to share this tremendous responsibility with him. 

The Value of Failure

I've been reading a novel I picked up at the library recently. I find such joy in reading books and it feels like a special treat when one surprises you with a "truth nugget" right in the middle of an otherwise normal narrative. One of the characters is as nostalgic as I am. As she's processing her divorce, she comes to this conclusion. "It's funny what comes to mind when the worst possible thing happens. After Jim left, I thought my life was over. I had tried so hard, and Jim had stopped loving me anyway. But failing isn't proof that nothing matters or that we were fools to care. We fail even though things matter very much; it's the possibility of failure that makes them matter even more."*
Grief causes us to go back to what we lost and to reassess its value. Sometimes we overvalue what is was, living in the "glory days" and remembering everything from that time through rose-colored glasses. Other times, usually when we don't want to feel the pain of loss, we try to convince ourselves that what we had before was not as good as it really was. It allows us to squash the grief we feel so we can limp forward in search of something better.
I love what this character is saying. When something fails (loss is all failure of some kind: death is failure to live; divorce is failure to work things out, etc.) that does not diminish its value. In fact, we put more value in things that have the potential to fail. Relationships fail. And rather than saying that, in order to grieve that failure, we must carry it forever (rose-colored glasses) or devalue our experience (denial of pain) of it, she's saying that the very act of failure gives evidence of its meaning. 
This idea blows my mind. I often find myself so disappointed when something fails. As an achiever and a perfectionist, I try so hard to make my life (and the lives of those I care about, see: caretaking) work. And when things don't, it's so easy to want to reduce the value of that experience. The pain of loss is so great, and often I take on the responsibility for that failure regardless of the situation. So on top of grief, I add on a heaping measure of shame. It's so much easier to say that whatever failed was not worth the effort it required to continue. 
She goes on to say, "At fifty-three years old, I almost lost what I had somehow known from the time I was a small girl. I almost lost the knowledge that made my life work...the faith that made three decades of marriage possible and everything good that happened in those years: the family we had, the friends we made, the laughs we shared, the tears, the everything of it. At fifty-three, I almost forgot what Avis Briggs always knew. It all matters." 
She's saying that just because her marriage didn't last forever (and believe me, she's grieving that in a big way) does not mean that their thirty years together were a waste. Just because she's crying now, her years of laughter still happened and still matter. I find this idea so beautiful, so comforting and so, so true to my life. I want my experiences, both painful and beautiful, to have meaning. 
I have no control over how my life will go. I know everyone reading that last line will have a gut check reaction to that truth because we so desperately want that to not be true. We want our good behavior to control the future, that bad things won't happen to us if we behave ourselves, that we will not experience failure in the places that are the most vulnerable in our hearts if we just keep trying. We want to box in our world, our God, our choices, whatever it takes to know that everything will be okay. But the joy of this narrative, both in the novel I'm reading and in the life I'm living is that experiencing pain does not erase the experience of joy. 
As a black and white thinker, I often paint things with a broad brush. If the teen girl gets pregnant, then she shouldn't have had sex with that boy. No matter that she loved him, no matter that she wanted to, no matter that she learned something. She shouldn't have done it and now she's reaping the consequences of her choices. But this is life. The joy of sex and the fear of parenting. The safety of a thirty year marriage and the shock of divorce. The fun of loving your babies and the grief of them moving on. On and on it goes. We want to live in a way that we think we can foresee the consequences and learn to avoid them. Or that the foreseeable ones shouldn't hurt as much as they do. Of course, there are obvious high-risk choices and some of us are more prone to them than others. But there is no way to have complete foresight, no true security in life. 
While there is a lot of fear in acknowledging this, in some ways it comes as a relief to me. For one, it's true in what I've seen and experienced and when I stop denying my heart, I find peace. Two, it takes me off my high horse. It's a lot easier to judge people when you think you've got this life thing all sorted out. Three, it creates community. The lack of security we have in this life fosters dependence on each other in a way that is beautiful, sacred and ironically, security-giving. When we know we have hands to catch us, falling is not as devastating. Four, it takes the pressure off needing to figure everything out, being the one who always needs to be the giver. It levels the playing field, this acknowledging of our collective human experience. We have so much more in common with each other than the areas in which we differ. Five, if we know failure is part of life and therefore, inevitable, does that not make the victories more sweet? When things work out, isn't it almost an unexpected surprise? When we pick up a random novel off a shelf and we find hidden gems of truth, this is the sweetness of life. It's pure, unexpected and resonates with the truth in my heart. 
* For anyone who's interested, the novel is called We Are Called to Rise by Laura McBride.

Perfect Moments

Life is made up a series of choices that lead us down whatever path we find ourselves on. Some things that happen in our lives are not a result of our own choice, but that of another, and sometimes straight-up freak things happen. But even what we do in those freak moments still comes down to choice. I say this not because I don't have compassion for why we make poor choices or because there is always one clear, good choice. I say this for the opposite reason, actually. Life is a lot harder to navigate when you think you know what all the right choices are, not only for yourself, but also for everyone else. 
It's an illusion, really. When you think you know what all the right choices are, it feels very secure and safe. You don't really have to wonder or worry about what to do. You may feel weak or unable to do what you're supposed to do, but you usually have a clear idea about what that is. And if you don't, you usually wait until you do. The problem is, as soon as something happens to you that doesn't fit into that paradigm, you either adapt your worldview to incorporate that reality, deny your reality, or try to make it still fit (insert pithy spiritual band-aids here).
I've already discussed this in one of my very firsts posts about my idea of "lived-in theology." The reason I bring it up tonight is because this reality of choice sometimes is what freezes us from making choices at all. As a perfectionist, I want to make THE RIGHT CHOICE. It's sweet, really, the naivete required to believe that the right choice always exists and that there's only one. And of course, that you're fully capable of making it. It also makes grace unnecessary. 
The first time I froze in the face of a huge decision without an obvious right/wrong answer was when I got engaged to my beloved Tim. It wasn't that we weren't in love or that I didn't want to get married. Absolutely, both of those things were true. But the idea of getting married meant that those years ahead of me would be married years. Does that make sense? I wanted my season of singleness to continue AND I wanted to be with Tim. But there's no way to be both single and married. We don't get to live in parallel universes. So, I made the choice that I knew I would regret forever if I didn't and got married. 
Here's the thing: I loved being single and I love being married. There are days singleness was wonderful and there were days it was awful. I could say the exact same thing about marriage. As a perfectionist, I'm well aware that life is fleeting and that can sometimes be paralyzing. You want everything to be right! The sad thing is, when we insist on life looking a certain way, we miss some of the most beautiful things about it.
I must say, we've had a terrible week. Penny's been sick, which in our world = shrill toddler. I got a migraine, which led to me spending 19 hours in bed. Tim had a terrible headache today while we were taking our family pictures. It's been rough. But tonight, Penny and I were home alone and of course, she didn't want me to read articles on Fifty Shades of Grey on my phone (seriously, there are so many good articles out!). Penny doesn't care about that. She wanted my full attention. Rather than my usual grumbling about delaying self-care, I decided to embrace it. We had a full-on mommy/baby dance party. And it was awesome. We started it with Adele's version of "To Make You Feel My Love." How poignant her lyrics were to me tonight:

When the rain is blowing in your face,
And the whole world is on your case,
I could offer you a warm embrace
To make you feel my love.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear,
And there is no one there to dry your tears,
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love.

I know you haven't made your mind up yet,
But I will never do you wrong.
I've known it from the moment that we met,
No doubt in my mind where you belong.

I'd go hungry; I'd go black and blue,
And I'd go crawling down the avenue.
No, there's nothing that I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love.

The storms are raging on the rolling sea
And on the highway of regret.
The winds of change are blowing wild and free,
You ain't seen nothing like me yet.

I could make you happy, make your dreams come true.
Nothing that I wouldn't do.
Go to the ends of the Earth for you,
To make you feel my love
To make you feel my love

Suddenly with that little teething toddler smiling up at me, the days of isolation faded into the background. The health issues, the anxiety, the loneliness became but a memory as my little girl laughed and twirled with me. I don't think we'll ever know what our lives could have been if we had made different choices, or if we'll ever truly know what our lives are supposed to look like. But there are moments, glimpses really, that make it all clear. Everything is perfect RIGHT NOW. There is no perfect life, perfect relationship, perfect choice, but there are perfect moments. And man, did I savor that one. I soaked her up. And then we turned on Rihanna. 

I Am Enough

I was in church this morning with a bunch of strangers. I did not bring my family and my friend who's my connection to the church wasn't there. Though I don't know her personally yet, the gal who spoke before the offering felt like a kindred spirit. She discussed a recent freak out moment she had when she went into her sewing room and saw all the beautiful fabric she had in there. I could hear the voice of unworthiness behind the tears she recounted to us, the feeling of needing to excuse or justify or apologize for such an expense. I know that voice well. It's the voice that tells me I can go longer without journaling, that I don't NEED to write. It sets guilt at my feet when I leave my family on Monday nights to go to my drawing class. It's what justified budgeting more spending money for my husband than for myself for years. I can do fine with less, so I give myself less. In everything. 
Somehow I see my needs or wants as something to hit the snooze button on if something "more important" or at least more immediate presents itself. I can wait, I tell myself. Is this just my caretaking thing or does this speak into my experience as a woman? There's no doubt in my mind that we teach women to caretake both in our culture and in the church. We tell women to be less. Less emotional. Less vain. Less sexy (insert long rant about shaming women who wear leggings here!) Less catty. Less jealous. Less frivolous. Less talkative. Less expressive. Less needy. We want women to be quiet. Meek. Skinny. Small. I imagine men have their own struggles and certainly not everything is defined by gender. But do men really struggle with asking permission to be a person? Someone with real, vibrant needs that takes up space and has things to offer? I don't imagine that they do.  
Perhaps my editing tendency comes from being a big person by nature. I'm loud, sensitive, emotional and extremely relational. I talk a lot, interrupting people I truly care about. Ironically, I interrupt because what they say resonates with me and I can't help but chime in. In spite of my close friends knowing this about me, I have a real fear of being "too much."  That maybe I should just shut up. The more I go through counseling, the more I see how much I have edited myself. I thought I needed to be a lesser version of myself to fit into all the boxes I set up in my life. That my marriage couldn't work if I allowed my wandering spirit to roam. That my conservative church wasn't interested in what I had to say because I'm a woman. That my family couldn't function if I slowed down. How would shit get done if I didn't wear myself out? If I accepted my dirty floor? If I carved out room for myself to be big and small and everything in between, would I lose what matters most to me in the end? 
I've found myself unpacking a lot of boxes. Theological ones, personal ones, relational ones. I am not nearly done. I'm grateful because some of that is starting to take shape. I'm attending a church that I don't dare speak of yet (it's too sacred and personal, but I'll get there soon). I'm filled with wonder time and time again when my dear husband steps back to make more room for me every time I let a little more out of the box. I keep thinking he won't want to see or hear something and you know what? He does. Every. Single. Time. He blows my mind.  
Turns out, my hang ups are mine. Yes as I change, my long-standing relationships require some adjustment. But I've just got to stop asking permission to live my life. I am a woman. And the female experience is big. I am big. My life is big. And I have to believe that that's intentional. That my gifts and my self, repressed bits and not, are enough, good, valid and needed. That somewhere in the world is someone who benefits from me being me. And even if there isn't, I benefit from being me. And that's enough for now. 

Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

Tim and I have a long history with goodbyes. When I finally bit the bullet and locked that boy down in a committed relationship, it was 3 weeks before I moved to Ireland for 13 months. I was 21 and he was 23. We were virgins, if you can believe it! We were SO IN LOVE. Poetry, public sobbing, hours and hours of phone calls, hand-written love letters, clinging to each other in airports til the last possible minute - we were that young couple. 
We flew back and forth across the world to get a few days together every few months. I moved to Dublin in July. He came to visit in September. I flew home to San Diego for Christmas and he flew me up to the Northwest to meet his family. He came to Dublin and proposed in March. I flew home again in May to find wedding locations and attend our first date buddies (we doubled at Disney) wedding in Oklahoma. I was home for good in August. We got married in a huge church wedding in January and were off to Vancouver, WA in March. 
Yes, it was a whirlwind. We were only officially a couple and in the same room for 6 weeks before we were engaged. But for us, we knew this was IT on our very first date. We didn't get together right away (I had just committed to moving to Dublin - not the best timing ever) but our eventual coupling was absolutely inevitable. The momentum was building and we just hopped on for the ride of our lives. 
As you can imagine, almost 10 years of marriage, 2 kids, 6 years of ministry, and physical and mental health challenges later, a lot has changed. Sometimes being together is hard. Not because our relationship is hard but because life is hard. And any forever relationship will be subject to the difficulties of life, no matter how tightly you hold onto each other. 
Tim and I just said goodbye. He's going on a much-needed solo road trip to visit some friends now before his work life gets too busy. 
As the time drew to a close, we woke up the kids. I made him breakfast to go. We took pictures. We hugged and kissed again and again. We professed our love. Finally, he got in the car and drove away waving to me. And you know what? As much as life has changed, it really, really hasn't. My heart fit right back into that groove of loss without him. I shed a few tears. I hugged my kids. And I felt like I really needed to write this post, just to capture that feeling. That oh so familiar feeling. It feels like when you get on a boat and it takes a few minutes to get your sea legs. You're wobbly and disoriented. It's physically obvious to the people around you that you're off your game. Of course, you adjust and adapt to the movement of the boat. But you don't feel really right until you're on dry land again. 

On the Cusp of Something

I'm in that weird vortex between two seasons of life. We all are. I've got one foot in fall and one foot in summer. Macy starts 1st grade on Wednesday. In some ways, this is awesome! I love the fall and frankly, I'm totally over sweating. I want to break out the skinnys and the boots. I want to have pumpkins on my porch and my child in school all day. I love her, but she is my mirror. And sometimes it's hard to look at my precious firstborn and not see myself in all my glory. I see her pleasing. I see her perfectionism. I see her enthusiasm. I see her insatiable need for love and attention. I see her wanting more and more from her loved ones. I hear her voice talking on and on. I see her passion, her anger, her smile, her fear. Sometimes it's overwhelming. Sometimes for my own sanity, I want to set her on a shelf for awhile. It's terrible, but it's honest and there's no way I'm the only parent who feels that way. I'm just that person who always outs themselves in brutal honesty.
I'm ready to slow down. I'm ready to take more time and energy for myself. I'm ready for some quiet. But the perfectionist in me also feels let down. Summer is over. All the things I wanted to do this summer that I didn't get to do are scrolling through my mind like a parade of shame. All the hours I let my kid watch TV while I hid in my room, I remember. I really tried to cut myself some slack this summer, but I still wish I was capable of more, that I could just go on forever. There's a grace in me being unable to do and be everything I want to be (and everything I feel pressure to be). Because if I could go on forever, I would. I would not eat, sleep, rest. I wouldn't. And that is one of the beautiful things about being human. I don't have a choice. Thank God for that.
As a caretaker, I often pull up short when my own needs present themselves. I don't realize I need to eat until I'm starving. I tuck self-care in the nooks and crannies of taking care of everyone else. This is common for women in this "season of life" when you have small children. But when I have noticeable emotional needs, it surprises me. Gah!
When I was in college, my therapist mentioned to me that small transitions require extra self-care for me. (Yes, I'm in therapy now and I was in therapy then. Best time/money spent ever). I need to give myself a little extra grace when the seasons change, when my schedule changes, when my friends leave and when new ones come. The changes don't have to be "bad". In fact, they are often the changes that I anticipate that throw me the most.
This seemingly small transition from one season to another is greatly exacerbated by Labor Day. I know, weird. It's such a non-holiday. But in our family, it has served as a benchmark of pain the last few years. 3 years ago, it was on Labor Day that we walked away (not by choice) from ministry forever. It was on Labor Day weekend last year that I took my husband to the ER and had him admitted for pervasive suicidal thoughts, with 7 week old Penny in tow. He then went to a respite facility for 2 nights, finally with dear friends for 3 weeks in town. In those weeks, I was raising our newborn alone (with MASSIVE support from friends and family), caring for a traumatized 5 year old starting kindergarten, and myself in a frightening post-partum experience. It was, by far, the worst thing I've ever endured. I learned I was capable and that I need help. I learned that marriage is a choice and depression is not. 
Well, Tim had a minor surgery on Thursday that landed me in a medical facility waiting for his medication and discharge for 2 hours with 2 hungry, tired kids. We then ended up in the exact same ER as last year 90 minutes after he was home from the surgery because he was vomiting all his pain pills. I missed Macy's Back to School night because I was juggling my now very mobile daughter while my husband was treated. And since then, I've been racing around caring for the 3 of them on our final days of summer. It's all way too familiar. Tim will have to get a stent removed from the surgery sometime this week, which means there will be another procedure. I've found myself crying in parking lots, crying in my kitchen, crying now at my computer. This is an anniversary I wish to never revisit, a season of life I would like to bury forever. I wouldn't wish the way I witnessed my spouse a year ago on anyone. Sometimes life has a way of sticking it to you, right in your weakest places, making the world that I usually see with naively rosy glasses suddenly feel cold and untrustworthy. 
I know today is not a year ago or 3 years ago, for that matter. As familiar as this feels, it isn't the same. This weekend gives me an opportunity to continue to grieve the pain that was last year and previous years. But it also serves as a reminder that we've come a long way. I choose to sit in that rather than focus on how far we still have to go. But sometimes on nights like this, it feels heavy. I try to be present, to sit in the mess. As you can imagine, perfectionists don't like messes, particularly emotional, familial un-fixable ones! I have a savior complex. Being "in process" myself, not being able to control the processes of my family members, and waiting for simple moments that come more often now but not often enough is not an easy thing for me. 
I'm learning that we don't get to choose our life, only the way we're living it. I choose to live mine honestly. I choose to tell my story when I'm crying in parking lots and when I'm laughing with my kids. It's all part of my story. And I have to believe that ultimately, my story is good, that I'm part of a greater story that matters. Our suffering has value. It's not a punishment. It's a reality, a critical piece of our human experience. In some ways, it is what most greatly unites us. I want to connect with the people around me, with their humanity, with their compassion, with their story. I don't want to live in an ivory tower, rising above everyone else. Of course, I'd love to get out of the trenches for awhile. I don't want to stay here forever. But if being in the trenches makes me a more open, honest, compassionate and generous version of myself, is it worth it? I think it just might be. Luckily, it's not up to me to decide if I stay in the trenches or not. We usually stay in longer than we thought we would or intended to. We're antsy and ready to rise above the ground. I believe I will, stronger than ever, in time. But for now, I'll be down here if you need me, in the trenches. 

Setback or Opportunity?

This week our family has had a setback. When I got pregnant with Penny about 18 months ago, I spent 2 weeks in bed. I know that a lot of women have to go on full bed rest throughout their pregnancies, so 2 weeks probably seem like a breeze. But for us, it was really tough. Essentially, when all the hormones shifted in my body, my SI joint went out of place, which means that my hips were literally off-balance. My entire body was visibly crooked. Unfortunately, your hips are kinda critical:) Any kind of weight-bearing activity (standing, bending, twisting, even sitting) requires that your hips work. Mine decided to stop working, to the point that I could not even physically get out of bed without Tim helping me and even then, it was incredibly painful. He learned to wash my hair, which turns out to be quite different than men's hair. It was cute, really. 
In that process, I learned to slow down. If you've known me for many years, you're probably thinking IT'S ABOUT TIME. I've always been an opportunist. To me, why say no to an opportunity that you WANT to take? There is no guarantee in life that any opportunity will come around again. This attitude is what had me spending 6 weeks in Argentina at 17 as a full-fledged member of a mission team with 3 other "adults." I also think I have some sort of shame issue with the idea of regrets. I don't want to have regrets and so if I say no to an opportunity that I want to take and it doesn't come around again, won't I feel regret? Still figuring that one out. 
All of that to say, slowing down was entirely necessary and incredibly uncomfortable for me. I had a lot of regular commitments and rhythms at the time that I just couldn't do anymore. (Once I was able to get back out of bed, I still fatigued easily the whole pregnancy). I stopped working. I stopped going to church. I quit my chorus. The things I brought into my life greatly revolved around my physical health - chiropractic appointments, yoga, massage therapy. I had my first real bouts with anxiety. I got overwhelmed emotionally really easily. I learned to only do things that didn't stress me out and that list was short! 
Slowing down required me to sit in where I get my value from. At that point, our friend Ryan had just died; we were only a year separated from ministry; and I had just gotten pregnant. Being a performance-based person, not doing anything I didn't want to do (and just figuring out what those things were!) was super challenging for me. I had become a really good "yes man." Needless to say, pregnancy the second time around forced a lot of personal growth in me and affected our whole family. It was hard but also really good because it allowed us to re-prioritize and live into our developing values all the more. 
After Penny was born, we were in a bad place. Postpartum depression is really, really tough and in our family situation, it was really serious, really fast. That created a lot of family dynamics that were traumatic for all of us. It required a short-term separation. It required therapy for all 3 of us (Tim and I are each still in ongoing therapy). Our families and friends stepped in massively with staying with us, feeding us, helping with the kids, listening to us, financially providing for us, you name it. Very. Hard. Time. 
We've spent months working on our individual "stuff" as well as how our stuff affects our family dynamic. This is hard work, painful, and long. It is so difficult to sit in the tension that self-work creates. I'm so incredibly grateful to have the marriage, the friends, the family, and the therapist that I have. I've seen this go down in the lives of people around me with majorly different results. We are so, so lucky.
This brings me to last weekend. Tim had a workshop (big work event) all day Saturday and Sunday was Father's Day. Time to spoil daddy. I was so excited! Being a caretaker, I love this stuff and I get my jollys from taking everything on, obviously. Well, I was carrying Penny up the stairs while Tim and Macy were at the workshop and I felt my back spasm. I got Penny on the changing table and it continued to burn and pull. AGGGHHH!!! Not again! (Even though the pain is in my lower back, it's my hips again for sure). 
Here I am, home alone with a 19 pound baby, and I threw out my back. I spent the day doing as little as I could pull off with Penny and hit the sheets the second Tim got home. It's in my nature to be super bummed about Father's Day (completely canceled) and highly concerned about my exhausted husband having to take on all 3 of us when it was clearly planned to be the opposite. He had to miss work all week because I can't lift the baby. I've spent most of my time in bed. It's been lonely, depressing, discouraging, and exhausting.
Here's the thing though, and I think this is a result of a lot of good therapy: this week was an opportunity. I did a lot of escaping (I'm embarrassed to say that I've officially watched many episodes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians), as well as some great self-care (journaling, reading). But this week, though it feels like a setback, is an opportunity to practice the skills we've all been working on. And I hate to say it, me being completely obliterated physically is really the only dynamic we're willing to sit with this stuff in, at least to this level. It absolutely forces our hand. If I can keep my family going, I will, no matter the cost to myself. It grieves me to admit that. I'm really working on it. I've made some really great strides, but that is still my natural inclination and our family dynamic supports that. 
So I'm learning to rest. I'm learning to speak into my disappointment. I'm willing to cry and journal about my relationship with shame and how it comes knocking when I'm not able to fulfill my responsibilities. I'm not taking on my husband's stress (this is so painful for me). I'm holding my children who miss me and empathizing with them. Tim and I are communicating where we're both at and sitting in the fact that our feelings really differ from each other right now. It's awkward. It's hard. It's sad. It's beautiful. This is our life and this is what growth looks like.

It's about to get real...

I have many lighthearted type of anecdotes to share on here at some point, but I tend to run deep so hang on tight. It's gonna get real today, people. I want to go on the record as a married person who has gone through 2 seasons in her life now where she has fantasized about being single. Yes, I'm a nice person with a great husband (whom I love dearly) and 2 precious children who bring me great joy almost every day, which is pretty amazing, really. But occasionally I think back to my globe-trotting single days and think yeah, I'd like to go back to that time when things were simple. I was a viable, virginal girl (because let's face it, Christian woman find singleness more intimidating when they're no longer virgins, regardless of the reason) and the world was my oyster. I hesitate to speak frankly on the idea of singleness fantasies because I've never heard a married person say these truths and what if (eek!) I'm the only person out there who sometimes wants to think for 1 instead of 4?!?! A few years of wandering in Europe sound pretty good sometimes. I sleep well on trains and somehow avoided the Taken scenario the whole year I lived in Germany at 19. The fact that my many amazing single friends aren't currently wandering in Europe and aren't any happier than I am is entirely beside the point. 
There are many reasons for said fantasy. I, for one, am a runner. I hate to admit it because it feels like I'm shaming myself, but perhaps this is the fate of a perfectionist. Relationships aren't all good or all bad. And I hate that! Growing up in an evangelical household (which included our home, church, and school) life was painted as a series of good decisions and bad decisions. Your future mate would be a "godly" guy - knight in shining armor stuff, and there was one RIGHT person who was specifically designed by God for me. And in the meantime, marry Jesus! He's a pretty great husband, right? Though, I think we all know, JC never married. I have literally participated in 2 fake wedding ceremonies to Jesus in my life. Spring this on a silly kid and at best, it might plant a seed of loving God in their heart or at least stop them from having premarital sex. Do this to a serious perfectionist and she'll end up breaking up with her incredibly safe, chaste boyfriend out of commitment to her new husband. (I broke up with that wonderful boy 3 TIMES, poor guy). 
Needless to say, these attempts at teaching us that TRUE LOVE WAITS also taught us that true love is perfect, pure, and safe. Perhaps that's true about agape type Jesus marriages. But relationships between two people who are honest and who have had crazy shit happen in their life together get messy. The beautiful thing I'm coming to terms with is that IT SHOULD. Messy is real. True love isn't pure (meaning without fault, blame, mess, mistakes, fantasies of no one talking to you before 9am, resentment, grief, and heartache). Perhaps we're still in the process of figuring out what true love looks like.  
I think my perfectionist mind thinks relationships are either pure (childhood standard) or a trap (stay no matter what). This is the curse of being a black and white thinker. It's one or the other. It's good or bad. It's wonderful or it's awful. Turns out, it's both and. It's good and it's bad. Because even I, perfectionist who wants to save everyone, who's been on a pedestal her whole life (we'll get to that later:) am both and. Wonderful and mean. Loving and resentful. Honest and self-serving. Committed and restless. I don't think this means something terrible about me, my life, or my marriage. I think this means I'm human.