On What To Do With All The Hurt

There are hateful things that happen in life.  There just are.  I felt another blow against the jaw of my spirit tonight.  There are people in the world that don't like me.  There are people in the world that actually delight in my pain, and you know what? Every single time they shoot an arrow of hate into my world, it causes me pain. People like that tend to learn to get really good at inflicting pain.  They hone their skills until they know their darts are going to hit just the right spot.  I have some people in my world like that just like I'm sure you do too. It's just....

"What do I do with the hurt though?" I asked my husband.  I continued "Do I get mad and yell? Do I counter attack? Do I just fall in a heap and cry?"

What do you do....with all the hurt?

I am a Christ follower.  When I was a little girl, I watched my mom's prayers be answered and my dad's life change.  I watched my brother get baptized in a church because, as I'd been told, he had chosen to give the debt that he could not meet himself to the God Who promised to do it.  It piqued my interest, and I started really listening.  It did not take long at all for me to decide as a little girl that I wanted Jesus.  I remember little else except that I knew I needed Jesus and I wanted Him.  So I went to Him.  I gave my whole everything to a One I had never seen because I knew to my very depths that He was the author of things and the One that loved me the most.  I knew it then.  I knew even in my funny little honest heart that there was already just enough imperfection in my life that would be enough to taint the beauty of who He was, and I knew that He was the only One that COULD erase the stains and He promised that He WOULD do it, and I believed Him.  I know thinking about a sinful 6 year old seems a bit weird, but the sin that can stain a heart can be one maliciuos or dishonest thought.  We don't go around accusing little kids of trying to harness the power of Satan.  One little tiny stain can mar the appearance of the whitest, most beautiful, precious fabric. One thing can cause it to lose the "qualification" of "mint condition".  Now, the point at which a human actually chooses wrong and creates that stain is something that God does not even offer us with a specific number.  There are little sweet children who get diseases through no fault of their own and their life is snuffed out.  Do I think that, just because my heart realized at 6 that I wanted and needed God that every 6 year old (or even children older) also have that ability and would be sent to a damned hell?  No.  I don't.  I know a God that loves children and would not be so cruel to cast away a one whose heart never knew they betrayed Him in the first place.  If you want to know what age a person needs to be when God decides it's okay to damn a soul to hell, I think you and I need to talk further about the Daddy I know.  Either way, for whatever reason, at 6, I knew I wanted this Abba, and I accepted Him.

Over the course of my life, just like all of you, I have encountered pain that is bringing tears stinging into my eyes right at this moment.  I have a catch in my throat right now as my brain rattles off a portion of the list my brain can't help but remember of the times my heart broke as part of it was ripped away or buried in the ground. Hurt changes us.  Sometimes we make poor decisions, and we hurt as a result, but I'm really talking here of the hurts we don't deserve:

"We did everything we could"
"He....he passed away"
"It's cancer"
"There's someone else"
"It's gone...it's all gone"

That list.  The stuff you never asked for and you know you didn't deserve.  I can't even find a way to articulate the level of absolute anguish...the hurt.

It's so nearly impossible to figure out what to do with the hurt because I just feel so annoyed every single time I see someone go through something and decide to slap some stale smile on their face saying it's all going to work out while they walk around like they're in some barbituate induced haze.

No.  I want to know what I'm supposed to DO...with this.  After that initial trust fall into the world of being a little Christ - a kid of God's, the whole blind faith thing was never my dig.  I'm going to be straight up with you.  I do not take much of anything at face value.  I'm going to need to see some goods.

That's...just not always a favor life lends, I'm afraid.  Instead of being given a plan of attack leaked from the camp of my enemy, my life has reflected more that I would need to learn how to heal quickly and be better ready and less vulnerable for the next time some force in life charged towards me.   This is what we all TRY to do, but, as I listed above, there are things that rain down over your life that can in no way be anticipated.  The crash down like an avalanche of boulders and leave what looks like nothing but a pile of crumbs.  And you had absolutely no way to know it was coming, and you in no way deserved it.  It just came and took away so, so much...and it hurts.

So then what?  I believe - my personal belief - is that my Abba, my heavenly Daddy, is watching.  He is watching, and not passively.  He is involved.  There are things He sends my way for my benefit, and there are times He decides that there is something beautiful that can grow if He allows something to cause me pain.  No.  That is not cruel, and no that is not twisted.  I let my 15 month old baby fall...all..the...time.  She actually does it less and less now, but there are still times when I choose to stay seated as I watch her take a step that is unsure me knowing the whole time that her effort is going to result in pain.  Her little legs are going to plop right down onto the edge of the step she was trying to conquer.  Why do I do that?  Because if I didn't, she never would learn how much it actually takes to conquer that little step in her journey.  Because I let her experience temporary pain that makes my heart hurt and I audibly cringe, I know that the next time she faces that step, she's going to know better what to do. I don't shield her from growing stronger.  It's so hard.  I wish I could scoop her up and swaddle her in her ring sling and nurse her away from all of the hard things...and she would become weak and intolerable.

I am God's girl.

Now let's get one thing straight here.  If Audrey loses her footing and falls as I illustrated above, I will let her learn.  It will make me sad, but I will let her do that.  I will not sabotage her growth.  But you best believe that if I watch something or someone come slithering her way to do her harm, their freedom to move in her life is going to be extremely limited.  I may watch as someone gives her an ill-deserved shove or steals a treasure from her chubby little hands...but not for long.  They don't get endless chances...I'm watching.  You can ask my older kids - I am that momma who is NOT afraid to march right up to a playground bully that I've watched terrorize the swings and monkey bars for a time and say to them "You need to keep your hands to yourself and leave my child alone.  It's time for you to find you mommy or daddy or whomever brought you to this facility".   This action, however, is reserved for use for times when I can see that someone has intent to cause my child harm or damage.  God is the same.  I am His kid.  God does not have patience for evil.  It may seem like the right people never actually have to answer for the way they damage others, but my God Daddy is a just God.  He is watching His babies.

So there is a way to process how going through horrible things brings me to a place of growth, but that wasn't my question to my husband.  My question was "What do I do with the hurt?" What do I do with the welted, red skin of where someone just slapped their way around my life?  What do I do with what feels like a broken bone or a bloody bruise in my spirit from where life circumstances or someone's evil heart decided they'd just smack me around or snap things in two? What do I do while it still hurts?

You know the only answer I have?  Cry.

There is a vast gulf fixed between wallowing in self pity or bitterness and just crying because things still hurt where the damage occurred.

If it hurts, cry. Literally or figuratively.

Audrey does.  And if she falls or someone is awful to her or anything in this cruel, broken world causes her pain and she DOES cry, I don't look at her and say "Welp, guess THAT one's done in.  Well THAT one probably won't be good for much" and then walk away.  Sometimes, I scoop her up and hold her close.  For this hard-headed kid though, a lot of times, I watch.  I let her cry out and make her voice loud if she needs to.  I let her squeeze out a few tears.  I don't ever tell any of my children not to cry if something hurts.  I make effort to never dismiss a hurt of their hearts, minds or bodies.  I engage it.  I let them utter their pain in the way that their life needs while the pain is still happening from what hurt them.  And then we begin again the whole process of taking more steps in this journey.

I'm sorry.  I'm sorry I don't have a more magic answer.  I'm sorry that beyong the knowledge that most adult people have that hard things help you grow, I don't have much for while the hurt still...hurts.  But I feel comfortable in telling you that the choice I have made for this time while my own hurts are hurting, I cried.  I'm going to do some more crying probably, and I may cry about this particular thing at different points all throughout my life.  Like it may actually make me hurt in the future.

So while we know that we will be given something good in exchange for the wrending apart of our hearts, when it comes to while you're still hurting, I say....just go ahead and cry.

On Dirty Little Secrets

Three nights ago I made peanut butter sandwich crackers (with marshmellow mixed in) dipped in chocolate. I made 26 "cookies".  I ate all of them except 1 because Dan ate that.  I ate 25 cookies.  They. were. delicious. Also, I was hungry.  After doing this, I have not gained any weight. I strangely never do when I eat garbage. My body just uses it, and my weight stays the same. Here's the thing though. That is not good for me! What would compel me to do that?!

It's a real question. What is painfully obvious is that my body needed something - or my brain, but there was some actual need there.

Coincidentally, on the same night, my good friend posted about a cleanse that she will be doing in the near future. It is a fast of sorts and is very extreme. My first thought was to join her in this detox for solidarity, but being an almost 35 year old that has to be on the same BP medicine as old people and not having a doctor to consult right now, I decided I'd just be her cheerleader.

"What about me, though?" my brain asked. "I also deserve to clean up this mess that is my health. I want to do SOMEthing! I don't want to die yet."

Listen folks, I've already had a mini-stroke (that everyone is probably tired of hearing about but is so weird that I'm still so shocked by it that I always bring it up), I have high blood pressure (as mentioned above), anxiety issues, and I'm 30 pounds over weight which was a souvenier of my most recent (and last) pregnancy.  My dad died of a heart attack when he was 47. My grandfather died of a heart attack. My great-grandfather died of a heart attack. Think it's weird that I'm bringing it up because I'm a woman and those are all men? Well, both my brothers have clean bills of health, and I'm the one with chest pains if I have too much caffeine and a scrip for BP meds.

Her social media status about the cleanse was a wake up call for me.

Here's how my life has gone. I have even mentioned in previous posts on this blog that I grew up a very publicly teased, very, very skinny little girl. The structure of my face and my gaunt frame actually made me look like I wasn't even in the same family as my fleshier, Swedish built siblings. They're all half a foot taller than me. I'm not even kidding. Also, teasing someone about being skinny is almost worse in some ways than teasing someone for being fat because people are not only ridiculing you for being different, there is this added layer of hatred because they actually exhibit jealousy over something you can't even control.

I was always real small. Short and skinny and different. Hated it.

Then I had babies and gained weight during my pregnancies. Every single time I would gain 40 pounds and then lose 20.  The other 20 would stay. So by the first birthday of the third baby, I had packed on about 45 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight.

Whatever. Was not a health issue at that point, and it got people off my back about  being too skinny.

About a year and a half after the third baby, my life changed in a major way. One of the things that changed was that I was driven into true  cpoverty and had no food. I also rode my bike to work (another post) for a 12 mile ride. I actually only had to do that (or walk) a handful of times, but I lost about 10 pounds, my metabolism regulated, and I kept that 10 pounds off.

Over the year that followed that, I lost about 40 more pounds. I was actually below the weight that I was when I got pregnant with my first child. When I got pregnant with my fourth child, I was not overweight at all and looked "small" my whole pregnancy. I thought for sure my pregnancy weight would just fall off after she was born. Maybe retaining all that weight before was because my life was just so awful.

I was right. That thought was just incomplete.

So I read my friend's status and had the thought about wanting to make my body work better. I actually have zero problem with my shape. Zero. I have had just as many head turns from men or jealous looks from women being this size as when I was smaller. I do pragmatically realize, however, that the amount of fat on this frame is making my heart and my joints work too hard and that a sedentary pregnancy has made my muscles weak. So when I read her status and then asked myself the question about myself, a familiar thing happened.

I got real frustrated.

The good thing is, instead of internalizing it, I opened up to Dan. We have had many discussions about my weight (mostly because I lost too much too fast and felt like the "ugly skinny girl") and my health (because I'm his baby mama and the love of his life). We have talked about patterns that existed during different chapters of my physical journey, so we picked this discussion back up.

Before I had kids, I was a typical, micro-managing type A. Once they put my first child into my arms, my ability to regulate and control every area of my life went totally out the window. No longer could I alone take on the tasks that were included in my life, and, I have certainly earned the right to say this, I did not have help. I did everything alone, and that was part of what killed my first marriage.  It's also a big part of what damaged my health.

I nursed my newborns and did not ask my then partner to bottle feed past my first night at home. I was also expected to do all housework alone, all cooking alone, all grocery shopping alone and all care for the children alone beyond whatever sort of recreational time my then partner wanted to have with his off spring. If I got help at all, I was given a very firm reminder about how I was deficient and that he was having to compensate for my failure. I was even given very archaic instructions from his mother about how to get myself together so I could please my husband in the right way by keeping my home to a specific standard. You guys, this is even all amidst a year during which I finished a debilitating pregnancy, had a newborn, said newborn almost died and was hospitalized 3 times over the course of a month, stayed at the hospital while said partner left me and our very sick baby there with $20 and one change of clothes for 2 days (parent food is not covered by your child's admittance to the hospital), 2 kidney surgeries 3 months after that, ripping my knee in half 3 months later and being wheel chair bound for an entire month followed by my third surgery of the year which required 6 waking hours a day of being strapped into a machine that mechanically moved my leg so I would not develop a life ending blood clot or a crippling tension in a muscle. I was still expected amidst all of that to do all of the above tasks with little to zero help beyond his mother babysitting the kids extremely occasionally.

Guess what I was never allowed to take care of...any part of me. I was allowed to join a gym so I could re-attain a very specific version of desirable. That, my friends, is where I actually ripped my knee in half.

The tone of our home was very akin to Cinderella, except, instead of a ball to attend, it was my own self care that became unspokenly forbidden. Taking time to shower daily and put on clothes was frowned upon if my daily chores were left incomplete. Planning meals for only myself or researching what nutrients my body needed or taking financial resources to seek instruction from someone with the knowledge to teach me was viewed as...selfish.

Even though my heart knew this was so wrong, I had no choice, so I did what was expected. I took my poor depleted body and flew around the house all day the best that I could scooting around messes created by other people. It all just became so impossible because, if one of my children wanted me to stop and read a book, I stopped and read a book. If they wanted to me stop and watch their trick, I stopped and watched a trick. If someone needed me to stop and rock them to sleep, I stopped and rocked them to sleep. We ate out very rarely, so I made most of our meals. If their prep used a lot of dishes, I alone cleaned up everything.  I would wake up every day and pump my body full of caffeine on an empty stomach. I thought that if the caffeine would raise my heart rate and there was no fuel in my stomach to burn, the fat would be the first thing to go. I ignored the thought that it was damaging my heart. I was drinking upwards to at least 3 cups of coffee a day. Some days there would be more than that. I had a weird sense of pride if I managed to go without lunch. I didn't become anorexic, surprisingly, but that's because my weight didn't budge. I think things would have gone differently had I been successful in changing my weight that way. Even after joining the gym and hiring a personal trainer it didn't change. And that's a strange double standard, isn't it? Spending the money to hire a personal trainer to make my body "pretty" was an acceptable expense, but paying for the prescription for the antidepressant my brain needed then was not.

Well, my day came when I was forced out of my home. I will be considerate and not share those details here, but it was absolutely tragic and absolutely not my choice. It was, however, absolutely rescue - for me and for my kids.

Here's the thing about rescue that I need for you to know. Rescue does not equal repair. If a poor, malnourished, ill cared for dog is removed from his abusive owner, does animal control just release it back into a nice looking neighborhood? Nope. A change in surroundings does not put back what was stolen.

That was my hard lesson to learn. I'm just going to be honest with you like I have been in the past. I got really lucky. I happened to be blessed enough to be surrounded by really amazing people that gave me a bunch of correct information. Sometimes that correct information was the 4 words that I have previously described as "magic" - this wasn't your fault. Sometimes that correct information was someone saying to me "Um, so if you keep doing this, you're doing wrong." I had to do some minor and some very major surgeries on my soul. A lot of those are documented here.

There was one that I would only flirt with, however. That, my friends, was my relationship with self care. I still had this very distorted self talk that taking care of myself was selfish. And when I talk about self care, please remember, I am not talking about long soaks in a tub with candles. I'm talking about bathing, eating, brushing your teeth. The other thing is called pampering, and the reason it's so special is because it's supposed to be occasional. Basic hygiene, though, that should be every day.

I spent 9 1/2 years being pressured into behaving like my basic needs were more pampering, and that I only DESERVED for my needs to be addressed after everyone else (one person in particular) was happy....happy - not healthy, not nourished - happy. You guys, spending your life with the FOCUS of your time being to make someone "happy" is a waste even and especially if its yourself. Happiness is important to engage, but as a focus, it's toxic, my friends, and if someone requires that you make them happy before you are ALLOWED to be healthy, that is called abuse. Let me just camp here for a second. No one, under any circumstance has to stay being abused.

My soul was able to heal past a great many things, but I tell you this, after 13 years, I have addressed this in a healthy way....for 2 days...so far. It was so damaging, it took nearly 4 years of crazy, committed, unconditional love from Dan who is a rock star, hundreds and hundreds of dollars in talk therapy with a professional and 2 years of this blog after I was removed from a toxic environment for me to feel the entitlement to engage self care.

I'm doing it though, you guys. I sat down with my loving husband after reading my friend's post about her cleanse, and I grilled him about every bit of knowledge he gleaned from a weight lifting elective he took in college from a professor or instructor who also happened to be a nutritionist. Dan and I then talked about when I lost that other 40 pounds. Want to know what my life looked like then?

As I have written in past posts, very soon after I left my first marriage, I found Dan. It was like this weird thing in the back of my brain that told me he would be a safe place. We had had almost no contact in the 11 years between when we dated the first time and the time when I felt compelled to find some comfort in his person, but I just felt this weird drive. My first husband and I actually had gone through the divorce process at an earlier point, and I sought Dan during that period. My heart knew then that he still loved my heart, but my motivation was to recover in his arms from the shambles that my life had become. Like...a rebound. He made it pretty clear that life was taking him in a different direction (grad school hundreds of miles away) and he didn't feel like he could be JUST my friend. We parted ways, but when I searched for him this last time - this one last time, my dissatisfaction in the relationship being platonic was replaced by being comforted by that very same thing.

He was very careful with my heart. We started as friends. I felt comforted again by the fact that he didn't have a problem telling me if something I was doing was off, but would also handle me with kid gloves if I was hurting. We didn't stay only friends for long. Our relationship was long distance for months, and then he scraped together what he needed to hop a plane to visit me for his fall break. I had already lost the first 10 pounds at by then. During Dan's visit, he woke me up with breakfast in bed. One morning it was eggs benedict, but for a few mornings after that, it was a giant made-from-scratch brownie and a steaming cup of coffee made exactly how I liked it. He sent me with a packed lunch every day, and it was never just a sandwich. I went from having people offer me the the second half of their leftovers to my coworkers being jealous of my lunch! Then I would come home to not an empty house. Before my key hit the door, I could hear him moving around my tiny kitchen and smell delicious things. Then we would eat a meal rivaling most restaurants and then he would make me dessert. The rest of the evening would be spent watching television together or doing things that I can't mention...because that's private. Frown or smile upon that as you choose, it happened. To be honest, that whole picture made me feel more safe and more loved and more beautiful than I had since the last time I'd been in his arms.

After he left, some coworkers mentioned that I looked thinner. I stepped on a scale and realized that I'd lost another 5 or 6 pounds. For 2 months, my weight stayed the same. He came to visit me again over Christmas break. After he left, another 7 pounds. I eventually had to move in with him (yes "had to" - that's another blog post). Once that happened, I lost another few pounds until one day, after having capped out post pregnancy at 185, I was 136. That is literally my weight the year that I was 22 years old an entire year before I had my first pregnancy. I actually freaked out a little bit, but my body was going to do what it was going to do.

A few months passed. I moved with Dan back to the same town as my ex husband and our shared children (yep - also had to leave my kids for 7 months. That's also a separaate blog post). I also found out I was pregnant. As I said much earlier in this riduculously long post, I stayed small for my whole pregnancy. After I delivered, though, I found myself at the final weight being exactly the same as it was after the birth of my third child the pregnancy for whom left me 35 pounds overweight.

So here Dan and I sat for upwards to an hour talking about how my life was different when I was losing weight. Do you know what we figured out? It was really simple. It was 3 things.

1. I was freely accepting love that was being offered to me and limiting contact with toxicity.

2. I was eating.

3. I was eating often.

As far as number 1 goes, I'm just going to tell you that I've done so much research on how to deal with toxic people and have implemented so much of that research into my life that I feel like I could test out of a grad school course. The gripe about that is, I am forced to have exposure to toxicity for the rest of my life because there are children involved. God and I have had many, many conversations about this, and I have cried enough tears, that I have been able to reach a level of acceptance that my own mother doesn't even understand. Hey dude, I don't hate you. There's part of my heart that will have a version of love for you forever. Please take every part of every investment I made in you, and do better. Just know this, my friend. Your ability to hurt me is very, very limited. - Thats what you say to toxicity. You address it. You acknowledge it for what it is. You acknowledge that it exists and you respect it like you respect fire, and you make peace. You also keep enough distance between you and the fire to not be burned....ever...again.

As far as number 2 and 3, because of number 1's deep, deep effect on my life, after I had this baby, I reverted to what I had lived when I had babies before. I acted as if the same expectations existed. The same stress filled my soul and the same defensiveness that, honestly, kept me from going insane before, reappeared much to the confusion of  husband. Unfortunately, I cannot count the times my husband has passionately yelled at me in his own defense "I am NOT ****!!!" I felt inadequacies every time a task wasn't completed and was paralyzed by absolute grief over my failures...only to have someone with whom my heart is safe communicate to me that my worth as His passion and His love for me was not based on my ability to complete a task. And then Dan would offer me the same sentiment.

I'm sorry, but when your spouse offers you love that reflects that of the God of the universe, you know you struck gold.

So 2 nights ago, after almost 4 years of reinforcement, I felt permission to get a pen and paper and sit and ask my husband about how we can get me healthy. He spent so much time answering the weirdest questions. Then, despite the fact that we were under a flood warning because it was raining so hard, he got in the car with me and rode to the store and helped me choose each thing to be on my menu. Then he came home and COOKED everything I would need for the next few days and portioned it out for me after I explained to him that I literally don't have time (actually at this point, I'm still trying to establish in my brain the permission) to portion everything out. Last night he came home after working for 10 hours outside of our home and made my dinner for me.

Here's my instructions. I eat food of much superior quality to Doritos, and I eat less of it 8 times a day. The whole idea is that I'm supplying my body with actual good quality fuel as often as I need it. Also, I leave the towels in the washer or the dishes on the "dirty" side of the counter. I take care of myself before tasks.  I go for a walk to pump blood through the heart that's not doing so great so I can make it strong again and use it for longer.

Do you know what has happened as a result of this? First and foremost, I'm developing a cap for how many snap peas I can eat. Also, I feel more awake. My body does, but so does my soul. I feel so much comfort in knowing that I MUST put food into my body, so I don't have to worry about feeling so sleepy. I feel sore in muscles that I didn't realize had been forced to sleep. Here's the other funny thing - and this is some physical but mostly psychological - I'm enjoying my family. I'm spending more time SEEING Audrey. I no longer feel like I'm failing her by not making her surroundings perfect. I'm just playing with her and enjoying that. I'm gaining the presence of mind to tell her how pretty she is and that she is my treasure and that God loves her.  I'm excited all over again for my husband to walk back through the door because his actions now have me sold that I matter because he loves me. I am not an appliance. I never have been to him.

I'm going to be honest, the original title of this was "On Mothering" because I wanted to write about how some women seem to feel like they're not allowed to compliment or enjoy their children and how having kids can distract you big time from self care (again - hygiene not pampering). The rest of this I have been suppressing. Every time I wrote about it in the past, my anger would take over. Well, I'm not angry anymore, and if you have traveled this journey with me as you carried some of my burden, know that we reached our destination, okay? Because remember, a change in circumstances or surroundings good or bad means way less than health and how you care for yourself. A great measure of care is forgiveness, and I can now offer that to every person who has robbed my heart. I'm not afraid anymore to tell you about my dirty little secret because you know what? Everyone has one. And if I tell you about mine and how I healed after it tore my soul to shreds, maybe you'll look at yours and realize that God can do a whole lot with just really...no more than a mustard seed of material.

I love you. If you're reading this, I do not care who you are. You are precious because God made you for a beautiful reason, so I will extend to you no less. Because dirty little secrets are not bigger than the gleaming, shiny light of Love and Hope, and those two are a person one and the same.

On Being Restored

I have lots of posts about having a positive outlook during trials in your life or keeping a good attitude when people are ugly to you or maintaining hope when life seems to be giving you its worst.  My perspective has been about what to do in the midst of all of these experiences because that is what my story was doing. It was being in the midst of all of that. Things have begun to change, though. In a big way.

What many people may not know is that my first marriage actually ended legally twice. There was the final divorce that began in March of 2013 and then dragged on into May of 2014.  That's the one most people in my life know about, and that is the one I have referenced most in this blog. There was another one though.

There was 2009.

On July 14, 2009, my heart decided that it was time to go.  There were things that will never be revealed here that I needed to be different that were definitely not going to change, so I packed some things and called my big brother.  With a bag over each shoulder and a baby on each hip, I walked out of my home to go stay with my older brother.  I was with him and his family for a number of weeks and then moved in with my mom.

My world had been rocked.  I had expected my marriage to last forever.  When things got super rocky, I thought meeting the request to start a family would smooth them over. When they got rocky again, I thought I should get pregnant again...so I did. It was not entirely deliberate, but I digress. Baby number 2 did not become a catalyst for unity.  My whole world fell apart.  I was absolutely devastated by feeling like I had to move out, and then I was served with divorce papers.  I felt like I was going to spontaneously combust. At one point I was losing a pound a day because I couldn't make myself eat most days. If I managed to eat, I couldn't keep anything down. It was awful. It was truly awful.

By Christmas time I had worked for several months at a small Christian school where my mom also worked. I managed after school care for the students there. I did not particularly enjoy it, but it paid money. I had agreed to be mostly stay at home during my then 5 year long marriage so my ability to earn income was measly. I really did not have much at all to do Christmas for my two little people and had grown accustomed to not really having Christmas for myself anyway. My mother, however, had not.

A DSW had opened in the mall area, and my sister and I had made an event of going to their grand opening. I lusted after a pair of boots that retailed for like $250 and were priced at $100 at DSW. I stared at them every time I went there knowing full well that they were so far outside my pricerange, it was like talking about the day I would buy a Maserati. It was for fun. It was like my tangible vision board.

Imagine my shock on Christmas morning when my mother (who had been suddenly widowed herself 2 years before) gave me and my little sister envelopes with $150 in them. I am tearing up right now because I do not have any idea where that money came from or what she potentially had to sacrifice to give us that along with the other small things she had given us. "You girls have to go shopping with that...Sarah...you have to go buy your boots because that's my money and I said so".  I didn't even know if they still had my size since they'd had those boots on display for a month already.

They had my size, and I bought the nicest pair of shoes I'd ever had.  They felt so perfect on my funny shaped feet right away. I didn't even feel like I had to break them in.

I wore them and wore them and wore them.

That winter passed into spring. I put the boots into the back of my closet and decided to ill-advisedly rush back into the relationship that was equally toxic as it had ever been.  I busied myself that next winter and wore my boots whenever I could until that winter turned into spring and then summer. My kids' dad and I had been back together for about a year by then, and I'd convinced him that we should have another baby.  I soon discovered that I was pregnant again.

We moved just a few months later away from my home and my family.  I have regretted that decision more than any of my life because our arrival in our new home served an inappropriately easy time for old problems to bubble back to the surface. I didn't wear my boots that many times that year. What proved to be a very difficult pregnancy landed me at home most of the time. The baby that was born got so sick when she was small that we spent nearly her entire second month at the hospital. That was an incredibly lonely time for me.  There were so, so many ways that I was alone.  I wore comfortable flats that could go with easy to care for clothes for my soft and still swollen post partum body. My focus was not on finding ways to wear my boots - even after we came home. I stayed at home guarding my little woman. I just wanted to insulate her to keep her alive.

Eventually the baby got strong again and that winter did like all the others that have come before and turned into spring. Open toed things and shiny heels adorned my feet in the heat of a coastal summer. Those months became...so difficult. I found out more news that completely broke my heart to a point of no return, and then I had two kidney surgeries.

The summer passed into fall, and I was ready to pull my beloved boots out of the back of the closet, but something terrible happened. At a dance class at the gym, I side-stepped and tore my knee completely in half rivaling injuries of NFL players. I wouldn't need my boots for 2 months...I couldn't even walk. This turn of events seemed to open up a Pandora's box for all the inadequacies of what I had used to build my life. It was all a front. I'd been lying to myself, and the pieces of my lies to my own heart started to crumble apart. I wore the boots a lot that winter. They made me feel like I was readying myself to tread ground I couldn't yet see. My vulnerable shins and unsteady knee were made stronger by the well crafted leather. I wore away the soles of the boots as life beat against my soul. We were both weakening, but we had to keep going.

As the spring started to warm everything with cold nights still something to consider and after I had once again relegated my boots to their place in the back of the closet, life spun me around again, and I actually had to leave the boots and most everything else that I owned. Once again, like the previous year, I forgot about the boots. They weren't important at all. Just my kids. My marriage had ended again, and this time I knew it was absolutely for good. I went again back to my family to where I knew my heart was safe in a time that was more painful than I can articulate. Again I got served with papers that cemented what I already knew. My knee was still not steady. I actually still walked with a limp that was more pronounced on days that it was cold but also there when the road should have been easier to travel. I needed my boots, and they made their way back to me.

Finding myself to be a single gal with bills to pay, I got myself a job.  This particular job required that I wear a uniform. Sensible navy heels or flats were the order of footwear.  I pulled out the boots just a few times that winter, but they mostly stayed put away just waiting for when they were needed. There came to be a scratch on one toe, and occasionally I would slather some inexpensive polish over them to keep them from cracking. I got an offer for a job that, although it promised to be better, became a disaster that included some horrible betrayals, in fact. I did, however, get to pull out my boots. I wore them a lot. Even though it was summer and then a hot fall, the styling of the store merchandise featured a lot of knee height boots. By this time, the boots and I had been together for years so we knew each other quite well. My tired feet would find their way into well worn spots inside each one, and we'd stomp around together all day doing all I could to conquer my corner of the world. It just wasn't enough.

I was once again at the end of my rope. Despite working 45 to 50 hours a week on a 40 hour a week salary, I could not make ends meet and was about to be homeless...again. The boots were starting to break down too. One day at work, I heard a weird hollow clack where I used to hear the sound of a solid thud of rubber on the cement floor. I'd worn a hole all the way through the heel. I actually had to keep wearing them because they were all I had by then. The hole became even bigger to the point that the heel was peeling away. They were done, and so was I. My life fell apart, and I had to leave my children that I'd worked so hard to provide for. I was gone from them for 7 months. I got to visit them once. Incidentally, the boots went with me, but they couldn't be worn. I was never able to secure employment while I was living in my new home, and my then boyfriend (now husband) couldn't afford such superficial things as repairing a pair of boots. Looking at them was a cruel reminder that they were broken and ragged and worn away...like me.

The boots and I made it through that winter and made our way back to my babies with my new husband and a new little secret that I didn't learn until we were back here...another baby. That pregnancy was awful and left me, again, very sick - in and out of the emergency or hospital actually - and unable to work. We were so limited in what we could do with our money. The boots remained delapidated and dusty.  I would pull them out and rub my hand over the leather to keep them from ruining or molding.  I felt so regretful every time of how hopeless their condition seemed. It felt so reflective of my heart. I could not bear to part with them.

I noticed that the pack and ship store behind our tiny house advertised shoe repair. I felt like it was another cruel reminder of what I wanted but could never have, but this year, after the baby was born and my body began to heal a little, after the winter thawed into spring, I decided it was time to breath life back into the boots.

This year has been so strange to me, but there has been something that I cannot deny. This entire post has illustrated through my words how I spent years and years encountering loss, but this year, God has started to give it all back. I have spent more time with my children this year than any since my marriage ended. My husband and I have gotten to catch up on things that were so far behind. I have seen my family more this year than I have for 4 years. I had had to go more than a year without seeing my parents and my little brother or my little sister. My kids hadn't seen their grandparents or aunt and uncle and none of us had seen my older brother and his wife and their boys for the entire four years. This year, we've all gotten to see all of them multiple times. I got to go to the place where I was born and kiss the post built by the grandfather I never met of the home where my mom grew up and see cousins and friends and family I hadn't seen in 20 years...20 years. God has given me back things that have been missing from my life for 20 years.

Last week, I decided it was time. I pulled out the boots for the Instagram shoot that I did for the previous post with the thrift store clothes and decided that it was time. On Wednesday of last week, I put the boots into the basket of the baby's stroller, and we walked over the the Pack and Ship. I filled out a little manila card with instructions, but I realized I didn't quite know what I wanted. I also wanted to be careful about how much cost I was committing to because we've tried to begin doing Christmas shopping and because of how my husband the public school teacher gets paid, we cover all our bills at the beginning of the month. Either way, my service would require a phone call from the cobbler.

The following night as we all sat at Taco Bell to quickly nourish 2 gymnasts, 1 baseball player and 1 school teacher, my phone rang. A very pleasant voice on the other end introduced himself as the shoe repairman, and he began to ask for clarification on the repair. The sole and heel were his first questions. Initially the heel was my concern, but I realized and then he confirmed - the sole was going to need a redo. The sole needed attention too. He then asked about the finish of the leather. He explained that it was a bit malnourished and dry but he took note that the look of wear might be something I wanted to keep. "I can put a polish on it in the same color that it was originally stained, but I didn't know if you wanted that. Or I could just seal it and keep the look that it has - and that will keep it from cracking and falling apart." I tried to think quickly and went with my gut "Yeah, if you could just seal it. I kind of like if for them to look like they'd just walked across a farm not like...a store or something". And that was that.

I got a call this morning that they were ready. My husband and I have had the discussion of being very mindful with our spending because of the circumstances above, so I checked with him to make sure paying for my boots wasn't going to throw off what he'd been working on. He assured me that it was fine, so I excitedly put the baby back into her stroller and traversed the hot, newly laid black top of the alley behind the strip mall that houses the Pack and Ship.

There was a little line, so I opened my wallet to retrieve my claim ticket, and then I saw it - the check from my friend. I did her makeup for her family photo shoot last weekend and she paid me - something I didn't expect from her. It was another reinforcement that these boots...this was supposed to happen. My turn came to turn in my claim ticket, and the clerk took it from my hand to head to the back. "Did you get a call that they were ready?" she asked from her position through the stock room door. "Uh huh" I replied trying to hide the disappointment in my voice. "BOOTS!" and she made her way into the light of the store again. "Why am I always looking for shoes? It's BOOTS season!"

Indeed.

She laid the clear plastic bag on the counter, and I felt my eyes get wide. Then the tears started to come as it all fell into place in my mind - what these boots mean and what it means to have them repaired. I shared some of my story and she shared some of hers - they were more similar than different. We talked about having to walk away from something not so good into somewhere - into the unknown. "It's been 5 years for me...how about you? How long's it been for you?" "4" I said holding up 4 fingers in case my voice caught in my throat.

She sent me away with encouraging words, and my eyes welled up again as I pushed open the glass door and made my way back through the hot alley way.

And now here I sit - 7 years later - me and my boots. I can put them on tomorrow (and probably will). They have been given a once-over by an artful eye and a knowing hand. They have been given the ability once again to tread ground however rocky  or treacherous. It won't matter. They can withstand the elements. They can repel and protect against things that could cause damage. Each portion of what the boots are and what they are supposed to do has been given attention. It has been given restoration. They have not been refinished. They have not been made to look as though they have never traveled a step. They've just been sealed so they're ready for more. Whenever someone looks at them, they will know that they are not new or without scar or flaw. But those silly little boots that my mother bought me during a time she knew I'd be learning how to stand have been restored. They're ready.

And so am I.

On Never Forgetting Her

*First of all, I have to apologize for the abrupt and sad end of my 30 days of self care. It has turned into 6 weeks of sinus infections for my entire family instead. We will address later the importance of "good being best". For now.....

As Dan and I rode back yesterday from something disappointing, we decided to do some thrifting. We chatted back and forth to sort of press "reset" on the afternoon so it would be time enjoyed together instead of just crying like my heart sort of wanted to.  

"I saw *Carrie the other day", Dan said interrupting the silence. "You did?! Good.", I replied as I sat in the comfy, stiff foam seat of the Mazda 5 Dan just bought for our family to replace the 1993 Buick Roadmaster Wagon Estate that we'd been driving for a year and a half. I became very mindful of some contrasts that were happening in that moment.

"That was such a weird time in my life", I said. I looked out the window feeling tears pool on my lower lids. I was glad to hear Carrie was still alive. I was glad the time in my life that caused our introduction was over now. It was over. "I hope I never forget that girl" I said, breaking the silence again. I wasn't talking about Carrie. 

Carrie and I met in the battered women's shelter where I stayed for 10 weeks when I was at a point in my life where some starting over was definitely in order. I went from being a stay at home mother of three (and I'm sorry if you've already read past posts that explain this) to a woman alone in a homeless shelter with a car that held a bunch of my personal belongings that ultimately got hidden from me after I blew a tire on the interstate and had to leave it there. I was at the bottom. I was in a house that served as quite a great equalizer because, despite the details of our stories differing, our hearts - the stuff that made us who we were, were all so similar. The recipes (see blog name) were all different, but the dish that got served up from all our lives was ...we were all on level ground.  It was nice in some ways. 

I have written in the past about how we all sort of rallied around each other at times and how there was a sort of code in "the house". One of the things that was always accepted was if you shared a resource. I had a car (until I didn't) so I tried to share that resource. Everyone had something, but honestly, there were some who truly had less than others. Carrie was one of those. At one point, she had been an art student with gifts that still yielded truly beautiful pictures scribbled with crayons on cast off napkins or discarded notebook paper. She had even begun college. Standing quite tall for the average height of a woman, I could still see the remnants of a strong smile and a presence that could have been unmistakable when she walked into a room.

and then something changed for her.

Sometime during college, Carrie's medication for schitzophrenia either got too expensive or dosed incorrectly.  Her life spiraled out of control.  When I met her in the shelter, she was actually there under false pretenses, but efforts to go back to her very obviously abusive elderly mother was impossible as this woman called the police every time Carrie knocked at the door...or crawled through a window. 

Gone was the statuesque artist with the strong jawline and commanding smile. Instead, we all met a woman hunched over - not from issues with her bone health or muscle strength - but from retisence to stand tall and be noticed. She could often be found carrying on full converstions with herself. Instead of sustaining what I felt sure must have been beauty at one point, her chin jutted out under stretched skin as thick lensed glasses obscured the flecks of white in her blue eyes. Her hair held soft curls that, while they must have cascaded over her shoulders at one time, served now only to create a crown of jagged fuzz. She rode her bike (and please note - any bike she saw that she liked then became "hers") everywhere she went so she kept any extra weight off. She was skinny and, after wardrobing herself with durable clothing items that fit her long frame, the used military camouflage often gave her an appearance of androgeny. This conglomeration of very distinctive characteristics made her very hard for a lot of people to successfully disect and understand. 

Every once in a while, though, some of the sweet would shine through.  

Everyone in the house drank coffee.  A warm cup of sweet coffee, if you closed your eyes tight enough and gripped the mug just right, could make you feel like you weren't in something akin to a prison. You could just sip away and pretend that the other ladies in the house weren't fellow survivors of terrible things. You could pretend that it was your own back porch, and that you'd just invited all of your neighbors over before you all fell to your housework. For those of us that weren't doing drugs, it was our escape. So with all of us drinking coffee, we would sometimes find ourselves in short supply or we found ourselves out of coffee altogether. Well somehow, Carrie had scored a large cannister of Folgers classic roast. There were various ways that Carrie procured things, and, honestly, that was her business. Carrie would never hurt a soul. She was also willing to bike herself all the way across town to the staffing agency every single morning and work jobs that nobody else wanted picking up rubble from construction sites or similar very sweaty activities. She earned more money than some of the lazier characters that landed in our four dysfunctioned walls, so we all actually just felt sort of proud for her. After a day or two, one of the ladies that I'd grown closer to pointed out something to me. I immediately took a picture. The image is one that I treasure.

Carrie had found a permanent marker and scrawled across the bright red cannister "Carrie Shares". She had been mostly mistreated by her housemates, but she extended the olive branch of the coveted grounds for anyone who wanted....to share. 

A number of weeks went by, and I was able to get an apartment.  The night we moved my stuff out of the house into MY house, Carrie was there to help. 

As we stood in the living room of my 600 square foot apartment, all of our eyes welled up with tears and I felt so absolutely, undeservingly lucky. This was my dwelling. I had a reliable job that was going to pay for all my bills there, and my name would be on every envelope that got delivered. Just me. No roommates except for the weekends my kids came home. They were all doing just as much as me, and I was able to jump ahead so it hit me.

"This door..." I walked over to it, I think "...this door is ALWAYS open for any of you. I don't care what time of day or night. You know how to get here now. If you need somewhere to go, come to this door." We all stood in a huddle and hugged. We were going to make it. We were going to all make it past the trials of this awful life we'd survived, right? I wanted us to, and I wanted my little space to help us all. 

I think it was a matter of a couple of months went by, and I came home one day to find a note scrawled on my carport floor in sidewalk chalk. Fear gripped me. I could not immediately bring myself to read what it said. I decided after a few seconds to face whatever message was waiting for me and read the words. The sentance was jumbled and didn't totally make sense, but it was from Carrie. There was another time where there was a scrap of paper with a note similar to this one. Either way, I got ahold of Carrie and she found a hot shower and clean towels, food for her belly and a couch to sleep on...at my house. Over the next few weeks, Carrie would sort of come in and out always trying to be respectful of when my kids came home. She was there one day when Sally was with me. Carrie seemed so uncomfortable like she was intruding or almost afraid that Sally would be afraid of her. She wasn't. Sally was not afraid of Carrie.

Then Carrie would disappear.

I tried to keep tabs on her because, despite being in Florida, our winters get pretty cold. That ocean breeze can slice against your skin when it's hovering in the 30's and 40's. We actually got snow that year. Anyway, Carrie had told me about several of her "spots" where she and her fellow homeless friends would bed down.  After not hearing from her for too many days in a row, I had this really strong need to go find her. Something in my soul just kept saying "You are supposed to go get her tonight", so, in my orthopoedic loafers and Estee Lauder uniform, I drove to the park she'd mentioned to me and got out of my car. There was a birthday party finishing under one end of the pavilion while a very obviously homeless man sat at the other eating a sandwich as if he was sitting in his own living room. It made my heart have a little giggle because he was making "home" wherever he could. I asked him if he'd seen Carrie. He pointed through the tall cattails to the gazebo they obscured from sight. I walked the sidewalk path that led straight up to the steps. There were 3 or 4 other people laid out on sleeping bags and pallets, and there was Carrie. I remember having this sense as I approached that I was walking up the steps of the porch to a proper home, and I could see in because they'd pulled back their curtains. I felt the need to make sure to show my respect, so I said hello to Carrie and said hello to her...roommates. They all introduced themselves to me except for the girl who couldn't wake up. Carrie even shook her head about that girl, but we both shrugged because we all have "stuff" just the same as that girl. I told Carrie that she was coming to my house tonight. She tried to hide excitement as she gathered up her things. This was not because of any pridefulness. She just didn't want to become an imposition. 

Over the next month, she drifted in and out of my house. Sometimes she would leave me a note scrawled in sidewalk chalk graciously thanking me, and sometimes she would leave without a trace. Eventually she left for the last time, and I never saw her again. I never knew where she went...until yesterday when Dan told me about having seen her. 

I know this took forever to read but this whole story played through my mind in the short time it took for Dan to tell me that he'd seen her to me remembering the "me" of then - the "me" that didn't feel like I was helping the less fortunate. I was helping "me" in another body. I got lucky, and I know that to this day, and I do NOT EVER want to waste that. 

So Dan and I drove down the street.  We went to a couple stores where I found some books for Natalie, and then we came home. Audrey was so clingy, so I asked Dan if he minded if I went alone to the thrift store in back of our house (our neighborhood is a strange mix of residences and businesses). Of course he said yes. 

Normally I never look at the clothes, but yesterday I thought "You know what? What if there's some good treasure in there?" So, as I talked on the phone to my sweet friend, I slid shirts down the rack until I found 6 that were worth it to me to try on. They all fit, but I remembered that this store has sales every Sunday, so I hid my shirts all together so I could find them and then asked the cashier about the sale. She confirmed for me that some items would be reduced the following day so I went back home.

This afternoon, too lazy to change out of my ill-fitting, paint spattered laundry day best, I told Dan I wanted to go back for my things. I quickly found the place on the rack where I'd hung them up yesterday, but only 3 of them were there today.  Again, despite my normal disregard for looking throught crowded racks of used clothing smelling heavily of mothballs, I decided I'd continue my search for some replacements. I tried them on and felt satisfied that I'd happened upon more wearable clothing than I'd found at a thrift store in months, so I took them to the register. I double checked with the cashier to make sure the items I'd found were on sale because my whole personal purpose in the orginal exercise was to see how cheap I could get these things. It was a game for me, sort of. He admitted to me that only one of the items of my 6 was a sale item so I was like "Well...do this and this then. It's okay." He was very apologetic, but I go peruse there all the time, so I really did not want him to feel bad at all. He was like "Okay, well do you want me to take these other things off?" I replied "Yeah, just take those off" and then an older woman with a rounder figure and a dark pixi haircut interrupted and said "No...no" as she looked at the cashier "No. You ring up everything and I'll pay for the difference of whatever she was going to put back". I was awestruck. My brow furrowed, and I asked her "Are you serious? Thank you!" but I felt so conflicted. I felt worried that I had defrauded her in some way. What if she thought I was "as poor as I looked"? I mean, I was just too lazy to change out of my ugly clothes, but what if she thought that was all I had? What if she thought buying everything was beyond my resources instead of just being beyond the reach of the rules of the little game I played while thrift shopping? I felt an impulse to say something to her, but this rapid fire exchange of thoughts shot through my brain until I heard a voice in my head say "No, Sarah. Do not tell her no. You both need this. You should not tell her no. Be gracious. Accept this. You need this and she needs this." As the casheir rang things up, the woman then changed her mind and decided to buy the $7 worth of things that I was originally going to buy. I looked again at her and just hugged her. She just kept talking about how God tells us to take care of each other and we just make it because of how He loves us. I kept nodding my head as she talked. I wondered "Does she know that I know God? That I have felt the grip of His hand hoist me up out of the angry, stormy water of life? Am I showing God as much as she is right now? I WANT TO! I hope that I am!"

I stood and talked with her a few minutes, and then we parted ways. She spent $25 on me - a total stranger on things that she didn't even inspect to make sure they were worth her money. Just willingly handed it to my heart. I felt so humbled - not humiated - humbled just like you always feel when something wonderful is bestowed to you through no merit of yourself. You just get given something really beautiful that you don't necessarily deserve but for the love that is offered to you by the heart of another.

I walked out of the store, and then it hit me. I literally audibly said "Ohhhhhkay" to God because in that moment as I stood at the register refusing the things I'd picked out, I HAD looked like "her". I was....still....her. I am.....still....her. 

The circumstances of my life are different now. I'm no longer homeless. I am no longer in hiding. I'm married again to a very obviously wonderful man, and, though there have been more moments of truly abject poverty after the time I spent at the shelter, I'm not there now. 

But I don't want to forget "her"! I don't ever want to not be the girl who opened her door to any person who needs my four walls. I don't want to ever not be the ears that would always listen and the heart that would always love. I don't ever want to not be the woman who didn't wince at the soul who's body had a lot of dirt on it because I knew what it was like to be a soul like that too.  I will always be her, but I don't want to forget that. I shudder at the thought of ever feeling too comforted by the trapping of fine things that my ears grow deaf or my eyes grow blind to the other "me"s walking around out there and now I have a sweater and some shirts and a pair of jeans that, every time I put them on will surround me with the warmth of someone who saw "her" and saw beauty and had beauty within themselves that just spilled out the top of their own souls. 

So now, though, I've got this bank of $25, right? I didn't necessarily need these things, so now my eyes are on the hunt. I'm looking for someone...I'm looking for me...and I'm looking....at you.

On taking care....for real

Motherhood is hard.  I’m sure fatherhood is hard too, in its own way, but I’ve never been a father – just a mother, so I’ll speak about that. I can safely say, though, that it is hard.
Here’s the life of an American girl in most families:
Little girl: play, develop an imagination, pretend to be a princess, get dirty sometimes, play also with cars and watch super hero shows, pretend to be a ballerina, learn that lipstick is a thing, decide that shiny things are something everyone should want, decide that shiny things are DEFINITELY something YOU want
Older girl: master reading, learn to enjoy the imagination you developed as a vehicle to transport you through the world of reading, continue to enjoy shiny things, come to realize that being “pretty” gets you things, come to realize that you want to be pretty, begin to have doubts about unconventional things about you that might not be deemed “pretty”, start to think for longer periods of time about future jobs, realize that you will have to choose one at a time, start to give your list of possible career choices with “or” between profession names and mother instead of the word “and” without realizing why, maintain desire to be a princess
Young teen: box up toys, keep out a few with the disclaimer that you keep them out for memories while still snuggling the same doll every night, realize that even the gross boys can be cute and the cute boys are adorable, start asking for makeup, start sneaking makeup, start changing your list of aspirations based on your audience, start changing that conversation altogether based on the level of approval of your audience, maintain your deep seated desire to just be a princess
Older teen: put toys in the attic or garage to be stored “for my kids later”, start looking at colleges, continue looking at boys, increase the desire to gain the approval of one that does not repulse you, continue to enjoy shiny things, increase your awareness of things about you that other people may not find attractive, begin (or continue) to have insecurity with the physical vehicle that houses your soul, decide on the pursuit of an education for an area of study that seems amenable, possibly begin dating (I did not), maintain your deep seated desire to be a princess
College age: begin college OR join workforce, gain sensation of how large the world is and how small you are within it, begin to feel pressure of bills and/or deadlines for school courses or professional projects, increase the standard of appearance you have for yourself, hope that your increased standard gains you overall approval from your peers, hope that your increased standard gains you specific approval from another human, begin to pursue relationships, cycle through the inception and then ultimate demise of several relationships – romantic and platonic, experience failure with all its confusing complexities, maintain deep seated desire to be a princess
Mid 20’s: (Here we are going to make my timeline very specific to a woman who gets married to a man at this age since the point of this entry and this project is to view it from this widely practiced but very specific perspective) PHEW! Okay. Find an acceptable husband, feel at least temporarily that you have “won” at life because marriage is a lifelong commitment, continue studies or professional pursuits, continue enjoying shiny things, buy shiny things to surround you and your male human in your home, realize that not all male humans like shiny things like you do, start to feel like you’re aging quickly, start to notice your face skin is weirdly dry, begin to feel sure that your biological clock is ticking (cue clip from My Cousin Vinny of the effervescent Marisa Tomei stomping her foot on the porch of a cabin in Yazoo, Mississippi), broach subject of procreation with male human counterpart, decide to start “trying”, maintain deep seated desire to just be a princess, realize that now you’d have to settle for the title of queen, feel internal conflict over that
Late 20’s – early 30’s: begin navigating world of fertility, realize that a lot of your self worth is connected to the level of function of your uterus and ovaries, (here again my journey has to become specific to myself because I became pregnant relatively quickly. I am also among the blessed few that has never traversed the mean, angry waters of in utero infant loss or infertility), become pregnant, realize that you feel like poop, reach point in your pregnancy at which you no longer recognize yourself, decide that there are parts you hate about this new you, decide there are parts you LOVE about this new you, realize you are changing on every level, begin to worry if changes are bad or good, begin to worry if the bad changes are permanent, begin to lose ability to juggle everything that you could juggle successfully pre-pregnancy, hop aboard the roller coaster that is hormone fluxuation and mood swings, give birth to small human, decide that they are the reason that you were ever born, feel elation, begin to feel yourself understanding true exhaustion, decide that you now have a grasp on what would be effective torture techniques, type out a letter to the U.S. government to offer suggestions, exercise better judgment realizing that the purpose of your letter could be grossly misconstrued, begin to at least occasionally resent your male human counterpart turned coparent for his ability to always look SO STINKING RESTED!!, realize that you haven’t taken a shower in two days, realize that the “chocolate or poop test” yielded the result of…not chocolate, spend 8 months doing all of this, realize that you only own stretchy clothing now, realize that you don’t care, feel conflict (because you remember cute….she was a nice girl….really nothing wrong with her…she was nice), feel self loathing, look at baby and feel sure again that they are your entire purpose for being born, begin to lose whole sight of the fact that the reason you were born is to be none other than…..YOU!, come to agreement with male counterpart that it is no longer realistic or advantageous to pay for daycare, make the decision to be stay at home parent (specific to me, remember) realize that you have a limited amount of time to accomplish anything within the day, decide that all time would be best spent on the tiny human, look in the mirror and have no way to recognize who that person is, sigh and find a task to complete, maintain your deep seated desire to be a princess but realize you’re too old for princess and admit sadness that you feel there’s absolutely no way you could ever achieve queen
Mid 30’s to late 30’s: (these “phases” are on a sliding scale and are given based on my own life experience. Substitute or shift wherever you find it necessary) do everything in above phase 3 additional times, pass mirror, realize you look old but could look young if you wanted, go to cosmetic store and buy eye cream, entertain thoughts of being an adult student because “35 isn’t really as old as I used to think it was”, look around at piles of laundry for what is now a group of 4 – 7 people instead of 2 or 3, feel conflicted because you are so overwhelmed by housework and “wiping things” that you could scream but you also wouldn’t trade a second of the times that resulted in this mess if someone offered you the whole world, let out a sigh of resolution because even though the times are happy you do still have the mess and there is still poop involved, feel sort of resentful that you never get any awards or paychecks, start to really miss “cute”, settle on orthopedic sandals and tell yourself that “they look almost just like Birkenstocks!” even though they don’t but you can catch up with a 4 year old really fast if you have them on, begin to laugh at the idea of heels, decide it’s your daughter’s turn for “all of that”, maintain your deep seated desire to be a princess but realize now that queen is your only option, feel helpless and depleted and hopeless because queens don’t wear poop, look in the mirror and wonder if your male human counterpart actually thinks you’re “pretty” anymore, feel actual pity for him that he’s “stuck” with you, feel guilt….lots of guilt, feel failure
Does this resonate with anyone?  Sheesh! That was long, but does that basic framework not fit a lot of us? I mean, switch out a thing or two and it might not be THAT far off. Does anything jump out to you?  Something jumps out to me…
Loss of identity.
We are created to be an individual unique from every single other individual on planet earth at any point in human history past, present or future. So why is it that, especially in motherhood, one of the first things to go is…us?  Why do we immediately default to not just the needs, but the mere desires of the people around us? STOP DOING THIS!!!
Okay, let me make a little disclaimer here. We have all met women who were self absorbed.  These are the women who show up to things looking absolutely immaculate who also show up to show off.  This group of women is NOT something to which we should strive to belong.  These ones can be described as shallow and selfish.
Do you realize it’s a spectrum though? Do you realize that there is an equally disgusting extreme to that? You’ve met her too. “She” is constantly self deprecating, doesn’t ever try to dress up, actually tries to get attention by looking bedraggled and almost complains about not being able to be part of society at all because her children need her.
We need to have balance. We are vessels. We do not want a vessel that is overflowing with resources and comfort because the spillover is just that – wasted.  I don’t feel like it’s healthy or productive to hoard resources or attention. But trust me, if you’re sitting there wondering if you fall into this group and feel some dread over that possibility, I can unequivocally assure you that you don’t. This group of women is actually very proud of their near narcissistic way of life. We also don’t want to be an empty, cracked, chipped up vessel though….because that’s actually wasteful too.  In fact, that’s some of the most frustrating kind of waste too, because with the overflowing vessel, you can see it happening. With the cracked vessel, it’s almost a worse betrayal because the leaking is slow. The one putting the resource into the vessel doesn’t even realize until its too late that the vessel isn’t doing what it presented that it would do. On the same token, an empty vessel with nothing to offer at all does not help a single person or thing.
So what is the balance? This is where I want to make the distinction of self care versus self indulgence or self deprecation.  To be honest, I find that myself and most of my constituents find ourselves more on the self deprecation end of the spectrum and just a few of my acquaintances on the poles.  So let’s speak to our group.
Number one, why?  Why do we find it more acceptable to lay ourselves down to have our souls and identities beheaded on the altar of “serving our families”? I don’t feel like we actually have a good understanding of what that even means! We have got to stop this, girls! Even the Bible says “Love your neighbor as yourself” but if we treated someone the way we treat ourselves, we wouldn’t HAVE friends!!! Are you missing that? Did you catch that? Could we please do better?
I have to be honest. This is hard for me. I have a lot of what I call “old ghosts”.  Isn’t criticism a weird thing? It’s so vicious.
There was a time in my life when my children were younger that I received PUBLIC criticism from someone who claimed to have my best interest at heart. She sat on her podium of self deprecation and told an actual audience of other people that I was “overwhelmed by motherhood” as if it were unusual or an indicator of failure.  I will never forget that moment for as long as I live. The criticism was on top of other undue criticism that I’d received that she had even, at one point, discredited.  I have learned that this very same woman, during her own experience as a young mother found herself so “overwhelmed by motherhood” that she sat in her bedroom alone in a nearly catatonic state on the edge of her bed….ripping phone books in half.  I also have good reason to believe that she now has an at least psychological dependency on prescription pain killers….keep in perspective who your critics are because doing this work after giving too much credence to people like this is grueling on its best days.
Do you have stories like that too? Probably. Do you want to be the most wonderful version of yourself? Also probably.
…..do you wanna be a queen?
YES! YES! YES!
Okay. I’m going to tell you how I’m going to try to achieve that healthy level of royalness, but, in order to do that, I’m going to have to tell you how I ended up here.
Catch up with me tomorrow, and I’ll explain to you the most recent parts of what has made this journey positive and what it looks like starting today. Today was my day 1 of self care.
Are you ready???

Why I rode my bike to work

I spent my morning getting ready for the day just like so many other women. I fixed my hair into perfect soft curls. My lipstick was a happy, striking red. I had put on an adorably current striped jersey dress. I was ready for this new chapter of my life. This was an important day for me. I got in my little red car, opened the sunroof and made the hour long drive to my new home. I got out of the car, squared my shoulders and planted my feet on the front stoop - though I could feel my legs and ankles shaking over my strappy wedges. I pressed the buzzer next to the door. "Can I help you?" a voice asked through the small intercom box. "Yes...um...I'm (and then I gave my name). I called earlier." I fixed a polite smile on my face and waited for the door to open for me to the building -- a homeless shelter for battered women.

I had spent a couple days envisioning what it would be like at a shelter. I pictured things being very simple and there being an air of quietness and healing. Lots of pink and soft things -- reminders of what "home" is supposed to be. What I saw when the shelter worker opened the door was so very different. First of all, it was very dark. The furniture was all extremely old, and the people all looked incredibly sad. I felt every set of eyes on me. I suddenly felt very out of place "I'm not like THESE people......I don't look right....I shouldn't have dressed up." This monologue played through my brain as I was directed to the office to fill out my intake paperwork. I answered the appropriate questions and then was invited to follow the worker from the front door to see my room.

She was nice. This girl. She offered some small talk on the way to their supply closet. She told me a few of the rules and showed me through the kitchen and "family room". She continued this chatter as she gathered things from the shelves of the closet. "Uh," she paused. "I don't see a pillow here. There should be one on your bed, but here are your sheets." She loaded my arms with the things she'd collected -- a set of mismatched sheets and what looked like an old motel comforter. We reached my room, and she rattled off the protocol for entering and leaving my room and then showed me the bed I'd been assigned and the dressers where I was allowed to put my clothes. "This room is for four adults, so you are allowed to use three drawers -- .right over here," she gestured to the pieces of furniture against the wall. She kept talking while I tried to absorb my surroundings. I was sharing the room with two other women - one of whom had a baby. The room was already very full.

I laid the sheets on my twin sized top bunk and walked over to the dresser to see which drawers could be mine. Upon quick inspection, I noticed that two of the three available drawers had bottoms that were broken out.  I let out a sigh and began making my bed. I spread the sheets and comforter across the mattress and then picked up the pillow case. I looked around the bed. There was no pillow -- anywhere. I closed my eyes and let out another sigh, and then it happened. I felt my throat catch. It hit me.

I was here.

The events of the preceding six weeks all caught up with me at once. I had no choice but to admit to myself that it had all been real, and I was now a person that had nowhere to go. To a lot of people, I was a throwaway. I had been thrown away. Life had happened, and I had to accept the fact that I was now homeless and living in a shelter.

I fought the tears for the time it took me to get my computer out and turn on a movie. I stuck in my earbuds and bent my arm to make up for the pillow that wasn't there. I laid down and let the tears stream down across my nose and down my cheek until I fell asleep still in my pretty dress, still with my soft curls, and still wearing the makeup I'd so carefully applied earlier that day. None of that mattered. None of that was real. This was real. I was here. This was my new real.

My first few days there were a bit of a blur that included a lot of sleeping and some talking on the phone to a friend who lived states away from me. I felt a bit numb, but one morning I finally felt like leaving my room and meeting people.

The other ladies were friendly. I was the newby that they initially had thought was a new employee of the shelter because of the way I was dressed on the day I showed up, but they were kind to me. I began to feel a little camaraderie with these other victims.

As I sat at the table, everyone began to story share. Some of the behaviors were more extreme and some surroundings for the stories were different, but that was all. The words our abusers used - even entire phrases - were identical. I began to feel something that I hadn't felt amongst my group of peers in my old social circle. Normal. I began to feel normal. I also felt something else. Acceptance. No one suspected me of lying or exaggerating. They ALL believed MY story, and then something changed in me. I listened to the woman tell about how her girlfriend had tried to kill her. The teller happened to be a drug user and sometimes trafficker. I listened to another woman tell about the physical damage her abuser inflicted on her while their unborn baby grew in her womb. She happened to be a call girl. I watched the schizophrenic that talked to herself most of the time pick up a crayon and draw on cast-off napkins some of the most beautiful artwork I'd ever seen. I listened to so many stories of women that were so very like me. The parts of our stories that included different details stopped mattering, and one singular fact shot to the front of my brain. We...were...all...people, and at one point or another, we had all been thrown away. Being thrown away had driven us to make certain decisions for our lives. Some of these decisions might have seemed foolish and some even viewed as criminal, but life had happened in a way that had driven each one of us to these decisions - things that were outside of our control. So we had all ended up in this house.

Because the inclusion into the group felt like an evolution for me, I can't tell you at what specific place it began, but I found myself doing things for my sisters in the house and they for me. We began to feel comfortable with one another and establish friendships and to defend each other against the more nefarious ones that cycled in and out of "the house". I was careful to protect the privacy of my sisters. This was, after all a place of hiding for us, but I loved getting to tell a faraway friend about the new friends I found there.

There was something sad though. There were ladies that would come in covered in bruises and blood who would spend their first couple of days holed up in their rooms - just like I had. Then they would emerge like an animal finished with hibernation as it blinks in its first beams of spring sunlight, and they would tell their stories. We would spend hours talking about how we were DONE with the world of being mistreated and talk about how strong we were for having survived that world well enough to get out. We would rally around each other, and then we would watch some of them go right back to their abusers. This was the single most heartbreaking thing for me. "WHY??? WHY would she go back to her abuser? She KNOWS that she's just going to get hurt again!" Sometimes this would be another internal dialogue, and sometimes two or three of us would have a conversation together.

So I began to study why it was that a person would return to something that they could feel sure would just cause them more damage. In fact, why had I myself done that for years? Here's the answer: Hope.

Hope is a funny thing. The presence of it can be the most empowering thing in our human experience. The absence of it can lead us to completely fruitless situations or even criminal activity. "My therapist told me today that most abused women leave 9 times before they actually leave their abuser for good. Then the 9th time they stay gone," one of my sisters said as we all sat like captives of the motion sensor and multiple locks on the door of the humid back porch. "Well, THIS is your 9th time. We are strong. We can do this! We can move on!" So "the 9th time" became sort of a catch phrase for us. I myself had left 5. I knew what it meant to leave with every intention of scrapping together every resource and all your resolve to stay gone and rebuild a life only to lose all your strength or to be given enough rejection from a resource that you desperately needed and feel forced go right back. Sadly, even though this heart that spoke those words had actually walked away from her abuser 9 times, she went back to him. It wasn't her "9th time". She had gotten a job to provide for herself and her girls, and her boss turned out to be a man with intentions to cross lines with her that she didn't want to cross. He fired her. She lost her hope. "You tell us if you need anything, okay?" we each told her as we stared into her beautiful eyes through the tears in our own. "Okay. I will, but seriously guys. This time is different," she told us knowing full well we didn't believe her. She didn't even believe her, but she drove away.

I was different though. I was lucky, and I very quickly realized that I was an extreme exception. I was broke and jobless and abused just like every other woman in that house. I had gone from being a stay at home spouse to living in THIS house in 7 weeks time, but I had something different. For reasons that I do not know, I was given Hope. I had people that believed in me.

One of these benefactors of Hope was a friend of mine. We had lost touch for years and then found each other again just weeks before. Even though the amount of time we had spent reconnecting had been rather small, he had this unwavering belief in me. That belief in me sparked something in my soul that had been forced to lie dormant for nearly a decade - hope. He spent many hours reminding me of what I was actually worth and what I could actually do to impact my world. At first I didn't believe anything he was saying, but after a while, I couldn't help but see tiny pieces of what he was saying to be true.

After I had been living in the shelter for about 3 weeks of my allotted 8, I realized that I needed to become very proactive about finding a job. I had spent years being told that I was not hireable by anyone and that I didn't have a work ethic to work a job let alone keep one. Broaching the subject of getting a job was nothing short of terrifying to me. I had, however, developed a skill and love for makeup artistry. "Why don't you just SEE if there are any makeup artist jobs?" my friend asked me one day after having made the suggestion a number of times already. "NObody is going to hire me. I've only done a little bit of free lance stuff since school. I am NOT the type of person they're looking for". I threw the suggestion in the waste bin of my heart another time and began instead to explore the option of exotic dancing. It would be quick money, and I had made a connection in the house with a former dancer. My friend expressed worry about me entering this line of work. He told me about how dangerous it could be and how it could damage my ability to wage the legal wars that I was going through. I found ways to justify the choice of exploring dancing and hung up on him mid phone call.

The truth was, I just felt like that all I was good enough to do was expose my already damaged self to people who weren't viewing it with any intention of investing anything in it. While I realize that is not the motivation of every woman entering that industry, I can't deny that it was mine. I tossed the idea around for another week, but my friend's gentle reminders of the skill that I knew I possessed eventually sent me to my computer to search for makeup artist jobs.

I found an opening. Hope.

I felt like this opportunity was a long shot, but something in me made my fingers press down the keys enough times to write a resume and then finish the application. Several days later, I got a call back for an interview. My lovely 14 year old Mazda had bit the dust during my stay at the shelter so, by the time I got the interview, I had no car.  I appealed to friends on Facebook to see if someone local could give me a ride to the interview. There was a lady that I'd gone to church with in my "old life" that answered the request. She had only been a casual friend before, but she kept stepping to the front of the line every single time I asked for help. Hope.

 During that interview, the cosmetic department manager told me "Well, we have a process for all this stuff, so I have to call our corporate HR and set up a phone interview with the company that we use, but if I could, I'd hire you right now." More Hope. I went through my phone interview 4 days later, and then I got another call with a job offer. I was the newest member of the Estee Lauder empire. I danced through the house and made phone calls to my small list of people who I thought cared and prepared myself for my first day of work.

This job was 12.5 miles away from the house, so I found out what I needed to do to ride the bus. I started on a Wednesday and had an amazing day. Thursday was my day off, and then Friday morning I got back on the bus. I overheard another passenger say something that made me feel completely frantic. I leaned forward to talk to the driver "Um, so the bus doesn't run on the weekends?" "No," he said as he cocked his head to the side to avoid the summer morning sun. "No. Doesn't run on the weekends." I was scheduled to work the following morning. My mind began to race. I spent that day's lunch break begging more people on Facebook to give me a ride to work the next day.

I secured a ride for the days for that weekend, but I knew I had to make a better plan for the next weekend that I was scheduled to work. I also learned that the last bus ran at 7:30 in the evening, so if I closed the store, I would be without a ride. My answer: I called my mom.  We spent the next day and a half figuring out how she could order a bike for me and let me pick it up.  This proved to be way more difficult than expected since she, the purchaser, wasn't the picker-upper.  We ended up being able to order it from Wal-mart and my mom gifted me with the most adorable yellow bike with bright cartooney flowers on it. The flowers reminded me of the signature roses used for the logo for Betsey Johnson's wares, so I bestowed that name to my trusty steed. She was henceforth known to everyone as "Betsey".

My first ride on Betsey was a hot one. I sweated my entire way to work, but I figured it would be nothing to just grab a drink at Panera and then change in the bathroom. I wanted to be sure to actually buy something so I didn't reveal myself as the homeless person that I actually was. I took my place in line at the counter and ordered my drink with sweat dripping off my brow. I opened my wallet. "It's okay. I got this," the man behind the counter said. I stood there slack jawed. "Are you sure?" I asked. I felt like I'd just been given a million dollars. "Yeah," he said with a smile while he shooed me away. Guess what that cup of soda represented to me? Yep. Just a little cup of Hope.

I had told my coworkers that I had bought a bike to ride to work, but I had NOT told them how far the ride was. This person shared with that person enough details about things I'd said, though, so they figured me out. Not only was I riding my bike 12.5 miles in blazing sun or pouring rain when the bus wasn't running, I was also traversing the stretch of road nicknamed "bloody 98" because of all the biker and traffic fatalities there. My coworkers were horrified. They sat me down on the stool at the Clinique counter and told firmly but so lovingly that I was not allowed to EVER ride that bike to work again. Everyone in my department had agreed that they'd be taking care of my ride situation until I was able to get a car. More Hope. I didn't ask for it. I didn't actually do anything to deserve it, but people that decided to dare about me had given it to me.

Just a few weeks later, one of my chums from high school told me she was going to start helping me look for a car. She asked me how much I could spend. I told her the truth. I had nothing. What happened next was beyond my scope of understanding, but that same girl asked me if I would be able to get a ride or even a bus ticket to a town about an hour and half from mine. They had BOUGHT me a car. More hope. I felt like the QUEEN of the world. I cried the whole way back to the shelter. I gripped the steering wheel and scooted my booty around the seats just to make sure it was really real.

Just a few days later, I was hit with a giant blow. The director of the shelter knocked on my door just before my alarm was set to go off. She called my name and then entered the room.

"What are you going to do today?" she asked.

Very confused, I answered, "Um...I'm going to work. I have to be there at noon. Why?"

"Well, this is your last day," she explained.

"My last day for what?" I was even more confused.

"Your last day here!" she said, and then she giggled with a weird gratification in her laugh.

"I have to LEAVE? Can I get an extension?" I asked as I shot out of bed hoping that they'd bend the rules for me since I'd had the distraction of starting my new job. I had seen this exception made for others so her reply surprised me.

"No. It's too late for that. You should have done that last week." She pulled the door closed with that same gratified smirk on her face.

I sat back on my bed and held my head in my hands and cried, but then Hope took over. I was determined now. I had tasted enough success that I was going to find a way. I was getting out of that place and not by way of my stuff being thrown to the curb in black trash bags while I was at work (as I had seen done to others during my stay there).

I gathered my wits and briskly walked through the living room to sign my name to the clipboard outside the office door to be seen by the director. After a few minutes, she came out of the office and stood in front of me. "Is there nothing that can be done?" I asked through tears. "No," she said coldly and then held up a small scrap of paper. "Here," she said. "Call THESE people. Maybe one of THEM will listen to your sob story." She barely gave me enough time to grip the scrap before she let go of it.

I felt so hurt. My stay there had not been without problems. The kitchen was stocked on a regular basis, but there was a problem of women in the house hoarding food in their rooms. So by the time I got home, there was not much left but canned goods. I cannot count the number of days that I came home from work to my usual dinner of a can of corn and an uncooked package of Ramen noodles. The reason they were uncooked was because, while dishes would get washed, they weren't always washed well. There was also a pest problem. Also, because I was a single person in the house, I was very movable. On a number of occasions, I would come home from work to find that I'd been moved to a different room from the one I'd left. Sometimes they would move my belongings for me, and sometimes they'd just leave my things in the afore mentioned trash bags in the front room for me to move myself, but every time things got moved, something would be missing. I was also approached very aggressively by another woman in the house. She made a number of unwanted advances towards me. I never complained about any of these things, and I never upset any of the balance of the house, so the coldness to me by the director was startling and confusing and immensely hurtful. I also realized this meant that I might lose the job I'd worked so hard to get and keep.

I took the paper and walked to my room and immediately got on the phone to call into work. Through more tears, I explained to the manager of the store what had just happened . He assured me that they were going to help and to just calm down and that this did not jeopardize my job. A couple hours later, the director reentered my room and sort of sheepishly admitted to me that I didn't have to leave that day. I would be given the weekend, and then I would have to leave but I could stay until the weekend was over. Apparently she had received a few phone calls on my behalf.

One of my managers from work found several listings for small apartments that I could afford. She took her day off to drive me around town until we found the one that would work with my budget. She spent time in our conversation with my prospective landlords vouching for why I was a good candidate to rent from them. I was approved despite the fact that I had no credit and only half of the deposit. More Hope.

I sat in a booth at McDonalds with my new landlords and signed my lease paperwork. After we shook hands, they excused themselves and left. I sat in that booth and stared at the keys in my hand. Just two little hunks of metal, but, to me, they represented something so huge - something that had evaded most of my sisters in the house. Hope.  They weren't just keys to my house, and they weren't just keys to my future. They were keys OUT of my past.

I walked up to the counter to order some food, and the tears started to well up again. Feeling the need to explain, I looked at the boy working behind the counter, and I asked, "Do you know what you just watched happen there?" and I pointed to the booth where I'd been sitting. He shook his head with a curious smile. "You just watched me become not homeless anymore." Our eyes locked, and then his welled up with tears too. Another worker slid the tray of my food onto the counter so I opened my wallet. "I got it," my listening boy said. I looked back up at him and could just mouth the words, "Thank you." He had no idea. He thought he was just comping my dinner. He thought he was just doing something really nice for someone, but no. He was doing more........he was giving me more of what I needed. He was giving me Hope.