A Yarn of Thought

The Glass May Be Cracked, But It's Full

There’s nothing like change to knock you off your beaten path. I’ve been struggling for a couple of months to find something to write about for my blog. In the back of my mind, the same words have been bouncing around “appreciating the joy set before you.” I’ve tried really hard to focus on the beautiful things that are in front of me, the ones that are going right and make me smile every day.  There have been a lot of things going right for us, but I’ve been struggling to get my heart to feel the joy that I know I should be feeling. 

My heart has been heavy with my grandma approaching the end of her life. I see my dad unwavering in his faith, working through the tears as he deals with it. It’s not just about losing my grandma; it’s about losing a time period, about being reminded about how much time we have with our loved ones. When you are growing up, your parents and grandparents are constants, a sturdy framework of a home, telling you where you are from, that you will make it, just as they’ve made it through the years. The awareness that things in our lives are changing leaves an edge that we just kind of flirt with until the end is finally here. Then you’re launched into making sure those memories aren’t forgotten and who we are, is passed on. I know that I’ve had my grandparents for longer than some of my friends or even my family members have. But to me, it’s a reminder that we are reaching the age of change. I worry about my parents.  The speed with which my kids are growing makes me uncomfortable, realizing that the beginning of our family is now into the next stage of being a family. I’m realizing that unlike before, I don’t know it all and sometimes that itself scares me.  

It also brings to mind that my sister has settled and built a home in another state far away. Though we chat often, I miss just being with her. The loss of my sidekick has brought new value to friendships with others but there is still a part of me grieving the times that we thought were infinite.  It was a stage of growing up that I never really thought we would approach. All the sudden we are grownups and things look a lot different than they used to. Life just kind of seeps through the cracks of visits,  not captured at its fullest through chatting and repeating the story. 

These changes loom with permanence, unlike seasons which pass away; a reminder that it’s time to adapt and to grow. Sometimes that growth hurts. It’s easy, sometimes more soothing, for me to just shove everything down under the surface and continue with my busy schedule.  What isn’t easy is to sit down, dissect it, taking time to process and accept the change. It is a reminder of how important it is to let the people around me know how much they are appreciated and loved. Just as faith has to be exercised to be useful, love and joy require effort in order to be effective too. The season of love is around us. There is joy set before us. These days can be filled with a thankful attitude for the fullness or we can look at what is no longer “perfect” and see that the glass in front of us is cracked and half empty. The love that binds us together mends those cracks and fills those spaces when we share what is on our hearts and our minds.    

Today, my joy is finishing my homework so I can go pick my kids up from the bus stop. After we get home, I think we’ll all snuggle on the couch and watch a movie. Then we’ll have dinner as a family. And before I go to sleep tonight, I will think about what an amazing growing work of art life is, from beginning to end.

The Phoenix Flies Away Free

I kept my beautiful bird in a cage for six years. As I passed her by, I would hand out tidbits, feeding her, providing what I thought was best, caring for her in my way. I tended to her when I came home, while telling her all about my days. I filled her head full of all of the wonderful things I did for others. She would faithfully cock her head like she was listening and coo her approval, puffing her chest out in pride over my accomplishments. Sometimes, I would let her out, perched on my finger, delighted in her song that she sang just for me while looking deep into my eyes. But always, very carefully, I would put her back in her cage, for I wouldn’t want her to get away. 

The days I worked were long, but she was always there when I came home. Some days, as I came in from work I would pass her tiredly, as she chirped at me, waiting for my attention. It was just too much to give, requesting some quiet, I’d pass her by until I’d put my stuff down and fully rested, obliviously unaware that she had primped and preened, plucked and cleaned waiting for my return. Then, when I was ready, I would pull myself out of my chair and tell her what awesome stuff I did during the day, while forgetting to inquire about her.

My little bird started to look a little wilted, overwhelmed and sad.  Instead of the vibrancy at the end of the day, the malaise began to show. I was a little angry, because I worked all day, so hard to come home. She didn’t seem to listen to me the same or hang on every word, or appreciate all of my attention, when I finally gave it to her. I figured it had something to do with her, so I let her alone to figure it out, for I still had stuff to do. I took her out to see if it lifted her mood, but all she did was sit there and brood. She looked blankly at me as I talked myself up and told her my plans. I had no need for this, I was a man. I took my pretty bird, no longer my prized possession, but a responsibility instead; I put her back her cage as she deserved.

A few weeks later, as I passed by, I realized there was no chirping or songs for this guy. In my panic I checked the cage just to see, that my beauty had flown away and left me. After expressing my impatience for her moods, putting her back to brood, I neglected to latch the door. How rude! How dare she reject my need, didn’t she see? How selfish she was not to dote and wait on me? I talked to her every day, about things, about me. “Look at this cage;” I thought to myself, “it is luxurious and pristine, better than most I know I have seen.” I peered past the bars, and into the mirror, staring into my face. I spoke to myself like I had every day to my pretty little bird and I began to see. She tried to tell me, first using affirmation and her love, but as I only spoke about me, I missed what she was saying and she began to recede. Though I was not an ogre nor was I a beast, it started to dawn on me that I had treated her last if not least. 

Every day, at the same time, she returns to visit me. She sits out on the tree; singing, chirping and I listen willingly. I smile. I nod and think, “What a beautiful gift from God.”  I tell her she’s gorgeous, and then begin to share about my day. She gives me that smile that I love, reassuring me. Was it possible, that she was, even greater now, now that she’s free? Or was it my concern or finally learning to see and listen to her? Fly away, Phoenix, fly away free, remember always to return, to the one you love, me.

Pull the Plug!

Summer has been full of busy weeks and shoving as much summer activities into weekends as we can. As the middle of summer approached, I started having this feeling that this couldn’t be it. We went for two months without television. Although we typically don't watch much, with three kids, it was a little dicey. I found myself looking at them and the house that was just a perpetual mess thinking, I am so much smarter than this. Then it dawned on me that with Carson going into school, I was going to be home. Alone. Yes, that did sound lovely. Until Wayne and I did an evaluation of our financial situation. I realized that there was going to come a day soon, where two paychecks looked a lot better than one. Heck, it already does. Afraid of an indefinite scope of returning to work at twelve dollars an hour, I decided it was time to look at some schooling. 

What began as a passing fancy became an obsessive thought pattern, as it often does for me. I went to a Start Up presentation at the college and just started taking the steps. On some levels I am thrilled, pleased that the one thing that I’ve always envied as I read, or saw other people taking the steps, I am grabbing. But the other hand of that is I feel like I am ditching my creative wanderlust. I am losing that year that I thought would be my creative prime: Pinterestpalooza at its finest. With all the kids in school, I would have time to craft my little heart out. I stopped when the many little hands were helping and the littles were into everything. Every five minutes I said no enough to make me wonder if the spelling and annunciation were correct. What looked like perfect timing is now making me scream, “Someone pull the plug!” 

As I eye my craft area that I so carefully created for my little place in our house, I find myself mourning the time that will be spent there studying instead.  Am I in such a hurry to have stuff figured out, to carve my place, determine my worth that I am missing what matters the most to me? I thought my worst nightmare was to wake up four or five years down the road and wonder why I didn’t take the time to go to college, being stuck in a work bracket without options and experience. I applauded my arrival back to the great American career track in an order that made more sense. Most people go to college right after high school, build their career, and then start a family, taking a break while raising children. Instead, I thought my great advantage was that I started young enough and quick enough that I could fix that and still have some of the best years to build a career. Is my overeager appetite for a slice of the pie cutting out something important? 

I thought these years would never end: the ones of three kids under three. I always looked forward to the break when the last one got into school. Who wouldn’t? I remember long overwhelming days that seemed to last an eternity. I remember staying up into the wee hours of the night just to enjoy the peace and quiet, savoring the break before it all started over again. The cereal all over the floor, soured milk sippies under beds and cribs. The endlessness of the crazy four to six witching hour where it seemed it was just about two hours of mutiny. Now I am panicking because change is coming and adding more to our plate? 

I don’t think there is ever a convenient time for life to happen. It used to bother me that I never gave much thought to planning things out, I just let life hand me things. Sometimes the unexpected was the best present that I ever received. Maybe that is why mapping out the rest seems so magnanimous to me when people casually make these decisions all the time. I have yet to meet someone who regrets their education, but see many who regret not using it. I hope to find something that will combine my creative power with something that will be worthwhile. Guess it’s time to start strategizing my crafting in with breaks, this girl has a plan. Step one is enjoying the rest of summer and my growing family, not obsessing over what isn’t here yet. So, pull that plug… save the energy for the stuff that matters now.

Letting Go

When I was a kid, we had a really awesome rope swing that my parents put up in a tree. After dad got home from work, we’d go up there and jump on the giant knot. We’d spend some great family time swinging back and forth over this little valley. Since it was Western Washington, it was a little marshy on the other side, full of that good undergrowth stuff like skunk cabbage. I remember one specific incident when my dad was pushing me on the swing. For whatever reason, I let go… for a few short minutes, I was flying. The next minute I was laying in the skunk cabbage with my parents laughing asking me why I let go of the rope! 

As we grow up, we forget the importance of letting go. I’ve been feeling like it is time to dream again. I started to think about the reasons I don’t dream anymore. I realized that most of it was carrying around hurt from previous events in our lives. When we refuse to let go of the hurts from previous things, I think it debilitates our ability to dream. When we cease to dream, it gets us in a rut of thinking about all of the things that have held us back.

It’s easy to remember losing our house and business. Or being forced to let go of another home we rented, where it felt like dreams ran wild. We moved in with my parents for a year, while it was wonderful in some areas, it still left us feeling like we failed to provide for our own little family. And when we finally thought things were getting better, it was the loss of Wayne’s job. It’s the fear that grips our hearts every time we dare to be happy, that we will be again displaced. As easy as it is to remember, it’s not always as easy to dismiss those thoughts.

Lately, I realize that in order to move forward again, I have to start letting go. I need to let go of the baggage that comes with being let down or angry, letting go of the failure and moving forward with the lesson learned. Sometimes it means letting go a bit at a time with my kids, to allow them to be their own people. Letting the housework sit in favor of enjoying a day. And letting go sometimes hurts. It means that I have to evaluate and release those possessive emotions that I feel I’ve earned.

As I contemplate these thoughts, it is almost like having heart surgery. There are some tender spots in there that I didn’t realize I’d been shoving aside. There are relationships that I’ve let lapse for the sake of deserving to carry around hurts and warning labels for these people. Walls built that I thought were keeping me safe, but instead were preventing me from moving on.

Dreaming opens up the armor just enough that you could be hurt or let down again… because you allow yourself to believe in the possibility that it can be different this time around. That’s hard to do. It’s easier to count the reasons not to try again and sink your effort into why you shouldn’t. 

At the end of one’s life, they do all of the things that they should have done before, liberating them of the” I should haves” before they die. Sometimes that time is too short and the people around them are left mourning what could have/should have been. Things they should have said, they should have done. Relationships they missed out on before they received the notification that it was done. 

While you can’t control other peoples reaction to trying again, you still benefit more by being unselfish and letting go on your end. One of my favorite movies, Conspiracy Theory, used the word “Geronimo” for describing love, “because when you're in love, you'll jump off the Empire State and you won't care. Screaming, "Geronimo" all the way down. It's great.” Somewhere in the course of time, we lose the Geronimo in life.

I know I do. I have been looking at my kids, remembering when they were infants and so easy to love and nurture because they needed me so much. Now I see stinky dirty feet, attitudes and someone who doesn’t listen any better than they did as an infant, except they know better now. But the other day, when I thought I missed picking up my daughter from the bus stop, she became that little infant in my eyes and when she finally got home, I hugged her like she was my most treasured possession again. Why is it easier to do that when you think you’ve lost them, than in the norm? 

When do you stop living with passion and bright shiny dreams for your future? When we started out, we were on the fast track to where we wanted to be in life. We got a new truck, new home and had a baby… had money in the savings after we did that too. I was so proud and we thought we were on our way. Unfortunately, we were also one of the first ones the recession hit. It hit hard, because even five years later, we see people who were able to be saved, renegotiate their mortgages, take part in programs designed to help you keep your home. We see people picking up homes for ridiculous prices and we can’t participate in that even now. It hurts. That destroyed our hope and our dreams and sometimes it still does. We love our neighborhood and the house that we rent, but there is always a niggling thought in the back of our mind that someday, it might be sold as soon as we are settled.  

If we focus on that aspect to long, it takes away from our enjoyment of the beauty that we have around us. The yard that we’ve carefully tended from dirt patches to green. All of the starts I’ve diligently gathered and clearance plants that I’ve saved. 

It trickles into other aspects of life too. As we start to shut down one area of the heart, the others start shutting down too. Relationships begin to dwindle as you look at the different ways that certain individuals have hurt you. It begins to rob the joy in every day or week comforts that you previously enjoyed and were charged by. Soon, you find yourself sitting alone in your home, hesitant to try again, burying yourself in everyday tasks that make the time pass. 

Our family lost a member this week. It hurts, even though separated by distance. It feels like a part of the relationship that our long distance families have been able to have online has been cut short. I hurt for the ones around me who will be reminded by memories at random times. It hurts because it makes me evaluate how much of life I may have let pass by holding onto things that won’t matter later. It hurts to see how selfish I’ve been by shutting down and out to prevent being hurt further instead of letting go. 

When everything else was being lost, relationships were what carried us through. House to house, life event to life event, it was the people around us who made the difference. It was holding onto each other and our family, trusting that together, we would make it through. 

Moving forward with the fear of losing isn’t progress. Embracing possibilities knowing that some of them may not work out, but that there is a purpose for the time spent, is. I want to embrace the potential of life like a silly kid letting go of a swing like they have nothing to lose… and flying for the first time. The skunk cabbage didn’t kill my enthusiasm for swinging, it just taught me to hold onto what was important.

The Comparison Kid Strikes Again

Is mine better than yours? What am I lacking that everyone else has? “But Mo-om, everyone else is doing it…. Why can’t I?” Hers is better than mine. Their piece is bigger than mine. Why do I always have to do it? What are they doing right that I am doing so wrong? Why does theirs look so much more superior to mine? Does it ever feel like you have to work harder than everyone else for just the basic stuff in life? I’ve been mulling it over for a couple of weeks now.

Facebook contributes to an overwhelming sense of “my life is better than yours” just because no one wants to be a downer. So we push our superiority in life instead of sharing our inner thoughts and struggles. People who stand out against the grain are met with words as antagonist, jerk, emotional, drama queen, etc., because it doesn’t match the status quo of the people around you. Do not make them think or question their beliefs, their habits, and their refuge.  Nothing is greater than the man who is determined to take over the world from behind their computer. 

Being one’s own individual comes with the discomfort of knowing that when compared to other people’s standards, you will always come up lacking. It requires learning to be okay with that and continuing to forge your own path in the face of adversity in spite of the fact that sometimes it feels they are going to swallow you whole.  I get tired of seeing examples of how I should parent, what my success or my social calendar should look like when I enjoy the company of myself or my family over theirs. I am fine with spending most of my time with my family in my home, where I look like supermom. It’s the work that I do behind the scenes that makes me supermom. That is what my children will later pattern their productivity on. They will look back thankful that I was there for those things. I am teaching them the value of a home that isn’t just a house, it's a safe haven that is warm and inviting, a place to shelter that overactive mind in the middle of a social storm. 

When I look into my husbands’ eyes and see how much I love him reflected back, the memories that we both share of our family makes it right. I don't want to give up living in the present with him and our children just so we might be better off in a tomorrow that we don’t know that we have yet. I look at my three beautiful children (who, it seems, came at inconvenient times) and marvel at how fast they’ve grown. I remember the moments that I wished away when they were younger and at least have the comfort of knowing that I was there for it.  I didn’t have to drop all of my kids off at someone else’s house for someone else to raise and celebrate their firsts. And as I see my youngest so eager to get into Kindergarten, it’s  made me realize that I needed to step away from the stuff that I was always so intent on getting done, just so I can snuggle him before he gets too big for it. I hold his hand, see his funny faces and listen to his witty little conversations instead of wondering when I can get back to Facebook, or my novel. I feed him ice cream as a treat in the morning, because it’s our special time together and once he gets into school the years are going to go cascading by. 

I am simply unavailable to most because I refuse to continue to allow other people to determine my worth, my value and my success. I know that underneath that new job, truck, house, etcetera is a bill, a payment, a debt to someone else that have been purchased with working long hours to pay off. I know that other wives have gone back to work so they could accommodate that lifestyle. I know we look broke, our house is small and we may seem simple to you. And frankly, I don’t care. My family is worth it. Our life together is worth it. We may have had some hiccups in our start, but I have seen repeatedly how much we’ve been able to enjoy as a family and it looks like a small sacrifice. 

The comparison game is easy to get sucked into. Just drop the ball, walk away and do what you know in your heart you are supposed to do. It’s so much easier to call the shots when you are standing on the sideline, but not as much when you are in the game. I decided that as long as I was comparing myself to others, there was a strong possibility that I would come up lacking. Instead, I will rejoice in each day, every small victory, big and small. My house is a home, my home reflects my heart and the people who are invited in, recognize it and appreciate it as such. 

(Thank you to Rob Cartwright Photography for the amazing photo!)

Silencing the Angry Child Within

It’s always easier to move backwards than it is to move forward. Dunno why that is. Just think about dieting… it’s easier to revert back to your old habits than it is to stick with the healthier alternatives. When you are stressed, it’s easier to grab a pint of Haagen Daz and sit on the couch watching movies than it is to exercise. And when you really get deep down into it… that little voice in your head says, “Oh, but you deserve it. Just take another day to figure things out.”

Growing up as a pastors’ kid, I’ve dealt with some memorable situations of being disappointed in people.  Because that was the environment that I grew up in, I thought that was just unique to our upbringing.  I’ve spent a lot of time being angry, frustrated and upset with people who took my parents’ time, then discarded the relationship when it no longer suited them. When we were younger, it sometimes meant that our good friends that we spent hours playing with, would sometimes disappear. When we’d see them at school or other places, they wanted nothing to do with us. I always wondered why my mom and dad did it over and over again. 

As I got older, I found relief in the fact that I could choose my friends and to some extent, control my environment. Six days a week, I could be a normal person. We, unlike most church going citizens, didn’t get to choose our church; it was given to us as they walked in the door. Granted, the social scene wasn’t really always easy, it was just easier to navigate in my safety zone. I did find out, through work, relationships and life that there are always difficult people to deal with. It’s just easier when they are outside of your reality. Work was fine, but I was earning a paycheck and got to reap the benefit of what I was doing all week when I went home. It was a tangible investment that I could semi control on some levels. I didn’t always do life right in my so called “controlled environment”. But it felt less punishing because I had, essentially, chosen it.

What I didn’t realize as a child, and makes a lot of difference knowing now, was that there were people out there who were disappointed in their parents, in their circumstances and in their lives that didn’t even have the stability of the life we grew up with who struggle to get over those things every day.  And when they had the support of my parents, their lives looked like it could be full of what they didn’t grow up with. I was used to my parents challenging us to live up to our full potential. Reaching toward one’s full potential, is also a choice; one that all of us have to make. Sometimes it is easier to do with the help of someone who cares.

There are times in life when I revisit some of the hurt in those circumstances growing up, instead of recognizing how important the growth was from that experience. When I revert back to the angry child in me, I pick up all of the things that hurt me, all of the instances that I kept score, instead of acting like the person who set those things aside to continue on and have a fruitful life. When I am busy tallying up the wounds that others inflicted, I forget the joy of the everyday things that I love and memories of those things that I cherish. 

This has been increasingly hard lately as I see my daughter trying to navigate her way through second grade. I remember the little baby I held, secure in the fact that I just knew it was going to be different for her as I helped her through it. It’s not different. It’s not even any easier. I forgot that mean crappy people start in the form of children in school! As I try to guide her through it, I remember instances in my childhood that were difficult lessons to learn, the hurt and the growth that came with some of those circumstances. I have had to sit down and tell her as much as I hate it, that school is a learning place. Her primary job there is to learn. And sometimes it’s to learn how to deal with difficult situations with difficult people. It hurts me to try to coach her through it from the sidelines, but it is necessary not to start crippling habits that will affect her relationships later in life by allowing her to opt out of it, or providing the way out of it FOR HER. 

The angry child inside doesn’t solve problems; it just sits in them, like a messy diaper. You fret, you stew, you cry and wonder why the unfairness. The desire to shrink back under the covers and stay there nice and warm in your bed is overwhelming. Excuses start cropping up to prevent you from engaging in social activities, the same way that children state that they are ill or make excuses not to go to school. As adults, we sometimes coddle that need and take a mental health day. We even sometimes enable our children to stew by allowing them to skip, too. What is it teaching them? Indulging your inner angry child benefits no one, even when it is your own inner child that you are still trying to fix by nurturing your own children. We cut out relationships that no longer feel fruitful or leave when things get tough instead of working through to get resolution. Although it may feel right and justified by the jury of one, it most definitely is not teaching them to learn how to solve the problem and move on by our own actions. 

Our children are not the only ones who suffer from the indulgence of the angry child, its other people as well. Your friends and family rely on your norm as a part of their norm as well. They need you. Together, we all create a balance that is essential to a happy healthy life. That means sharing the struggles as well as the good times, being available and making yourself available. The angry child lessens your importance in maintaining a balanced social structure by rationalizing withdrawing into yourself as a coping technique. It’s selfish and it hurts not only yourself, but also deprives the others around you. If you are retreating inward, you are not reaching out toward your potential. 

While I am busy throwing my temper tantrum about the unfairness of life, I am forgetting all of the productive things I have done. That, in spite of the issues my kids are having at school, I am a good parent. They are good children. They have a beautiful home and loving parents. We do good things. We have an excellent family. We have good friends. And while sometimes, it feels like the deck may be stacked with the timing of things, the ultimate outcome is good. Life IS good. It’s just about moving on. It’s about picking up that attitude of thankfulness and continuing to have faith that it is going to continue to get better. Sometimes silencing that angry inner child is just as simple as repeating one basic good truth heard from us, our spouse, parents or someone who cares: “You are loved, you are important and you matter, regardless of how other people treat you.”  How you treat other people reflects how well you know that for yourself. If you believe you are those things, you will treat others with that same principle. 

Learning how to deal with difficult circumstances and communicate effectively through them is so important. I keep trying to remind myself that as I go through them, I am teaching my kids inadvertently how to deal with them as well.  How do I teach my kids to communicate when I retreat within myself? I don’t. I want to teach them more than not to hate or be a victim of their circumstances, I want to teach them how to move on from issues that cause them pain, that cause them stress or relationships that just don’t work out. That is what my parents showed me from an early age. Before school, work or church people, it was horses. I had a pony that loved to dump me underneath a tree every time I got on him. Every time, they put me back up on Buddy and off we went again. Guess what? I made it. I learned a valuable lesson. Do I hate the horse? No. But I know to ride.

It’s the same with people. If I give in and get mad at the latest person to not value our relationship, the time, the investment that I feel has been given; I let that angry little kid inside of me win. My parents taught me better and that is why we have the productive, beautiful life that we have now instead of being hurt angry kids with trust issues that we are constantly trying to live without. It’s not unique to the church, nor is it unique to the struggles we faced growing up: it is unique to people with courage to keep moving on. They are the ones that not only constantly push towards reaching their own full potential but also propel others around them to reach theirs.