Observation vs. Apology

I want to clarify something in my blog that I wrote yesterday. David (my husband) commented on Facebook that he loved "most" of my blog (frankly, I was surprised as h*ll that he even read it--that's two, now!--not that I'm keeping track---Okay, maybe I am). Well, that's a loaded statement! 'What do you mean, "most"?!?' I said. "Well, I feel like you kinda bashed some people," he said."
"Oh....You do?"
My heart sank.
"That was never my intention...I wrote a disclaimer at the beginning of the blog...."
"Well...."

Sigh.

I don't ever want something I've written to hurt someone. My intention wasn't to make anyone feel singled out or "bashed;" it was only to record an observation I'd made as a parent, and that I'd felt as an adult in making/forming relationships (and in failing). I'm not good at making friends, personally, despite what you may think. I say dumb things, I have bad timing, and I'm far better at sympathy than empathy (which sucks). I am AWKWARD, I feel awkward, and social gatherings tend to bring that out in me at its worst. I tend to stay close to those I know, because they know me, and they know when to write off my quirks.

Matter of fact, I tend to do the same thing that I accused others of doing in the blog I wrote yesterday: I limit myself to the familiar when surrounded by the unfamiliar. The difference was that I was in a situation where everyone around me was the unfamiliar (beyond a surface level), for the most part, and I was miserable. If I wanted to, I could have worked my way into any number of conversations; I chose not to, and I chose to stew over the fact that no one invited me into a conversation. That's the truth of the matter. I limited myself, and got pissy over the fact that no one catered to my subliminal pleas for acknowledgement.

So, please, please, PLEASE do not think I was insulting or bashing anyone. I was surrounded by lovely people, and I wouldn't for anything want any of them to think I thought otherwise. Social situations are so incredibly uncomfortable for me; no one would generally guess that, but my anxiety levels are through the ROOF on occasions such as that--especially at church. I'm not taking down the blog I posted yesterday, because it wasn't about WHERE we were; it was about my journey as a parent, watching my son grow in to a little boy. It was about my hopes for him, my struggles to relegate myself to being an observer, and my love of just being in his world...

Sometimes, I write something that is more brutal than brutally honest...If you're hurt because of something I wrote; if you felt it was accusatory or "bashing," please let me know. I can guarantee you that was never my intention, and I am truly sorry if I made you feel that way.

I am learning...and maybe this time, I knocked someone else down as I was skinning my own knees...

An Open Letter to My Son: You Are Not A Dinosaur

*Nothing in this blog is written with the intention of offending anyone. It is simply my observation of a recent social situation I found my son in, and that I found myself in. This is a real-life event that was revolutionary to me, and this is my perspective of it/response to it.

Dear Son: 

I’m not sure you’ll ever read this…but you might. Maybe someday, you’ll realize that your mama talked about you online, and you’ll decide to root through the archives to find out what I said…and I hope you do. Because in spite of the mistakes that I have/I will made/make, I think the biggest thing you will glean from these archives is that I love you with my entire heart and soul, and that my hope for you is nothing less than a personal relationship with Jesus…and that I am endlessly grateful to Him for you, your sister, and your Daddy…But, I digress:

Son, I want you to know that in spite of your best efforts, You Are Not A Dinosaur.

I know, I know—To be a T-Rex, in all of his roaring, short-armed glory, would be a wonderful, exciting thing. You get to be the biggest thing on the playground! You get to be the center of attention! You get to command the room, to be the most frightening, coolest, awesomest thing around!!!

Buuuuuut, you’re not a T-Rex.

You’re a you.

And while you’re pretty much the center of my world, to everyone else you’re another person in the room…and in some situations, your roaring and stomping about is kinda scary/annoying/weird (although I think it’s adorable).

Over the weekend, I had the chance to watch you in a different social circle. You were the only boy in your age group; the only boys in the room were older, and they were related. You haven’t learned about “cousins” yet, because we don’t live near our families. We don’t come from what’s called a tight-knit family, and although we’ve been fine with that up until now, I’m beginning to wonder if that should somehow change (I have no idea how, being as you are considerably younger than most of your cousins on either side, and/or we live too far away). I watched you play with the little girls that were close to your age, until they decided to run off like little girls do, and play amongst themselves. Then I watched you try to break into the group of boys/cousins that were older than you…You went up to them; they carried along with what they were doing. You tried to be a dinosaur and to chase them (it worked on the little girls), but they paid you no mind. You went over to them and roared louder; they still paid you no mind, and one of them actually kicked you.

You weren’t hurt (physically), and he was duly reprimanded; you continued playing like nothing had happened, and I kept my distance, following you around the room in case you decided to jump off of something/attempt to injure yourself.

I realized something in that moment.

I realized that you were echoing what was in my heart…I had wanted to talk to a group of women that were my age, but they formed a tight circle, and I continued to be on my own. If I could have roared like a dinosaur (something that, in my head, translates to, “Hi! Will you be my friend? I don’t know anyone around here very well, and I’m a tad lonely, being as my husband seems to know/like/be liked by everybody, and I feel like a total freak show, so could you just talk to me so this cafeteria doesn’t give me a high-school flashback?!?”), I might have…It is EXHAUSTING, to be in a group of people that you’ve known for several years but don’t really know, and to smile and act like that’s all okay, when what you really want to do is just leave and never come back, because it all feels like a complete waste of TIME.

In my heart, I was roaring.

In my heart, I felt totally rejected…and when I saw you trying to get the attention of the boys by roaring like a dinosaur, it broke my heart. You’d roar, and your bright eyes would dart back and forth between their faces, looking to see if they’d heard you….looking to see if they would accept you into their circle, and to see if they would play with you.

Sure, you were fine (it seemed), but I was not. Feeling rejected for myself is one thing, but seeing it happen to you? I’m not cool with that.

I realize that you’re 3. You’re not drawing the same things from perceived social rejection like I am at 38. You’re not looking at things through a lifetime of being a perceived extrovert (when you’re actually totally NOT). You’re 3. You have a lifetime of rejection ahead of you, because you’re a human being, and that’s what we do to each other, regardless of whether or not we’ve slapped a “Christian” label on our shirts. You will spend your lifetime making friends, losing friends, being made fun of, making fun of people, and learning the ropes of relationships. I can’t learn these things for you, especially since I haven’t learned them well enough yet myself.

I wanted to pick you up and carry you out of that cafeteria. I wanted to hold you, to tell you that it’s okay—you don’t need to be friends with those boys, anyways; you’ve got ME. And later on in the day, I called my own Mama, and told her about my own perceived rejection, because even when I don’t have or can’t make friends, I have MY MAMA.

Oh, son…You are so bright and shiny, and the world is so new to you. I know that learning the ropes of social situations will be a process for you, and I’m certain it will be an intense process for me to observe. I have to wonder if I will ever stop wanting to collect you and hold you, and carry you out of the room when your attempts to make friends go south.  I think of all of the times my mom had to rescue me from the cliques and the bullies and the peer pressure I faced even in my Christian school, and I wonder how different/same it will be for you as a boy…I think of the times my mother didn’t intervene, and let me learn my lesson (or when I didn’t tell her what I was dealing with, because I figured she had enough to handle).  I think of the unsolicited advice my mother probably got (granted, with all of the sancti-mommies online, I think unsolicited advice is a greater issue today than it was in the 80’s), and/or the comments other parents made at her methods of parenting (“You’re not letting her drive when she’s 16?!?  What’s wrong with YOU?!?”).

(Sidebar: Unsolicited parenting advice is yet another form of mom-shaming. You don’t like that my son sits in his stroller while we eat dinner in an establishment that doesn’t have a high chair, instead of running around like a hellion? KEEP IT TO YOURSELF. I can see that you don’t agree with my methods; I really don’t care. Thank you, but no thanks.)

I’m going to do my best for you. I’m going to try to watch you learn your lessons; I’m going to try to take the necessary steps back, to let you jump when you need to…but I will be close enough to catch you if I have to.  People may tell you I’m hovering. They might even be so stupid as to tell you that I’m so close because I’m afraid to lose you, because your sister passed away (if anyone EVER says that to you, let me know, because I will handle them. Harshly.). 

Son, I love you more than words. I will be here when no one is impressed with your dinosaur impression, and you can roar all you like. I might even roar with you.

I will not tell you that you are the smartest, the cutest, the best in the world. I will tell you that you are the smartest, the cutest, and the best in MY world. The World will show you that you are simply YOU…that you are not a dinosaur, no matter how much you want to be. You are just another little boy, growing up and figuring life out with millions of other little girls and little boys, who have mommies and daddies who have different rules, different goals, and different priorities.  I can’t make that any easier for you.

What I can do is to point you toward the Lord…I can love your Daddy, and in this unstable world we can provide a stable home for you to grow up in. We can love you, kiss your boo-boos, hug your little chest, and let you cry when you need to. We will laugh and play with you, and you will continue to be the center of our world; hopefully, you can carry that love and stand on the foundation we will lay in your life. That foundation can carry you through the rejection of friends, girls, whatever…you will always know you can come home and be the biggest dinosaur in the room. And you’ll always know that if you need us to pick you up and carry you out of a situation, we will…We will discipline you as needed, we will make mistakes, we will forgive and ask for forgiveness, and we will all grow in this process…

Our family is just….well, we’re a bit different, and you’ll figure that out. In our social circles, lots of mommies don’t go to work; lots of kids go to school at home; and lots of families have lots of kids. We don’t do/have any of those things, for multiple reasons that I constantly second-guess. There are things you won’t get to be a part of, but there are really cool things that you WILL get to be a part of, and we will do our best to keep you as involved as possible. Your family is really unique, and you’ll learn to appreciate what makes us special, and what makes us perfect for you. You’ll also learn that your family is fierce, incredibly loyal, independent, co-dependent, colorful, hilarious, messed-up, and awesome on every side…just like a lot of families. We’re all going to be here for you, and we can all roar, together.

Life is all about learning. We never stop, whether we’re 3 or 93. Just like this weekend, there will be so many times that I will look at you and learn about myself (good and bad), just as much as I try to teach you by my own example (also good and bad).  We all have times where we feel overlooked and uninvited, and we all have a dinosaur in our hearts that just wants to be acknowledged and loved…We all want to belong.

My little guy…my brave boy…how I love you, and how I wish I could learn it all for you, to keep you safe and unharmed. I wish I could take all of your hurts for you (and therein lies an entire volume dedicated to the grace of Christ), and make life as easy as possible. I wish I could make all of your friends for you, and filter out those I don’t want you to know…in my Type-A mindset, I wish I could make all of your plans and run your life to be as bump-free and methodical as possible. We all know that’s completely impossible and unhealthy. You have to grow, learn, discern, process, evolve, and eventually, break out on your own, away from our carefully-cultivated nest and out from under my ever-vigilant watch.

I’m absolutely terrified/exhilarated/petrified of that day…

But it’s coming…

And every day is one day closer.

You are going to be so amazing…I can’t wait to see what God has planned for your life. These things, these worries I have, and this journey you’re on, are so far beyond you right now…you have so much to learn and to grow into.  Take your time. Go slow.  Be free to be loud/annoying/weird to the world.

When you’re grown, you’ll learn that you are not a dinosaur…

But for now…

Roar as loud as you want.

You Can Thank My Pastor

There are days in church where I feel like I'm sitting here in complete deception. Like, on the outside, I appear to be reasonably sane.....like I am relatively put-together...I've just finished singing, I didn't kill any notes, & the sound guy hasn't given me "the look," so I assume things went well...Everything looks okay...
And then the pastor hits on a sensitive spot in the sermon where the truth come out.....where ish gets real....and I suddenly feel like my heart has been replaced by a giant lump of freshly-blistered tissue in need of debridement that I neither want nor can handle.
I'm face-to-face with my own brokenness, with the after-effects of too many battles, of too much fighting, and of too much expectation of both myself and of the man I married.  I don't even know what to do with myself.
I have been told by more than one person that I missed my calling (they were wrong); I haven't. I know God has a plan, I know there is potential, and I know there is more to both David and to myself than people realize. I know I have dreams I haven't realized yet, and that my place in this life, even at 38, is far from finalized.
I know I have room for change, and for a lot of it.
I am tired of sitting in church, feeling like everything is some epic diatribe of guilt, like all that God is saying is how messed up and broken I am. That's really not what my pastor is saying; it's not what God is saying. It's just how stuff gets twisted in my ears.
Yes, I'm broken-but He makes me whole. Yes, I'm battle-worn-but why do I think I have to be the one who does all of the fighting? Yes, I'm a hot mess-but He calls me beautiful, even though He sees who I really am: frantic, manic, tense, stressed-out, hopeful, confused, and strange. He brings peace to all of that, without badgering me or dumping guilt on my head when I miss the mark.
I don't know where my life is leading. I don't know where things are going, and life right now feels like the days leading up to one heck of a battle. I know I need better unity in my household, and that my husband and I need to stop the BS bickering and come together like we're supposed to. I know we need to handle our financial situation. And I know that I have to drop the gloves and trust the Lord. I'm weary, and without finding true rest in Him, I'm stuck in this hamster wheel.
So, yeah, things LOOK fine. They're not, but they will be.
And it's perfectly okay to ugly-cry when your pastor accidentally says the right combination of words that wreck your barely-stitched-together heart.

Permission Granted

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross staked her claim in the counseling world with her work entitled “Of Death and Dying.” (Yep, that’s a title that will bring the masses….)

The book describes the 5 stages of grief, and I remember studying it in college as I majored in Youth Ministry (technically, I majored in Bible spec. Youth Ministry, but that’s semantics for you), and thinking it was pure genius. The book (http://www.ekrfoundation.org/five-stages-of-grief/) does an incredible job of breaking down the grieving process and of destroying that ridiculous notion that we should all just “suck it up and move on.” It let us all know that YES, you can cry! You can get angry! You can take all of the time that you need! And your grief is as unique as you are—there’s no order, and that’s OKAY!!!! 

My professors at the time had no idea how important all of this information would become to me throughout my life…how I clung to what I learned, and how I so desperately needed to hear that what I was feeling in the wake of my daughter’s death was my own version of normal.

The world tells us we need to do whatever we need to do, to feel better quickly.

Sometimes, our families and friends do the same…they want the “old us” back again, but for me, that person died for a very long time. I know I’m not alone in that…Part (if not all) of my heart went to a very dark, sad place for years, and it took years for all of me to emerge.

And when I finally came out of that dark place, I was someone else…someone who was still me, but who had lost their “shiny.” I went from being like newly-polished metal into being more like a hammered shield—still me, still the same materials, but with an entirely different outlook in every possible way.

It wasn’t an easy journey, and sometimes, it still isn’t. 

This fall marks what would be my daughter’s 10^th birthday, and to be honest, I’m struggling with it. It’s not like I’m going psycho about it; it’s just a painful realization, and I don’t think I should have to rationalize my feelings any further. The labyrinth of grief is so multi-faceted and unique that I am positive that I am right where I should be for my process, and I would like to thank Ms. Kubler-Ross for teaching me that I have that permission.

I have permission to grieve, and though the knowledge of that may have come from Ms. Kubler-Ross, the grace to do so comes directly from Jesus…from His grace, and His compassion, and from His ability to carry it all. I have His permission to mourn what was and what was not (within reason), and I have His consent to burden Him with my heart. What a wonderful, glorious, awful, thankless thing for Him to carry…what a huge thing for Him to trade, and what a beautiful exchange! I give him sorrow, I share my grievances, my anger, my broken hopes and dreams, my FEARS…He gives me new hope, new joy, new goals, new adventures. He restores, He soothes, and He LOVES. He gives us permission to express all of our massive emotions, and He gives us FREEDOM FROM THEM.

I’ve described my own “stages of grief” in past blogs, but I’m reminded of my own words: Grief is like a body of water. Some days, you’re drowning in an ocean of sorrow, you’re Jack and/or Rose floating on a piece of wood in an overwhelming lost cause…you can’t breathe, you can’t move, and you can’t function.

Some days, you’re swimming in a river, keeping your head up, but only on the surface. The slightest tug/pull/reminder, and BOOM, you’re back in the ocean again…

Some days, it’s a creek, and you walk through the clear water, and it’s up to your knees, and you can handle it, and you can even see some of the beauty in it…

Some days, it’s a puddle that you step in and jump over, impressed that it didn’t trip you up, and you keep walking.

Some days, it’s a raindrop that falls on your face…you hold the memory in your hand for a minute, catch your breath, and you keep going…

Until out of nowhere, you trip, and there you are, back in the river, or the creek, or the puddle, or sometimes, the ocean again…and you start the process over, and as time goes on, you navigate the waters more efficiently, and with more grace, than ever before.

It’s a constant process.

I feel like that as the years have gone by, I learn to predict “the markers.” I know certain things will get to me (like her 10^th birthday, or dresses with flamingos on them, or seeing my niece that was born 2 days before my Hannah died) to various degrees, so I can prepare myself. Some things still catch me off-guard, and that’s okay.  

One of the best things I’ve learned is how to gracefully (seriously!) remove myself from situations and conversations that affect me. I have learned how to stand up for myself when necessary in this process, and when to take a deep breath and extend the grace of realizing that people have the “best of intentions, and the worst of executions” (I should trademark that). People who haven’t been through deep loss are at a loss for what to do or say, but they sure try; sometimes, people who HAVE been through deep loss say things that are dumber/more hurtful than those who haven’t (been there, done that, stuck my foot in my mouth HARD-CORE)! We are humans, we are unique, and we have big hearts and small brains. What really and truly matters is that we LOVE the person who’s been going through grief, and that we remember to put them first. We have a responsibility as human beings, and as Christians, to bypass drama and simply love. Be there for the grieving when the audience/drama has left. Be the meal one month into the process for the family that is so fractured. Be the hug on a busy Sunday morning when worship has rubbed a stinging, healing balm into a shredded heart.  Be the quiet place for the mind that cannot make itself turn off the frantic internal screams of pain.

Grief is such a difficult, unpredictable process, and we all live it out in different ways. The Five Stages of Grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance) are worked out individually at times; sometimes, they gang up on you; they play out in unexpected ways. I think the key thing to remember is that they “play out.” 

If you’ve just gone through a deep loss, first of all, my heart aches for you. It doesn’t take much for me to tap back into what those early days felt like, and I will never forget what I went through (publicly and privately). Secondly, please remember that anyone that tells you to “get better,” or “get back into the swing of things,” or, “it is what it is,” or “just go back to work and stay busy, you’ll feel better!”—The person who says those things is not your friend, and is not a kind of counsel that you need right now. They may think they’re helping you, but they’re not. Grief is a pushy beast; she WILL be part of your life, and the more you try to stifle her, the more she will come out in other areas. Your health will suffer; your mental health will definitely suffer. Your entire world will suffer until you let yourself be free. You have to give Grief her time, even though the horrible world keeps right on spinning.

You have to give yourself permission to grieve.

Your family and friends need to give you permission to grieve, even in the midst of their own grief (assuming you have gone through this loss together), and they need your permission to grieve in their own way.

You have to be honest with God; He knows how you feel, even if you don’t even know yourself….even if you don’t want to talk to Him, or if all you want to do is scream at Him (or scream at Him and beat your steering wheel into a pulp—hey, at least I didn’t hit a person).

Please give yourself the gift of time. Let yourself feel; don’t wall yourself off. Know that you’re going to have good days and you’re going to have awful days. As time goes on, you’ll have more good than bad; but at first, those bad days are going to be more prevalent. It’s okay to have a bad day!!!!

Finally, please know that time really does heal. It doesn’t make it all go away—that’s a stupid, stupid myth.  In my case, I lost my daughter…she was literally a part of my body, and she was gone. I have scars, physically and spiritually…I will never be the same, and I embrace that (although I used to feel that I should be completely healed, now I know that my scars—seen and unseen—are more like a road map to redemption. They’re markers of healing, and of undeniable change). Time heals, but you will always have a marker in your heart, and it alters you.

And that’s okay.

Ten years is a long, long time…My grief is nothing like what it was, but there is a tenderness there that I will not apologize for. There are things to note in this season that I will probably ponder in my heart more than usual…questions that will come up, and debates I will resurrect with Jesus. The healing process is lifelong, I believe, but if we’re willing, it’s lifelong progress…

We have permission to grieve…permission to question…permission to hurt…We have permission granted by the very Savior Who willingly carries our every emotion and burden, and Who gives us the greatest gift of all:  Answered Hope.