Brave, Anyway

Tag: brave

  • City Management

    City Management

    I manage a city. I manage a city, and I have every job within the city.

    When things go awry with my children or their friends, or even with kids at school they don’t really know, I am on the other end of the 9-1-1 call. My job is to ask just enough questions to assess risk and recommend action, but not upset the balance so much that they don’t call again because I overreacted to their call for help.

    Sometimes there’s a fire and I can show my girls how they can extinguish it. Sometimes there’s a fire and I need to put it out for them. Sometimes I know without a second thought that a fire will eventually die out without causing any damage, and I just let that issue smolder. Sometimes the fire in our lives is 4-alarm and requires multiple trucks and stations – family and neighbors and helpers.

    I restore the peace as children disagree. Issuing citations and enforcing time out periods, in hopes of deterring bad behavior. I also investigate friends that seem to not be good influences.

    I fix booboos of all kinds on everything from knees to hearts. Jumping into ambulances and speeding off with lights and sirens to get help when basic triage isn’t working.

    I clean up spills and overflows and experiments. Slime. Paint. Markers. Sharpies. Lotion potions. Cat throw-up. Marshmallow explosions in the microwave.

    I am the collector of garbage. Everything from candy wrappers to an entire box of tissues used during a make-up lesson. I am also the one who sweeps up after all the emotional messes created by others – the hurt and anger and pain that children hide until they can get home, when it all comes pouring out on the parent they trust to love them and be there for them no matter how much they melt down.

    I am the provider of water, earlier in my career called upon as a way to delay bedtime and later in my career called upon for a glass of water even if a child is physically closer to the kitchen but cannot possibly get up off the couch.

    Just like Miss Utility, my children call on me when digging into things. They need help carefully navigating all the wires and pipes that could cause pain and really hurt them.

    I am one central office in the municipal center that grants or denies permits for all things. Painting a new color in a bedroom, sleepovers, extended bed times, bowling with boys, favorite cute shorts on 50 degree days.

    I am aware of all children in proximity to my children and constantly keeping track of who has been on antibiotics at least 24 hours without a fever, who around us isn’t vaccinated, and who has food allergies.

    I oversee transportation. Bus rides to school, rides to and from activities. I arrange more than just the transport of people but also all that is needed for the “thing” – a backpack, a suitcase, a musical instrument, a bathing suit, a sports physical form, a costume, or simply just a brush and make-up.

    I am a 9-1-1 operator, a firefighter, a police officer, an EMT, a member of the HAZMAT team, and a sanitation worker. I am public utilities, the public health inspector, VDOT, and even Animal Control.

    I am a Mom.

    Some days my city runs more smoothly than others. Some days there are no fires or traffic. Some days I know a storm is coming and I can batten down all the hatches and protect the city. Some days an unexpected yet utterly predictable earthquake strikes, plunging our city into darkness – and then I spend days managing the anxiety and realizations brought on by the event and its aftershocks.

    Some days I think I need more focus on city planning and other days I think I need more focus on emergency services. Balance is the key, I guess, and that’s constantly a work in progress – for any Mom and in any city.

    I don’t think Pete Buttigieg really has a chance at becoming the President, but I love this summary of his: In local government, it’s very clear to your customers – your citizens – whether or not you’re delivering. Either that pothole gets filled in, or it doesn’t. The results are very much on display, and that creates a very healthy pressure to innovate.

    It’s Monday in my city, the beginning of the last week of summer. The week for final back-to-school preparations, annual vaccinations, water balloon fights, and beginning to rein in our desire to sleep in. Next week my city will change again as school buses fill the roads and schedules change. It’s time for change and it’s time for innovation. That means it’s time for granting more space and showing more trust in smart girls who are growing and maturing, it means fixing some potholes here and there, and it even means constructing some new roads.

    It’s time to double down on the brave.

    Brave parenting. Brave city management. Brave new paths.

    This is one of my favorite pictures of my house – the hub of my little city. My neighbor took this picture on the night of the super moon in January 2018. I love, love, love that it looks like a giant star of light hovering above our home…a giant light hovering above my city. It’s one of my reminders that darkness did not and does not defeat light.

  • What is Winning?

     

    You win. #winning. Win-Win.

    What does it mean to win? Outside of sports, where there are clearly defined rules and generally a person or team has a better score, what does it mean to win?

    Search Twitter for #winning and you’ll quickly see that winning is political and we have redefined it as proving someone else wrong, appearing to be in a better position than someone else, and general one-upmanship. Search Instagram for “winning” and you’ll find everything from people drinking beer to people liking their outfits to people asking their bird to congratulate the Raptors to people showing how they decorated something.

    I’m not convinced this bird is really a Raptors fan, but he’s cute.

    How they decorated something. Their body, their house, their dog or cat, their car, and even their political argument. Winning has become about decoration instead of function. It’s become about how we look to others instead of who we are.

    Our outfit may have cost $500 but if it covers a body we don’t love or a heart that chooses self and hurts others, are we winning? Our house may have nice things and decorations for every season but if it’s holding bad energy from the past (and present) or we have to hide in it, are we winning? If our country has your preferred political party in power but our retired citizens and military veterans cannot access medicine they need, are we winning?

    Our “winning” news and media feeds should be filled with examples of acts of love and bravery and courage and resilience. Pictures of scars that show a healing. Pictures of people helping others. Pictures of leaders trying to find compromises. Pictures of people rebuilding. Pictures of people who’ve succeeded despite something.

    My girls both won awards this week – one for dedication to academics, arts and service and one for most improved student. I am so ridiculously, incredibly, smiling-from-ear-to-ear-while-crying-happy-tears proud of them and I don’t have adequate words to express it. These particular recognitions are significant because, really, they are about resilience. And while I’m over-the-moon happy they are resilient, I can’t kick the feeling that they never should have been put in a position to need to be this kind of resilient this early in their lives. The ugliness that forced their resilience is not decorate-able.

    The thing of which I am most proud is how they each responded to the recognition of their achievements. In separate events where they didn’t see how the other behaved they were both happy and proud, and they were both humble and cheered on and hugged their classmates who were also recognized. It reminded me that winning is about being a good human and it’s about encouraging others.

    I know very little about sports, and all I really know about the Cowboys is that they can’t be all that bad because they love navy blue and navy is my favorite color. I visited the Ford Center a while back and I learned about the Hail Mary. I’m not sure I think it’s really a way to “winning” but I like the idea of doing something while hoping and praying for the best. I was also introduced to this Jason Garrett gem: Fight. Fight to be your best. Fight for each other.

    Because winning is about fighting and trying. Winning is trying, and trying, and trying again. It is fighting and fighting and fighting. It’s about continuing to fight and try even when we fail.

    Winning is small steps day to day, like taking the stairs up to the office. Winning is big steps, like finishing a marathon. Winning is refusing to hide. Winning is embracing our scars that show healing. Winning is forgiving. Winning is helping others. Winning is having the courage to ask for help. Winning is collaboration. Winning is not focusing on self. Winning is not looking for winners and losers. Winning is being real with others, without hiding under any decoration. Winning is loving and being loved without any decorations.

  • Purses and Thoughts

    Purses and Thoughts

    My purse is out of control.

    My beautiful blue crocodile Kate Spade is so full of stuff and so heavy that once I sat my bag down in the passenger seat, my car flashed the seatbelt sign.

    I knew it was getting heavy – a couple of times recently I’d caught myself rubbing my shoulder and thinking I needed to clean a few things out. But my car thinking my purse needed a seatbelt? Come on, now.

    I really only carry a purse to keep up with 5 things – wallet, keys, phone, iPad, and lip balm. I came home and dumped everything out, and I found that my usual suspects had become surrounded by things that didn’t need to be in there and that I didn’t realize were in there. Additionally I found an alarming number of things I have no recollection of whatsoever, and I’m not entirely sure they are all my possessions.

    Two things became clear to me:

    (1) The hair ties we are constantly looking for at the very last minute on school mornings are all in the bottom of my purse.

    (2) It’s time to make some changes. Specifically, to set some boundaries for what I am willing to carry around.

    I’m carrying around everything from a blue stone I received as part of a sermon to remind us of our baptism to the official name-change papers I received 6 months ago now. My folder with the tax stuff. A couple of Audrey’s LOL Surprise dolls. Tootsie Rolls. An old device I need to drop at Best Buy for recycling. A Time’s Up lapel pin. A Virginia Beach Rocks rock. A small container of slime.

    I think in part what happens is I have good intentions of getting some things done – so I put the dry cleaning receipt in a pocket in my purse but I don’t actually get by there for weeks. (Zoots may actually be out of business by now and I need to probably check on that.) And in part as I am cleaning up after others when we exit the car, I put things in my giant bag thinking I’ll put them in the trash or put them away when we get inside. In part I’m carrying around things I might need, like Advil or my iPad in case I want to write. And in part I’m carrying around sentimental things that I may not see every day but are there to make me smile occasionally.

    Why am I carrying around so much stuff? The first thing I decided is that everything I carry around from now on is going to be because it is something I need or that brings me joy. I think of myself as not a Marie Kondo fan because at no point will folding laundry ever bring me joy. The first time I watched her fold clothes and talk about communicating her affection through her palms, it reminded me of the scene in The Silence of the Lambs where the serial killer rubs his palm over the back of the kidnapped girl. WEIRD. CREEPY. CRAZY.

    Watch Marie Kondo fold: https://youtu.be/Lpc5_1896ro

    But as I’ve read a little more about her and watched her a bit, I’ve realized that like her or not I have been employing her “does it bring me joy” method all around my house for the last few months. I’ve donated clothes that fit but that I rarely wear because I don’t love them. I’ve gotten rid of house stuff I like but maybe just isn’t right in that space anymore. I’ve dug up lilies around my yard because I want flowers only planted with love, and I’ve been trying to fill our living space with things that all have positivity associated with them. I may have even made this little KonMari step-hop when throwing a few things in the trash.

    So what do I do about my giant purse? I’m not switching to a smaller purse. One, I don’t like small purses. And two, I feel like I should be capable of controlling what goes in my giant purse. Just because I have an oversized bag doesn’t mean I have to fill it with stuff. But more importantly, I need to constantly filter for junk and stop carrying around things that don’t bring me joy.

    I started to wonder if my purse is a metaphor for my thought life. Maybe I’ve been wasting time entertaining thoughts that aren’t productive. Maybe I need to literally toss out thoughts just like I tossed out lilies. That’s why my current developmental sprint is to actively think about my thoughts and replace any negative thought I recognize with a specific positive affirmation, adapted from 2 Timothy 1:7.

    The old King James reads: For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

    But I like the Berean version better: For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but of power and of love and of calm and of self-control.

    I decide what I think about. Just like I decide what goes in my Kate Spade. In addition to the usual suspects it’ll carry my gratitude journal, a gift from one of my besties, a small/medium-ish supply of Tootsie Rolls, and a star from an American flag that my Dad loved and carried in his pocket for quite some time. It’ll carry a photo of one of my favorite places, a hillside in Ohio where the earthly bodies of some of my great cloud of witnesses are buried, and it’ll carry the statement of faith Ella made last year about choosing to remember God loves us (and that reminds me she said “darn” in front of the whole church and I was so proud of her anyway).

    For God did not give me a spirit of timidity, but of power and of love and of calm and of self-control.

    God did not give us timidity. He gave us the opposite of timidity, and that’s bravery.

  • April Fool’s Birthday Girl

    Fourteen years ago, in the middle of the night, I was doing the exact same thing as I am right at this moment: laying in bed with my daughter just a few feet away, marveling about her.

    Ella was born not long after midnight, on April 1. After all the post-delivery chaos of Apgar scores and examinations and congratulations, everyone went home and I was alone in a dimly lit hospital room with Ella. I had a daughter, a little swaddled baby making faint sighing noises in her sleep. I was a mother, and it was really just remarkable and unbelievable that a life had come from me. We were a team now, me and this little being with giant blue eyes that had seemed to look all around my face when I whispered to her. We were a team and that little girl should have been terrified because the Mom on her team had absolutely no idea how to care for a baby or what she was doing.

    I wasn’t a child who’d dreamed of being a Mommy. I wasn’t a teenager who’d babysat to make extra money. I wasn’t a person who held other people’s babies. In the more than three decades of my life prior to Ella’s birth, I’m not sure if I held any baby other than my nephew – and that was always supervised by people who knew what they were doing. My poor kid had a Mom with a very short resume. I’d gone to a class to learn how to breathe consistently during her birth process, I’d learned in that class that I had to always always always hold and support her neck and head, I’d read a couple of books about babies and I’d even read ahead in the infamous What to Expect the First Year manual, and a nurse maybe 30 minutes prior showed me how to give her a bath. At any Mom company on the planet, I would not get the job.

    Ella is 14 years old today. So the good news is that despite my lack of qualifications and preparedness, I did manage to keep her alive. Although I’m not sure that’s really much of an accomplishment. What you learn as your child ages and as you have multiple children is that they’re built pretty tough and I could have probably better utilized my countless hours fretting about things like possible milk or nut or bee allergies, could she get botulism if honey was simply nearby, when to switch from car seats to booster seats, and even if french fries with pointed ends could be too stabby in her mouth.

    The real fretting settles in later, and seems especially heightened at this stage. The real question to fret over is am I guiding her toward being a good person? Or maybe it’s could her life be better if I did something differently? Or maybe it’s have I laid a solid moral foundation? Or maybe it’s am I properly protecting her from bad stuff and bad people? Or maybe it’s am I properly preparing her to inevitably face bad stuff and bad people? Or maybe it’s am I setting a proper example? Or maybe it’s have I prepared her to say no and yes at the proper times?

    There is no end to the things I can fret about, and sometimes I just get exasperated with all the fretting I cannot seem to relinquish and I think I should have stuck to raising cats – I am certain I can do that! And yet I must explore all these questions and constantly assess and reassess what’s missing and what’s off and what’s right and what’s wrong. I have to do that because I’m a Mom, and because my greatest responsibility and privilege is to be her Mom. No other responsibility or people or thoughts or desires or work are more important than her and Audrey, or than what I need to do as a Mom.

    I’ve never been one of those people that wanted to throw their kids giant birthday celebrations every year. It’s exhausting to plan and host those events and it’s exhausting to take your kids to them throughout the school year. Last year we had a party because Ella was finally a teenager and because I wanted to bring her joy in a time of confusion and sadness and anger. And so until about a week ago I’d expected to have a quiet birthday with her this year. She started talking about having a friend or two over and then another friend and then another, and then it was going to need to be different people on different nights and I found myself panicking at the thought of having very little time to prepare. And just as all the panic was at its peak, I realized that Ella has only four birthdays left in her official childhood. Four. Four is nothing. A tiny number. How could there possibly be only four childhood birthdays remaining?

    So we celebrated. We had two sleepovers, two cakes and a set of cupcakes, stacks of facial scrubs and masks, trampoline jumping way after bed time, shopping with gal pals at the mall, singing at Olive Garden, and countless pieces of candy. I’m exhausted and my house is even messier than the mess it was last week. I have a recycle bin full of empty pizza boxes, a basket full of laundry, a trash can full of makeup wipes and KitKat wrappers, and a Momma heart full of gratitude.

    I am grateful for Ella, a young lady who’s lovely inside and out. A kind and thoughtful friend. A super smart math whiz. A talented singer and actor and gymnast. A child of God who prays about everything, from the need for guidance about big issues to finding her phone charger. A young lady full of empathy and the desire to care for people who struggle. She may not keep her room clean, but she will take money out of her own wallet for CHKD or to feed the homeless or to buy a treat for a friend who’s feeling down.

    I am grateful for the village of people in her life. I am grateful for the choices she’s now making about what kind of people to add to her village – I may have made the initial choices about who surrounded her, but she’s old enough to make her own choices about those things now, and she’s choosing well. And I am grateful that she’s such a wonderful young person despite all my flaws and mess ups.

    In the stillness of night tonight, in a dimly lit room just like on our first night, I laid quietly by myself and prayed for sweet Ella. No matter what she may encounter in her life I want her to know deep inside and beyond a shadow of a doubt – or as my Dad would say “that she knows that she knows that she knows” – that she is loved beyond measure and that it is a privilege to be her Mom. I pray that she would love life and be filled with joy. I pray that she would get into the college she wants and have the career that she wants and get the life partner that’s just right for her and that she will keep her priorities straight. I pray that when she’s happy or sad or mad or has messed up or done something great, she will always want to call her Mom. And I pray that I will always have discernment about how to pray for her and how to guide her and how to be a blessing to her.

    Happy Birthday, Brave Girl. I love that you are 14 and still call me Mommy, even when your friends are around. In exchange, I will no longer publicly chase you to smother those perfect cheeks with kisses.

    Picture submitted by and approved by Ella.

  • Refurbish, Brave Girl

    I hate messes.

    I don’t like sand in my car, I don’t like PlayDough that gets stuck in toys supposedly designed for PlayDough, I don’t buy glitter or powder or terrariums if I can help it, and I don’t like substances like Desitin or vegetable oil that are really hard to clean off of things.

    I hate messes, and yet my whole house is a mess.

    And when I say it’s a mess, I mean it’s in crazy complete disarray. Like, stacks of books on top of my dining room table and china resting on shelves in the sitting room and gymnastics mats in hallways and toothbrushes in the dishwasher.

    In the last three weeks, a wonderful team of people has painted our walls, baseboards, casings, doors and railings. Literally everything. As they moved from room to room, we moved our things from room to room. Every night we spent preparing for the next day, shifting what we could to accommodate the next round of work.

    The last few days of painting happened while I was in Dallas last week, and the biggest change in color – a room going from cranberry to a linen color – had not happened when I left town. I absolutely could not wait to get home and to see it and then to start putting things back together. It’s been so hard for OCD-me to embrace the mess. Every day I’ve longed to just put things back together and back where they belong. On Thursday night I came home very late to a completely quiet and still house – my father-in-law had long before gone to bed with the kitties – and I walked though each room marveling at what a brighter, lighter place it is. It’s completely transformed.

    The house that I’ve lived in for a decade has a completely different feel now. Same doors, same walls, same wooden railing…and yet with fresh paint in lighter shades, it’s different. It’s different and yet the same. It feels like my old house I’ve always loved and it feels like a new house that I’m so excited to live in.

    It’s like old me and new me. It’s all me, but I’m different than I was two years ago. I have the same core foundation of components like faith and family, but I look different and I feel different and my countenance is lighter. Just like my house, I’ve been under construction for a while. Or maybe refurbishing is the better word.

    The me that has emerged from refurbishing is stronger, focused and determined. I recognize I’ve aged as a result of anger with and disappointment in people, but at the same time I’m once again filled with youthful laughter and hope because my life is filled with genuine and kind and happy people.

    The me that has emerged from refurbishing that is accountable to and for only me and my girls is a freer and lighter me, even with the weight of added responsibility. This me sets better boundaries and fiercely guards what things get my time and thoughts, to ensure that freer and lighter me stays that way.

    The me that has emerged from refurbishing has realized that there’s a huge difference in Beige and Crisp Linen. Something can seem like it’s neutral or light, but once you’ve experienced actual light the darkness is revealed for the shade that it is.

    Now that all the painting is done my next task is to put everything back in its place. But as I’m doing that I’m realizing that I do not want some things back in the same places they’ve always been. And not only that, but I do not even want some of those old things in my house at all. So room by room I’m making more changes – some additions and some deletions and some refurbishings.

    I guess that’s what we should all strive to be as we age – a mixture of all of our learnings. We should be made up of additions or the things we’ve tried and liked along the way, and of deletions or the things we’ve learned aren’t right for us and we’ve removed, and of refurbishings or the pieces that change with us and with the times. And actually maybe we are refurbishings, if we’re doing life right – going through cycles of renewal or reconstruction.

    Beneath the Crisp Linen that covered a deep cranberry tone in my sitting room are the same four strong walls that have always been there. The walls look different now but they are the same walls that hold up a second floor and a roof, that sit on a foundation that has not changed. It’s already kind-of hard to remember what that room looked and felt like, which makes me so glad I have this snapshot of the transition time – the time when some of one coat of primer covered the cranberry walls so you could still see the old room and yet start to envision the new room. In a corner where two of the walls met, it looked like there was an arrow.

    An arrow is hidden deep within my home, in my favorite room, reminding me that refurbishing is an opportunity for me to be brave.

    An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backwards. So when life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means that it’s going to launch you into something great. So just focus, and keep aiming. ~Unknown