Tag: family

A Lot Better Than OK

I have a favorite bakery. That bakery isn’t my favorite just because of the awesome pastries and donuts and petit fours, it’s also my favorite because of the group of women that work there. I often see them on my way to work when I stop in to get a bagel, and we chit chat about everything from TV shows to kid shenanigans to dipping a spoon directly into the peanut butter jar and calling that dinner.

A few days ago I made a formal order for treats for my office, and as one of the women filled out the form I realized I needed to tell her that my name changed. She looked up at me with such a sad face, and without thinking about the words coming out of my mouth I said to her, “Don’t feel bad for me! I’m really OK.”

And until the words came out of my mouth, I didn’t know they were true. I paused a minute, looked at my reflection in the display case, looked back at her making eye contact and repeated myself with absolute certainty.

Don’t feel bad for me. I’m actually a lot better than OK.

And then she asked the questions that people I love ask: What about your girls? How are the girls? I’ve learned in the last year that people who truly care, people who truly value marriage, people who truly value family, people who truly care about children – people with true empathy – always ask about my girls first.

The girls just finished their year of firsts, but the truth is they have even more firsts ahead and their lives are complicated. Their days of not worrying about anything outside of school and friends and youtube sensations ended some time ago. Now they have to think about the other people to be introduced into their lives, how their school events will change again, how holidays will change again, how to tell two parents their big news of the day when only one of those parents is at home to hear that news in the moment of excitement. Their lives can be great – and they WILL be great because I am determined to make it so – but they will never be as carefree as they once were and as they could have been. Change and knowledge of adult things was heaped upon them, and they’ve grown up so much faster than they needed to.

Some time ago, I ran across this quote by Sophia Loren: “When you are a mother you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.”

Once you’re a parent, everything you say and do has to be with two sets of people in mind – yourself and your children. Your greatest responsibility and your greatest privilege is to parent. From the moment your first child is born, every decision has to be looked at from multiple perspectives. Every action and reaction has to be made with two sets of people in mind. Every mistake has to be viewed from multiple perspectives. The remainder of your life must be lived with the understanding that little eyes are watching and those children are impacted by everything you do and say in some way.

As parents, never really being alone in our thoughts also means that how we’re doing is almost always tied to how our children are doing. If they hurt, we hurt. If they are filled with glee, we are filled with glee. If they are mad at a boy, we are mad at that boy. If they cry because of a mean girl, we want to yell at that mean girl.

At the bakery I talked to my pastry tribe about how I was doing, not about how my girls are doing. And my response was about me and not about them – and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Because while I think that as parents we are certainly individual people, I also think that parenthood, with the goal of raising good humans, must be approached with selflessness. Can we really be happy if our children have unpleasantness in their lives? Should we be happy?

I don’t have the answer. I think sometimes we have to guide our children to happiness, and to do that don’t we have to find happiness first? And yet in some ways I also think that sometimes children are naturally happier than parents and they can help guide us to happiness – even though that’s not the way it should be.

The bottom line is that there is still unpleasantness in my life and in their lives, but at the same time there are so many wonderful things about my life. My girls live with me, we’ve made an awesome girl house, I hit the jackpot in the family department, my friends and neighbors and church family are awesome, my work family is the absolute best, I love my job, and I could go on and on.

So I’ll repeat myself: Don’t feel bad for me. I’m actually a lot better than OK.

And you know what’s also true? Regardless of the changes, my girls have more forces of good in their lives than bad. My girls see more examples of selflessness in their lives than they do of selfishness. And my girls see God in more people than they don’t.

So the truth may be that they are actually a lot better than OK, too. And maybe that makes me even more OK. *Maybe* we can be confused and have peace and be happy and yet overthink things and have chaos and love and be loved all at the same time.

December 12, 2018
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.

November 30, 2018
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.

November 18, 2018
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.

November 10, 2018
Be Blessed (or Blessed Be), Brave Girl

My children are smarter than me.

I say this regularly and I think people think I am being silly. It’s true and I’ll say it again: my girls are smarter than me. I may still need to provide them with instruction and guidance as it relates to riding a bike, driving a car, eating broccoli, and setting boundaries on dates, but they are solid on some of the heavy fundamentals in ways that I am not.

Audrey has been playing this new game on her ipad. You choose a song and you’re only allowed to hit certain piano keys and if you hit the wrong key, you’re out and have to start again. Tonight she was trying very hard to master a song and getting frustrated that she couldn’t do it. I thought I might distract her for a bit, and our conversation went like this.

me: Walk away from it for a few minutes and then try again later.

Audrey: No.

me: What song is that?

Audrey: Thanks to God or Blessed by God or something.

me: Why’d you choose that song?

Audrey: Because it reminds me of church. I like church music.

me: Who do you think is blessed?

Audrey: Us.

me: Why do you think we’re blessed?

Audrey: Because God loves us.

At age 7, Audrey understands a truth that I often overlook. We are blessed because God loves us. I am blessed and Ella is blessed and Audrey is blessed.

It hasn’t felt like we’re blessed in quite some time. Things are better – life is not so chaotic, we’re not crying every day, we go out and have fun and enjoy friends. In fact, we laugh every day and we smile every day and we play every day. But blessed? That’s for people who have an awesome life and who love their life and who don’t have problems. That’s for people with intact families where Mom and Dad live in one house together with the children, and they eat meals together and play games together and plan vacations together.

But the truth is we were living that “blessing” one year ago and it was a lie. We looked like we were living that blessing and 3 of us thought we were living that blessing, but that wasn’t the truth – even if we didn’t know it.

When I think about the periods of my life where I felt blessed and I said things like “I’m so blessed” or “we’re so blessed,” it’s almost always been after a particularly challenging period. So in truth, whether or not I actively thought about it, deep down I believed that blessed means better than.

I was not blessed to discover that Audrey had cancer. However, when I met other parents who had a child with a higher stage or a worse prognosis, I suddenly felt blessed.

I was not blessed to discover that my marriage was a complete sham. However, as I’ve heard stories of people’s kids taken away and bank accounts being frozen and fights over houses, my breakup really wasn’t all that bad. And suddenly I again felt blessed.

But that’s not blessed. That’s better than. That’s ‘my situation isn’t as bad as yours, so I must be blessed and thankful.’

Who do you think is blessed? Us, Audrey said. US. And I can’t quite embrace it. I really want to say, “Really? Us? You think?” Of course, I won’t say that but I am still thinking about it, and so I’m writing it down. I am writing it down because I am still so startled by the simplicity of her follow-up: because God loves us.

Blessed is what I am no matter what my situation or environment. Blessed is what I am because God loves me.

I know this is true. And yet, the truth is I am skeptical and I have mixed feelings about it. And maybe that makes me a bad Christian. I hope not, and now I have to worry about that, too. (There’s no end to the things I will allow myself to obsess over.)

Are we blessed? I know we are, and in many ways. But it doesn’t always feel like it. And it doesn’t always feel like it because I’m applying the “better than” rules. And I think it doesn’t really matter whether or not it feels like it – feelings don’t really matter in this blessing discussion. We are loved whether or not we feel it. God loves us even if we forget it sometimes. And that love isn’t dependent on how we’ve behaved or what’s happened in our lives. It is.

Today, a serious 7-year-old reminded a skeptical and silly 45-year-old of a very simple truth: blessed is what we are because God loves us.

Blessed be (the fruit loops).

August 20, 2018