Brave, Anyway

Tag: family

  • There Is Only One Me

    There Is Only One Me

    There is only one me.

    I say it all the time in my head when there’s just too much. I occasionally say it out loud when multiple people are talking to me at the same time.

    There is only one me. I can only be in one meeting at a time, in one place at a time, in one conversation at a time, at one kid activity at a time.

    There is only one me to process the plans and ideas and tests needed from the orthodontist and the dentists and the pediatricians and the special doctors and the guidance counselors and the therapists and the gymnastics coaches and the teachers and the tutors.

    There is only one me to make sure there’s breakfast and lunch and dinner and bread and milk and granola bars and yogurt and chips and brownies.

    There is only one me to monitor friends and social media usage and potential bad influences and Cadbury Egg intake and dresses that have gotten too short. Only one me to make sure the chorus outfit is clean on the right day.

    There is only one me to navigate the that’s unfair and the that’s mine accusations that all siblings of all ages for all time have shouted. There is only one me to say stop touching her or you didn’t ask permission to be in her room. There is only one me to set my jaw and say do not make me pull this car over.

    There is only one me to talk through bad dreams at 2 am. Only one me to provide reassurance, going to the bathroom with the door open and the light on so a kiddo having a hard day doesn’t feel like I’m too far away or not still listening to a detailed story.

    There is only one me to answer hard questions in the moment.

    There is only one me to pick up the pieces after the selfishness of others. Only one me to help them navigate all their emotions. Only one me to be the daily consistent force that cannot let them down. Only one me to be the one they can take everything out on, because I’m the safe one, and they can do that without fear of loss.

    There is only one me to put them first, in every way and in all things.

    There is only one me to kiss booboos and bandage scrapes. Only one me to hold hands while nurses do blood draws and scary new doctors do exams.

    There is only one me to check that everyone made it on the right bus at the right time, and made it home at the right time, or to a program or an activity or a game at the right time.

    There is only one me to make sure backpacks and binders have all the right papers signed and all the right homework in them.

    There is only one me to show them how to set boundaries and that sometimes decisions come with consequences.

    There is only one me to see the moments when they really need a boost of confidence and the encouragement to believe in themselves. Only one me to make sure I see it and they get it.

    There is only one me to talk to them about God and take them to church and show them the benefits and difficulties of a life lived based on core principles.

    There is only one me to teach them and show them that true happiness is found when we can live in such a way that we can be proud of ourselves, knowing we have integrity when no one is looking.

    There is only one me who can show them that when people let us down, which is inevitable, we can still be happy and have lives that we love.

    There is only one me after they go to sleep, working hard to reign in my horror and frustration that people drink, play, laugh, post selfies and talk about love and happiness while children spent the week at doctor appointments. When children see that hypocrisy and selfishness for themselves, there’s only one me to say I don’t have an explanation and it’s tone-deaf and it’s wrong.

    There is only one me to teach them that forgiveness benefits us, even if others don’t deserve it and even if it benefits them and their narrative.

    There is only one me responsible if I make the wrong call about everything from their health care to shirts that show midriff. Only one me to fret at the end of long days that I’m not doing a very good job at all.

    There is only one me. Only one me who sometimes gets stuck in a pity party. Only one me who sometimes gets caught up in a panic about getting it all done and the weight of it all.

    There is only one me who can give them a happy, healthy Momma.

    There is only one me, constantly thankful for Papa Ted and Grammy and Papa. Constantly thankful for my sister. Constantly thankful for my neighbors and friends who love my girls and have hugs and encouragement for them and me at just the right time.

    There is only one me thankful every day that I get to be the Mom of Ella and Audrey. Thankful even for days of extreme ups and downs with everything from doctor appointments to strawberry picking to silly shoe shopping to arguments in the car to cartwheels in Sams Club.

    The truth is, there has always been only one me. There is only one me, and I am more than enough. There is only one me, and I am human and make mistakes. There is only one me, and I will apologize and fix it when I do. There is only one me, and I got this.

    There is only one me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  • 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

  • Melancholy Mom Notes to My Girls

    Melancholy Mom Notes to My Girls

    When you are sad or hurting it breaks my heart. I would rather feel the pain of someone smashing a limb of my own than watch you struggle. Watching you struggle and knowing the reason why fills me with sadness and regret. And it motivates me to do absolutely everything possible to make the remainder of your childhood as great and as carefree as possible. To get you any help and to tap any source to see you genuinely smile and feel peace.

    I will do anything to help you grow into responsible and caring and successful adults, and that includes setting boundaries for you and having rules for you and even enforcing consequences for you when those rules are broken. It’s my job, my most important job, to help you see how to be good people and to help you want to be good people.

    I want more than anything for you to trust people. To believe firmly that the vast majority of people are good. And instead of focusing on the havoc that selfishness in people can wreak, I want you to focus on the best of people that you have seen – the people who have rallied around you and loved you and supported you and prayed for you.

    I want you to know beyond a shadow of a doubt what love is and what love isn’t. I want you to know that you know, deep down in your gut. Things may get confusing as you explore relationships of your own, and when you’re confused I hope you will seek the counsel of the right friends and adults. Just as you would choose a cardiologist for a physical heart problem, choose people who have loved with honor and integrity and selflessness for an emotional heart problem.

    I hope you two rely on each other always, even when you’re mad at each other or in different places in your life. You are each the only other person in the whole world who has experienced love and heartbreak and disappointment and resilience together during this time. You can keep each other grounded, you can keep each other honest, and you can support each other as no one else can. Commit yourselves to letting each other say anything, and to forgiving each other no matter what.

    I understand that in great part you will learn from your parents how to be a parent. I really, really, really hope I am a good enough example, but I know with absolute certainty that I fall short. A lot short. I commit to always doing my best to be honest with myself about the good and bad, to allowing you to be honest with me about the good and bad, and to trying to do better.

    No matter what, I want you to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will always prioritize you and choose you over anything and anyone and everything and everyone.

    I will always choose you.

    I will always choose you.

    I will always choose you.

    I will always, always, always choose you.

    No one, including and especially me, will ever be more important than you.

    Love you my girlys.

  • Don’t Lose Your Wonder, Brave Girl

    Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and my children were nestled all snug in my bed while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads. Well not sugar plums, likely Skittles. And not beds, but bed. But you get the idea.

    Two nights ago I was in the middle of my giant king-sized bed, snuggled between my two brave girls. During the daytime my bed can easily accommodate the three of us stretched out watching a movie, but on the rare nights we all fall asleep here together I somehow end up smooshed into a 5 inch space in the center while the two little people consume the remaining 75 inches of space.

    It. Was. Glorious.

    It was glorious because I was surrounded by the two most wonderful little humans I know. It was glorious because everyone was feeling snuggly. It was glorious because so close to Christmas the girls don’t argue about someone being in their space or staring at them or poking them – even teenagers don’t want to get ousted from the good list! And it was glorious because I was keenly aware that the days of all of us climbing into bed together are numbered and few. And with that realization came this question: how does one not lose the sense of holiday anticipation and wonder with all the growing up and with all the change?

    Last night, on Christmas Eve, we ended the day in our new jammies. It’s our tradition, and one of the few traditions we’ve maintained. I’ve been thinking a lot this weekend about all that’s changed in the last year and I realized that the biggest thing is not that the girls have parents who are divorced. The biggest change is one that every Mom faces over time. The Christmas Eve kid-chatter goes from what Santa might bring to how embarrassing Mom’s striped elf pajama pants are. Instead of putting together Barbie dream houses and pretend veterinary hospitals, Santa lays out an iPhone and Vans and purses.

    The biggest change is simple really – the girls are getting older. They’re growing up. And so Christmas isn’t the same as it’s always been.

    I’m a firm believer that one of the best things about Christmas is the traditions. But really Christmas is about both tradition and change. We celebrate Christmas because of change in one small family in Bethlehem: Mary found herself pregnant even though she was a virgin and Joseph found himself married to someone that he didn’t get pregnant. And throughout our lives now, more than 2,000 years later, Christmas is a benchmark by which to see change.

    We were all once a baby who looked at the lights and bulbs with wonder, we were all once a child who fell asleep wondering about Santa, we were all once a teenager wondering why we couldn’t just get our stuff and then talk to our friends all day, we were all once young adults sitting around the table wondering how to talk like and be real grown ups…and at some point we will all be matriarchs or patriarchs that wait with wonder to see the young people on Christmas Day.

    To fully understand and embrace all that is Christmas, we have to be open to change – all throughout our lives. We embrace a baby that was born to become a king and a savior, and we embrace Christmases and the different phases of our lives with the firm belief that there’s beauty in each one. That’s the only way we will hold on to our sense of wonder.

    So I will snuggle with my girls in the big bed along with a tray of pineapple cookies, a family tradition that’s at least over 45 years old. I will watch a Christmas cookie bake-off on the Food Network instead of White Christmas, which apparently has boys that are weird and music that is weird. I’ll wake up on Christmas morning and watch Ella smile just as big at a Merry Christmas text from a boy as she did for her new phone – I’ll even think I like that boy for making her smile. I’ll watch Audrey play more with her new device than with her LOL Surprise house, and I’ll be a little sad for a minute until I see the first text she sends, to me, reminding me to embrace the change and see the wonder: “I love you so much.”

    When we recall Christmas past, we usually find that the simplest things, not the great occasions, give off the greatest glow of happiness. ~ Bob Hope

    Happy Christmas, everyone.

  • What Do *I* Know About Love?

    Our family lit the advent candles at church this morning, and in a perfect representation of our life right now, the whole thing was a little messy. Perhaps the most funny thing is that I couldn’t even operate the lighter – the culmination of a week of messiness. A week of frustrating Christmas picture attempts, appointments moving around, arguments, broken devices, and someone advising in all seriousness that my cat probably needs relaxation therapy for litter box anxiety.

    I have several bad habits that were out in full force this week, but I’ll focus on two here. One is skimming emails while I’m sitting at stop lights. Two is saying yes to things before I fully have or process all the details.

    Will you and the girls light the advent candle this Sunday? Yes! Later I get the follow up email and find that love is the theme for this week. Wait, what? LOVE?! I can’t stand up and talk about love. I didn’t know this was about love. This is the absolute worst time for me to talk about love. I go back to the original email, looking for my “out” while mentally preparing my response: I’m so very sorry, but I didn’t know this was about love. And then I fully read the last line of the email that I skimmed the first time: the theme is love this week.

    !?&#$*%#!

    And as I started to process that I am going to have to actually go through with this advent lighting, I laughed out loud at the silliness of it all. What the heck am I going to say about love? I suck at love. I can’t even choose a faithful mate! While I wouldn’t ever say it to my girls and I’d rather not admit it out loud in church, I’ve also spent much of the last year thinking that not all people are deserving of forgiveness and love. Anyone that makes deliberate selfish choices that hurt others, especially children, just has no idea what love is – and does not ever deserve love or forgiveness or happiness. I know what the bible says about forgiveness and love, and I can even quote those scriptures. But the truth is I still believe with absolute conviction that some people cannot and should not ever experience it. It’s part of my messiness, I guess.

    What the heck could I possibly say about love? I had nothing. I was completely devoid of ideas. So I said to my girls: What do you think love is?

    My seven year old gave me a one word answer: worship. Worship didn’t really make sense to me, but she wasn’t interested in expanding on her answer so I decided to try again a day later. Audrey, what is love? Worship, she said. So I googled worship plus love and found Psalm 100. It’s only five verses, a packed act of worship that ends with the reminder that His love is eternal. And I realized that what Psalm 100 teaches us is that worship is the way to get love to invade every area of your life.

    My 13 year old stood up today and said this: God’s love is different. You may not love him, you may sin, you may be mad at him, but he doesn’t care. He will love you no matter what…God will love you through the hard times and he will be there for you every step of the way.

    I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: my children are smarter than me. I learn from them all the time. And I am absolutely certain I could learn from them even more if I paid more attention.

    Advent is the arrival of a notable person, thing or event. In Latin – Mr. Martin from 1980s Bayside Junior High, I have not forgotten you! – adventus means arrival, but also develop or set in or arise.

    All things happen for a reason, right? Perhaps the reason I was asked to focus on love is because it’s time to steer my thoughts on love away from what it is not and on what it is. Perhaps the reason I was asked to focus on love is because the season of arrival is about new birth. Perhaps the reason I was asked to focus on love is simply because God has a really great sense of humor. Perhaps the reason I was asked to focus on love is because I needed to hear my daughters’ thoughts on love, and let those thoughts develop and set in and then arise in me.