pretending

I've been walking down memory lane a lot lately. During one of those strolls, I pulled out my old literary magazine from high school and came across this:

“Pretending

She smiles, laughs in public;
the whole world thinks she’s happy.
She goes home, and the tears come;
Her mask of ebullience falls to the floor.”

— Shannon Saunders (Dingle)

I wrote the poem in middle school. As if those years weren't challenging enough, I went to three different schools in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades respectively. I tried on different facades in each: the extroverted Blossom-wannabe who petitioned the principal to allow hats as part of the dress code in sixth grade, the more withdrawn poet in seventh grade who wrote the lines above (and many others verses that aren't fit for public consumption, because most of my middle school scrawl was, well, more middle school-ish), and the bubbly eighth-grade cheerleader who also sported a collection of flannel shirts and pretended to care as much as her boyfriend did when Kurt Cobain died.    

Then I submitted the poem to be published in high school. I had chosen one primary mask by then: perfection. If I could be smart enough in advanced classes, fast enough in the pool, well-written enough in the school paper, dramatic enough on stage, skilled enough on the golf course, godly enough at church, and spirited enough in student government, I'd matter. That's what I thought, at least. I remember spending hours trying to choose the right quote that would show that I was worthy, wanting something witty with a pop culture reference but settling for a verse I hoped would convey that I was good enough. 

Now, as a grown woman, the words of my younger self's poem still resonate. As I wrote last week, striving for enough-ness is still a thing for me. Wearing masks can be too, even though I wrote a year ago about wanting to be a truth teller rather than a mask wearer.

But?

My masks are falling. I'm confronting the lies of scarcity I've been telling myself. I'm wearing bright colors of nail polish and setting up a home office of my own for the first time ever and trusting friends in a whole new way and considering running more 5Ks and connecting more deeply with Lee and... well, I might call it a mid-life crisis except I'm only 33 and hope to live past 66. So let's call it my 1/3-life crisis, k?

Or maybe not a crisis at all. Maybe I'll go with breakdown - ahem, spiritual awakening - a la Brené Brown. (Side note: if you haven't read her stuff, start here and then here and then here. You're welcome.)

Whether it's a crisis or breakdown or awakening, this walk down memory lane has been good for me. It's nice to finally be growing up from that middle school girl who wrote about pretending.

what my youngest daughter taught me about grief

I opened the email and might have uttered a cuss word under my breath. It had already been quite a week. The news that our daughter's hippotherapy pony had unexpectedly passed away?

Not what I wanted in my inbox.

I seriously considered not telling her. I just didn't want to deal with that.

At least, not this week.

But honesty is one of my core values, so I couldn't stomach telling a lie when we arrived at her session that day and she asked where her favorite equine friend was.

An hour before therapy, I sat down next to her chair. I asked her to turn off her tablet. I looked into her deep brown eyes through her petite pink frames, and I took a deep breath.

"Today, you're riding, but you won't be riding Rambler."

She looked away and started to pout.

"I'm sorry, Zozo. Rambler is dead. You won't get to ride him anymore."

She grabbed her tablet and threw it at me. Then she grabbed the lone goldfish cracker left on her tray and flung it too. I tried to make eye contact again, and she grunted "NO!"

I told her she'd probably get to ride Peanut, the pony she rode the first time.

She said, "No," still not looking at me.

"No ride. No Rambler. No ride."

Then her lower lip pooched out, and the sobs began.

I held her. We cried together. Eventually, she calmed down.

We went out to the barn, not sure how she would handle it.

I second guessed my decision to tell her, wondering if a lie would have been so bad after all.

We got there. She saw Peanut. She told her therapist, "I ride Peanut. No ride Rambler. Rambler dead."

I might have cried a little. But that wasn't the moment that will be forever embedded in my soul.

After her session, I said, "See Zoe. It's sad that Rambler is dead, but it's okay because you got to ride Peanut. That was fun, right?"

As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I hate when people try to wrap hard things in pretty packages instead of being willing to dwell in the discomfort, but that's exactly what I was trying to do. I winced at my own hypocrisy.

"No," Zoe said again. "No. It sad Rambler dead. I like Peanut. But it not okay Rambler dead. It sad Rambler dead. Rambler my friend. Peanut my friend but Rambler my friend. And Rambler dead."

"I like Peanut. But I sad Rambler."

Not either/or. Both/and.

Amen, sweet girl.

RIP, Rambler.

enough

I haven't blogged here lately. If you've read any of my other writing or even just FB posts, you know I'm going through a season of major transformation. I didn't choose a word for 2016 like I have in years past, but if I did, it would be this:

enough

All my life, I've struggled with feeling like I was never enough - good enough, smart enough, talented enough, pretty enough, faithful enough. Into adulthood, every other sermon or viral post or book about marriage or parenting felt like a reminder that I wasn't wife enough or mom enough. If anything bad happened, even when it wasn't my fault, I blamed my own scarcity. Of course ______ horrible thing happened, and it's obvious why: I'm not enough.

Then as I began therapy last fall, I started to wade through some hard emotions and felt flooded by it all. I wanted to hide away from the world. I wasn't sure if my friends were friend enough to handle what I was dealing with. (Plus after having lost two of my closest friends in the past two years - one who couldn't handle the new realities after our last adoption and one who lost her life too early to depression, both losses whispering the lie that I wasn't enough as a friend - I felt legitimized in doubting the strength of any other relationship.)

And? If I'm honest, I found myself doubting that God was God enough for it all.

I know that's a pretty risky statement from a ministry leader and Christian writer and speaker, but I'm not going to pretend. I know my God can handle my being real (and, of course, he already knows precisely how I've been feeling), and I hope you can too. (If your first reaction is to try arguing with me because you're uncomfortable with my doubting, please sit with that feeling instead of leaving a comment. I think there's more value in dwelling in discomfort with someone else than in trying to fix them.) I'm beginning to believe that we need more vulnerability and less confidence in self from faith leaders, so I'm willing to risk putting my weakness out there instead of trying to project a perfect speaker/writer/minister image.

My gut instinct was (is) to try to be enough on my own to handle everything, all while feeling like I can never measure up to being enough. Yep, that's exactly as emotionally exhausting as it sounds. 

I'm learning, though, to believe...

I am enough, as I am. Nothing I do or say will make me more enough for my God, my husband, my kids, and my friends.

My friends are enough for me to share my true self and still receive love in return. (And? Community matters enough to keep seeking it, even when mistrust and self-reliance feel more comfortable to me.)

God is more than enough, for anything and everything I need. The full sufficiency of the gospel and his love for me is enough that all of my labors to earn what he has already freely given are completely unnecessary.

I think this act of learning to reject the mentality of scarcity - scarcity of self, scarcity of genuine community, scarcity in my estimation of who God is - will be a life-long lesson, so I wanted an ever-present reminder. If I'm underestimating the healing that is to come, then maybe someday when/if this is no longer a struggle, this symbol might one day instead be a stone of remembrance. I considered having the word enough inscribed on one of my new bracelets, which bear the Chinese symbol for love, a Luganda phrase which means I love you very much, and a few symbols with deep meaning for me. But a bracelet I could take on and off didn't seem like the right fit. No, I wanted to brand this reminder on my skin.

I am enough.

You are enough.

God is more than enough.

Amen.

If how we talk to our children shapes their inner voice, I want my words to be kinder.

I believe that how we talk to our children becomes their inner voice.

And? Lately I've realized that I'm shaping my oldest daughters to have critical and sometimes harsh inner voices.

But? I refuse to accept the lie that says "this is just how I am." I know I can do better for all of us. But lest this all sound legalistic, let me be clear: my motivation isn't to be perfect or flawless. I know myself too well to aim for that nonsense. I just want to show more grace. That's the goal here. 

So I got myself some bracelets. I was going to use Silly Bands, but I had these jelly bracelets from Oriental Trading handy.

(Because, ahem, I ordered them for Jocelyn's and Patience's 7th birthday parties and tucked them away and promptly forgot all about them. Yes, the girls are 8.5 now. Don't judge.)

I'll probably still order some Silly Bands, since these have a strong plastic smell and are hard to put on because they're child sized while my hand isn't. I don't want to wait until they come in, though. I feel a sense of urgency to change how I talk to my girls. So these will do for now.

Here's the plan: The bracelets will start on my right hand each day. With every affirming statement to one of our big girls, I'll move one over to my left hand. With every critical statement to them, I'll move one back to my right wrist. If I'm tempted to say something critical but I don't have any bands on my left hand or only have a few, I'm planning to let it slide as long as there's no immediate safety risk. This will require me to have stored up affirmation before anything critical passes my lips.

Over time, I might tweak the system. While I'm ultimately aiming for the good to substantially outweigh the critiques, I think evening them out is good for now because that's still an improvement from how it's been lately. Maybe in time I'll change the process later to move two or three over for each critical statement so that I make sure the positive words are said more than the negative, but this is my first step.

So far, my personal competitiveness - that same drive that pushed me to improve my times and scores in high school swimming and golf - is pushing me to do better and one up myself, which is making me a more encouraging mom already. In other words, it's working. And with all of the kids a little more angsty lately, I'm hoping a changed mama will lead to a changed family. 

I want to enjoy them. I want them to enjoy me. I'm not talking about being a friend instead of a mother, but I do believe I can and should be friendlier than I've been lately. 

Will this keep working? I'm not completely sure. But I do know they are worth trying something, anything, even something as silly as wearing rainbow colored children's bracelets. After all, I want their inner voices to be uplifting, empowering, loving, kind, merciful, and full of grace.

And I want my voice to be all of those things too.

Note: I'm not sharing this for accolades or atta girls. I'm sharing it to be real. I'm also sharing it because I'm guessing I'm not the only one who is struggling with this. Finally, I'm sharing it because I find that posting ideas to the blog makes me feel more accountable to follow through with my intentions, even if no one ever asks me about it. Call me crazy, but going public gives me a sort of personal accountability I can't quite explain. So, there you have it. Here's to changed attitudes in my home, starting with mine.

What if we all agreed that different parenting choices don't have to be wrong?

Two of my children entered full time preschool last week. Yes, that's the same 6.5 hour schedule my older four have in elementary school, while most preschoolers in our area go a few days a week for half days.

For one, she needs the long days to fit in therapies and a nap and the building of endurance she'll need to (most likely) be mainstreamed in a typical kindergarten class with peers whose bodies aren't fighting against them with spasticity from cerebral palsy.

For the other, she is ready ready READY to go to school like her siblings. Knowing she didn't have the best start in life, we had her evaluated for the Title 1 preschool program in our district, which serves four year olds who are at risk for academic difficulties in kindergarten with the aim that the high quality, full day preschool program will set them up for success instead. She qualified. We didn't know until a few days before school started that she'd have a spot, though, because she had been waitlisted. Thankfully, a spot opened up in the program operating at the big kids' elementary school, so she goes there with them now, starting and ending 30 minutes earlier than they do so the little ones aren't overrun by the big kids.

Like I said in my last post, these are big changes for all of us!

As far as preschool goes, we didn't do it for any of our other children. One wasn't with us in preschool, so that's easy to explain. One was having too much fun being the only girl and the big sister whose little bro adored her, and I equally didn't want to send her anywhere and didn't want to have an external schedule of pick up and drop off and all that jazz. Her learning style worked just fine for working on early learning skills at home, and that suited us all best. Then the boys didn't do preschool because one was joining our family and adjusting to all that meant and the other, with us from the womb, was helping with that. Oh, and he was also having seizures that we didn't get controlled until just before kindergarten started, so there's that.

All that to say, preschool decisions are different for every child.

So are most parenting choices.

My children are not your children, and your children aren't mine, so that means our child-centered choices about what's best might not be the same.

And?

That's okay.

Our world operates on affirmation, though. In school, it's grades and rubrics and standardized tests and other measures of one singular norm. In the workplace, goals and performance reviews and raises, in which the specific job is considered but comparisons against other workers are also common. In parenting? I think the only real universal bar is "they're still alive at the end of the day." Of course, feeding and love and learning and so on are all part of that too, but examples of terrible parenting are clear while the range of good parenting is harder to define. 

Going back to the preschool example, I know friends who have felt judged for doing preschool or not doing preschool or doing too many days of preschool or doing not enough days of preschool or doing a too churchy preschool or doing a too secular preschool or spending too much on preschool or choosing a preschool with long days or being relieved when it's time for school to start again or crying too much when school resumes. And that's not even including the parents who work full time and so have their preschool aged children in some sort of program or childcare environment during business hours year round and the judgment they feel for that.

(Side note: Rock on, working parents. You're doing great, and you'll get no judgment from this stay at home mama.) 

What if we all agreed that different parenting choices aren't wrong?

Can we decide what's best for our kids and then not trouble ourselves with those who disagree or trouble others by trying to force our family's best onto their different dynamics?

And can we also recognize that sometimes we're not really being judged, even when we think we are?

(I could go on a tangent here about how you're actually judging someone when you judge that you think that they're judging you, but I haven't had enough coffee today to make that make sense.)

I could have made this about breastfeeding and bottlefeeding and tube feeding or private vs public vs home school or therapy intensives vs surgeries vs assistive devices or Botox vs Baclofen vs SDR (yes, we do it in special needs parenting circles too) or something else altogether. But? We've started two in daily preschool programs that are longer than the norm for our area, especially for families with a stay-at-home parent like me. 

I'm sure this is the right decision for our crew, and this post is my way of saying that. This post is also my way of letting friends know that I am 100% okay with whatever preschool choice they're making too. Parenting is hard enough even when it's a judgment-free zone, am I right? 

So enjoy this new school year, no matter what it brings and no matter what it looks like for your family. And? Be forewarned that at any moment in the coming weeks I might be celebrating that my days are child-free or mourning that I miss my babies.

Being sure of our decision doesn't mean being in control of my emotions, after all.