On the edge—of something

So, there are times when we allow ourselves to look around and decide that what everyone else is going through is worse than what we are going through, and we therefore simply don’t have the right to ever feel sad, or alone. Many of us laugh off what we feel, and blame it all on “first world problems.”

Most of the time, it’s true—the problems upon which we expend the most emotional energy are situations someone else would gladly take on, in exchange for the many blessings that come along with those worries. I try to make it a habit to remember how lucky I am, and to recognize that even during hard times, I still have so much for which to be grateful and happy.

But sometimes, I think we can take the awareness that we are living a good life so far, that we struggle to ask for help when we actually need it, or even just to share the fact that we are struggling at all. We tend to let things build until we break, because we are constantly trying to convince ourselves that we should be able to cope—we should be able to take our lumps.

I know I have fallen into this habit a lot. I think my emotional aches and pains are trivial, and that I am weak if I allow them to take me down. As a result, I start to wall myself off and feel guilty for the fact I am struggling over something I define as ridiculous. The pain of admitting my weaknesses runs so deep, that I allow it to isolate me from people in my life who often would be happy to help. I tell myself that if I just harden up, and try to be stronger, I can deal with the struggle, or feeling of the moment.

But more often than I like, I just can’t.

I haven’t made it a secret that I had a less than fantastic childhood. It was rough. There truly were moments I thought I was going to die. There were moments I thought even worse things than that were going to happen. I’ve been told that I am really strong, because I survived those terrible years, and by many people’s standards, I am successful.

Sometimes, I laugh at the thought. I laugh at the idea that I am “strong,” because now, it seems like the least little thing can emotionally flatten or cripple me. It’s as if I used up my lifetime allotment of strength in the first twenty years of my life, and there wasn’t a drop left for anything else.

I guess if there were times I thought I might die, it might be reasonable that it took everything I could muster not to. But it does seem unfair—not to me, but to the people in my proximity. They’re the ones I always feel I am letting down when I can’t be my own superhero. And they’re the ones I actually am letting down when I don’t ask for help when I can’t make it on my own.

Still, even after more than twenty-five years of a life that most people see as charmed, I can’t figure out how to make myself ask for help, or even just tell a friend that I am struggling—at least not until I am clearly broken. I don’t have a reason. I don’t have an answer. It’s like a limp that never goes away. It’s there to remind me of the damage—the injuries—that were probably never appropriately treated when they were still fresh. It’s there to remind me of a time when I didn’t—couldn’t—tell anyone that I was hurt. It’s there to remind me of a time that I was forced to deal with unthinkable things alone.

And so, maybe it makes sense that the limp takes me back to that lonely place for the less difficult struggles—because if I couldn’t tell anyone I was at the edge of death, how could I possibly conceive of burdening anyone else for anything less?

Thankful Series: Creating a life

So, a dear friend of mine sent me a short story she wrote. She’s currently home recovering from surgery. My friend is especially gifted. I honestly can’t think of any creative medium in which she fails to achieve excellence.

But her story wasn’t remarkable to me simply because of its excellence.

Her story recounts the mundanity of a suburban housewife and mother who starts to reflect on her own invisibility, and the sadness associated with being little more than a footnote to her family’s achievements.

She fills her days with managing the details of her husband’s and children’s work and activities, planning meals, and curating her home in a way that is in keeping with what everyone else expects from her. She imagines having moments of creativity, but quashes those daydreams for fear of the mess she would make, and the way in which it would disrupt things for everyone else.

In the end, the sadness and invisibility are simply too much, and she curates an ending to it all that ensures she will not be a footnote.

My friend’s story is a very well written, disturbing, and haunting commentary on the unrealistic expectations we often develop for ourselves that have little if anything to do with who we really are.

I am a housewife  and mom, but with no disrespect to other stay-at-home wives or moms—or
even working moms who feel crushed by similar expectations—I know that I will hopelessly fail at falling into this trap.

I can’t keep the living room rug free of food debris from my three-year-old, let alone carefully curate my home or existence. And until I read my friend’s cautionary tale about losing one’s identity to mundanity, I thought one of the reasons for my “failure” was because of my own selfishness.

You see, I cannot live my life without creating something on a fairly regular basis. I make no claim that I necessarily create “well.” On an also fairly regular basis, I look at current and newly finished projects, and can only see the glaring flaws. Whether it’s the bark on my daughter’s tree costume that failed to stick with the tacky glue recommended, or the really deformed peacock I painted at a local paint and drink spot, all I see is my own mediocrity.

Even so, I know that if I didn’t do something to express the hidden, deeper parts of my own soul, I would feel myself being erased. I think that’s just the way some of us are made. And I find that when other people I love create, and share, I feel inspired to create and share. It’s as if we are part of an ecosystem that thrives on each other’s breath and living spirit. It doesn’t matter if we are at different skill levels, or that we may create different things. The act of creating is the only commonality required to keep the system alive.

I look around me, and I see the clutter and debris of the mundane life I “curate.” I see the incomplete toy sets, dirty socks left on the sofa, baskets of clean laundry waiting to be folded, magazines, and broken items waiting for the next time I have my glue gun handy. I see the components of my current creation waiting to be assembled, and I sit here writing.

I tell myself I should be doing something else. I should be tidying up my home, and preparing it for guests. I should be trying to stay ahead of the three-person wrecking crew that my family and I are instead of writing, or thinking about other creative projects that I either need to finish, or would like to start. But needing to express something feels like an itch in the dead center of your back, when your arms are too short to reach.

When I think of the ease with which women, especially stay-at-home wives and mothers, become so consumed by the needs of their families that they disappear, I begin to embrace the fact that my struggle with clutter is at least somewhat related to the itch in the middle of my back that makes me crazy until I find a way to scratch. When I consider the way in which we can so easily lose ourselves, and fade into the background of those around us, I am grateful for the compelling urge I so often feel just to make something—anything.

Creating helps me to live in color, instead of fading into a beige existence. It keeps me alive. And I believe it demonstrates the value of creating and expression to my daughter.

Would I love to have a tidy home, carefully curated, and free of the debris of everyday living? Sometimes. But only because it would make life easier. And as I think about the word “easier,” I realize that I have never been about “easier.”

Perhaps that’s why I am part of the extended creative ecosystem with which I connect and to which I relate—because who I am in my soul just can’t breathe within a tidy, clutter free box of mundanity. I find the overwhelming ordinariness of beige, taupe, and clear crystal vases to be as threatening to who I am at my core, as a fire is to a forest.

I can’t fit any mold. I can’t curate the perfection of mundanity. So, I accept a sense of the tug of war between my need to “paint” over the plainness of everyday life, and my recognition of the chaos that it curates.

Thankful Series: My Activist Friends

So, a few days ago, we crossed a milestone that still feels pretty awful for a lot of us. It has been a year since our country managed to elect someone who is completely inappropriate, incompetent, and unworthy of the presidency. 

And it’s not about who lost, or who also ran. It’s hard to imagine many people who would be worse in the position. 

Within a few days of the election, I started to worry about being so open in a very “red state.” After all, we’d only been here a few years, and I really didn’t know many people. 

Fortunately, a local chapter of Pantsuit Nation welcomed me, and I was reminded that no matter where in the world we end up, we always find the people who are like us. 

And one of the things that is so remarkable about so many of the people that I have found, is how much of themselves they put out there in the world to try and make it better. 

That’s something I am fortunate enough to see in many of my friends—both new, and old. It’s something I respect and admire so much. At times, they have even made it possible for me to find ways to be involved as well. 

Without friends like I have found, being part of the Woman’s March on Washington would have been an awful lot harder to do. At least a couple of my new friends worked extremely hard to make that a possibility for several dozen of us. It was amazing!

I still haven’t figured out how to juggle it all so I can contribute as much as I see my other friends contributing. I am a stay-at-home mom, with a three-year-old that demands more attention than I ever imagined possible. I know at some point, she will be big enough to go along with me, and I will be able to do more.

I have friends who have been activists for years, and the knowledge they have about issues never ceases to blow me away. Some of them have had little choice about their activism. When you, and those you love have been victims of discrimination, brutality, inequality, and marginalization, your choices are to either accept the wrong, or stand up for the right. I am constantly amazed by their courage, strength, dignity, and fierceness. And I learn so much from them everyday.  

I know that America is a great country. It is the dream that so many seek. I know that we have freedoms and rights that people in other countries cannot even imagine. At the same time, I know that we can easily succumb to our worser demons. We can fail to see each other’s points of view, and we can allow our own beliefs to make us forget the principles upon which our nation was founded.

The men who wrote our Constitution were imperfect. Many didn’t see their own inhumanity. But they created something special. They created a living document that can evolve and change when necessary, and they created possibility. 

The activist friends I know, respect, admire, and love stand up for all of us. They see injustice, and they cannot sit still for it. They have made me feel welcome in my new home, and while my own insecurities make me worry that I disappoint them with how little I feel I contribute right now, I hope they know that when I can do more, I will. 

It’s not an overstatement to say that we owe these people, and all of those who have stood up throughout history an enormous debt. In some cases, we owe them our lives. Without the courage to stand against tyranny, to stand up for human, civil and equal rights, our nation wouldn’t even exist. 

I am humbled, and grateful for my beautiful activist friends. I know you cannot stand alone, and that we are always stronger together. 

When thoughts, prayers and words harm

So, a friend of mine shared an article from the religious section of a conservative online magazine called “The Federalist.” In the days since he shared the article with me, I have seen multiple responses to it in social media. I didn’t respond to it right away, and I think that might be fortuitous. 

This particular article was written by Hans Fiene, who is a Lutheran pastor from Illinois. In the article, Mr. Fiene discusses the recent mass shooting at a church in Sutherland, Texas where 26 parishioners, who were gathered for Sunday services were snuffed out by a man carrying a semi-automatic rifle.

His piece is in response to those of us who say that the time is long overdue for our legislators, and government to do something besides offer thoughts and prayers after one of these horrific events. In his piece, Fiene lays out an argument for the idea that the 26 who died in that church were actually having their prayers answered. No, they were not praying for a mass shooter to walk in to their church and gun them down—some of them children at point blank range—but to be delivered from evil. In this case, however horrific it might seem to the rest of us, an evil act was the instrument of deliverance.

When I initially read the piece, I was appalled, and flabbergasted. I didn’t quite know how to form my thoughts around a response to something, that on its face, seems so beyond ludicrous. But as luck would have it, other conservatives with access to the media made statements this week that I found almost as appalling.

Roy Moore, a man seeking a Senate seat in Alabama, has been accused of pursuing romantic, or sexual relationships with several women while he was in his 30s and they were in their teens. At this point, nobody knows the veracity of the allegations, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first time a powerful older man made unwanted sexual advances.

What is incredible are the statements made by a couple of conservatives who have come to his defense.

 Alabama State Auditor, Jim Ziegler, actually invoked the Bible to come to Moore’s defense. “Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus,” Ziegler told the Washington Examiner.

He further defended Moore by stating that nothing illegal had occurred, because it’s not like he had sexual intercourse with the teens. “There is nothing to see here,” Ziegler told the Examiner. “The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls. Even the Washington Post report says that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the girls and never attempted sexual intercourse.” 

The current age of consent in the state of Alabama is 16. Regardless of party, wouldn’t you think a state official would think more carefully about commenting on these allegations? One of the women was 14 at the time she alleges that Moore tried to persuade her to touch him sexually.

Alabama Bibb County Republican chairman Jerry Pow told Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale that he’d vote for Roy Moore even if Moore did commit a sex crime against a girl. "I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldn't want to vote for Doug," he says. "I'm not saying I support what he did."

Because it’s totally better to vote for a guy who wanted a 14-year-old to touch his penis through his underwear than to vote for a Democrat. Ziegler invokes the age gap in Mary and Joseph’s marriage to defend Moore, and maybe that makes sense.

Maybe Moore was just keeping things godly—something he feels we all should be doing.

While he recently spoke to a group at an Alabama church, he explained what he believes to be the reason for the mass shootings.

 “You wonder why we're having shootings, and killings here in 2017? Because we've asked for it," Moore said. "We've taken God out of everything. We've taken prayer out of school, we've taken prayer out of council meetings."

If only kindergarteners  were saying a prayer at the beginning of the day, we wouldn’t have to worry about getting shot down in public places.

These are not the first truly bizarre, or even thoughtlessly insensitive statements conservatives have made in either defending their colleagues, their policies, or their positions.

In August of 2012, Todd Akin, who was a Missouri Representative running for the Senate explained his reasoning behind the idea that women who are victims of rape shouldn’t be able to choose to have an abortion if they become pregnant.

 “It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Akin told local media in an interview. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

If you are sexually assaulted, and become pregnant, you may just have to rethink the incident. If you got pregnant, it probably wasn’t rape.

And more recently, in regards to climate change, Michigan Representative Tim Walberg explained that humans are essentially helpless. It’s just out of our hands.

 “I believe there’s climate change. I believe there’s been climate change since the beginning of time,” Walberg said. “Do I think man has some impact? Yeah, of course. Can man change the entire universe? No.”

He continued: “Why do I believe that? Well, as a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us. And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it.” 

So, the next time you are in a quandary over “paper or plastic,” just know that it doesn’t really matter, because whether the polar icecaps melt away or not has nothing to do with you.

I know that we can all be thoughtless. I know we can be passionate about our viewpoints. But we don’t all have a vast and public platform that reaches thousands.

As Michael Hutchence of INXS wrote, “Words are weapons, sharper than knives.”

When we discount the suffering of others by invoking our faith or sharing baseless viewpoints, we diminish our sense of common humanity and connection to each other. We trivialize the pain felt by those who have been harmed by violence, abuse, or disaster.

And when we trivialize someone’s pain, we are, in fact, trivializing them.

Thankful Series: Tomi

So, just over four years ago, life turned upside down. Unlike the Fresh Prince, however, we did not find ourselves in Bel Air. Instead, we found ourselves in Northwest Arkansas. Our ties to the area weren’t super strong, but Jeph had grown up in Joplin, just forty-five minutes north of where we landed. 

We were expecting our daughter, and I was successfully “hermiting.” I was sick most of the time, and certainly not great company. I binge-watched a lot of television, and hung out on the couch with my dog. 

One person seemed to know that things couldn’t stay that way forever. 

Several of Jeph’s Joplin friends have befriended me over the years, but one friend in particular has become a regular companion. 

Not long after moving down here, Tomi started getting me out of the house from time to time. She was one of the very first people in this neck of the woods to make me feel welcome, and like I wasn’t all on my own. 

She shared the insanity that is the War Eagle Craft Fair, and I don’t imagine either of us will forget that trip we almost took to the Junk Ranch. And while I will never be as good at it as she is, she has taught me to at least take a stab at negotiating prices when we are on the hunt. 

But Tomi is more than just a companion. She is the first real, solid, and reliable friend I had in this new life.

Tomi and I are solid introverted nerds. We like books, antiques, crafts, and Doctor Who. We each understand when the other just needs to hole up in their quiet place and not be around anyone. We could both spend hours pinning art nouveau pieces on Pinterest, reading classic literature, or binge watching Doctor Who Christmas specials. We share a dry, and frequently “off” sense of humor. 

She gets me, and I get her. 

She is almost always the first person to check in on me and ask how I’m doing on rough days. She knows she can’t always help, but I know her well enough to know that she genuinely means it when she says she wishes she could. 

A week or so after I had my daughter, Tomi took me out to get fitted for nursing bras, and to rummage the aisles of Walgreens in search of compression sock, because my legs and feet were still very swollen. 

Months later, Jeph and I were supposed to host a holiday party and he got stuck at work. Tomi arrived an hour and a half early, saw my panic, and saw that I was cooking and cleaning up after things—still in my pajamas—and that I truly needed help. Without batting an eye, she ushered me off to the shower, watched my baby, and helped me start greeting people as they arrived until Jeph got home.

That’s something very special about Tomi. She’s a little on the conservative side—especially in comparison to myself—and she has a strong faith that guides her. And while I know that it makes me cynical to say it, I don’t often see many people like her who truly walk their talk. 

In the time that I have known her, I have come to know someone who will truly try to help others if she can. She lives in a small bungalow home, which she has carefully decorated with beautiful pieces she has hunted down. In the last four years, I know of at least a couple of times she has opened up her home to a family member or friend who just needs a place to crash until they can get back on track. She routinely loans out furniture and other treasures from her collection. And almost every time we go on one of our hunting adventures, she is thinking about someone she knows who is looking for something specific. 

She is a kind and caring soul, and she rarely asks for anything herself. She’s forgiving, and compassionate. When it comes to people, and the sometimes odd and nonsensical things they do, she is always quick to remind me of one simple fact: “People are complicated.”

I’m not just thankful for Tomi, I am lucky and blessed to have someone like her in my life, and in my corner. She’s a deeply honest, caring, and generous person. And to have all of that wrapped in a Whovian spirit is at least twice the blessing. 

One year later: “Stand not idly by.”

So, it has been a year now. It has been a year since something completely unthinkable to me happened. It has been a year since we elected someone to be our president who doesn’t even seem fit to pooper scoop a dog park. And when I say “we” elected him, I don’t really mean we, because I know so many people who had nothing to do with this travesty. 

This day, last year, was an extremely difficult and emotional day for me—as it was for many. Even before all the Electoral votes were counted, I knew it was over. After a restless night, filled with lots of tears, I awoke to a shell-shocked morning filled with more tears.

For many, the election of Donald Trump was the glorious defeat of Hillary Clinton. For many, Hillary Clinton was a polarizing figure who couldn’t be trusted. And for many, the promises of putting America first, and the isolationist rhetoric of a wealthy businessman fed the fears and feelings they’d had for years. 

Waking up to have what I already knew confirmed was a punch in the gut. I didn’t know how to process that hateful, racist, and nationalist rhetoric could win in America. I thought we were better than this. I thought we had made so much progress. To me, electing Donald Trump wasn’t solely the defeat of a more qualified candidate, who had been viciously attacked and maligned for decades, it was the manifestation of a national identity crisis. 

Who the hell are we? 

Twelve months later, I still don’t exactly know. 

Each day of the last nearly ten months, I have awakened to the terrible thought that he is still there, and he is still wreaking havoc on everything I thought was already great about our country. He is still bulldozing the path to greater equality we had been paving. And each day, he continues to put forth a new fresh hell. 

But in spite of all of these very negative, and probability unhealthy feelings, there have been amazing glimmers of hope.

Activism is a new normal for many of us. We realize it’s not enough to simply get out and vote anymore. Now, we have to make sure others are voting. And we have to remind our legislators who they represent on a daily basis. We march. We make calls. We start and sign petitions. We donate to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and campaigns for those who have the courage to fight for all of us. Some of us run for office. We work to fulfill the intent and spirit of those who founded this nation.

There are plenty of days that still feel awful, and plenty of moments filled with crushing doubt. I still find myself asking ‘Who the hell are we?’ Sometimes, I replace that ‘hell’ with an f-bomb. But there are also days like this Tuesday when we get to see that all the work can make a difference. We absolutely can effect change, and it can manifest from a slow burning grassroots movement. 

America isn’t about me. It’s not about you. America is a dream. It’s a dream of freedom, hope and equality for the oppressed, and the weary. It’s a place to start fresh. It’s a place to be greater. 

Twelve months ago, a grave error was made. Those of us who love our country enough to feel heartache for that mistake have watched as it seems like everything we believe in is being systematically unraveled. But we haven’t simply “watched.” 

As Elie Wiesel directed, we have  chosen not to stand idly by in the face of injustice. We have lifted our voices, we have marched, we have supported each other, and we have fought to uphold the values and ideals upon which our nation was founded. We have again learned that we accomplish little while fragmented and focusing solely on our own hurts. Coming together gives us strength and courage. Coming together helps us move mountains. 

It may feel like hell for a while, but we are awake, and as Martin Luther King Jr. sang, “We shall overcome.” 

Thankful Series: Ginnifer

So, when you are a stay at home mom, it’s easy to become isolated and sometimes you don’t feel sane. Sometimes you need someone you can bounce off your worst fears and feelings to. You need someone to whom you can say anything.

Sure, having that person doesn’t make everything magically better, but it can magically make you not feel so alone. 

My friend Ginnifer is that stay at home mom—that sister in arms—to whom I can say anything. 

On my hardest days, I question everything I do. I start to believe the negative mom talk about raising kids, and I start to think I am doing a horrible job. I start to believe that my husband sprinkles coffee grounds on the floor intentionally, just to see if I will notice they are there, and vacuum them up. 

On those days, I send Ginnifer a text, not to solve the problem, but just to clear my head. 

Sometimes, the text is just to express minor frustration—like something someone in the house does that drives me batty. Other times, it’s to keep myself from circling the drain. Last Tuesday, I reached out to her when I was at an exhausted breaking point, and I found myself asking my three-year-old for time and space, because I just needed to cry it out. Ginnifer understood. She always understands. 

We’ve known each other for about 20 years. She was my brother-in-law’s girlfriend when I met her, and we clicked instantly. It caused a stink, but I stood my ground when it came to remaining friends after their breakup. I don’t have a ton of friends, and I couldn’t afford to lose one like Ginnifer just because she was no longer dating a family member. 

One of the reasons I held on so tightly, is because she is one of the rare individuals with whom I can spend time, and never Feel drained. For an introvert, that’s huge. And with Ginnifer, I never need a filter. I never have to worry that I am going to say something so outrageous that she will be offended, or think I am a terrible person. With her, chances are if I’m thinking something, she’s thought the same thing. 

The only thing about Ginnifer that doesn’t work for me is how far away she is. We’ve been lucky enough to see each other a couple of times this year—which is more than usual—but it’s never enough. And each time I see her, I leave in tears, because I just didn’t get enough time. 

She understands me as a person first, and a mom second, because she gets the fact that becoming a mom doesn’t change the fact that you are still a human who needs to air out the laundry, and let the hard stuff go. 

To say that I am grateful to have her in my life is a ridiculous understatement. Every moment I get to spend with her, and every moment in which I feel supported by her in this mom journey is precious. She’s 10 hours away geographically, but she’s only seconds away by heart. 

She gets it. She gets me. And I love her. 

Thankful Series: Jeanette

So, today is my best friend’s birthday. Most of us either have a best friend, or we have had a best friend at some point in our lives. For the better part of 42 or so years, Jeanette has been mine. 

She’s about a year older than me, and we were kind of thrown together as little kids. She was technically my step-cousin, although I have never been the kind of person who finds using the term “step” to describe any person easy, especially any person I care about. And besides, she was more like a sister anyway. 

I glommed onto her, pretty much, immediately. These days, when I watch my own daughter trying to engage with older children, I know how tough it can be for older kids to know how to respond with empathy. 

Jeanette was not only empathetic, she was kind and generous. She always made me feel included, even though I wasn’t her “real” cousin. We played Star Wars together, and plotted and schemed to go swimming at the creek near our grandparents’ house—even when it was way too cold. And we both pretended our lips weren’t turning blue. 

I think we both may have felt different from the other kids and people in our family. I think even the way we played was a projection of how much we wanted to do our own things. 

There were several giant bedrocks on our grandparents’ property, and two of them became our “houses.” Every other weekend, which was the schedule for us getting together, we re-established our place on these bedrocks, spending a great deal of our time clearing off yard debris, securing “furniture,” and trying to get moss to grow into carpet. 

All of that play was delightful, but my friendship with Jeanette was always so much more. As she grew up, she happily shared her interests in music, other cultures, beliefs, and ideas about the world. Anyone could argue that it was simply influence, but over the years, I have fervently believed that we were brought together in friendship for a reason. Every part of her world that she was willing to share with me shaped, and continues to shape who I am as a person. 

We have had periods of distance and separation. In fact, I thought our friendship was forever lost about seven years ago. But even after all of the years, and even after the pauses in our friendship, we can still go into a shop or gallery and pick up the same things, or be interested in the same works. We still love the same music. There are, certainly, deviations. She doesn’t like Maroon 5, and while I liked a couple of the Star Trek series, I would never refer to myself as a Trekkie. 

More interesting to me than what we share in common when we are together are all of the things we share in common, or at least have a common interest in, even when we are apart. Every time we have returned to our friendship, it is our similar interests that ease the tensions of our separation, and bring us right back to where we left off. 

When I started this “thankful series,” she was the friend I had been missing as I drove around Kansas City back in September. She is the friend I felt compelled to pull over and message, to let her know she was on my mind. And it is our history as friends, and even our history during our most recent distance that has given me one of the most important life lessons about caring for others—never leave things unsaid. Never leave the way you feel about someone up for interpretation. 

Throughout our lives, we all will go through hard times. We will all go through seasons of self-doubt, and we will question our worth, our connections, our values, and our role in people’s lives. Sometimes, we will not know how much we are loved by someone. There are times when we are so unsure of ourselves that we push even our anchors away. 

Jeanette is at least partly responsible for my interest in religions, philosophy, ancient cultures, and paganism. She is particularly responsible for my being a Celtophile. In the Celtic tradition, the Gaelic term Anam Cara is used to describe someone who is a “soul friend.” These people are different from normal friends. They can act as a teacher, companion, and spiritual guide. 

Through sharing her world, she has been my teacher. As we have traveled, and adventured over the years, she has been my companion. And she has always informed my spirit. 

To be honest, much of what she shared as we grew up helped me keep my head above water, emotionally, through times that little else did. Through all that she gave me to love alongside her, I had a world I could escape to, and love even when everything else in my life was in shambles, and she couldn’t be there. I often credit U2 with “saving my life.” Day after day, during my high school years, I would listen to “The Joshua Tree” on repeat with my ear right beside the speaker. Jeanette introduced me to U2.

But introducing me to U2 is nothing compare to the deep, lifelong friendship—the sisterhood—she has shared with me. To say I am grateful would never cover how I feel about her. I can say that I am grateful for courage, because it was courage that gave me a path back to our friendship after too many years apart. And it is our friendship that continues to inform the way I will express my friendship with others going forward. 

She is still teaching me. She is still informing my spirit. And once again, she is my companion. 

Thankful Series: Jill

So, I know that many wives spend years of their marriage with an incredibly irritating, and obnoxious thorn in their side—their mother-in-law. 

Stereotypically, mother-in-laws are interfering, nosey, and they tend to believe their sons can do no wrong. You see this play out in movies and television. You hear your friends complain about it with heavy sighs, and eye rolls. 

I don’t have this problem. 

For almost 22 years, I have had a dear, and wonderful friend in my mother-in-law. Actually, in recent years, she’s become more like a mom to me than a friend, or even my own mother. 

In the last few months, my husband has been stretching, and challenging himself with a new direction in his career. At one point, there was talk of moving to Minneapolis—a place where we would know no one, and we would have no support structure. My first thought—what would I do without her? 

And it’s so much more than the fact that she is willing to lend a hand when I need someone to help with Willow so I can go to a dentist appointment. While no mom could ever discount the importance of having someone they can call on for help, the reasons I rely on her are much deeper. 

There is just something about the comfort of having her nearby that I can only equate with what it must feel like to have a mom you can count on. I know that I can tell her when the days are hard, and if she thinks I’m doing the wrong thing, I will never know. I know that if I have moment when Jeph and I don’t see eye to eye, or he’s just plain irritating, I can talk to her about it, without fear that she will judge me, or use the moment to undermine my marriage. 

I always knew I was lucky, but it wasn’t until our daughter was born that I truly understood how important she is in my life. 

For months, I had said that when our daughter was born that I wanted to have a week or so that was just us—no visitors, no one staying at the house. I wanted to have the time to “figure it out,” and bond as a new family. I was wrong. 

I had absolutely no idea what I was really in for. I had an unplanned cesarean section, and could barely walk across the room without crying. And since Jeph had only started his job a few months earlier, he didn’t have any vacation time built up, or paid leave. He was only able to be home with me for a day and a half. 

Jill got me through that first week. The morning she left, we both broke down and cried. 

There is no way I could ever put into words what her support and love—yes, love—means to me. As someone whose biological family is dysfunctional and fragmented at best, having anyone in your life who is willing to step into, and fill the void your own family—particularly your own mom—has left is an indescribable gift. 

To say that I am grateful for my mother-in-law would never express how I feel about her. She has given me so much. Not only did she raise her son to be a person who could overlook my crazy, and love me in spite of it, but she has given me something I was pretty sure I would never have—a real mom. 

Thankful Series: Willow

So, for today’s thankful, it seems important to provide some back story. A lot of my friends know this story all too well, but thankfully, I have been making some new friends lately (a grateful for another day).

It took a long time to decide that I wanted to be a mom. As a couple, Jeph and I spent at least a decade in ambivalent discussion about whether we wanted to be parents or not. No time seemed right to really be serious about it, and even when we made “a plan,” it was mostly in jest. 

Jeph likes to listen to documentaries while he works, and he has an uncanny gift for remembering details like no one I have ever known. One day, he came home from work talking about his concerns regarding the possible Mayan Apocalypse that was just on the horizon. My response? “If there is no apocalypse, we should stop using birth control and see what happens. We should have a baby.”

He was stunned, but didn’t argue. It was a playful answer to the serious uncertainty that we had felt about the issue for our entire marriage. I don’t know if the uncertainties about our careers, families, and place in the world had fed into our ambivalence, but it seemed that some mystical event, predicted by an ancient culture was going to decide our future. 

When no apocalypse came, we had to decide for real, and somehow, we did. It was still very much a “let’s see what happens” approach. When we found ourselves pregnant six months later, we were shocked, but thrilled. It seemed that leaving our fate to the Mayans had been an okay decision. 

Just a very short couple of weeks later, Jeph landed in the hospital with bilateral pulmonary embolisms. We ended up sharing our happy news earlier than we had planned. Within another week or two, I was realizing that something was wrong. And then, our happy news turned into sad news. There would be no apocalypse inspired baby after all. 

The one thing that became certain was that we were no longer ambivalent about being parents. But for months, and months, things continued to go from bad to worse. 

It would be a year before we would be successful again, and this time, our whole world actually did more closely resemble an apocalyptic nightmare than time for us to have a child. Jeph had just lost his job, I was struggling in mine, and we felt like we were lost at sea in so many ways. Everything was out of control. 

But even in the midst of all of our chaos, I knew, somehow, that we were going to be all right. 

Willow came to our lives right on time—and not just because she arrived on her due date. Even learning that she was on her way happened at just the right moment. We knew very little about what our future held, but one thing was right. 

I had always imagined what it might be like to raise a girl. There might have been some pink involved. But now that it was actually going to happen, I desperately wanted to allow her to become whatever she was determined to be. 

She is not an easy child. Seven months into our adventure, I was still only getting four or five hours of sleep a night. And now, at almost four years old, she is still flip-flopping in our bed, and I am surfing the edge. She walked instead of crawling, and dances anytime there is music. She doesn’t get mad—she rages. She climbs and jumps off of furniture. She shuns clothing. She has imagined herself to be a puppy most of the time for months. She wasn’t “kicked out” of preschool per se, but she wasn’t invited to return either. Potty training has been a year long nightmare all it’s own. 

I know everyone struggles with their toddler. I know they are all hard. 

I love her so much. She is doing exactly what she should be doing—creating her own identity. And she is doing something else. She is challenging me to look at my own, and how it impacts everything I do. She is challenging me to understand how my own history makes our struggles with her even harder.

We will manage these hard moments, because there were a thousand moments when I was sure that I would never have the opportunity to fight with my three-year-old. I know that there are so many couples who struggle with fertility issues, and suffer multiple devastating miscarriages. I know that our story is happier than so many others. 

My little Willow is everything I ever hoped she would be. She’s strong-willed, healthy, stoccasionally kind, and filled with spirit. She’s not afraid to ask for—demand—What she wants. I know that she will go through many cycles of change, and “reinvention” as the years pass. Each stage will present new challenges to both her daddy and me. But at the end of the day, I am so grateful we get the opportunity to watch her grow into, and become the person she chooses to be. 

She will have freedoms I never had, and she will get to make choices and mistakes that I didn’t get to make. And as I fight my own inner battles with how to be the mom she needs, I will grow and change, too. 

Thankful Series: Jeph

So, a little over 25 years ago, I met a guy. I didn’t know that he was going to completely change so much about the direction of my life, but even now, he’s never stopped. 

When I met Jeph Blanchard, I had only been away from “home” for three weeks. In that time, I had been abandoned by a fiancé, learned the harsh reality of what it really meant to be completely on my own, and I had realized that I could either be “stuck,” or climb out of my despair, and make my situation work. 

It never occurred to me that I had been chasing after the wrong path for so long, or that I could find a place for myself after two long years of drama and upheaval that had followed 16 years of childhood trauma, abuse, and emotional terror. I had essentially been abandoned by every parental unit in my life, and the only ties remaining to family were unraveled, shredded, and left to fly in the storms of young adulthood. 

I really didn’t have a place to call home, either. 

Jeph changed all of that. He didn’t run when I told him my secrets. I don’t know if he had it on his agenda to be someone’s hero and saving grace, but if he did, he was extremely nonchalant about it. 

Before I could think of controlling what was happening, I was in love with him, and he was nothing like anyone I had cared about before. That’s probably why it worked. That’s probably why it still works 25 years later. 

It hasn’t been 25 years of completely smooth sailing. We’ve had our ups and downs, and there were times I felt we might be spending so much time in our own different worlds, that our shared world was wearing thin. Fate has a way of grabbing us by the shirt collars, shaking us, and reminding us what we have. Sometimes, the shaking is violent and painful. 

The how’s, the whys—they don’t really matter. We are a partnership now. Even so, I know that he is my rock, my anchor, and my lifeboat. He taught me what romantic love can be, but he also taught me what strong, unwavering love can be. He gave me a home—literally and figuratively. And he helped me build a family out of a love and friendship that was, and is so much more than the scraps, and ash that seemed to still be burning when we met. 

To say that I am thankful for him would never do him justice. I know he believes that we are on an equal footing in our partnership, but the truth of it is that I couldn’t be who I am without him. I couldn’t have lived so many dreams without him. I couldn’t understand how you keep fighting for things, even when they are hard if he hadn’t given me so much in my life worth fighting for. 

This is what I’m thinking.: I’m just going to say it.

I’m actually a little disappointed in myself. I meant to start this in September, but the last month and a half have gotten away from me.

I had a moment in my car, when I was thinking of a friend. I was out of town, and I just suddenly missed her, and felt so grateful to have her in my life. It made me immediately start thinking about grateful November. And even though I failed at getting there, I was thinking that sometimes, we think about people at certain moments for big reasons that we cannot understand. And at those times, maybe we should take the moment for what it is, and let that person know what is in our hearts about them.

I was going to start doing a daily gratitude moment everyday, but I didn’t get to it—just like I so often don’t get to a lot of things. It wasn’t about November not being a good time, it was about a feeling of urgency.

Sometimes, we unexpectedly lose people from our lives, and we never say what we were thinking. Sometimes, we gradually drift away from people, and realize we have lost track of how to get in touch again. Sometimes, there are things we know a person needs to hear, but we are simply too afraid to say them.

I found myself mostly thinking about the last statement in that list—being afraid to say things. That may seem strange. After all, I don’t seem to have a problem sharing just about anything I am thinking about a lot of things. But the reality is that sometimes, we think or feel things about others that seem more intimate than anything we might share about ourselves.

We can be embarrassed by our own kindness. We can feel awkward about our observations of others. We can believe our thoughts and feelings wouldn’t matter to the person, and would only create a strangeness that makes things uncomfortable.

In the moment I was thinking about my friend, I was wishing she was with me to do some of our shared favorite things, and to visit our shared favorite places. We all have those special people, with whom we always go certain places, and do certain things. When we find ourselves doing those things alone, or with other people, the experience is never the same. I found myself pulling over to message her that I was thinking of her, and missing her presence. I had lost her from my life for a long period of time, and I decided to never leave things unsaid.

It occurred to me as I was doing this that I didn’t understand why we let the fear of embarrassment, awkwardness, or discomfort prevent us from sharing the parts of our hearts that care, or think genuine thoughts. I decided to work very hard to stop that mental wrestling match within myself that so often convinces me not to share kind words, deeply felt feelings, or just random things I think that might give someone a moment of happiness that they wouldn’t have had.

I’m still working at it, but even as I struggle to get those words where they need to go, I believe in the idea. I believe a kind word or thought can be as meaningful to someone who needs it as talking a jumper off a bridge. I believe it, because I absolutely know how much I have been helped by the kind words and gestures of others at times I thought I was alone, or that I was damaged.

I think maturity, learning manners, and being strictly guided about what is appropriate to say and what is not truly stunts our ability to build deep friendships and to grow our own sense of confidence and self-worth.

As I take my daughter places to play, she frequently seeks out someone with whom she can play. As a mom who never wants to see her child hurt, I cringe every time she approaches an older child, or a child within a group and asks ‘Will you be my friend?’. It’s a sweet, and endearing request. It’s honest, and forthright. She means ‘Will you play with me?’, but in her mind, anyone she plays with is a friend. As an adult, I would never approach someone and ask them to be my friend, even though quite often, that is exactly what I am seeking.

Rejection, embarrassment, and unexpected reactions train us to develop insecurities, self-doubt, and protective outer shells. Baring our souls to people we wish to know better, or become closer with feels risky. I think this is especially true among women. We are afraid to say what we think, for fear of being judged and/or rejected, and we are afraid to ask the questions we need to in order to learn more about the people in our lives.

We end up hoping, and waiting for moments when we can let our own guard down, and stop holding our breath as we get to know each other. It’s as if we have placed ourselves in an emotional standoff—both people waiting for the other to reveal a deeper truth that solidifies our connection. When we finally stop guarding ourselves from each other, we are taking a risk. We are taking a chance that who we are will be too much for the other person, or that we have mistaken the strength of the connection. But we are also, potentially, taking the risk that we can connect with someone on a deeper level, and offer friendship and meaning to each other’s lives, and struggles in ways that build each other up.

I have struggled with friendship in recent years. I have lost people from my life who were generous and kind to me in moments of darkness. I have learned that some people come back to us, and allow their guards to come down again, as before. I have learned that others return, but their guards will always be at the surface. But I have also learned that things that are real in life are priceless. People who will share their truth with you, and say ‘This is who I am, take me or leave me,’ are hard to find.

None of us wants to be hurt, but the real pain lies in hiding the things, feelings, and thoughts that make friendship real, and still calling it friendship.