Brave, Anyway

Category: BraveGirlJournal

  • Forty-Six

    Forty-Six

    When I was younger I used to wonder what life would be like when I was 20 and then 30 and then 40. Although not as often because life is just a little too chaotic, I still sometimes daydream about what life will be like 10 years from now and 20 years from now. I think once you have children, and your life is no longer about just you, it’s almost hard to imagine too far forward because so much of your life is wrapped up in who and where they are going to be. So I just imagine things like one day I’ll live in the Cosmopolitan and I’ll be able to walk somewhere after work to have sushi and a glass of wine and I’ll never again think about lawn service options or how to remove goldfish crumbs from the tiny crevices around my seatbelt buckles.

    Younger me was so very wrong about forty-something life that I’m guessing I will adopt children at 60 and restart the process of battling with little humans about why we must bathe regularly. Not only did younger me not imagine having children, she did not understand that aging is more about growing in understanding and empathy than it is about wrinkles and falling asleep in a recliner. She also did not realize that as you age, your vision and definition of what constitutes an old person is updated – when you’re 25, 50 seems old but when you’re 46, 50 seems not old at all.

    But the biggest things young and silly me didn’t expect are probably these three truths:

    • Life is significantly better when you’re past the selfish years of youth.
    • You don’t really even begin living until you can just embrace who you are and relinquish your cares about how you look and what others think.
    • Absolutely every feeling pales in comparison to the ones you experience in a moment of realization that prayers were answered.

    Forty-six. That’s how young I am now. That’s how old I am now. That’s my current age.

    I’m a week away from owning my own home. Just me. All by myself. Only money I earn paying the mortgage each month. Only my name on the title and deed. For a long time it’s just been me making the mortgage, but behind the scenes two names were on all the paperwork. No more. And IT. FEELS. AWESOME.

    I may look tired some mornings, but I am likely feeling invigorated. I regularly fall asleep in the middle of Anderson Cooper, but then wake up in the middle of the night and sit down to research or read or write. It’s solely my job to set goals, to get myself motivated, and to put in the effort. Only I am responsible for goals and dreams accomplished, or goals and dreams daily back-burnered for another day. So it’s OK if I look tired, because I am getting stuff done.

    I no longer think twice about how I look in a bathing suit. I have scars. I’m not a tan person. If my thighs or arms look like I had donuts after dinner, it’s probably because I did – because I long ago realized that Kate Moss was wrong and warm Krispy Kremes taste better than skinny feels. This body grew and fed little people. It’s survived some serious trauma. It doesn’t need to change in any way, or look like it’s 25. It’s not 25 any more. Our bodies should tell the stories of our experience, not of our insecurities. And I will play with my girls on the beach because it’s fun and because I need to show them that the only thing that matters about their bodies is what their bodies can help them accomplish while they’re on this earth.

    I have sand in my car and drive it around for weeks that way. I have stuff sitting on counters, without a real place to go, until finally the counter becomes the home for the stuff. I host last-minute sleepovers and the kids are all OK even though bedroom floors have baskets of clothes sitting on them and we eat takeout and cereal.

    Basically, I am a recovering OCD-er.

    Many of the things I used to consider important are now not important at all, while things never even in my frame of reference at 25 are of the utmost importance now. I am keenly aware of the relative small amount of time that makes up the childhood years of the two young ladies who call me Mommy. I have so little time, really, to provide them with a home and a foundation that’s peaceful and happy and grounding and safe and fun. This is actually their time, not mine. So perhaps the biggest difference in what I imagined and what is actually forty-six is that my days are not about doing and watching and experiencing and accomplishing things that are about me. What makes me happy is so much simpler than I ever imagined – it’s simply hearing them laugh and seeing them happy.

  • Healthy Relationships

    Healthy Relationships

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who is focused on winning.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who isn’t as focused on giving as they are on taking.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone you can’t trust.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who isn’t healthy.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who tell the truth.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who are both faithful.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who are committed to the same values and principles.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who celebrate each other.

    You can’t parent in a healthy way if you are your top priority.

    You can’t parent in a healthy way if your decisions about everything in your life aren’t with your children in mind.

    You can’t parent in a healthy way if you rely on others to do the hard work and have the hard conversations.

    You can’t parent in a healthy way if your children can’t respect you.

    Healthy parents aren’t friends to their children.

    Healthy parents acknowledge when their children need help, and then secure it.

    Healthy parents don’t put conditions on their love.

    Healthy parents take seriously their responsibility to set a good example.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who is not accountable.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who is not finished with their prior relationship.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who is not committed to seeing the best in themself and you.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who isn’t healthy.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who can respect each other.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who share responsibilities and burdens.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who can rely on each other.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who celebrate each other.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who doesn’t like themself.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who is driven by jealousy.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who won’t help themself.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who isn’t healthy.

    Healthy relationships are between two people committed to compromise.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who are each proud of the other.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who commit to forgive instead of holding a grudge.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who celebrate each other.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who is not committed to growth – yours and theirs.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who hides.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who wants you to do more for them than they are willing to do for themself.

    You can’t negotiate a healthy relationship with someone who isn’t healthy.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who value the feedback and opinions of each other.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who can be their true and whole self with each other.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who don’t put conditions on their love.

    Healthy relationships are between two people who celebrate each other.

  • Behavior and Faith

    There’s a word for someone who claims to be a Christian but who hurts others on purpose and then acts like things will be ok.

    There’s a word for someone who claims to be a Christian but who hurts others and then says they are praying for them.

    There’s a word for someone who claims to be a Christian but who hurts others and then attempts to encourage others not to lose hope.

    The word is abuser. A person who does this is an abuser. A person who has the ability to stop hurting you but doesn’t is an abuser. And someone who behaves this way and claims to be a person of faith is a liar. People of faith do not purposely hurt others and then pray for them and then hurt them more.

    Abuse is not always physical. Sometimes it’s a selfish and insecure adult making choices that hurt others emotionally.

    People of faith fall short, they recognize it, they apologize, and then they do everything they can to behave differently. They do not willfully sin day in and day out thinking they can seek forgiveness or expecting to rely on grace.

    None of us is ever beyond forgiveness. But there’s a difference between someone who chooses to hurt and someone who accidentally hurts. There’s a difference between sorry spoken with words and sorry spoken with action. There’s a difference between someone who claims faith and someone who lives faith.

    Sometimes I think the thing that most makes people reject Christianity is the perversion of “Christianity” that “Christians” show the world. We can’t live in a way incongruous with the tenets of Christ and think our faith is believable. Much more than we realize, people see all of us for who and what we are, and they do one or more of three things: laugh at the obvious showmanship, feel sorry for someone so pathetically misguided, or get angry or disgusted with the misrepresentation of faith.

    People of faith aren’t perfect. They aren’t people who never fail. In fact, they fail a lot. The distinction is that they are people who are constantly and earnestly trying to do better.

  • Balance

    Balance

    I learned a new word recently: Koyaanisqatsi. It’s pronounced coy-e-on-e-skat-see and it’s a Hopi word that means out of balance.

    When you really boil it down the word Hopi stands for peace, and the Hopi are known as the peaceful people. Long before the first Europeans landed on our shores and became Americans, and long before the first group of men and women charged across a mostly untouched land to establish homesteads or search for gold, the Hopi lived in America.

    I love and appreciate this country and I love the people in it. I love and appreciate and am thankful for the men and women who have fought in various wars and conflicts over hundreds of years to ensure that my daughters and I can live and worship freely here today. But when I think about the founding of our nation by people committed to a better way of life versus the people of today, I think we have become a people and a nation out of balance.

    What was once a nation that welcomed newcomers seeking safety or opportunity or more freedom is now a nation arguing about walls to keep people out. Koyaanisqatsi.

    What was once a nation of communities that stuck together and made sure all of its families were fed and clothed and tended when sick is now largely a nation of individual people who keep to themselves. A nation arguing over what requirements need to be met for a person to deserve food or shelter or medicine. Koyaanisqatsi.

    As much as we get mad about and write books about millennials and their focus on self, it feels to me like we have become a nation of individuals who are way too entitled. We wax poetic about how little we had when we were young, maybe how our great-grandparents or our parents had to struggle for food or things or college or work, but now it seems no amount of struggle in another is enough to warrant help for that person. I guess we feel we have somehow done something to deserve the good life we have but that others haven’t done enough or aren’t lucky enough. Instead of helping others, which was the necessary way of life when this country was founded, we say we feel sorry for people and we hold out hope for them and we’ll pray for them. And while praying is the absolute right thing for us to do, we must do much, much more.

    What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. ~ James 2: 14-17.

    I am a Christian, and I am so seriously completely one hundred percent over my people saying we’re praying about something while doing nothing. Those are not the instructions of the God we follow. And not only are we skipping the step of action to help people, in many cases we are complicit in the creation of the situations of people who need help.

    We don’t want all people to have access to the same health care, but we pray for people who are sick. We don’t want to regulate the right to bear arms, but we pray for the victims in mass shootings. We shame women for even considering abortion and then we shame women for needing help once their babies are born.

    Koyaanisqatsi. Koyaanisqatsi. Koyaanisqatsi.

    Our life in America – and there are dozens of kinds of American life depending on your age, race, gender, and access to money – is certainly a good one in comparison to many other countries. We are “better than” in a number of categories when stacked against our peers, but is being good in comparison enough? It’s a question for our country and it’s a question for each one of us as individuals. Just because I haven’t murdered anybody doesn’t make me a good human – it simply, maybe, makes me “better than” someone who has taken the life of another. Just because America provides more freedom than North Korea doesn’t make us a great nation – it simply makes us “better than” a dictatorship.

    I think we are called to be and do much more. That our privilege comes with more hard work and responsibility, not more entitlement. It’s our job to show others what we can do, not look the other way. It’s our job to help all the people we can, not just all the people who can do something for us in return.

    If we expect to continue to live in privilege, we need to live up to the great responsibility given us. We can’t expect to reap a prosperous life or nation when the seeds we are sowing are in things like adding to the debt of our young people, allowing medical bills to force families to declare bankruptcy, treating physical wounds but not wounds of the psyche, or in treating suburban house pets better than children. I don’t think we can expect to continue to live in privilege if we encourage fear of or hatred of people who don’t look like us. I don’t think we can expect to live in privilege if we continue to live out of balance. I don’t think we can expect to live in peace if we continue to live out of balance – each in our homes or in our nation.

    Eagles are an important symbol in both American and Hopi culture. They are symbols of strength and courage and connection and vision. They are not passive creatures; they are creatures that do. That soar. And they are creatures of balance. The bald eagle uses their feathers to balance. As part of their growth process, if an eagle loses a feather on one wing, they will lose a matching feather on the other wing. It’s only when an eagle’s wing is injured, when their wings are out of balance, that they cannot fly.

  • One Corner Piece

     

    Regret and Accountable.

    These two words have been running around in my head for months. Some days they are louder than others, but their noise is an almost constant hum in the background of my life.

    I didn’t behave inappropriately with someone else, I didn’t and don’t hide from all the people who might judge me or hold me accountable, and I didn’t and I won’t ever make excuses for behavior that is inexcusable.

    But you know what I did do? I ignored all the signs that something was very, very wrong in my marriage. I dismissed my ex and attempts to discuss issues because I just didn’t have any more effort to give to anything. I chose to focus on other people and things as the top priorities and that, in part, resulted in my divorce.

    When you have to suffer the consequences of your choices, it sucks – but as adults we do that and then pick ourselves up and move on. When you have children, and those children suffer the consequences of your actions and inactions, it’s the absolute worst feeling of failure and regret and accountability, and you just can’t shake it.

    Good parents can’t prevent chaos of all kinds and protect their children from everything, but they can stop themselves from creating chaos in the lives of their children.

    Regardless of how angry I have been and can still sometimes get at other people, the truth is that two people are responsible for the challenges my children have faced. Me and their Dad. Because as their parents, we are fully accountable for everything. Until they’re adults, we are the CEOs in their life. It was our job to provide for them and to protect them and to do our best in all things and to give 110% to family each day. It was our job to carefully control the influences in our lives. It was our job, and our job only, to set the example for them.

    I suppose all Moms and Dads have regrets. And secrets. One of my secrets is that I don’t regret getting divorced. Is it wrong to be happy about something that caused pain for your children? Is it wrong to feel free?

    I have known for a very long time, since the beginning really, that if I had to go back I wouldn’t make different choices. I would prioritize the people I prioritized. But I realized something new today. Something important. Something life-changing, really. A corner piece in this giant puzzle. One of the people I really need to forgive in this whole mess is me.