Brave, Anyway

Tag: bravegirlwannabe

  • Brave Girl Wannabe is Angry

    The bravest people I know are children surviving the behavior of selfish adults.

    The bravest people I know are children who try to offer forgiveness in scenarios where “adults” like me simply cannot.

    The bravest people I know are children who admit they are afraid and ask for help.

    The bravest people I know are children who run out of cards before they run out of things for which they’re thankful, even when their life is not what they expected or what they deserve.

    Brave Girl Wannabe Thursday Truth: I got really, really, really angry today and I was a complete bitch. And I don’t even regret it.

  • Embrace the Mess, Brave Girl

    I hate messes. I avoid them if at all possible.

    I like to walk on the beach, but I have a process for doing so because I don’t like wet sand that gets on clothes and between toes and then into a car that then needs to be vacuumed.

    I am not a great cook, but no matter what I do in the kitchen I wash my hands obsessively and clean up as I go because sticky fingers leave sticky spots on faucets and counters and handles.

    I embrace craft and slime projects, but keep stacks of boxes and cardboard and old towels to put on any surface that could potentially get glue or glitter or paint or detergent on it.

    I guess it’s probably more accurate to say that I do my best to proactively manage messes carefully.

    Today, I am waaaaaaaaay outside my comfort zone, embracing a mess that I willingly purchased. The girls picked a new Christmas tree this weekend and it’s one that looks like it’s covered in snow. If you are looking at the tree in just the right way and zoning out a bit, that beautiful snow against the lights can fill you with a serene feeling…until you start to notice that the snow that covers the branches is like beet juice that destroys all the other food on your Sunday dinner plate. That snow has gotten on the floor, which then got onto socks and onto paws, and then travelled throughout the whole house.

    I have fake snow everywhere.

    And just as I was seriously considering a complex narrative about why the tree won’t work for our house, I overheard an exchange that melted my heart. Audrey wanted to play outside and as I was standing on a ladder grumbling to myself about the snowy mess falling all over the place, I heard her ask her grandpa if he would take her outside. My first thought was I would need to take a break and take her out – it’s Sunday, one of Papa’s favorite days because it’s filled with sports. But before I could take one step down, I heard him say “Let me turn off football and we’ll go.”

    My girls are so blessed to be surrounded by people who will bend over backwards to prioritize them and who will embrace mess for them. Family and friends and helpers who I’ve watched time and time again drop everything to put a smile on their faces or to help me help them navigate something.

    The thing about divorce is that so many people are impacted. It’s not just the spouses and children. It’s the parents and siblings and friends and coworkers. It’s not just my girls who have spent the last year reeling from discoveries and facing a new norm – many of the people that the girls rely on for love and comfort and consistency and care have also been hurt deeply. The thing that makes me the second angriest about the selfishness that led to where we are today is thinking about all the tears shed by our parents and family, and my beloved friends.

    Recently someone asked me if I was going to have a divorce party, and I realized that I will never be friends with that person again. That person and I have absolutely nothing in common. Because anyone who can think about divorce as funny or freedom or positive when innocent children were impacted is not a person I can in any way relate to or even want to relate to. Divorce, even without children, is a tragedy. But in a divorce impacting children, the thing a good person would think about and focus on is the children.

    Hillary Clinton famously noted that it takes a village to raise kids. The village surrounding my girls is pretty fantastic. Truly wonderful people who are watchful of them and who just love on them and are present for them. People who recognize I might want to privately have a glass of champagne, but who would always be respectful and private about that because of my girls. Good humans. I appreciate them more than I can ever convey. And I learn from them all the time.

    It’s a fair statement that I am more-than-a-little obsessive compulsive and attached to order and neatness. And it’s also a fair statement that even at 45 years old – supposedly a real grown-up – I am still learning from my parents and my village.

    Which is precisely why I am embracing the fake snow that is literally everywhere.

    Mimicking Papa, let me just turn off my OCD and I’ll love it.

  • Life Goes On, Fite Girl

    Life Goes On, Fite Girl

    Remember that show in the 1980s called Life Goes On? Patti Lupone was the Mom, a young Kelly Martin played her daughter and a young Chris Burke played her son Corky (the first actor with Down Syndrome that I remember being on TV).

    The intro to that show was a little jingle that went something like this:

    Ob-la-di ob-la-da

    life goes onnnnnnnn brahhhhhh

    La-la how the life goes on

    When the show opened each week, that jingle played to images of the family throughout the morning – children hogging the bathroom, the coffee pot, Dad deciding not to exercise. And, of course, over the years the visuals in the intro changed as the characters grew older and changed.

    But one thing that stayed the same is that throughout the morning routine, their dog Arnold waited patiently for someone to feed him. As they all got dressed, as they came into the kitchen to get juice, as they greeted friends picking them up, as they had their coffee. Arnold waited with his red food dish and it seemed like his wait was never-ending.

    In the very last episode, the intro was updated and at the very last second as he’s about to lay down and give up, Arnold’s big bag of food falls out of a cabinet next to him and he is no longer waiting. He has food in abundance, and can eat as much as he wants.

    Life Goes On Intro

    I’ve waited a whole year to get my name back. Like Arnold the dog holding my dish, watching life go on around me and just hoping at some point that my dish would be full and I’d feel…I don’t know what I thought I’d feel, really.

    Yesterday, I officially got my name back. And a beloved friend reminded me of the verse I recently discovered in Joel: “I will restore or replace for you the years the locust has eaten.”

    My name *restored.*

    And it was kind of anti-climactic, actually. I worked, rushed to get Ella to her youth retreat, saw my Mom for a few minutes, exchanged funny messages with my sister, and then headed to Dave and Busters with Audrey.

    Life Goes On.

    Beth is the same core Beth, who just keeps moving and is always surrounded by family.

    And God is the same faithful God, restoring something as promised. Restoring it even earlier than everyone told me to expect. And yet restoring it just when I was feeling so tired I wanted to lay down my big red dish and pout about my restoration not coming.

    I have not thought about the show Life Goes On for years, and yet I woke up this morning thinking about that song and that show and that dog. I had to actually google the dog’s name because I couldn’t remember it, only to find that it was Arnold – my Dad’s middle name.

    My Dad’s last name is Fite, the name now restored to me.

  • Here’s Your Proof, Brave Girl

    Yesterday, I signed the name Beth Ranee Dembitz for the last time. And I had this crazy thought that the person with that name is a stranger to me. I am no longer her. She is no longer me.

    I’ve spent a lot of time in the last year thinking about the fact that the person I married is not at all who I thought, but it didn’t occur to me until today that I may be different than who I thought. And I recalled this gem from Iain Thomas: “Everything has changed and yet, I am more me than I have ever been.”

    I read it a few months ago, couldn’t wrap my head around it at the time, and dismissed it. I recalled it yesterday and realized that it does speak to me.

    My experiences in the last 12 months have changed how I think about some things, but they haven’t changed who I actually am. I think we all often think of ourselves in relation to other people – as the wife or husband of someone, as the mom or dad of someone, as the child of someone. For 20+ years I’ve thought of myself, in part, as in connection with someone. Recently, I’ve been purposely thinking of myself more and more as just me. I’m a Mom, and that role is the most important one in my life – but it’s still only a part of who I am. What’s actually true is that I am the kind of Mom I am, and the kind of friend and daughter and sister I am, because of me and who I am. Because of who I am on my own.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life I have always relied on faith.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life my immediate response to challenge is to circle the wagons and prepare for a fight.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life I have always project-managed whatever is happening.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life I have always been able to find the funny.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life that’s been filled with adversity I have always had to figure out the why and be angry as I overthought all the possible reasons.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life I have always made my way back to hope. Hope in something bigger than this seemingly broken world. Hope that most people are fundamentally good. Hope that things will all work out OK in the end. Hope that everything can somehow work out for our good.

    Everything has changed and yet, in every period of my life I have always been a difficult child who demanded that God show me signs that He’s really there and that I’m on the right path and that I’m doing the right things.

    Everything has changed and yet, I always end up light-hearted and hopeful and happy again. That’s not entirely happened for me yet in this period of my life, but I am on my way.

    Everything has changed and yet, I am more me than I have ever been.

    Yesterday I signed papers that will, in just a couple of weeks, formally change my name back to Beth Fite. And you know what? She’s me. Beth Dembitz is also Beth Fite, and she always has been. Beth at 3 and Beth at 10 and Beth at 20 and Beth at 30 and Beth at 45 all have the same core characteristics – prank-playing, over-sharing, organized, somewhat superstitious while faith-filled, demanding, impatient, controlled chaotic. The only difference is that the Beth of other ages always got back to hope, and the Beth at 45 is not quite there yet.

    Hope requires bravery. Hope means I trust that my daughters will grow up to be strong women who believe in love and marriage despite how their parents’ marriage worked out. Hope is expectation that my daughters will persist and have happy lives filled with people who only want the best for them. Hope is belief beyond a shadow of a doubt that those things will absolutely happen. So I guess you’d say my hope is still a work in progress.

    And yet there’s absolutely no reason for my hope to still be at the work-in-progress stage. The proof that God has a sense of humor and He wants me to find the funny in all things and He is still willing to entertain my constant petulant demand for signs that I’m on the right path, is that my papers arrived for signature this week on the day of Halloween. On a day I was dressed in a costume chosen by Ella many, many weeks ago.

    I signed the papers to restore my name and to formally and legally change my life while dressed as Merida, from the movie Brave.

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  • Kinda Prickly Brave Girl Wannabe

    It’s been a year. A year since everything changed for my family.

    I thought I’d wake up sad on the anniversary, but I didn’t. I’m not sure what that says about me and I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day with it, but it’s the truth and so it is what it is.

    I also thought I might wake up angry. I pray a thousand things for my girls every day and I pray only one thing for myself – please take away my anger.

    I think the most accurate description of my more recent demeanor came from a very funny coworker. Beth is better but she’s a little prickly…kinda like a porcupine. I seriously laughed out loud when I heard it. Porcupines have sharp pines to protect themselves and their children from predators, and the truth is I have been in prickly mode and have shot more than a few quills in the last 12 months. But those comments were honest and with affection, and I appreciate the people in my life who I can be totally honest with and who can be totally honest with me – and who call me out on my BS. It’s not easy being my friend, and I know it.

    I have been working on getting up each day and putting something positive in front of my eyes before I put my phone or social media in front of them. I fail at it regularly. I woke up this morning, on the anniversary of all of our change, and picked up my phone. Pinterest was what I had open last and that’s what came up when my screen saver went away. Only what I saw was not a post I’d been looking at yesterday. It was a completely new post and it had a scripture I don’t think I’ve ever heard or seen.

    Joel 2:25 – “I will restore or replace for you the years that the locust has eaten.”

    I looked up that verse across different versions of the Bible and the NIV says “I will repay you for the years the locust has eaten.”

    I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe that everything happens for a reason. We may not understand that reason for days or months or years, but there’s a reason. After a frustrating search I found my daughters’ greatest helper, an art therapist, through someone I met at a mutual friend’s house for just a couple of hours just a few weeks prior. There’s a reason that my ex and I elected to attend an annual party we have never gone to. There’s a reason that that which was meant to stay hidden in darkness was revealed.

    I don’t have all the reasons yet. But I know without a shadow of a doubt that I awoke to that verse for a reason. It’s a promise, and I have been repeating it over and over in my head all day.

    And you know what else? I’m not angry today. And that’s so weird because 24 hours ago I was pretty angry. But I have been at peace all day, and I have no explanation for it. I didn’t have a big cry or a big shouty catharsis or a big anything. I just woke up different, and I read “I will restore or replace for you the years that the locust has eaten.”

    I may have angry moments ahead and I may have sad moments ahead, but I also have happiness ahead. And I have contentment ahead. And I have freedom ahead. And I have wholeness ahead.

    I have restoration ahead. “I will restore for you…” Restoring is repairing, fixing, mending – that’s how we deal with things that are broken. Broken is not the end. Broken is fixable. The only reason for anyone to embrace brokenness is fear. Fear of doing the hard work. Fear of failing. Fear of being vulnerable. Fear of exposure. Fear of consequences. Fear we are not actually worthy. Fear we will find we are not actually fixable.

    Perhaps one of the most brave things any of us can do is embrace restoration. To face restoration we have to admit that we are fallible. We have to embrace our ability to be mad and sad and laugh and pick up a sword and slay dragons and roar all at the same time.

    Remember high school history class and looking at your textbook with pictures from The Restoration Period? It produced a lot of great art, and in many of those paintings you see people with swords. That’s because restoration involves a fight. And in a stroke of what’s-not-an-actual-coincidence, that just happens to be my name. Or rather, it’s my family name – the name that is about to be restored to me.

    On the last day that the Dembitz’s existed, he bought me fancy overpriced sunglasses. It was such a treat for me and I was truly delighted to get them. I can’t own expensive sunglasses, because I can’t be trusted with them – odds are that I will repeat history and I will sit on them and break them. (This has happened more times than I care to admit.) Those Tiffany glasses were returned long ago, during my days of cloudy sadness, without my ever wearing them because to me they represented a lie.

    And I did not think again about those glasses until now. My current sunglasses are on their last leg of a sad life in the seat of my car, where they regularly get sat on. On a whim and in that good mood I woke up in, I went shopping. I bought new overpriced sunglasses – purchased by me for me. They are gold and fancy and glittery, and totally outside of my comfort zone.

    I picked up my sword and restored something. You might even say that I restored one of the things that the locust had eaten.

    Brave Girls can buy their own damn sunglasses.

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    Photo Assistance by Audrey