Month: March 2014

I Would Want to if I Didn’t

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Not a corner in our house is sacred when your name is Mom. Not the spaces that lack speakers, Wii controllers, and Disney titles. Not the bathrooms, the pantry, or closets. One would think certain subtle clues would keep the mongrels from disturbing me. Like when I’m in the middle of a sentence on my cell phone. When the doors are locked. Even when I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my car…in the garage. No, they are not deterred.

It’s in one of these situations that the ear-splitting screams of my youngest daughter come piercing into the bathroom. She’s so distraught her lips turn a sallow gray between breaths and wails.
“He jumped on me right here!” she chokes out, hand to her nose.
I’m instantly ready to do battle, which is a conflicting emotion when the enemy is also someone you protect. I take a second to avoid reaction, to keep myself from grabbing him by the hair. Experience has taught me to be wise to the other side of the story.
“What happened? Why did you do that?”
He’s already cracking, holding back his own tears. “She hit me.”
Ah, there we have it. “But you’re so much bigger,” I say. Within seconds I’m assessing the morning and I realize we all need a time-out before this escalates. “Everyone grab a book and get on their bed.” One of the greatest parenting skills I’ve ever learned and will never master: redirection.
“Whyyy?” they moan. Well, because I’m about to tear my eyeballs out, that’s why.
“Go.”

While I really want to escape into the numbing affects of social media, I don’t. We have zoo plans and we’re not going to ruin them. Hopefully all the lions and giraffes and penguins will pull this family back together.

On the drive there I go over what happened.
“Buddy, you’ve been given the gift of strength. You are powerful and jumping onto your sister’s face could hurt her. You might have broken her nose. It wasn’t okay for her to hit you but it’s also not okay for you to body-slam her.”
A giggle bursts out of his mouth.
“Let’s use that gift to protect your sisters, all right?”
“Ok.”

The small one falls asleep (hallelujah) and the older kids quietly listen to music…after elbowing each other and being separated. We bob to the likes of country music with the sunroof open, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I even start to believe this day will turn out.

Then she wakes up sassy and unwilling to do anything I tell her to do. Then the others argue with me about needing jackets and water bottles. Then the walking doesn’t end and the clouds turn no humidity into an arctic blast of frigidity. Then the whining ensues, and though the hippos are heavy with entertainment, the traffic home is not. It’s just heavy.

We enter the house bone-tired and grumpy. Everything is how we left it, all stacks, and strays of crayons and shoes and dishes. My margin for making dinner is thinned to a sliver.

While we eat I tell them how I didn’t hear a single “thank-you.” Of course then they say it as if they’re offering me fresh strawberries, but you know how those taste when they’re forced. Sour. I remind them that they need to respect me, be grateful for a mom who takes them places. Good grief the entry tickets were as much as a third of our grocery bill.

Now this morning I’m looking at a clutter of hair products near a mirror splattered with toothpaste. Demands return, nail polish is painted on the dresser, they fight over which cartoons to watch first, and I wonder why I’m so tired of it all.
When something in me shifts.

I HAVE CHILDREN.

If I didn’t, I would long for the mess atop the counter. I’d do anything to hear arguments about who sits where and who is breathing whose air. I’d ache for bad attitudes after miles of elephants and seals. I’d relish the picking up of flung jammies and washing melamine plates with superheroes.  

Guess who’s ungrateful.
Yeah.

Who, Me?

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Recently I was asked by a group of ladies to answer an e-mail thread titled Who Are You? A seemingly simple question with a few obvious, quick answers.

Brittany, Britt, B- all depending on who you are in my life.
Wife
Mom
Blogger

But I took my blue ballpoint and went a little deeper. It’s a question I’ve explored much over the last few years in a myriad of ways. What do I really want in life, for this life? Who do I want to be, what legacy do I want to create?

-Born to a building supply warehouse manager and a college registrar in the 80’s.
-Collateral damage of a divorce as a preschooler.
-Blessed with a third parent, a step-parent.
-A Midwesterner who doesn’t miss the humidity but longs for the green, rolling hills and towering oaks of the backcountry.
-A country girl. Forever.
-Raised a hunter. I know how to load and shoot a rifle, and have killed and helped gut two deer.
-A former codependent who at times forgets the “former” piece of that sentence.
-A born-again child of God, saved by Christ, no longer a legalist though my theology has hardly changed.
-In love with moving writing, strong coffee, and food so delicious I nearly buckle.
-Free, in so many, many ways.
-A young bride, a wiser wife always learning.
-Mother to a girl, a boy, and another girl, for whom I’d die.
-A friend who pursues, is patient, and will say the f-bomb with you when the situation requires.
-I don’t give up, but I know my limits even if not until they’ve been exceeded.
-A listener to a melting pot of music from Elvis and Stevie Wonder to Bruno Mars and Katy Perry to The Band Perry and Hunter Hays to hymns that were the staple of my childhood.
-Undefined by things in my past that don’t benefit my true identity in Christ.
-Favors antiques and vintage décor.
-A woman who knows how to implement boundaries, though I may have to remind myself of the need.
-Relentless desire for the outdoors, even if it’s just a scenic homepage on my computer screen.
-Will waver between an afternoon iced caramel mocha and an Angry Orchard, though I most often go for the coffee.
-Obsessed with Seinfeld, The Cosby Show, and action or sports movies with a moral ending.
-A damn good blogger who will write whether there is an audience or it stays hidden in my journal. (My mother will raise her eyebrows and cringe a bit, and my husband will cover his open mouth for using that word.)
-Seeker of truth.
-Daughter of Abba.

How would you answer?

It’s Fave

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Image

Eyes sag droopy and we are lazing around like the cold of the day calls us to do. We’re tired from staying up so late last night, talking to Grandma and watching movies well beyond a sensible hour. Friday nights over spring break demand this kind of irresponsibility.

We don’t really all fit on the Queen bed but that’s beside the point. Dad is teaching chess to the girl with stringy hair. The boy is watching, waiting for his turn in his too-big jeans held steady with a belt he found in our closet. The little one is cross-legged, coloring while she sings with abandon Father Abraham. Right arm, left arm. The pen marks she accidentally swiped across her cheeks are only cute because her voice is small and she’s three. I could never get away with such behavior.

Most of us haven’t brushed our hair, a couple of us our teeth. We’ve disregarded normal eating schedules for snacks and we’ll probably watch another movie after we’ve all been beaten by rooks and pons at least once. I’ll push for a round of Yahtzee, maybe a few deals of cards first.

One of us yawns, someone else sings in operatic tones and before we know it we’re all laughing hysterically.

This could quite possibly be the best day of my life.

Pass the Cadbury chocolates.  

I’ll Figure it Out as I Go, Thank You

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If you don’t enjoy or relate to stories about children, you may not want to tune in for the next 16 days, 19 hours, and 17 minutes. I’m not counting or anything but that is how much time is left for Spring Break and many of my posts will likely be about my kids. Although come to think of it, if you don’t appreciate stories about children you may not want to tune in ever. It is my life.

“Mom, can you print me a NEW Hello Kitty?” My youngest daughter has such passion, no sentence is without emphasis. “NEW,” she says again with a pucker. 
“I got it. And yes, when I finish this.”
“Uhhh! I JUS,’ want, a Hello KITTY picture.”
“Sh.” I am watching Ramona and Beezus with the older kids while I eat breakfast. Hey, boundaries are boundaries and I happen to have them with my three year old. She can’t boss me.

We stretch when the credits scroll, procrastinating at getting our butts in gear for the day. I scoot them upstairs with motivational applause. “Come on, get dressed.”

As promised, I sign into the computer. The Hello Kitty picture is picked oh so carefully, thoughtfully, until all her wrongs are made right.  

“Mom, can I print one too?” my son asks.
“Yeah, go brush your teeth and slick that hair down from the two-inch Alfalfa cowlick you’re sporting first.”

He hops away while I take a face pad that intoxicates the entire bathroom with an antiseptic perfume to clean the night of sleep off my forehead. I straighten sheets and pillows, and stuff a thousandth load of darks in the washing machine.

“This isn’t working,” he says with a crack in his voice that tells me he’s frustrated.  
“What’s the problem?” I say squinting at the screen and clicking the links. Load. Reload. Hourglass timer. Reload again. Close the window. Open a new one. Google searched for Donkey Kong coloring pages.
“There ya go, Bud.”

I dole out to-do lists for the girls and grab stranded socks that have strayed from their partner. 
“How do I do this?” He is worried he will never get his beloved page.
“Right-click. Then paste it in Wor-“
“Okay, okay,” he tells me with annoyance. “I know.”
Oh. Well of course you do. The way your father knows his way around a grocery store. Hardly at all, save for the candy aisle.

My teeth have that after-coffee grime I’m always urgent to brush off, but when I pull the drawer out for toothpaste and mentally prepare the speech I’m about to give on chores, I hear him once more.

“Do I hit ‘OK’?”
Hm, that depends. I’ll require more information. Click ‘OK’ to close the window and erase the hard drive? Click ‘OK’ to join an Over 40 single’s chat room? Send a complaint to the White House (Leave that one to me. I have a few items to discuss.)? To print?

“Let me see here,” I say, bending down to assess the situation. Everything’s off. The copy is horizontal when it should be vertical. He’s widened it far beyond the bounds of the paper size. The selection is too light of a gray, and I simply want to tell him that the next time he thinks he can do things “by himself” could he please, just, not. It would be so much easier if I did it for him. 

Great advice, until I’m hit between the eyes with the force of a Mack truck. Because he’s exactly like his mom.

Don’t show me the instruction manual, keep any advice to yourself, I’ll figure it out as I go, thank you.

So how do I parent a child who is as independently spirited as myself? Let him fail, I think. Allow him to run full boar into his dreams, into what he thinks he knows. Watch him succeed and be there when he doesn’t so he’ll have a safe place to hurt. Then brainstorm about what went wrong, where the motives got skewed, come up with better options for the next time.

Try again. Always try, because you will anyway. You’ll think you know, and when you find out you didn’t, I’ll be right behind you ready to help map out the next route.

“Yep, you got it. Hit ‘OK’ and go see if it came out of the printer.”
He barrels down the stairs and is back in prompt fashion. “There were two since I clicked ‘print’ before you told me.”

Of course you did. And look how you figured it out.   

 

 

Gum and Eternity.

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Lucky Charms is hitting their bowls and smelling oddly like the yeast I use for pizza dough. They’ve already made time to fight over who will put away the milk and which spoon goes to whom. They are trying to annoy each other with repetitive noises. Thank you, I’m thoroughly exasperated.

“I read something this morning and I’m curious what you think it means,” I tell them. Their interest is tickled enough to stop poking and grunting. “Things that we can see are temporary and things we cannot see will last eternally. Ideas?”

My oldest daughter takes the challenge by starting first, which is more about not letting her brother talk and less about having something to say. I know this by the way she hesitates after each word. “Temporary…means…power,” she says with white dribbles on her chin.

I’m trying with great effort not to let myself get distracted by the learning curve of her hairstyle.
Um, no. “Try again.”

“Wait.” She is stalling again. Must. Answer. Before. Him. But his patience can only last so long.

“It means-” he begins.

“Let her finish and then you can try.”

She takes another stab at it, and at her brother. It’s a one-two punch if she can pull it off. “Temporary means, like, it won’t last forever.”

“Exactly.”

“But,” she says. “We can’t see, like, fairy godmothers or Santa Claus and they won’t last forever.”

Now I’m the one feeling a kick in the gut. Think fast. “Right, but they aren’t real. I think it’s talking about things that are real.” Whew. Save. Back to the exploration. “So the things we can see like our house, the trees, even our bodies, won’t always be around. Our souls, our spiritual hearts will live forever.”

My son picks up a small box. “Like this gum. We chew it and when we’re done we spit it in the trash.”

OK. Well, I think we got lost somewhere. Go get ready for school.

What My Third Decade Taught Me

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“I used to think I knew everything. Now as I get older, I realize there’s a lot I don’t know.” -every older person that wanted to annoy me
“Oh I know. Believe you me, I know.” -naïve self 

The first time I said my new age was on Twitter. It read, “I am 30.” Strangely, there was no unexplained vomiting or dying like I predicted would happen. It didn’t even taste bitter coming off my tongue. I might have actually smirked a little when I said it out loud, which I spoke while I was tweeting. So, I survived.

A new decade feels like a new life. I drag in a deep breath and see that my hands are more open instead of more determined like they were when I had 20 candles on my cake. I’m ready to embark. Guess I better be, I’ve already set sail. 
I reflect back on what I’m taking into this next stage.

Life is Unpredictable. I didn’t believe it until I lived it.
 When my belly swelled under maternity overalls that were a mistake, my Chase was building our first home. We lived in a makeshift apartment in his parent’s basement for two years while he worked full time, stacked logs to frame our walls, and drained himself over blueprints. On the same two beautiful acres he’d bought in high school, where he’d found the perfect pine tree to carve a marriage proposal, we were starting our life. Dreams of protecting toddler fingers from splinters, a constantly roaring fireplace, endless dinner conversations with our teenagers, and two rocking chairs surrounded with grandchildren filled my mind. A garden here, stone landscaping there. Christmases fit for a Pottery Barn spread.
Then baby girl came, and giggles were missed because of the hour-long drive to work and the hour-long drive home. We got feet of snow, not inches, that had to be plowed just to get down the driveway for milk again, and again. Winter gripped us much longer than summer graced us.
“Let’s buy a rental in town,” became “Let’s move into the rental,” became our new place. We had a boy, another girl, and seven years of memories I wouldn’t trade. 
It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t what I planned. Until family time was robbed and suburbia gave it back. Yeah, life is unpredictable but that’s part of the fun.

Your True Heart is the Key to Freedom
Words.
Being a safe place for my kids to talk.
Not oatmeal. Or peas. Never peas.
Date night.
Abba.
A quote that changes me.
Writing. Horrible writing. Good writing.
Hours of reading. Horrible reading. Good reading.
Listening to someone hurting.
Letting someone hurt with me.
Strong coffee. Plenty of cream.
Boundaries.
Less self.
More women’s shelters. More homeless.
Time to change Barbie’s clothes. Time to get bandages on scrapes. Time to watch growth.
Hunger and thirst.
Second chances.

You Get to Change Your Mind
There is a place, a most precious place in our quaint metropolis that serves an old-fashioned, loud-waitress, you-are-family kind of menu. I secretly fantasize about working there when my all three of my children are in school for more than a morning. I’d thrive as an employee as much as I do a paying customer. Mostly because there are lots of retirees who sip coffee while talking about what used to be. I’d be fantastic at waving some decaf in their direction.
When we found this most valuable nugget I ordered a big breakfast. Choice of egg: scrambled. Choice of meat: sausage. Choice of pancakes or French toast: pancakes, as large as a dinner plate and drenched in an ice cream scoop of butter. Please.
My wise Tinys would get the homemade cinnamon roll. They gave me samples (meaning I used my mom voice to teach them “sharing”), and I’m telling you that coil of icing is not of this world. And I’m not entirely sure from which side of the eternal spectrum it comes forth. Then one day I tried the French toast. OK, there are no words. My order has shifted. Choice of egg: scrambled. Choice of meat: sausage. Choice of pancakes or French toast: the toast, don’t forget the ice cream scoop of butter. Please.
Because I’m a grown-up and being responsible doesn’t happen without humbly knowing you can be wrong or have the liberty to change your mind.

 There will be Loss
If there’s a hint of a sniffle, a whisper of a cold catching on, I can guarantee one or all of the kids will be calling my name in the night. “I need a tissue,” they say with a swipe of their sleeve.
A few short hours ago I was lying in the dark, clenching my retainer and whispering prayers about a new diagnosis. News of a friend that broke my man down to stunningly handsome tears.
We’ve said good-bye to more than we’ve wanted. We’ll do it again.
I’ve learned this is the cycle until my name is called.

So many lessons. Parenting is hard, and no one knows how to do it until they jump in, no matter the age. Marriage trails with the same statement. Farting will never not be funny, though I don’t do it. Conflict molds you when done well. Heartache draws you to Truth when you let it. Happiness isn’t as rich as peacefulness. Losing sleep is sometimes the only quiet moment I’ll steal, and when I steal chocolate. Seinfeld will forever be the backdrop to my laundry getting folded. 

And I’m pretty sure all those oldies who said the more they know, the more know they don’t know? They were right.  

 

Great and Mighty Pleas

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She’s trying to hold it together in the off chance there’s still a sliver of hope she can convince me. Oh, how she barely balances steady while she awaits her fate.

“But Mom, I didn’t exactly do my homework because I edited as I was writing the other night.”
“I understand. But you didn’t talk to me about that when I told you twice to get it done, and as I’m looking at it now, there is work we must finish.”

She starts to waver, feeling her case falling.

“I erased an “s” on one of the words and I changed a letter to capital,” she says.
“I think you barely looked it over because you wanted to watch T.V. And that’s the point, isn’t it? That you didn’t really do it.”
“But Mom.” Her voice cracks as it dips and heaves like waves. She crosses her arms and plops down angry. I try not to laugh.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “You don’t get T.V. today. We’ll fix your story together tonight before you write the final draft.”
She pouts silent and in a flash I’m back to my third grade year. Arguing with my mom about why I should stay up late, the valid reasons other kids got to linger after the college basketball games. They were perfectly good reasons, I tell you. And they would have worked for me too, if she would have just listened.
The begging, the pleading, the drumming up of any excuse that sounds legitimate. The trying to sound mature and the severe incompetence to do so, what with the sobs and hysteria when I didn’t get my way.
I had a friend that would sneak to her phone and call me. She’d whisper into the receiver, “I’m grounded. What do I say?” I’d look over my shoulder for the enemy (my mother) and whisper back. “Sound super sincere, and tell her you’re sorry and that you’ll really try to do better.” She’d call back twenty minutes later. No whisper. “I’m still grounded.”

These flashbacks happen in odd ways now that I’m a mother. I connect dots I never would without having my own children, because I see the other side. Was my mom thinking what I’m thinking now? You see, dear one, I know this scene. I’ve been where you’ve been. And I know what you don’t. How much more it will benefit you if I teach this lesson instead of acquiescing and teaching you another. I promise with all my heart, I get how this sucks. (no, she would never think the word “sucks”) I recognize the game. Though you might think you aren’t winning, you are with what this is cultivating: character.

There was great weeping and gnashing of teeth as her siblings started cartoons. More desperate pleas were tried without success. She made her brown-sugared toast. I poured some coffee.

“I want you to sit in the front room.”
“But I’m not watching.”
You know that look where you aren’t even weighing the options, you just mean what you said? I did that. It was awesome. “Go in the other room, please.”
Mighty stomping, crumbs flying.

We sat with the sun making stripes all around us. I didn’t check Facebook like I really, really wanted. Instead I engaged, surprising even myself.

“What are you going to be when you are grown up?”
“I have no idea.” She chews a bit. “I like art.”
“You are great at art.”
“I learned this thing at school where you hold some clay between two fingers and you stretch it.” She tips her chin and clanks the spoon against her teeth. (Yes, my children save extra brown sugar for scooping at the end.) However I’m more interested in the fact she’s telling me something I hadn’t heard yet. I always wonder how to pull these details out of them each day. Yank electronics and watch them bloom, I suppose.
“That’s cool. You could go to college for design or architecture.”
“I want to make a house with secret passageways and stuff.”
“I love that.”

Before I sense it, a connection is born and a morning is changed.
Who cares about homework? Not me.

 

 

 

 

 

Rounding to 30

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For as long as I can remember I’ve had an unrelenting ache to be known. When I’m caught in a confrontation, it isn’t as much about being right as it is about being seen, heard, understood. While I’m rounding the corner to my thirties this week, I think about those three decades, what they’ve meant, who’s walked beside me, who’s let me slip away, and there’s a phrase I read last week that I just can’t shake.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  – Isaiah 44

What I don’t remember is where we were or the age I was when I did this. What I do remember, was looking for the familiarity of knee-length ironed shorts, the aroma that is my mother, and her safe form I was certain would shield me from the shyness that was creeping in when I looked up at foreign faces. I found her, squeezed her thigh as only a toddler can, and then was caught by surprise when the person attached wasn’t my mom at all.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  -Isaiah 44

Our kitchen carpet was like a kaleidoscope of oranges and browns, like all carpet laid in the 80’s. It was morning. And it was my birthday. I squealed and lowered into a crouch with my hands out like I was about to receive the biggest balloon of all my short years. “I can’t believe I’m nine!”

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  -Isaiah 44

Midwest summer days nearly suffocated me. Still, it was better than school. My cousin and I tromped around the fields, dodging bees and boredom in the in-between of elementary. We wound our way through the strawberry patch and picked our afternoon snack. Sweat tickled my ears when I brushed dirt from the red wonders I ate, and memories etched into my mind, not letting me go even 20 years later.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  -Isaiah 44

Standing in front of my peers I suddenly couldn’t get away. The desks were too close, the eyes were all on me. I wanted to speak what I was going to say but in a rush I went to the bathroom. “It’s a panic attack, not a heart attack,” the doctor later said. It came to be the first of many.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  -Isaiah 44

We drove over a day to get home from Texas, my mom and I. More than once. In the desolate, dry spans of Oklahoma we made up songs. Particularly about the friend of ours with big lips, the one we’d just visited. (He knows who he is, and he’s proud of his smacker.) Each phrase ended in a rhyme, the beat consistent through the words.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  -Isaiah 44

I didn’t make it to the end of the driveway before I broke down in tears. I wanted a baby, and my friend had just announced she was having one. What if I never hold my own, a part of Chase and a part of me? What if there’s something wrong with me? Or him? What if it never happens? In the days that followed I learned why I was so emotional. That the girl who is now one year from a two-digit birthday was already growing.

I HAVE FORMED YOU.  – Isaiah 44

Yesterday my kids were outside in their bare feet, when they weren’t roller blading or getting their socks wet. They were breaking apart the crumbs of a snowman they built over the weekend, a large mass refusing melt. I was kneeling by the new green of my lilies starting to peek from the ground unaware that today we’d be 30 degrees with more white falling from the sky.

When I struggle to know how to do this life, when I have mornings I don’t want to make lunches or agreements on how much Wii will be allowed later. When the cold of the day seeps too deep into my soul, I remember One who hasn’t left since I was too small to see with the naked eye and just starting in the womb. He hasn’t missed a moment, a skinned elbow, a tear, or a laugh.

“And another will write on his hand, ‘Belonging to the Lord.'” -Isaiah 44:5

And He won’t miss the ones ahead.

 

The Story of the Vert

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I should be doing my taxes. This is unrelated, a minor confession I just had to get off my chest. Whew. Better. On with the rebellion.

Do you know where you are on the vert spectrum? You are on it, make no mistake.

I didn’t know. Not the way my friends do, comfortably fitting the entirety of their personality into three syllables. As if this single description explains everything and I suddenly will understand all there is to know about them.

“Well sometimes it’s difficult for an introvert like me,” say two of the best public speakers I’ve met.
“P’what?” I can’t quite wrap my thinking around this. On stage they are as cozy as I am with a bag of Doritos and an episode of Seinfeld. How can they possibly be introverts? What even is an introvert really? I start to tremble at the sight of a stage and yet could spend hours with a friend over coffee. 

Well, I took a test today. 

True or false, I enjoy solitude:
-I mean, yeah, I can. I like it when my kids go to school and I don’t have to keep answering two dozen questions about what causes mold and why it looks that way. I like to settle in for two hours and dissect the dialogue and themes of a great piece of fiction. So, I choose true. But wait, because sometimes I want to climb the bedroom walls when one of us gets sick and I’m therefore stuck for all eternity in a cyclone of Lysol and bleach and I would love a grown-up conversation even with the cashier at WalMart about our schizophrenic weather. False, then? Ugh, next.

True or false, I don’t talk a lot:
-Blog. Next.

True or false, I like to be the center of attention:
– False. Remember the aforementioned stage fright? Although, without the pressure to perform, I don’t mind a few eyes my direction when I think I’m being funny. Who doesn’t? Then there’s Facebook and my undeniable “like” issues I brought up yesterday. I’ll go with true. No, False. Definitely…most assuredly…fa-true. Next.

True or false, I prefer one-on-one conversations:
-True. Unequivocally.

True or false, the real you is easy to get to know:
-True, much to the chagrin of some. Next.

True or false, I start conversations with people I don’t know.
-Cereal aisle, Lucky Charms? We’re besties. True. Go.

True or false, when I’m around people for a long time, my energy fades.
-False. The chaos of Christmas Day, the hubbub of a Super Bowl party make me thrive. I love it. Next.

True or false, I tend to think before I speak:
-Hm, not always. But sometimes. Neutral.

By the end of the test I felt like I owed someone somewhere an apology. What a mess. 
However I’m happy to announce, I have the results. And my own three syllable word that I will soon be wagging around conversations like I know important and smart things.

Hello, I am an Ambivert. Nice to meet you.

  

 

reLENTless

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A blue check marks the spot on the spreadsheet that promises me an extra hour and a half of freedom. If I pack a lunch and sign the box, my little girl can play for 90 more glorious minutes. So her name is written on every dotted line I can find those two preschool days a week.

I begin to walk away when I notice the Minnie Mouse bag still in my hands. “Whoops,” I mutter as I toss it into the laundry basket of liberty.

“That wouldn’t be good,” she says with a peppy step to the door. Our kids, especially our older girls, are like peas and carrots. They met years ago in ballet and since have spent many an elementary recess chasing boys and deciding whether my daughter’s “tom-boy” side can knit together with her daughter’s “fancy-girl” tendencies. (It’s the new lingo, “fancy.” Not preppy.) And this year, yes, they weave.

“Oh. No it wouldn’t.” I notice a thumbprint of black above her eyes. How embarrassing, I think. A true friend would tell. “Here, look at me.” I am waving at my own head. “You have something…” I don’t know how to finish. Black. There’s a huge, humiliating smear that looks like you’ve been working under your car. I don’t say this.

But she’s already forming her reply. She’s prepared. And she is so gracious to me. “It’s ashes,” she says while her ponytail flips in the same perfection of her toned legs.  

“Ohh! Yes.” How embarrassing indeed. Of course it’s ashes. Right. I need some as well. I’ll be using them to scrawl F-O-O-L on my face. “So what’s the process of, you know…” More waving like I’m shooing a bee.

“Well we went to church this morning.”
“OK, like a formal service?”
“Yeah, and they burn palms from last year.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s to get ready for the Lent season.”
“Lent. I want to do that.” What am I, a kindergartener?

I’ve been reading some excellent blogs about this ritual. It was never part of our Easter celebration where I grew up but the practice was introduced to me several years ago. When I cut out sweets. And scarcely survived to tell the story.

What to choose? How does one pick out of all the overwhelming selfishness that has taken root? To boot, what’s the point when I have more than enough viable reasons (ahem, excuses) to avoid all this discomfort?

Caffeine: Come on, no one would hold me hostage for needing help in the morning when train tracks are flying at heads and whining is the only means of communication.
Sweets: I’m closing my eyes and holding myself up because my knees have gone weak at the thought.
Facebook: I’m trying to write.
Cell phone/ texting: No. Veto.

I’m wanting to be noble about this decision. Authentic. What about me do I want to change?

Too angry: Is that even bad? I’m told it’s a secondary emotion that is like a little clue to a bigger riddle. So not anger. But how about the yelling at the kids when I reach boiling frustration at their indifference of the looming schedule? That moment when I rationalize it’s acceptable for me to treat them with disrespect because frankly, they are being disrespectful.
Hm, now we’re getting somewhere. Crap.

I blame my husband: He deserves it, you know. Unbeknownst to many of you, he is far from flawless. (I understand if you need a smidge of a second to process this.)
The unfortunate reality is I don’t really meet the bar either. (This we all know. No processing needed.) We are two wounded people committed to making a life together. It’s cause for a royal mess sometimes, but what would the next 46 days offer to our relationship if I saw him as my equal, and not my enemy? This is not how I saw this going.

Finding value in social media: Now it’s downright rough. Like, I can’t believe I’m admitting it here. Oh well, no one ever related to polished excellence. All in.
*sigh* I do. Guilty. Sometimes the afternoon is so quiet, my phone doesn’t beep and I catastrophize that everyone I know is secretly planning a party where I will not be invited. So I scroll Facebook. And then I’m suffocating in the hopeless aftermath of a panic attack I didn’t see coming. So I check Twitter. I grieve zero “likes” and offer something false the ability to tell me my worth.

Wayne Meisel writes:

“My stomach, my time and my attention have to be filled with things other than what I’m used to, other than habits that superficially satisfy.”

Lent may offer me the opportunity to welcome truer, richer parts of life. At the risk of sounding like a preschooler, I want that.

“Could I have gone through this self-discovery while eating chocolate and holding a beer? Sure, I suppose, but I never did. There is something about entering a spiritual practice that has power, even when it is undertaken at a very elementary level.” -Wayne Meisel, Huffington Post

It’s decided then. I’m doing it. But be advised, if you order a doughnut don’t come near me. I will fight you off, so I can fight for something more.