Brave, Anyway

Tag: life after divorce

  • 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.

  • Go Into The Light, Brave One

    I think I have seen every episode of Friends at least a couple times. Some of them I’ve probably seen a dozen times – I especially love the Thanksgiving episodes and the ones from the season where the main characters have switched apartments.

    One of my favorite Phoebe moments is in an early episode and it’s the one where Mr. Heckles dies. She senses that his spirit is still in the building, and she yells “Go into the light, Mr. Heckles!”

    There are people who believe that when we die unexpectedly or with unresolved issues, our unsettled spirits wander until that business is settled – until maybe their loved ones are safe or they can pass along a message to those of us still here – and only then do those people pass over into the next life. I’m not sure what to think about that, other than to say that I think it’s possible there are ghosts.

    But what I do believe with certainty is that those of us in the land of the living often choose to wander around in darkness. Darkness can be a toxic relationship, a job we don’t like, grief, addiction, anger. (Even the Old Testament Israelites wandered around in the desert for 40 years before entering their promised land.)

    When bad or disappointing or unexpected things happen in our lives, we experience a time of emotional upheaval. And after we survive that initial upheaval, we make a choice – consciously or unconsciously – to wander around in the darkness or to get up and seek the light.

    Googling “light” shows you a couple of basic definitions:

    1. the natural agent that stimulates sight and makes things visible,
    2. an understanding of a problem or mystery, or my favorite…
    3. something that makes vision possible.

    Light requires action. We turn on a light or turn on our headlights. We light a fire. Or even, we arm ourselves and fight with a light saber.

    The commonality is that light requires our action.

    Light makes things possible. Light not only can give us hope, I realized recently that it actually kind of requires our hope first.

    We will wander around in darkness until we decide to seek the light. And if we make no decision to seek it and take no action to seek it, the truth is we are stagnant in darkness.

    We have to want and fight for the vision that is possible.

    We have to be brave.

    It takes bravery to hope in light, especially when we are surrounded by darkness. It takes bravery to seek light. It takes bravery to turn on light. And even, it takes bravery to fight with a light saber.

    So today and every day I say to myself, to my girls, to anyone who’s wandering in a darkness or a wilderness in our land of the living: Go into the light, brave one.

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  • What Will You Whisper, Brave Girl?

    I have really missed television.

    I have not had time to just watch TV in forever. However, I have continued to faithfully record shows on my DVR even though I had no real intention of watching them. So if you ask me if I watch The Bachelor and I say yes, what I really mean is I watched the seasons between when Ella was maybe 4 years old and up to Audrey’s birth.

    As things have calmed down a bit in recent weeks, I have started to watch TV again. I had forgotten how easy it is to get lost in something for an hour. To become engrossed in the lives of people who aren’t real, in locations that aren’t real, in scenarios that aren’t real. I had forgotten that the emotions good TV can evoke are very real and that’s, I think, because in every show or movie we are secretly looking for two things:

    1. The character who is most like us.
    2. The character who is most like how we’d like to be.

    I am completely captivated by The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s the story of a group of modern-day women, hugely successful in walks of life ranging from neonatal care to biology, who are forced into servanthood in a world run by men who are focused on possessing women as property, controlling women’s faith and sexuality, and populating a world with children they can raise with a specific set of rules and values. The women are stripped of everything, literally and figuratively, even including their names. The handmaids take the name of the man of their household – so the handmaid in the house of a man named Fred becomes Offred, meaning Of Fred. She is the property of Fred.

    I am a little behind at this very moment – about halfway through the current season. You may have watched the powerful unveiling of names weeks ago and it’s old news for you now. But I just cannot stop thinking about it. Up to this point, the handmaids have mostly all addressed each other by their Of “Man” names, but following events that make it clear they will not all make it out alive and that they need to support each other, some of the remaining women whisper their real names to each other.

    With the whispering of their names to others, they remind themselves they are more than property.

    With the whispering of their names to others, they start to become a group of women that supports and trusts one another.

    With the whispering of their names to others, they start to become a community of women who can rise and stand together.

    With the whispering of their names to others, they bear witness to what has happened – their lives cannot be forgotten and their stories cannot be erased. Should they not make it out alive, they can be remembered as the person they were and not the servant they’ve become.

    With the whispering of their names to others, they are no longer completely stripped of their identities and their stories.

    That’s what all of our lives are, really. Stories. Some of us are better storytellers than others, but the better tellers don’t always have the better lives. In fact, I suspect the opposite is most often true.

    Some of us don’t share our stories because we don’t have the words. Some don’t share because we believe that our stories have nothing to offer others. Some don’t share because we don’t think anyone will understand. Some don’t share because we believe that bad things only happen to us and we are alone and no one cares.

    Those are all lies.

    We all have words. We can all learn from each other. We can all support one another, even if it’s simply by listening. And bad things happen to all of us at some point(s) in our lives. No one is exempt from, shall we call it “occasional crappiness?” And the truth is that occasional crappiness is not unique to us and has pretty much always been experienced by someone else.

    The real reason we don’t share our stories is not because we’re introverts or we want to keep our personal business private. It’s because we don’t like our stories. They are not the stories that we envisioned for our lives or that we wanted to be true about our lives – so we don’t share them. And sometimes deep down, we think we’ve failed somehow and our stories are a reflection of that. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes – oftentimes – it’s not. Sometimes bad stories are simply life’s occasional crappiness.

    And the problem with not sharing our stories is that we cheat ourselves and others of all the benefits and power of community. Of togetherness. Of shared experience. Of healing.

    Who better to pray for a person or family with a cancer diagnosis than a person who has faced that? Who better to pray for healing from addiction than those who have felt the grip of addiction? Who better to pray for someone grieving than someone who has grieved?

    Not only does sharing enable us to tap into the strength that comes from knowing we are not alone, it enables us to support and to pray for others around us. We need to be a lot less afraid to share our stories, for our own benefit and for the benefit of others. We need to be a lot more brave. Not just brave wannabes.

    This is my whisper: I am Beth. It’s been a long time since I’ve used my beloved family name – Fite – but my name is soon changing back to Beth Fite. I am imperfect. My life is chaotic. I am currently making my way through some of life’s occasional crappiness.

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  • Brave Girls ARE the storm.

    Brave Girls ARE the storm.

    Urban Dictionary has some very interesting – and some pretty hilarious – definitions for family.

    • It’s not necessarily about who’s blood you have, or who you’re forced to spend the holidays with. It’s about people you love and they love you back.
    • A bunch of people who hate each other and eat dinner together.
    • People you love who love you back, not necessarily blood or biological, but you trust them and they trust you, and they take care of you and you take care of them.
    • People who get into your business.
    • Family is not defined by shared DNA. It is defined by the people who love you as much as you love them; they are the ones you call and the ones who will never let you fall. They are the ones you trust with everything and anything, and you know that you will never let each other down.

    I lucked out big time in the family department. I grew up in a household with parents who loved me, who worked hard to provide for us, and who spent their time with us and their energy on us. I came home from school to parents who asked me about my day and then we all sat down to dinner together every night. My Dad is a prankster who can make Grace seem longer than any Catholic mass, my sister is a donut thief, and my Mom has a super-secret personal Scrabble dictionary that allows her to spell balloon with one L and win by 142 points.

    My family isn’t perfect, but we love each other unconditionally. We are a unit, we can trust each other, we can count on each other, and perhaps most importantly we are ourselves with each other.

    It never once occurred to me that my girls would not have that family unit – that home with Mom and Dad and those secret inside jokes and shared experiences only the 4 of you know. That complete trust in their parents and that freedom to be themselves at any and all times. And more than everything else that I’ve fretted about and worried about and been sad about in the last 8 months combined, I have mourned that.

    I have mourned that my girls will not have the family unit they should have.

    The family unit they deserve.

    Frankly, it really pisses me off because it was stolen from them. It was stolen from them by people who made very selfish choices and thought nothing of the impact their decisions and behavior would have on two innocent children. But as the anger has subsided a bit, I’ve thought a lot about the fact that roughly half of all marriages end in divorce and so at least half of our nation’s children grow up without that intact family unit. Why is that? How does that happen? Is it that people in our time have turned away from faith, that we’ve normalized divorce on TV, we play too many video games or spend too much time on our phones, we’ve sexualized everything on all kinds of media, or we’re smoking pot legally in all kinds of states? The list of possibilities seems endless, and yet it seems like none of those things are it.

    And so I began to wonder…if we don’t come from a “whole” family unit or our family unit is broken in some way, do we really value family as much as others? Because how can you really know what you missed out on when you never had it?

    And are you then more likely to grow up and enter into relationships which are more likely to end in divorce? Statistically speaking, you can find numbers to support the Yes and the No sides of that question. But as I’ve rolled all of these things around in my head over and over and over again, I’ve started to think that I am not sure that people who are raised in a “whole” family unit and people who are raised in a “broken” family can even really understand the life of the other. And if that’s true, can someone from a “broken” home really even grasp what people and children will miss out on if they don’t grow up in a “whole” family unit? Maybe not?

    Maybe not.

    Maybe. Not.

    And if that maybe not is true, then I can’t be as angry about something that people don’t even have the ability to understand. It’s like being mad at someone for not understanding Spanish when they have never read or heard Spanish before. And suddenly my sail has less angry wind in it.

    That’s how this process works – the divorce/grief healing process. It’s a repeated assessment of an angry wind in your sail, until one day you’ve been through all the reasons for angry winds and all the angry is gone.

    Brave girls don’t run from those reasons. Brave girls think about those reasons one by one. I can do that. Brave girls get through all of the reasons for the anger and then the anger is gone. I’m not there yet.

    My aunt and my cousins visited us this weekend. I absolutely love time with family. I love sitting and talking for hours. I love overeating and telling old stories and taking photos and laughing at bathroom jokes. I love getting to know the children of my first cousins – the girls I was so excited to see each Christmas that I would stand at my Mama’s front window and count cars until theirs pulled into the driveway. They have children now – boys who are almost grown – who love history and games, who have jobs, who are kind and thoughtful, and who giggled with my daughters in a pew at the back of my church. I love that we worshipped together.

    We are a unit. We have shared DNA running through all of us. I may no longer be able to give my girls a “traditional” home with a Mom and Dad and board games after dinner. But I can give them family who love them and who they love back. Family with whom they have shared experiences. Family with whom they can look at angry waves and stand surrounded by angry waters as they feel angry winds hit their faces. Family that makes them feel so loved, they can face that anger and then turn away from the chaos and smile.

    “Fate whispers to the warrior, “You cannot withstand the storm.”

    The warrior whispers back, “I am the storm.”