*written on Sunday* I’m sitting in a hotel room by myself. Melissa and Kristen had earlier flights today and so they’re gone. (sad face) There’s an ad on TV right now for a bracelet you can wear that will solve all your problems. Seriously, I need one. According to the riveting infomercial this bracelet makes you feel happy and sleep soundly and also keeps you from tipping over when someone pulls really hard on your arm. When I pushed the ‘on’ button on the television I realized that this is the first time the zone-out box has been on in this room the entire time we were here. And just look at what we’ve been missing! (sarcasm) It’s really good for me to do things like this. (Not the TV watching, but the attending of the blog conference.) What I mean by that is that it’s good to step out of my comfort […]
You know that rumbly sound of slurping the last of your drink through a straw?I can’t decide if I love or hate that sound.Maybe I should decide to like it because it’s a satisfying sound of finishing, being sure to get every last drop of something tasty. And maybe I should hate it because it’s a belchy kind of irritating satisfying sound. I feel this way about sobriety. Some days I’m absolutely in love with its satisfaction, and other days (ahem, yesterday) I hate the itchy irritation of it. When I was drinking I was trying to take the edge off. What I’m learning is that it wasn’t working, not at all. My edges are more rounded now than when I was pouring glass after glass night after night. I’m softer and lighter and different. The thing is, sober or not, alcoholic or not, life is covered in itchy irritation. So when I’m […]
The last time I drove byit hurtto think back on her,on menot so long agobut so long ago I came that way againturning my eyes to the laketo see the changesthe new housesthe remodelsthe spaces wherecabins once stood In came a hundredmemoriesof a twenty-somethingparty girlwho lived on the great wide andgreen lake What would she ask me?I thoughtWhat would she want to knowabout who she would become,who she would be becoming? You’ll be okayI’d tell her,then. now.but you are taking a terriblylong wayto okay.It’s starting nowand you knowbut you don’t know You will have a new lifewhile you’re still both youand a wife and a momand you will feel like bothand carry too muchof the now with youthen The pit of your stomachmay never forget thisversion of yourself,brokenby yourself,and not yourselfby he and themand her and him But your heartwill start to heallong from now,the nowon the lake,and you will seesomehowin the blue […]
I pretty consistently feel peaceful with a dash of joy and gratitude and maybe even a little serenity these days. But that doesn’t mean I’m always happy. I’m often irritable or tired or just plain out of it. My happiness is fleeting because I believe that’s what happiness is. Fleeting like a caffeine high or that little lift in your belly when you’re on an elevator, maybe after some good news or an achievement or a hormonally good day. This is why they say that happiness is a choice. It’s sporadic and temporary and we want it so badly we choose to force it in the midst of fatigue and the hard things of life. We chase it like a drug and believe we’ve failed if we don’t feel it all the time. I used to expect this fleeting feeling to stick, and then I’d grow frustrated with myself for not being able […]
“I didn’t want to get well, because if I got well, nobody would come and save me anymore. And I didn’t want to get well, because while I could not control my happiness, I could control my misery, and I would rather have had control than live in the tension of what if.” –Donald Miller in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years(This post is brought to you by the fact that I finished this book last night and my mind is reeling with good thoughts to think. Thank you (again), Donald Miller.) _______________ We need breath-taking stories in our lives. We’re made for these stories, and too often we don’t choose them. We don’t write the book or apply for the job or propose or adopt that child or take that trip or dance because we’re scared. And then we stay just where we are and wonder why life is boring and […]
I finished Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller on Friday. Then on Saturday I went to pick up his latest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. As Anne Lamott says, “I love Donald Miller. He’s a man after my own heart.” I’m going to have to paraphrase a line from Blue Like Jazz because I’ve already given my copy of the book to a friend. There is no more powerful drug than the addiction to self. (Sorry, Don. I probably butchered that. That line I’m remembering was probably more poetic and profound and probably hilarious, because that’s just you.) Anyway. Of course I thought of this line on Saturday when there I was, with myself taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror for myself’s profile pictures on the world wide web. Ouch. The thing is, I wasn’t taking those pictures because I think I’m hot. Actually, it’s more that I […]
He is not a kid on a table or a boy looking up at his Mommy for a hug.He is Snoopy and he’s on his dog house and he can’t wait to fly a plane with a cape.He is pawing at Charlie Brown, begging for a treat.I’m Charlie Brown. This is fitting because I have a really hard time figuring out how to grow up.I trust Lucy over and over and end up flat on my back while she laughs. I have the imagination of a child and sometimes, when I should sit up and learn something,it’s like my teacher is going ‘wa wa wa wa wa waaaa.’My brain is too busy to take these lessons to heart. I’m always thinking, just like that boy of mine, never taking things at face value,always digging deeper. And at the end of the day, we’re both terribly exhausted, the world finally dimming down, hiding at […]
I was in church, for Easter, and I felt nothing. I have been feeling guilty for my lack of feeling in church my entire life. It isn’t that I don’t like church, at least not most of the time. It’s something else. My emotions over the things of faith aren’t triggered in a place of worship often. But as an aside, you should know that they are triggered here… Easter2, originally uploaded by Heather of the EO. In the changing landscape of a Midwestern spring. In the face of a boy I was once worried I may not keep. My soul wells up with hallelujahs on a daily basis, in the ordinary things of life. I carry those praises along in my heart and when we go to church, something happens to them. They go quiet. Sure, sometimes I have a moment, a certain song or words said at just the right time […]
The posts that write themselves, in a flourish of creativity where fingers pound the keyboard like they have a mind of their own, are the best. I’m often confident about them in a way that escapes me most of the time. On the other hand, if I’m driving or taking a shower or making lunch for my boys and an idea strikes me, it rattles around in my mind and heart for too long. So when I sit down to reign it in, I’m lost, often pulling thoughts from a hundred light bulb moments that don’t add up. I’m editing and editing and second-guessing and insecure. I work and work here and there, and still feel I come up short. There needs to be a freedom in this, a gut level honesty of the moment, a kind of escape. That’s when the words reach out to other hearts and shake hands in agreement. […]
Ellie said something recently about addiction and motherhood that I’d like to share because it helped me so much:“I look at it this way, now: I didn’t know how to love that fiercely. It made me so afraid … afraid I would screw it up, afraid something would happen to them, afraid I could never measure up enough for these two beautiful souls. And for so long, what did I do when I was afraid? I drank. So I was hiding from the fear. I heard, over and over, when I was first getting sober: How could you do that? Don’t you love your kids enough to NOT do that? The answer was that I loved them so much I didn’t know what to do. I thought, perversely, I was doing them a favor by erasing myself from the picture a little at a time. Only in sobriety can I accept myself and […]
Courage me. I say that like I’m at the bar, beer me! What is it, this courage? Maybe if it’s been given to me, I should know. But I don’t. Am I called courageous because I quit drinking? Let me be honest. I don’t feel very courageous. I feel foreign, like I’m learning the customs of a new culture. I’m swinging up here in the corner of the room, watching myself walk around in a fog, not drinking. I said that in an email to someone still stuck in her web of addiction and feeling so ashamed in comparison to those of us who have quit. I told her that I’ve only gotten as far from the middle as to dangle from my corner perch, watching myself, this strange person who can’t figure out how to be. That’s where I am, just hanging there like a spider needing her prey, wanting it, poised […]
Seven days ago, these glasses meant only one thing. Wine. Today they still mean wine. But they also simply look like really cool empty glasses.Shapes and colors. These small shifts happen, they say, with time. Sooner or later these glasses will not trigger a craving. With time. One day at a time. My feelings are shifting like wind, moment by moment some days, hour by hour other days. I’ve never been good with waiting. I like to skip ahead, pass up the hard part, let’s move along now. Stop feeling stop feeling stop feeling… That just can’t be the case this time. This is just too big. So looking at those glasses today gave me hope, the way they were so kindly showing me that they look a little like something other than wine, even though they still mean wine, for now. And strangely, yesterday’s blustery wind also came bringing me hope. It […]
She dances and dances a funny little two year old jig, trying trying trying to get her Daddy to laugh. He sits staring around her at the TV, his elbow on the armrest, finger under his chin, no smile turning up the corners of his mouth. He just can’t. She wiggles and hops, brown curls bouncing to her heart’s desperate attempt to fix him, to make him laugh, if only she could dance long enough. He lifts his hand for his glass and the ice makes that familiar sound as it bounces like she does. He gulps and stares past her. It’s not cute. It’s not fair. It’s not her job, but her huge little heart makes her keep dancing. Because she wants to fix it, she wants to pull him out when all he can do is look in. She wants to be seen, really seen. Not with a glance away from […]
Sunday~ January 17, 2010 He woke himself up with a yelp from the flailing of his out of control two month old limbs. I fought my c-section pain and was up from the chair in a stumbling rush, hurrying to see what was wrong. Through his pumping arms and fists, I saw the damage his sharp little fingernail had done to his face. There was a line of blood that started between his eyes, trailing down under his eye and running over his cherub chubby cheek, finding its resting place in my heart. Then he cried and cried as I bounced my normally calm and peaceful little boy, a screeching kind of sound coming from him. The sound of a surprise hit of pain. Oh I’m sorry Oh I’m sorry Oh I’m sorry, I said. I thought I’d failed him, that’s what I thought. Not cutting his fingernails right or some such thing. […]
Wednesday~January 13, 2010I can get so confused, trying not to judge the judgers. Trying so hard to remain out of the game in which we all strut around, pointing fingers and smirking. I hate that game. So on a whirly head kind of sleep-deprived day, the last thing I need to hear is that the Haiti that I love is being ridiculed by a Christian man, a man who blames the people of Haiti for a cracking earth and buried babies and children. He says it happened because of their choices. It’s ridiculous, no? I mean, why give his words weight? Why play the game? Why jump on the Twitter bandwagon, bashing his antics? Why? This time I couldn’t help it. I was just so angry. I heard what he said and it was much the same as the sock in the gut this is so wrong feeling I get when I read […]
Wednesday~January 13, 2010 He comes in the door and his face is red from working all day in the Minnesota cold. He looks so tired. He says he loves the smell in here and I’m all proud because I’ve been working on his favorite, Mexican. Cilantro and garlic are mixing through the air when I look at him, hoping my meal is spicy enough. He likes spicy to the point of sweating the very most. I fumble around the kitchen, stirring and flipping tortillas and asking him questions. He peels off layers of winter weather wear and he sits down with a thud, like it’s all he’s wanted to do all day. Instead, he’s been lifting and bending and pounding nails and building. Miles wants him to build with Legos now and he just can’t. There’s just been too much building. Since 1970-something…building. He’s built innumerable houses and our lives. That’s what he’s […]
Monday~January 11, 2010 Cupcake ’10 was small and even cozy. It was at times over-stimulating and other times completely peaceful and intimate and raw and real. It was beautiful, really. (We’re sharing much more about it (including photos) over on the Cupcake blog.) All drama (of the weather and traveling variety) aside, we had an absolutely lovely time together. There were less than 30 women at Cupcake, and yet I found myself thinking about how I was having many of the same feelings and experiences that I’ve had at bigger events. Then I started to think about blogging events in general and will now share with you my very scientifically studied top ten things to be prepared for when attending any blogging event… (OK fine, they aren’t studied. They are more like something a person thinks about on a seven hour trip home while trying to stay awake. So they may be a […]
Sunday~January 3, 2009 My Grandma turned 80 on New Year’s Day. We had a party for her yesterday in the basement of her church in her small Minnesota town. I had prepared some words to say but found it hard to get them out after my cousin read something before it was my turn. I was all weepy because I heard a story about my Grandma I had never heard before, one that moved me and reminded me what family is all about, what unconditional love looks like. The words that were shared were written by my cousin, Brent. On her 80th birthday, he described Grandma and thanked her for something that I’ll always remember when I look at the people in my life, especially my boys…no matter what. Brent was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his early twenties. He has lived through the nightmare of mental illness ever since, trying to overcome the […]
Monday~December 28, 2009 I felt heavy. Heavy footed on the heavy snow. I had dropped the boys off next door. It would be their last visit (as neighbors) with our friends who are family. They would do as they usually do. They would eat lemon cookies and dip them in milk and then maybe they’d play The Lump and The Blue Monster, their made up games that are only for them and our neighbors. I was so glad they could go while I went back to packing boxes. And I was so sad it was the last time until we visit. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much our neighbors mean to us as I walked away. They have been like honest to goodness angel people, gracing our lives with their help and support and wisdom and easy going nearly daily visits with our boys that they love so much. The tears were […]
Sunday~December 13, 2009 Yesterday I had a bit of a breakdown. Then I felt guilty and weak. I’m beginning to think that’s the root of many a mother’s problem, this inability to allow ourselves some grace for being simply human. This expectation we put on ourselves to be strong and under control and unaffected by how hard life can be much of the time. We forget to feel, to simply say this is hard, feeling the emotion of it, really feeling it, taking a little care of ourselves and then moving on. We suppress it instead, thinking we must just keep going, and then sooner or later it’s just too much. We tell ourselves we have it easier than so many others so buck up self! When really, yes, there are all different degrees of hard…but they’re all still hard. Anyway… This morning I woke up feeling better than I have all month, […]
Sunday~November 29, 2009 I pass by crusts of peanut butter sandwiches, the ones strewn about the table, pushed off the sides of small plates by small hands. I don’t have time for the mess, so I head from one room to the other, attempting to quiet bedtime demands. Back and forth I go through dark doorways, one I need more water and I’m scared at a time. I try to calm anxious thoughts about what it means to move house, yes you can bring your bed and even your poster, yes. Now please go to sleep, child. Our plates are so full, we’re watching half of our bounty roll to the floor for the dog. Blessings and curses together, spilling over for the much. Then we panic and clench our fists and our jaws and we scramble to make sense of the mess on the floor. We are trying to prioritize what to […]
Wednesday~November 25, 2009Does it seem that being present is something that comes easy for me? I write here about the beauty in the mundane, the joy of having children amidst the backdrop of chaos, and I mean what I say. But maybe it appears that being present, especially with my boys, is a gift of mine. The truth is that I struggle immensely with it, this ability to remain in the moment, focused. I know I also write about my struggles with depression every now and again, and occasionally I write about actually running out the door to escape the whining and mess, but for the most part my posts are goodness and light, and that might make it seem that I’m constantly in that state of being present, of seeing through my heart’s eyes. I was interviewed over on A Design So Vast on this subject, hence my thoughts here today. The […]
Wednesday~November 18, 2009 When Asher first started doing his one arm up in the air, one arm pointing to the ground dance, it killed me. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, this little airplane person in the blue glasses, shaking his shoulders and bobbing his head, then adding a little butt wiggle for effect. I wish that stuff stayed as funny and adorable after the seventy-eleventh time you’ve seen it as it was the very first time. I suppose it’s just human nature (especially adult human nature) to see something so many times that it loses it’s oomph and just doesn’t lift you in quite the same way it did at first. Of course, if it’s your child, it remains adorable and endearing and you point it out to everyone, but it’s just not the exact same as the very first time you experienced it. And then you want […]
Monday~November 2, 2009 Asher was just standing here driving me crazy, the way he was demanding a banana. He shouts and he screams! I sigh and boil. Then I turn to look at him and I see how he sticks his tongue all the way out to say nana, and it totally cracks me up. What Asher gives off, his contagious joy, even trumps sibling rivalry. Most of the time. It was right around this time last year that we found out he has hydrocephalus. (If you don’t know what that is, it’s what used to be called “water on the brain,” where valves are not doing their job of getting fluid to the spinal cord…in short. Asher had a brain shunt (a valve that works) put in last December.) From October, when we got the news, to December, when he had surgery, we really had no idea what to expect. I don’t […]
Thursday~October 29, 2009We looked at six houses yesterday and we’ll see five more tomorrow. In and out of the car, shoes off and then back on, opening drawers and closets in other people’s homes. We’re here in the place where I grew up, storing up knowledge on any house of interest, keeping track, discussing floor plans while the wheels turn on the car and in our heads between stops. Here we are in this place that’s not our home, looking at homes to make our home, away from our current home while staying in my childhood home. Speaking of home, I watched a re-run of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in my Dad’s recliner last night. I thought about what it must be like to have this magnificent house built for you, how you’d be so overcome with emotion at the beauty of the new, and then the cameras would leave and you’d go […]
Tuesday~October 27, 2009It’s reaching in the pocketof a coat from last yearand making that discovery,the familiar soft paper feel of money That heart flutter momentI wonder if…and then pulling it out to find a buck rather than a twenty. It’s saying it’s good either way Not stomping or poutingno I deserve bettersor I deserve mores No where is my very best life?! But instead,it’s putting that just one dollar back in,sliding your hand to the safety of your pocketclosing your fingers over the treasure,holding tight for safe keepingsoft and familiargood It’s believing in the enoughof all the beautiful things in your life,things you already haveand then it’s still hoping life cangrowmultiplyloaves and fishdreams come truethere instead of heregrass greenerchange But mostly, it’s the belief held in the deepest placesthat even if the hopes are dashedno growingno movingno healingno changeno reconciliationno dream come true…the enough is still enoughand good,just that one soft and familiar […]
Sunday ~ October 25, 2009Asher and I were on our way to pick up Miles from preschool. It was raining but not snowing or too cold and yet a car started spinning in circles across the freeway in front of us. It seemed to be floating across all the lanes while the driver tried to regain control and slow down. You know how when something like that happens, about a million things go through your head, from how you’re going to somehow not hit the circling car, to what you’re going to do to make sure you hit them on your side and not your child’s side, to oh dear we’re going to die and I was not nice at all to Ryan this morning? Yeah, I was doing that, because it was really close. Thankfully, we missed each other by a few feet, and then…silence. Perfect silence. It was the kind of […]
Sunday~October 18, 2009Tell me the story of the day I was born, he says. So I tell him every detail I can pull from the dusty corners of my cluttered mind and heart. I love remembering that day. It is our story and I tell it, glad for the asking. He is in awe, transfixed by the words of his own beginninghe sits quiet and stillmore still than seems possible for himHis favorite part is the most dramaticthe way we held our breathto wait for his first breathand then we cried with himand held him and kissed himrelieved I finish with a bang and hold him tight, and then I think about how important it is for a person to have their stories toldheardfeltunderstoodwrittencapturedvoicedrecognizedremembered I see how his eyes light up with anticipation for the most exciting parts of his story. I see the smile pull at the corners of his mouth when […]
Friday~October 16th, 2006 I continue to miss things about every place I’ve lived. Not the cities or towns so much as the walls that surrounded me through stages of life. I’ve moved many times, and I’ve always felt a bit sad leading up to the final day. I get attached to places. Even though my apartments and shared houses were many, I can remember standing in the doorway of each and every one, looking over the empty spaces on those last days and whispering my goodbyes with a lump in my throat. So when we put our house on the market yesterday, suddenly all the excitement faded, reality hit, and I started to grieve the spaces. My neighbors. The tree in the front yard that was planted right after Miles was born in his honor. Even the dilapidated shed out back suddenly seemed beautiful to me. We’ve been cleaning up and packing up […]
Monday~October 12th, 2009 We woke up to snow this morning. A thick with heavy snow that covers the trees and has turned everything still and quiet. A soft blanket of white like out of a painting. It’s beautiful, but the early arrival of it makes no sense to my pumpkin and trick-or-treating mind. It just keeps coming down, all day long it’s been falling and acting like Christmas. The leaves on the hard-working branches need more time to deepen their colors, but they’re hidden and drooping, tired. They’re being pulled to their weakest place. When the wind picks up, they’ll let go with a relieved sigh and then fall, they’ll land gracefully despite the mystery of where they’ll come to a stop. The other day, I prayed. I wanted to know just the right answer, what is the very best thing to do that won’t mean we’re falling and landing in exactly the […]
