Dear Cherished Students,
I want to tell you that your future will be beautiful. I'm telling you this because I think it's very possible that the media, or the Mayans, or a collage of irresponsible public posts of opinions and attack ads may have made you feel threatened and fearful. I think it's possible that you have been exposed to pictures that are too graphic, and news stories that are too sorrowful, and headlines that are too shocking to ignore. I think it's possible that you're on a steady diet of opinions passed off as truth, or misunderstandings turned into outrage, or loneliness converted to violence. I can imagine that you might feel that the world is easily illustrated by all of the words and images from TV, social networks, and the media that sting your eyes.
We can't allow headlines and posts on social media to force us to question all that we know to be true about the goodness of people. If we took a snapshot of every single moment we've experienced in our entire lives and lined them up one right after another, we'd see that a relatively small percentage of those moments were devastating, and virtually none of them weren't followed up sometime down the line with some other act of love, no matter how small. We'd see that people are good, love is powerful, and there is no shortage of goodness and love in this world. We'd see that even those acts of the most heinous kind generally go against what we've known to be true since the day we were
born. That's why we mourn so fiercely; tragedy is an exception to our daily understanding of the world, not the norm. Though it's hard to see when we're hurting and confused, humanity is love and growth despite, and sometimes because of,
struggles. Try not to think of a single event, or even twenty events, to be a crystal ball for the future. Think of it as an opportunity to look for the love and goodness that will inevitably show up.
I want you to know that you have a responsibility here. Just as our view of the world can be skewed by negative events and the chatter surrounding it, our worldview can also be skewed (or corrected) by reports and acts of love. Shouldn't we take control of how we all look at the world? Further, shouldn't we take control of how many snapshots of our daily life show love and goodness, rather than hurt? It's an easy thing to do, really. What would happen if in one day, or even one moment, everyone logged in to their social network profile and posted something beautiful about their daily existence? What if every person then went to another person's post and re-posted it? What would happen if what was viral was someone's posting of their baby sister's first laugh, or someone giving free hugs in the hallway? I can tell you that what's trending is loud, but we can be louder in about one minute.
What about this? How can we show the truth, which is that the world is filled with kindness and love? How can we remind ourselves, and our neighbors, that our futures are beautiful? Why not start on December 21st? It's a day of "rebirth," anyway. Don't be fearful. There is love here, and we all know it.
Love,
Your Teacher, Partner in Peace
The words you say
are like butterflies
or feathers.
They float in the air
in swoopy dances,
attracting attention.
Their colors and patterns
change with each new
appearance,
each word more intricate
and captivating
than the last.
The words you say
show an unblemished
view of the world that
I only wish I could glimpse.
I am a Grown Up, though,
So I preserve your words,
petrified in a glass shadow box.
Tiny pins display them
with labels.
The words you say
make me want to do,
to set free
those words
and replay them,
dance to them,
slide down them,
gather them in my hands
and release them to the wind
like dandelion fluff,
only to chase them down again.
I want to breathe them in
and sing them out.
I want to plant them in earth
until they've stained my hands,
soak them in sunlight,
let them grow.
Then,
and only then,
I want to show them to
other Grown Ups
so we can remember
how to see,
and live,
and speak.
Hey you,
I understand that your brother can drive you crazy sometimes. No, I can't take him back. No, a new baby in the family won't make your brother any less interested in you. Can I say that I believe that your brother is teaching you some valuable lessons in life? Here's what I've learned just by watching the two of you grow together.
1. At some point, someone will take something that you believe belongs to you. Even worse, he might slobber on it and rip it to shreds.
Ask yourself these questions: 1) Does that thing really belong to you? 2) Did you only take notice that you lost that thing when someone swooped in and began to value it? Maybe you don't value that thing as much as you thought. 3) Will crying and stomping solve the problem? It might make you feel better temporarily, but won't change the reality of the situation that you've lost something. Plus, incessant crying will only tire you out, sending you spinning into a tantrum rather than contentment. No one likes a tantrum...even the tantrum-thrower. Use your words in the place they are most impactful. If the item that has been lost is worth fighting for, then tell him that what he's done has upset you. Contact the authorities for help. Otherwise, find something else on which to focus your attention that is more valuable to you at the moment. Figure out what's worth fighting for and what you can let go.
2. Not everyone has to live by the same rules.
Yep, someone only has to eat three green beans while you have to eat five. Someone gets a one-minute time out while you get three. One of my favorite professors taught me that what is fair is not always equitable, and what is equitable is not always fair. What would happen to tiny newborns if we all had to eat five green beans at dinner? It's hard when you realize that someone else has different expectations placed on him, but perhaps it's time to celebrate what gifts you have that another might not, like the chance to stay up thirty minutes later, or the ability to eat ice cream when the other guy is lactose intolerant. Figure out what is absolutely awesome about being the exception to the rule, because we all are in some situations. Be thankful that life allows us to grow in our own ways.
3. A true gift from God is something (or someone) that didn't necessarily make your life exponentially more amazing, but rather something that adds to your understanding of the goodness and depth of grace.
That person who sometimes makes you want to pull out your hair is also that person who will stand in solidarity with you when you're in time out, or will take notice and cry when you're hurt. At the same time that that person will inspire you to act in a less-than-distinguished manner, he will also stand nearby until you gather yourself so that playtime can continue. That person will think of/chatter about you first thing in the morning simply because he has chosen you to fill his first waking moments, despite the fact that you had to stand in opposite corners the night before. That person will follow you and take an interest in you no matter how much you crave your personal space. The funny thing is, you'll find yourself drawn to him, too, sharing in his joy and sorrows without hesitation. You know why? Because the ups and downs of unconditional love shared by siblings is, in fact, graceful. You return to each other continually because of grace. You'll always have each other, no matter what degree of separation or obstacle, because of grace. Look through those cranky times to see what grace you've been given because of your brother and how you've shared that selflessly with him.
4. Letting others share their gifts enhances your gifts, too.
Sometimes other people will get recognition that you wish you had, too. There will be plenty of moments for you, too, because you are an incredible human being. Allow others to ooh and ahh over someone else without feeling threatened. It is fruitless to try to minimize someone else's gifts, because frankly, this world is full of spotlight mongers who bring about pain in their selfish quests. Your brother is the way he is because he has watched and idolized your gifts his whole life. He's also been blessed with some of his own unique gifts, just like you. You've shared your gifts with him just by being the person you are, just as you have soaked up his gifts by proximity. Be free in your knowledge that we are great because of the intertwining of, and not the competition between, the gifts each person in our family holds.
5. Everyone has poop in their pants one time or another.
It seems to stink up the atmosphere when someone is especially crabby or hurt about something. Even further, sometimes trying to clean up the mess brings on further despair because it's uncomfortable. However, avoiding that person does nothing to help the situation. The best thing I think you can do is to help distract the person while he gets things sorted out. In fact, some day you'll find yourself in a similar situation where you hope those closest to you will show some compassion and understanding, even when you feel vulnerable with your butt in the air. You'll get past it, and so does everyone else, eventually.
6. God gave everyone an instant, loving friend somewhere on this Earth. Aren't you lucky he is growing up in your house?
You, my dear, have an instant friend in a person who is growing up right along side you! This is not to say that your relationship won't be difficult at times, but trust me. You have something that no one else in the entire world currently has with your brother. He will never have any older sister other than you. You even share some similar genes that no one else has in this world. You are tied to him in so many ways that you don't yet understand. I hope that what we've given you is the best friend you could possibly ever find. It already makes my heart glad when the two of you delight in each other's company. At some point way down the road, it's possible that you two will support each other in ways that others can't quite fulfill in the same way. What you have is sacred and irreplaceable. It is profound.
Thank you for taking your job as a sister so seriously. For the journey ahead, bring your brother along with you. He'll want to tag along anyway.
Love,
Mommy
"My kids were screaming at each other. Screaming. They were telling each other to shut up, and then two of the girls just walked away from the group and have been ignoring everyone, including me, ever since."
We stood a short distance away from the mass of cheering sixth graders who were waiting to go into the dining hall for dinner. My frazzled partner was a high school junior who had been a buddy of mine for a long time. I taught her in sixth grade, brought her to sixth grade camp with me as part of the counselor in training program when she was an eighth grader, had mentored her as a high school camp counselor last year and now this year. A girl normally peppy and silly, Miss A wore panic on her face. She looked a little nauseated, actually.
"So what things have you done to try to get the two back into the group?"
"I've tried talking to them personally, tried explaining why I picked the other girls to read at the campfire, and they just wouldn't talk to me. They wouldn't even look at me. And now they're going to be mad for the last two days of camp and make it miserable for the other girls."
I glanced at her group of girls. Sure enough, two girls were sitting behind the rest with exaggerated pouts on their faces. They deserved some props for their efforts at looking miserable. "They were upset about not being picked for campfire to read your cabin's speech?"
"I think so, but they were talking and yelling so fast that I couldn't really understand, and then after the fight, they stopped talking to me."
"When did the fighting start? How did you figure out who would read at the campfire?"
"Well, I told the girls there could be auditions. But then I realized that there wasn't time for that, so I just picked a couple of girls who I thought would be good for it. I think that was the problem...they thought it wasn't fair that we didn't do auditions."
Inside my head, I had a "this-is-all-too-familiar" chuckle going on, but Miss A was in her own personal Hell, so I gave her a course in Sixth Grade 101--sixth graders will hold you accountable faster than any other species on Earth, so admit your faults when you've made them and then help them get past the perceived injustice without passing judgement on them. I gave her a few talking points and suggested that she try again to have a dialogue with the girls away from the rest of the group. Miss A nodded her head weakly, but still looked queasy.
"You can do this," I told her. "I'll be hanging around out back, so if you need me to help, just give me a signal." The crowd of kids pushed into the dining hall, so I sent her in to get some dinner and think for a bit before having her discussion with the girls.
In the meantime, I joined the eighth grade counselors-in-training for dinner. They were having a "working" dinner outside because they had had a huge disagreement over what performance to do at closing campfire (which was occurring in about one hour). The group was trying to work through their disagreements, but most kids were still largely "leading" each other by making their voices louder, or speaking most often. After an afternoon of studying conflict resolution, I found their situation to be quite ironic and a tad worrisome that maybe they wouldn't experience success after all.
And then I noticed Mr. Know. He was one of the most vocal leaders of the group for the last few days. He was the guy who knew how to solve every problem and complete every task, but his way of gaining support from his group members was by trying to quiet them and invalidate their ideas. They were beginning to resent him, based on their disregard of his suggestions and directions during their attempts to plan their performance. However, during this dinner, he caught my attention.
"Meeks has something to say. Just listen! She has an idea!" He had figured something important out. He had learned to use his skill in assertion and confidence to promote his group mate who was being ignored by the group (as a result of their group strategy of talking over each other to assert leadership). Once he noticed Meeks was trying to speak, he spoke up for her. He stopped promoting himself and instead focused his efforts on another's needs. An eighth grader!
I watched in fascination, but then noticed Miss A walking out the back door with the two grumpy girls. She glanced over at me and I gave her a thumbs up. She nodded and began a quiet conversation that I couldn't hear.
I then split my attention between the two sets of teenagers struggling to support other people. The eighth graders appeared to have established a protocol to hear everyone's voice, and Miss A had her hands on her knees, looking intently at the two girls who talked with crossed arms.
Then, the eighth graders began to practice their skit, giggling as they tried out various movements and lines. Miss A and the girls were sitting down in the grass together, a little more relaxed, and talking while picking at the grass.
Then, the eighth graders were applauding, whooping, and bowing at their audience of one supportive teacher. Miss A and the girls were standing up again, and she looked at me. Weary. I flashed the thumbs up. She gave a slight shake of the head. Mission incomplete.
I walked over and introduced myself to the angry sixth graders. I listened to their recounting of the tale of injustice all over again. I helped them process in an effort to get to the root of their anger, which was that they wanted recognition and praise from their counselor, but not knowing me at all, they weren't sure if I was on their side or not. Miss A apologized with tears in her eyes, and the girls seemed to be considering what to do next. Then, another of Miss A's former teachers, who happened to be a teacher of the sixth graders, joined the conversation. Then another teacher joined. The girls were quickly talked down (as you can imagine they would with three teachers standing there), and they shuffled inside with their tails between their legs.
Miss A looked completely spent. Her other teacher and I sandwiched her in a hug and reassured her that she had done everything she could with two very stubborn and typical sixth grade girls. She managed a smile and walked into the dining hall to finish her dinner with the other high school kids. I watched her flop down into her chair and immediately all twenty-something teenagers in the room swarmed her, piling hugs on top of hugs on top of hugs. They melted into a huge mass of hugging, laughing kids.
I knew I had achieved my goals for both leadership programs;
namely that teenagers realize that what's most important is how to fully
support those around them, regardless of who they are or how difficult
it might be. Real commitment means dedication and support without
condition, and I would venture to say that there are plenty of examples
in our culture today that communicate an entitled downgrading of
commitment. Commitment is limited by conditions and convenience these
days. I hope that kids who come to camp learn what it feels like for
someone to have their backs unconditionally. It's hard to commit to
something or someone unconditionally, but I want them to know that it's
possible for those who choose it.
Camp ended the next day without much fanfare, and life returned to normal. I was emotionally exhausted and knew I had to be prepared for potential criticism of the counselor and CIT program upon return to school. It's hard for students in our district to miss a whole week of our rigorous curriculum, especially in high school. It's difficult for their teachers to know what they're sacrificing their class time for. No matter how many times I try to communicate the power of the camp experience for teens, it's almost impossible to describe just how much a child can change over a few days outdoors with nothing to focus on but supporting the people around them and getting through obstacles together. It's one of those "camp" things, though, that you almost have to experience to fully understand. Anyway, I prepared myself for critical feedback. Although what I was hoping for was something similar to what the teens had needed to hear at camp from me and from each other: "I trust you. I support you. I got your back." I think I needed to hear that more than I want to admit.
I walked into my seventh grade classroom after camp was over and greeted my students for the first time in a week. On my desk was a folded piece of loose leaf with a scrawling message: "I love you. I missed you while you were gone. Welcome back!"
Hmm. Maybe kids understand more about unconditional support than I thought.
Expectations can color someone's entire experience of a situation. For example, there's a stop light near my house that Gracie fondly calls "The Silly Stoplight" (this is a misnomer, but the name Jon and I have given the stoplight is much less family-friendly). Anyway, I can expect that when I drive to the nearest major intersection to my house, I will have to wait at The Silly Stoplight for approximately two minutes and fifteen seconds. I have had a lifetime of visits to Grandma's house, sitting at The Stoplight just before getting there, to know that it's a reasonable expectation that The Silly Stoplight will halt my forward motion when I get close to it. It's Silly. While annoyed by The Silly Stoplight, my family and I also regard it like a Crazy Aunt Cathy--that's just how she is, so let it go. That's our family's Stoplight Standard.
However, despite the long-standing expectation that The Silly Stoplight will keep us waiting virtually every time, there have been some times that the Stoplight Cosmos has decided to randomly bend the laws of Stoplight Psychosis and cause The Silly Stoplight to remain green when I approach it. It's never predictable. Those days are like winning the lottery. Really, there is not much exaggeration surrounding the joy I feel when I'm not stuck at that....Silly...Stoplight. Then, my day is much more beautiful-seeming. Cartoon birds follow me to work. Then, on the way back home on those days when my stoplight expectations have been surpassed, inevitably The Silly Stoplight proves that our original Stoplight Standard was accurate; I get stuck at the light, and I fume. I spit and sputter because dang it! it rose above my expectations only nine and a half hours ago! I'm even madder than I would have been had I been stopped for the compulsory minutes in the morning as I had expected.
What I've found out, though, is that after sailing through the light in the morning, I have already re-evaluated my expectations and set a new expectation for my return trip from work. My new expectation is that The Stoplight is not such a douche bag after all. The Stoplight wants to let me through, in fact! That's a much more pleasant expectation anyway! Yes, my brain wants to believe that it is now true that The Stoplight will have mercy on me. I'd rather believe that! Alas, after days of cartoon birds and spitting and sputtering, I have learned over time that my expectation that I'll always make it through that light is unrealistic. It doesn't stop me from hoping for it, though.
I'm noticing lots of areas in my day, in fact, that setting expectations incorrectly can lead to quite the celebrations and quite the turmoil. I caught a student purposely violating our school's dress code by rolling her shorts such that they looked like junderwear (okay, if jean-type leggings are "jeggings", then...you get it now). I asked her to unroll her shorts as she passed by, and she unrolled with great care as she continued to walk away, glancing back at me very (not) innocently. My expectation in the situation was that she was probably going to roll them back up later and get away with her cheekiness because she wasn't going to see me again in all likelihood that day. In fact, I'm guessing that was her expectation, as well, because she had a look of horror and devastation on her face when she walked past me later and I sent her to the office. Her simple expectation, and the situation that violated it, really caused some turmoil! On the other hand, the violation of my expectation caused me to celebrate a victory over all middle school defiance and awkward sexiness attempts! Our expectations were inaccurate, and it turned out to be very bad, and very good (respectively).
Toddlers are great living examples of setting unrealistic expectations and seeing the consequences of this almost immediately. Zeke, for example, tends to expect that using his new-found vocabulary means that his parents will obey him. Immediately. He says "I walkkkk," his feet should touch the floor within ten seconds. He says "Pees," we should hand him candy. He says "Dabadi," we should [whatever the heck that means at the time]. He's learning steadily, and not without tears and screeching might I add, that his expectations aren't always reasonable. Sometimes they are, such as when he wants to "walkkkk" in the back yard, or when he's asking for more milk at dinner, or just about any time he makes a request and the timing and circumstances are right. The hard part about his expectations, and his process of discovering how to set them and reset them, is that for most things in life, expectations can't be fixed. They are fluid, depending on the state of the world, or the state of the people involved, or even the state of the stoplight. It takes a fine-tuned brain to be able to evaluate the practicality of an expectation and a fine-tuned heart to figure out what to do when an expectation isn't as practical as once thought. It's hard! It causes crying and screeching.
So here I am, currently evaluating my expectations. I'm fairly stubborn by nature, so, as illustrated with the stoplight example from earlier, once I have had success, that bar of performance tends to be my new expectation for myself.
It gets worse.
When someone else reaches success, I reset my expectations for myself to meet their level of performance.
It gets worse.
When someone tells me they think I can do something, or when I start fancying a new idea or problem to solve, I reset my expectations for myself to meet that only-speculated-about (and not yet real) level of performance. Case in point, I currently have set the following expectations of myself:
- I will take a group of high schoolers to camp to participate in a camp counselor leadership program that I'll be leading (and change their lives forever)
- I will take a group of eighth graders to camp to participate in a counselor-in-training leadership program that I'll be leading (and change their lives forever)
- I will take a group of seventh graders into my classroom, teach them a curriculum that is foreign to me with perfection (and change their lives forever)
- I will be part of a committee that will build a peaceful community of staff and students (and change their lives forever)
- I will be part of a committee that will be scholarly in our study of our content area, be revolutionary in its work for the district, and be impressive to the Board of Education (and change their lives forever)
- I will be a good teacher, teammate, colleague, friend, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, sister-in-law, mother, wife, Catholic, and general citizen of our country and possibly global community (and change all of those people's lives forever, too).
It gets worse.
When I don't meet my own expectations, I freak out.
Hmm. That makes me one Silly Someone who will never, ever meet all of the expectations I place on myself (and consequently will spend my life, or until I reset my expectations, freaking out). But resetting expectations is a painful process for me. Since my expectations are insanely high, resetting my expectations means lowering the bar, and then what? Achieve less? Appear weak? Watch opportunities fly by while the world forgets you were once there? I'd like to blame society or politics or something for this deep-seated feeling of insecurity, and I'm sure some Freudian investigation into my childhood might produce some answers, but there's not much point in dwelling on why my expectations aren't reasonable. It's probably better to spend time thinking about what realistic is for me, and using that support system that's come out of the woodwork in the last week to know that it's safe to reset.
I can't promise that the resetting that's about to happen won't produce cartoon birds on some days and fuming on others. Some days when I'm particularly in danger of not meeting my own expectations, my claws will be so deeply gouged into the stratospheric bar I've set that I'll be panicky if you suggest I let go. However, I'm thinking I'll finally get some rest when I've deemed it's reasonable to do so.
Right now, rest is looking pretty good.
Facebook has had just a tiny bit of poison lately. Sometimes I've left it feeling heavy. The best way I can describe it is just feeling a shade darker than I did before I looked at it, like I might feel after an unintentional insensitive remark from an acquaintance or friend. It's not like my Facefriends are angry people, and it's not that anyone has actually directed any insensitive remarks toward me, or said anything deliberately hurtful. The nature of Facebook is that I can read volumes of comments daily--probably hundreds if I'm particularly dedicated--which also means that I just absorb a ton of gunk. Breakfast menus, frustrations in traffic, baby milestones, vacation views, political stances, reactions to the world...I soak up everything that's out there, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the very ugly. Sometimes, it's enough to make me feel darker.
I can't say how many times someone inadvertently insulted me, or hurt me, by posting something on Facebook. I think that I have been lumped in various groups of designated idiots and a-holes just because I share a belief with someone else. Reading someone else's opinion on something is not enough to hurt me, but for some reason, Facebook seems to be the place where an opinion can acceptably be paired with an insult or sarcastic mockery. As a person who is working tirelessly, sometimes with very little result it seems, to eliminate this behavior from young teenagers, I worry about what we are willing to say about each other for the sake of getting a strong reaction from others. The "Like" button is a double-edged sword...it is encouragement at its best, and endorsement of poor ethical behavior at worst. No matter what, it's motivation for making reaction-worthy statements in cyberspace. At times, people feel most confident getting a reaction from negative, destructive statements that can tear down a large number of people at one fell swoop. I see this every day in middle school, by the way. We call it bullying. You don't have to call it that if it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Which leads me to think: perhaps if I feel darker, heavier, maybe someone else does, too. Maybe hundreds. Maybe thousands. In fact, I'm betting that a good portion of Facebook/social media users have been unintentionally hurt by their own friends or even family on Facebook by posts that have negative, insulting slants to them. I'm betting that a good portion of Facebook/social media users have posted something at one point or another that was destructive to another human being. Additionally, I'm betting that most of us were taught to have manners and be respectful to others by our parents and grandparents. Then again, we had to look people in the face when we were using our good manners. It's different when our words can hang there, suspended, isn't it? It's different when our audience is likely to be supportive of what we say and show us by bestowing us with "Likes" and emoticons. It's different when we can't visualize the other hundreds of people who are virtually staring at us as we say our impulsive quips. Isn't it time that we call ourselves on the very same behavior that we love to pin on adolescents as "bullying"? Isn't it time that we give ourselves a little bit of rest and peace from the dark?
Maybe I have thin skin. My dad always told me I'm too sensitive. I'll invite you to jump on his bandwagon only after I reiterate that I am not looking for a sterilization of opinions and statuses. I'm calling for a refocus on general manners on social media. Humor me for a second while I propose a new guidebook for Facebook etiquette.
The Guide to Facebook Etiquette:
1. Build someone up.
Actually, that's it. If you do nothing else on Facebook, make sure that whatever you post, whatever you say, is deliberately trying to build someone up. Bring happiness, not destruction. Protest in action, not in scathing remarks. Address problems face-to-face, not in text on a screen that has no face. Think, think, think before you put it all out there, because you never know who just became labored with your impulsive remarks. Facebook is like lightning; no matter what you post, it will reach hundreds more people a hundred times faster. Yep, that's every bit as much power in your hands as it sounded. Don't be tempted to send poison into the hearts of those who read your thoughts when you could literally bring happiness to hundreds with a simple change of word and intention. As I ask my students in my classroom to do as a rule of thumb when they walk in the door: Be kind. Be happy. Take care of each other.
Let's just own it. Let's put into action our passions, put into practice our compassion, put love into our words at every post. My precious-beyond-explanation, impressionable students are watching. And our hearts, all of our hearts, need lifting.
Bring it on.
Bust into my classroom laughing too loudly. Bumble down the hallways on the legs you grew over the summer without noticing who you just body-checked. Allow Sharpied unicorns and fairies to dance over your folders while you experiment with profanity on the bathroom walls. Complain to me about your parents, and then complain about me at lunch. Forget your pencil again, and again, and again. Flirt shamelessly in front of me and then blush when I call you on it. Laugh out loud when someone comments on your outfit, and sink in your desk the rest of the day. Wear Cookie Monster on your T-shirt and "Leave me alone" on your face. Wear "Leave me alone" on your face and hug me when I ask how you are.
Make me have at least three back-to-school nightmares that portray me as helpless in a room of thirteen-year-olds. Make me mask my intimidation on the first day of school while you mask yours. Make me agonize over a lesson plan only to toss it out and "wing it" when I see question marks in your eyes. Make me sing with joy and tear my hair out while grading one class set of papers. While grading one paper. Make me find the perfect book for you (and then make me have to work to peel you away from it). Make me wonder if we're connecting the whole year. Make me cry at least once in front of my colleagues, at least five times at home. Make me do back flips to keep your attention, and make my heart glad when you raise your hand. Make me think I know how you learn, and then make me rethink it. Make me teach you the best way I know how and still not be satisfied. Make me learn for you.
Keep me awake at night. Keep me alive during the day. I'm ready. Bring it on.
I bought myself a new shoe rack that accommodates thirty-six pairs of shoes. The bottom of my closet was covered in piles of shoes, and the scaredy-cat part of me didn't like digging through the shoes searching for pairs because of the possibility of crazy spider creatures and what not. I already have a hanging shoe organizer inside of my closet, but it only seems to work for my flats and other skinny shoes. So anyway, something else was in order for my chunkier shoes, such as heels and boots.
After all was sorted, I saw how motherhood has affected my shoe rack: my hanging organizer was full of sensible flats in all varieties of black, brown, and navy. The new rack was home to ten more pairs of shoes: two more pairs of flats (brown, black), three pairs of tennis shoes, one pair of clunky brown rubber-soled things, one pair of (flat, brown) boots, and three pairs of heels (black, brown, and fire-engine red). Seeing my shoe collection displayed in front of me, I was forced to think about a couple of very obvious truths. First of all, that pile o' shoes at the bottom of the closet made me think I had a much more sizable collection of shoes than I really had. I had forgotten at some point I had weeded out my heels from high school and early college. Second of all, out of the whole lot, I had exactly one pair of shoes that had any kind of sex appeal. I bought them three months ago, and I've never worn them before.
I say that motherhood changed my shoe rack because I'm not sure what else in my life has quite made me go from feeling sexy to frumpy in about eight hours as childbirth has. Let me tell you, the frump hung on both physically and emotionally. My body, well it was sagging after having my first baby. Skin was looser, posture was slumpy. I had a C-section, so my abs were shot. I was also just larger all-around; my feet were a whole size larger, and my waist and hips were two sizes larger. I thought, "This is it. This is the beginning of my motherhood body." I was twenty-five, and I had settled for fifty-five.
I went through my pre-pregnancy clothes and purged all of my size eights, all of my "going out" tops, and all of the sassy heels that would no longer fit my clumsy feet. I watched a lot of What Not to Wear to figure out how to dress this new body in a way that would conceal the curves modestly. I must not have followed their Rules very well, because I ended up dressing very matronly in clothes from the women's department. Curves were covered, but so was any hint of sex appeal, or femininity, or happiness.
It wasn't just the body. My mind was telling me that I wasn't sexy anymore, nor did I have any reason to be. Date nights with my husband switched from staying out past midnight exploring new venues in the city to going somewhere close by, checking our phones and the time for baby-related news--was it almost time to get back for nursing? Was the babysitter (grandparent) having any trouble getting the baby to sleep? Would we pay for this little disruption in baby's schedule for the next three nights? When you have a baby, no matter what parenting philosophy you align yourself with, the baby will never leave you. Not even on dates. Under such conditions, I had a hard time being fun and flirty and attractive. Also, I only felt like I was one dimension of desirable. The baby wanted me for food and comfort all day and all night. All. Night. Was I good for anything else? I didn't have time to find out. How could I reconcile the "old days," pre-pregnancy, when I could feel hot, with the new standard of living that included my baby bouncing around in my brain 24/7? It wasn't happening. I didn't realize that having a baby necessitated creating a new kind of sexy for myself. Not a quasi-sex appeal, either. A new kind of sexy.
For me, this was starting to be a desperate situation by the time my second child was born. If you spend
enough time not loving yourself, enough time pouring all of your energy into someone or something else, and spending most of your time trying to get used to the unfortunate idea that you are not and cannot be attractive anymore, it begins to be the norm that exudes
through your every day actions, words, and general mood. I was starting
to become a teacher, mother, and wife who had given up on feeling good about herself. Trust me, my students, children, and husband could tell. Neglecting myself was a lifestyle, which meant that I neglected them, too.
The first step in reinventing sexiness and virtually everything else is to figure out what can be changed and what cannot. My needed changes came in two categories: physical and emotional. If you're as impatient as I am, you also have to determine of the things that can change, which can change the fastest with the least amount of disruption to your life.
Physically, things that could not change were stretch marks, foot size, and the happy little veins that had been steadily appearing on my legs. I had to start loving those things somehow. But I could easily change the clothes I wore, my hair, and how I wore make up. It didn't have to be expensive, either. I grew my hair long and used some product to pump up the waves. I bought some new make up and experimented with wearing it in different ways. I shopped at trendy resale shops so that I could feel better financially about buying pieces that were bright and bold and sassy and wouldn't be considered "classic." Enter: fire-engine red platform pumps. Back to those in a minute.
Emotional changes were going to be less easy and quick. I was overwhelmed majorly and could barely admit it to myself. There was the voice in my head that was saying, "Help! I need time to myself every single day! Uninterrupted! I need a date night at least twice a month (every weekend preferable)! I need to hang out with my girlfriends sans children! I need freedom to get out of the house at some point each day of the weekend!" Then there was the other voice that was telling me to be sensible and mature. It was telling me that I was craving my life before children, and I just couldn't have it. I needed to get used to life with children. I suppressed my real wants because I was afraid of seeming selfish. Really afraid.
After some serious postpartum anxiety/depression and counseling after my second baby, I learned that I needed to take care of myself any way I could, which included saying out loud what I had been previously desiring in secret. My husband and I learned to start planning time for freedom as a couple and as individuals. Free time had to be carved out of our schedule because if it wasn't, then it would get totally railroaded by the daily demands of our family. After weekly social workouts with a girlfriend, I found how calm I tended to feel back at home--and that was just once per week. I was parenting much more actively, and with more patience. Surprise, surprise--when I started to feel successful with parenting, I started to feel confidence in myself. Was I...was I a strong woman?
So back to those pumps. My husband and I were out of town for a weekend alone (!) for the first time since our kids were born to attend a wedding. I had a new dress, new chunky jewelry, and a new palette of sassy eye shadows (everything from pink to yellow to teal). During an afternoon of shopping, I saw some patent-leather fiery red platform heels for $5. I figured that God had put a little bit of crazy-cheap foxy footwear in front of a woman with a new-found confidence and a thrifty spirit for a reason. I put them on. I walked down the aisles. I asked Jon his opinion (I don't know why I do this. He will never disagree with me or utter a negative word about matters regarding how I look and my menstrual cycle). I hemmed and hawed. It's not like the price was holding me back. These shoes just seemed to be for someone who knows her sex appeal and likes to flaunt it. These shoes said, "I am fierce!" They said to others on the street, "I want you to look at me." I wasn't sure if I was ready to take on these shoes. I wasn't sure I had it yet. I was a mother, after all. Moms don't wear sex on their feet.
I bought them. I didn't wear them to the wedding. My excuse was they would hurt my feet, and my feet looked too "old and vein-y" in them. No one said that new confidence and new feelings of hotness never got diluted with mom brain. I wasn't quite hot enough for the shoes in my head.
It's funny how a pair of shoes can represent so much more to a woman than just footwear. Men don't understand why someone might need to buy a shoe rack with thirty-six-pair capacity, or why it's sad when only one pair of shoes in a twenty-something's shoe collection are sexy and vivacious. Shoes represent our various moods, and we wear them accordingly. My shoes had all become glum, a smattering of muted colors to match my muted feelings about myself. There was a reason I bought the red platforms. I suspect my most heartfelt reasons were similar to why a woman might save a bikini from college--a small reminder of what was once part of her womanly identity and confidence, and also a craving to reclaim a similar confidence and identity in a new way. I bought those shoes to begin to break the barrier of self-denial that the first couple of years of motherhood built smack on top of my feminine allure. To be blatantly unoriginal, I wanted my sexy back.
I haven't worn the shoes yet. But the first step has been taken--they are on display on a new shoe rack outside of my closet, rather than buried under a mound of black, brown, and navy. I'll see them every time I pick out an outfit. One of these days, the shoes will come out and take their first walk into the real world. I'll be self-conscious, I think, but I also think that the world will be extremely kind to me. I plan on reworking the whole notion that motherhood is not sexy. Not really for other people, but for myself. Who'll join me?
Last night, Gracie began her familiar routine at the top of the stairs after she had already been put to bed. Tonight it was, "It's too dark to fall asleep!" followed by, "I'm scared!" These assertions came after she relieved her bladder, which she was "saving up" until after I said goodnight so that she had a reason to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. I'm not making this up. When I put her to bed, I'll tell her, "Goodnight. I love you. Now please stay in bed--no reading, no playing. It's night-night time," to which she'll reply coyly, "Stay in bed unless I have to go potty." Then I have to resign, head downstairs, and listen for her jubilant flushing five minutes later. She'll then immerse herself in very thorough hand-washing, as if she's scrubbing in before a surgery. She's three, but she's smart.
Her methods of avoiding going to sleep have always been deliberate, clever, and well-orchestrated, even since she was a baby. She was a nightmare to sleep-train; we spent many nights listening to her scream, and on nights when we couldn't take the screaming, our "soothing" techniques looked kind of like those live statue people who make a move like once every two minutes. First pose is with the baby sleeping in the crook of the arm, then shift to awkwardly bent over the crib with the baby on the mattress still snuggled in the crook of the arm, then the sliding-away-of-the-arm maneuver with hand on the baby's belly, then slowly, slowly slide the hand away, then back away one toe at a time, and not a breath until you make it out the door. Then the door would creak, and baby would cry out in her own language, "You tried! You failed! Now get back in here, sucker!" And then it would be 30 minutes more until we made it out the door again. Once Gracie figured out our soothing routine, she actually began holding our hands against her chest when she noticed we were beginning to slip away toward the door . You want to know how to kill a mother with guilt? You teach her nine month old to grasp onto her hand, pressing it to her little belly, so that she won't leave for the evening. It was a brilliant way to buy more time with mommy, and to cause mommy to question if she really had any parenting instincts at all.
Once she was old enough to sleep in her own bed, the unrestricted nature of the twin mattress on the floor gave Gracie a new way to fight sleep. She'd wander out into the hallway where the light spilled out of the bathroom onto the carpeted floor. We'd find her sleeping in the wedge of light more often than I'd like to admit. We dutifully placed her in a pack and play in her bedroom after that for awhile so that she might sleep better. We bought her a princess night light, a fish night light, a soothing sounds machine. Then we were back to crying at bedtime (mostly her, but sometimes me too).
Nowadays, language is a valuable tool for her in her quest for sleep avoidance. She can tell me all the reasons why she cannot and should not go to sleep on time. She also can verbally justify why she hasn't surrendered to sleep, or why the light is still on at 10:30 ("I couldn't find Baby Ashley, and she was crying"). The reasoning becomes more and more elaborate and honestly reasonable. I find myself negotiating with a three year old ("I'm not that tired yet, so I'll read two books and then go to sleep," which sounds pretty good to me by the time it's an hour into the bedtime process and I'm fantasizing about the couch).
Yep, my daughter is a world-class sleep avoider. It's not malicious. In fact, when she says she's scared, I believe her. She is just like me.
I was always afraid of the dark. It takes almost nothing to trigger my imagination; I'm one of those people who believes anything is possible, no matter how irrational it seems. Monsters in the closet? Plausible. Ghosts wandering around my bedroom? Probable. I remember spending many sleepovers lying awake in unfamiliar houses, whispering to random friends and hoping that they weren't sleeping. I remember sprints into the basement to retrieve an item and back out again before I even let out my breath. I remember people in my family talking about encounters with "haints" and praying that I didn't genetically inherit the ability to have tea with some dead guy, or converse with his equally dead mother. The dark always caused my imagination to go into overdrive, usually filling me with fear of the unknown, of the paranormally possible. I don't know if the fear was exacerbated more by the fact that the darkness seemed to impede my vision, therefore reducing my security about what was near me, or more by the fact that the times I was most afraid were times when I felt alone.
When Gracie was at the top of the stairs last night, lingering in the bathroom light and saying she was scared, I had to recall those times as a child where the dark rendered me irrational. I know that in any of those times when fear paralyzed me as a child, I only wished for a person to be there to remind me of what's real and safe. On the other hand, if I've learned anything about fear over the years, it's that unless it is addressed internally and overcome personally, it will only persist the next night, or next time we don't have a full understanding of the world surrounding us. When faced with fear, we might first need someone to step in to hold us for a little while, but then we really need them to show us the tools we already possess to overcome fear. We need to know that we can control it.
I eventually figured out that I could own the dark and overcome my fear when I became a camp counselor. Camp was the ultimate test of the heeby-jeebies. First of all, as with many camps, there were dozens of ghost stories and sightings reported that I believed, of course. Besides the hauntings, there were critters and creatures and an extremely pitch-black walk back to my cabin late at night across a lonely dam and up ninety-seven stairs in the woods. My cabin had no electricity, and lots of mice. Anyway, I began an instant friendship with a mega flashlight that illuminated a fifteen foot circle around me.
My co-counselor wasn't afraid of anything, and he criticized my humongous flashlight because it attracted hoards of moths and ruined his night vision when he was trying to enjoy walks back to our cabins. He told me that my flashlight and I needed to part ways. "Doesn't that, you know, weird you out to be walking in the dark and not being able to see what's near you?" I asked him casually. He said something to the effect of, "Well, we'd be able to see if not for your T. rex of a flashlight." He convinced me to leave it in my back pack for our walks across the dam and up to our village. It turned out that he was right about the night vision thing. I could see well enough to find my way, and it was actually rather reassuring to feel like I wasn't disturbing the universe with 5 D cell batteries worth of light blaring from my hands. After weeks of walking in the blackness of night, I decided to try it solo. I won't say that my heart wasn't trying to leap out of my chest for the first few minutes, but I reminded myself that I had taken this walk many, many times before with a friend. Couldn't I, for the remainder of the walk, be the same girl I was when walking with him? I held on to the thought that I was the same person, and the world was the same, whether I was alone or not. I made it the whole way, and didn't turn on the flashlight for a walk again.
I just needed to know that I had the means to take control of what I felt was controlling me. I needed evidence, and maybe some encouragement, that I was safe regardless of the thoughts that told me otherwise. I needed to see the brave version of me. Surprisingly, she was there the whole time.
I picked Gracie up and told her how brave I know that she is. I gave her evidence from the day, such as when she conquered the giant slide at the indoor play place, or when she repeatedly worked on diving under the water for toys at the pool, even though she's just started learning to swim without floaties. She grinned, because she knew it was true. She is big, and strong, and brave. I asked her to show me her big, strong, brave Gracie face, which caused her to flex her muscles like Arnold and clinch her teeth like Donatello (the Ninja Turtle, not the sculptor). I asked her if we could have a do-over with tucking in, only this time, Brave Gracie would be there instead of Scared Gracie. She readily agreed. For the first time in awhile, if you don't count the stalling after the first tucking-in, Gracie went to sleep willingly and confidently.
I'm not saying that Gracie and I will never be scared again. Heck, I stayed up a full night last week because I saw a brown recluse in my bedroom. But I do know that we both have to expose fear and understand it for what it is: our brains trying to coax us into being comfortable with our imagined weakness. For some reason, it's easy to tell ourselves that we cannot be strong, or that being strong will mean that we'll be hurt somehow. While it's true that being brave sometimes means we're stepping outside our comfort zones, it also means that venturing out into the dark sometimes will make our comfort zones a little bit bigger, a little at a time. Tonight, Gracie might yet again be afraid to go to sleep. However, the difference between tonight and last night is that she now knows there's a brave version of herself that can go to sleep without extra lights and without grasping her mommy's hand to her chest. I hope that eventually Brave Gracie can help her through times when she's a little scared. If not, I'll be waiting in the wings with an extremely obnoxious flashlight.
I caught my husband looking at me in some mundane moment in the hallway. I had been walking in my sock feet, hair in the same style since last evening, and for some insignificant reason, I changed direction. For a split second, I turned and looked at him, and saw that his eyes had already been fixed on me. He had a soft expression on his face, a tiny smile lingering. It was an expression that I don't see often, as I am now discovering that we spend most of our time with our eyes focused on other things. But we were, for a miniscule amount of time, on a common channel, with crystal clarity. Then the common sounds of our home, the electric melody of toys, crashing of block towers, and two little dueling babblers, came washing through. I knew then that an arbitrary change of direction in an arbitrary location at an arbitrary time in the afternoon hadn't been arbitrary at all. God had scheduled a meeting with the three of us.
I walked up to my husband and said, "You looked at me happy." Not the most beautiful English, but I said what I meant in as few words as possible.
Now I would like to expand.
Several days ago, I was in the back yard mingling with some of my relatives. My eyes scanned the area; kids were splashing down the water slide as a cluster of adults looked on from outside the splash zone. A group of women were seated at a folding table underneath the canopy while a cluster of men sat in camping chairs under the maple tree. A couple of families congregated around the baby pool, laughing at the diapered kiddos splashing each other. My eyes rested on Jon. He stood at the grill in the 104 degree heat, the air shimmering above the sizzling hamburgers and hotdogs. He was wiping his forehead with the back of the hand that grasped the spatula while the other oven-mitted hand held the lid open. He had long since shed his orange collared shirt, his grey t-shirt clinging to his back. I watched him for awhile as he heaped each plate with the latest grilled delicacies to bring inside to the warmer. It was one of those agape moments--a moment where I felt some kind of not-from-me love fill me up when I looked at him. Nothing else was in my consciousness at that tiny moment, not the heat, not my guests, not even what my children were doing. It was no question that he was at the most miserable spot in the whole yard, and he was there willingly, happily. For me. Had he seen me looking at him, and had the same thought occurred to him as occurred to me when we made eye contact in the hallway, he might have said, "You looked at me happy."
I find myself looking at my husband in that agape way more often than rarely, but sadly, less often than usually. It's true that we spend most of our time throughout the day with our eyes on other things (usually our kids, or the house, or our computers, or the TV). To each other, we are "every day." We are part of each other's background. We are part of each other's daily existence. We have not lost value to each other; we have simply become so much a part of each other's lives that our view of the world doesn't change much when one of us crosses the other's path. It's like standing on a rock for so long that you stop consciously thinking that the rock is the whole reason you are closer to the sky. It becomes difficult to separate out the little moments throughout the day that are expressions of that agape love--that love that came from somewhere else beyond understanding. However, when these agape moments do occur, no matter how slight, I remember how amazing, how truly miraculous it is that we even were brought together.
Then I start to feel small. Then I start to wonder how in the world I managed to end up with a man of such integrity,
drive, responsibility, and work ethic. There are plenty of people in
this world who end up devoting at least some parts, if not all of their
lives to people who deflate their souls. As I have stated before, I am
not in the least bit more deserving than anyone else of any grace from
God. I am often struck by the fact that a series of personal choices
create a delicate web that connects one person to another. If I hadn't
have chosen
to attend my high school, I never would have had the need to join a
carpool; if I hadn't joined a carpool, I never would have befriended my
husband, etc etc etc. That's the thing about free will: one small
change in choice can completely, infinitely change the whole pattern of
the web, and the people involved in it. I have to admit that I'm
tempted by the apparent randomness of it all, which makes my thoughts
about my marriage a little more irrational. It's weird, but I try to
make sense of how
purposeful our lives' intertwining was/is, because if our joining was
for a reason, orchestrated by a benevolent God, then surely he won't be
taken away from me for no reason.
Right?
Okay, I know that's not right. I guess I have a little guilt related to the possibility that one day time will be up.
Guilt because there are many, many times that I don't recognize my
husband for the irreplaceable gift that he is. When I do stop to think
about it, I don't even tell him that he has fulfilled me more than I
know how to explain or rationalize. What's even worse is that I know I
must cause him to suffer insecurity from time to time, insecurity that
he can't somehow keep me happy at times when I seem anxious, stressed,
or depressed, or at times when I choose to spend my evening blogging
instead of talking to him, despite the inordinate amount of effort he
puts into our children and the managing of our finances and household. His role in our house and our family is nothing less than charitable and foundational. He has devoted his life to serving us. But it only occurs to me sometimes to stop, take a breath, and look at him happy. I only sometimes acknowledge the rock on which I am standing.
As I've been writing in this blog, I've discovered that while I've explored many topics and facets of my life that intrigue me, I haven't brought in the one element of my life that helps me feel a love that is outside of myself. I haven't illuminated the part of my every day that makes me touch fingertips with God occasionally when I look at him. I want to acknowledge my husband now, not as a gratuitous, cheesy tribute, but to fill the space between agape moments when he might wonder where we stand with each other as we watch TV quietly, side by side. Let it be known, you, that my every day is spent in awe of the fact that somehow, despite our own individual choices and flaws, we are delicately, but unbreakably joined. And for that, I am (constantly) happy.
Peering out the window this morning as I sipped my coffee, I noticed that an 8-10 foot long, hefty dead branch had snapped off of a tree in the back yard and had come to rest on the power line that extends between our house and the pole. The power line hadn't come down, thank goodness, but the branch was suspended precariously between the tree trunk and the line. "That's...lucky," I mused out loud, considering that we had just had a back yard full of family members only two days ago. I decided that was a crisis narrowly evaded.
That tree, it turns out, was a beloved staple of my back yard, which was my grandparents' back yard when my older cousins were growing up. As I was schmoozing with relatives at our soiree, my cousin asked me, "How's the tree?" Glancing around at the five prominent trees nearby, I followed his gaze to the stout maple standing in the middle of the yard. He marveled at its growth since he last saw it years ago, reflecting that it was a piece of living history; his sneakers had scudded up the trunk on many, many journeys into the sturdy branches as a kid. As he studied the tree, he asked about the maintenance of it--was it hard to take care of? Me, being about as opposite from a arboriculturist as I can be, murmured something about having to cut off a few dead branches here and there, but nothing special. It was a tree long-established in the yard...doesn't it kind of take care of itself? My cousin wasn't really looking at it from an arboricultural perspective, either. But, he recognized the tree, and his connection to it, as fragile, despite it's relative strength and age. He was thankful, I think, that this fleck of memory was still standing, in all its glory, in the yard in which he had experienced ultimate childhood joy. It was then that I began to realize the ultimate responsibility that I now have, as the owner of my grandparents' house. I am the maintainer of memory.
When I moved into this house two years ago, I had already begun piecing together a mental quilt of memories, gathered from my various childhood experiences in rooms throughout the house--here is the fourth-stair-from-the-top that always squeaked when Grandma came up for bed, telling me that all was safe and she was only across the hall from me through the remainder of the night. Here is the desk where Grandpa taught me how to balance a checkbook at the age of eight. Here is the counter where Grandma opened the horse-shaped cookie jar for a little snack after lunch. Here is the den where Grandma prayed her daily rosary (and where many matches in Pong took place on the Atari). The history of the house, as I had experienced it, pieced together nicely in my first couple years of living here.
Throughout the reunion weekend, I collected bits and pieces of information about the memory and history that my house holds. Conversations with cousins, aunts, and uncles offered some more layers to my understanding of collective memory, and showed the fragility of a family, just like the old maple. Here is the yard that was home to wiffle ball games in the summer humidity. Here is the spot under the staircase where my uncles would secretly talk to their girlfriends on the phone, the phone number for a certain "Paula" etched into the bottom of the painted stairs. Here is the bedroom window the boys would tap on so my aunt would let them in the house after curfew. Here is the living room where a heated argument peaked with my grandfather being shoved across the space by his angry son, signaling the beginning of a lifelong chasm between father and son, dreams and reality, moral dignity and violent temper. Here is where the two recliners stood, side by side, my grandmother sitting quietly, pensively in hers while the other remained empty for two years before she finally returned home, as well. I watched my family members wander through the house, their personal memories adding color and music to the walls, emotions sinking into the wooden floors and drywall. I sensed the connection each person had with this space, and the eventual bittersweet separation they all experienced as we closed the old storm door behind the last guest.
This space is mine now, but in a way, is not totally mine. The floors that I sweep (occasionally) have only belonged to generations of my family since the house has been built. Before my own children's toddler toes were the tiny feet of my cousins and me before that, and my father and his siblings before that. I try to remember, on behalf of my family, all that took place here. I try to honor those memories by taking care of the house, from the fourth-from-the-top squeaky stair to the decaying branches of the maple tree. I wouldn't say the house is always in tip-top shape, and I sometimes feel self-conscious, like my grandmother is looking down at the mess with eyebrows raised. I try, though. It takes frequent calculated efforts, especially in the case of this weekend, when we tried to prepare our house (despite the opposing efforts of my children) for thirty-eight people to have dinner here.
Many of my relatives made a point to tell me that the house looks great. Of course, after weeks of cleaning, painting, and organizing, it felt gratifying to hear it. But I think my greatest satisfaction was watching the house fill up my family, as my family filled up the house, the basement, the yard. I saw my cousins fall in love with the house, and my grandmother especially, all over again simply by stepping inside, or looking at the trees. I felt fulfilled watching generations of my family re-establishing connections with each other in a place, and because of a place, that is everyone's common denominator--a place that I am able to love and cultivate every day. I know this house is at the most basic level a structure of planks and floorboards, screws and nails. But at its highest potential, this house is a sacred space, a prayer of thanksgiving for over fifty years of a family's commitment to each other, and a source of fulfillment for those who come inside.
It's possible that some day this house will no longer belong to my family. It's possible that all that has happened here will have to be preserved in our hearts and minds, rather than a physical interaction between family and home. Until this house is no longer in my possession, I promise to continue developing what was started here long before I was born. I'll try my best to preserve my family's memories so that they may access them more clearly each time they visit. I'll take advantage of the love that envelops me daily as I live out my life here. I will maintain the house as it has maintained all of us, day by day, gathering by gathering. I'll carry this part of my family's history like an Olympic torch and trust that our history here will feed and fulfill all future families inside these walls. It's my responsibility, and it's a gift.
Preparing my house for an upcoming family reunion barbeque has forced me to confront some ugly truths: 1) Spiders enjoy the nooks and crannies of my home, as they are undisturbed by dust cloth or broom most of the time, 2) Some of the sticky splotches on the floor are quite stubborn simply because they have been happy, stepped-over squatters for...ahem...weeks, and 3) dust builds up quickly, even on items that are used daily, like lamps, headboards, and stairs. I live in this space daily! How do surfaces in my house look, upon closer inspection, like the surface of the moon (in the case of the dust), or like a scene from Arachnophobia (in the case of the spiders), or like...something that's been splattered with unknown slop (in the case of my floors)?
With the exception of some who really make cleaning a priority, there have to be some parents who feel my pain when they look at their cozy homes. Any of you familiar with the "Company's-Coming-Scramble"? That's the half hour before people come over when you shove stuff in closets and wipe off the most noticeable splotches and then stir up a cocktail to be sipping in a reclined position when the doorbell rings. And then you apologize profusely for the state of your house that is not nearly as bad, in the main living areas, as it normally is. But we pretend like this recently freshened-up state is natural, and we pray that the person visiting is completely fooled and completely not disgusted by our living conditions, or at least polite enough not to shatter my delusions. I can remain inside my head, trying to ignore the critical cleaning fairy buzzing around telling me, "What is wrong with you? Your kids are wading through the dust, except when their shoes are stuck in the goo!" The irony of it all is I'll go visit another family's house, who have most likely just labored through the Company's-Coming-Scramble, and I'll marvel at how they manage to live in such a gorgeous space and still keep up with their sticky, slobbery, yet endearing children. Then the critical cleaning fairy turns into the self-critical-in-general fairy and demands to know why I can't get it together enough to have an up-kept house...oh, and also an up-kept family...oh, and also an up-kept marriage...oh, and also an up-kept classroom with up-kept students...it goes on and on. I just want to keep up with everyone else who seems to be keeping up.
Last year after Zeke was born, I found myself trying to keep up--mostly with my sisters-in-law who each added second children to their families just months before. I wanted to do what they could do...be home with the kids while my husband was at work/coaching, cart a toddler and a newborn around with me without seeming to freak out when all hell broke loose in a long grocery line, and be able to genuinely joke about the quirks and idiosyncrasies of only sleeping two hours at a time (or less). Then, my baby had a milk protein allergy and I had to completely change my diet. Then, my baby contracted RSV. Then, my husband went to the state tournament for four days after what seemed like too many days of losing him to wrestling tournaments and meets. Then, my husband had ankle surgery two days later and had to be off his feet (and unable to carry a baby) for six weeks. I made myself believe repeatedly that I could cook dinner, and nurse a baby through the night, and help a two year-old with bedtime, and keep the house clean, and exercise, and act happy the whole time. I tried so very hard to keep up. As a result, I began to have panic attacks. I began to fear everything, all day long.
I called my sister-in-law at her office (she's our children's doctor) originally with the goal of getting some reassurance about my baby having such a nasty virus, hoping to calm at least one of my fears that seemed to be hanging over my head like a cloud. As I talked to her, I was trying to joke about how crazy life was for us, and then I completely lost it. I had never cried in front of her, so I was feeling awkward, but it felt good to be blubbering about how totally inept at motherhood I was feeling. I remember her saying to me, "Erin, I always think about how calm you seem to be. I always wonder how you deal with everything without getting upset." I was shocked at first that she thought that I was so composed all of the time, especially when I had been trying to be more like her. But when I thought about it more, I realized her impression of me was just because I was trying exceptionally hard to be good at something, or at least seem that way. I had done it successfully for awhile, but I had seriously damaged myself in the process. It's a hard lesson to learn that doing my best is not always going to be enough by itself (or by myself). Yet I repeatedly try to believe it.
So what happens when we all try to keep up with the Joneses, and we're all the Joneses? My feeling is that there's a great deal of competition going on between neighbors, with considerable pressure to stand out, or to seem like we're winning at life. Very often it's unstated and uncouth to acknowledge it, especially between family and friends. Check out some Facebook statuses, and following comments, for some great examples of this. One mother updates about her child's latest above-average accomplishments; another mother responds that he must be an unbelievable (code word for frickin) genius! One person posts a picture of the sunset over the ocean, cooing "My view before a candlelight meal," and another person responds that they are "jealous ;-)", and we all know that the winking face really means "like seriously, keep that to yourself while the rest of us are waiting in the longest line (of traffic or people) known to man." What we put out there for people is purposeful, whether it's on Facebook or in our homes. It's showing our daily life successes, and it's showing disappointment when we don't have what someone else does. It's constant competition because we all want the prize of being the best at something. But the truth is, 99% of the time, our individual best isn't good enough to be the best. And yet we spend our time passive-aggressively peacocking, or comparing ourselves to the peacock.
I think we're all victims of society's conviction that we should win, and we should be able to do it alone. I know I face the side effects of competition for an unattainable prize daily. I strive to win at parenting, writing, teaching, or just plain old existing every day, and usually not consciously. And then I start wondering why I feel so crappy about my parenting and housecleaning in comparison to other parents I know, who never seem to be suffering from insecurity and self-doubt. I become a slave to the Company's-Coming-Scramble to appear to other people that I am winning. I even post clever updates on Facebook to make myself feel better about what I'm slowly beginning to learn about being just one out of seven billion people. I will not always win. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't even matter if I lose every race I participate in (by the way, I am leaving that dangling preposition as a rebellion against winning at grammar). What I have to start realizing now, I think, is that the process of trying to win brings along with it genuine, blissful joy when we think we're winning, and hopefully (and more importantly), deep and reflective humility when we aren't. Really, if I was the best mother, the best wife, the best house cleaner
all of the time, I'd have absolutely nothing to strive for, and I'd be a hard, empty shell of a person. I might as well surrender to this now. In fact, since winning is a statistical impossibility, I should probably be spending most of my time with my face to the floor in reverence to the only one true perfection (my Creator). Because I'm pretty sure that my faith and prayer are the only things that have gotten me through many-a realization that I'm not (cannot be) winning.
So here's my prayer for this week, as I try to make my house and yard look like it is effortlessly maintained for the sake of impressing my family:
Lord, grant me the grace and humility to realize that I don't have to win to have value. That I am loved and can be loved, even when my house, or my family, or my life is a mess. Help me celebrate success and reflect on failure as two different ways to encounter Your love for me and the world. Amen.
