Lost in Translation

When it comes to relationships, how many times do you ask yourself ‘what if?’. How many times do you question each of your wants and intentions? How much do you worry about the finality of it all? When you’re middle-aged and have already been unsuccessful, be it in relationships or marriages, I think it may just be natural to question things. Do we want the same things? Is this really worth my time? Am I in love with the idea of us, or am I really in love with him? I mean, at any age, these are questions that hold water, but at 44, these questions feel like the difference between happily-ever-after and ‘here-i-go-again-on-my-own’.

Let me just say here, because it’s been churning through my mind all day, that if I ever actually write THAT book or become somewhat of a guru somehow or someway, I hope that Brene Brown invites me onto her podcast, because I am absolutely certain that we would also best friends.

Okay, that’s out there. I feel so much better.

But truthfully, here’s the deal. I’m a single mom and have been for almost a decade. Nine years, at this point, but a decade really because it was 2011 when my husband and I separated. And unlike Glennon and countless others, I have not moved on to women. I have (maybe) not found the love of my life, and life is a struggle every single day. BUT, I am a survivor baby. That’s just who I am. And I know this because my dad died when I was 11 and I was a daddy’s girl. I didn’t know my mom until my dad passed. But, by the time my mom did pass just 8 years ago, she had become my EVERYTHING. And then she, like every pet I ever had, walked across that rainbow bridge.

She did it with such Faith and dignity, and love and beauty….and acceptance, that I couldn’t say no. I could only support her plight and love her all the more for her strength, her dignity, and her everlasting resillience.

That’s what we do as lovers. As survivors. As daughters. We love until they leave.

As a unicorn only, I can tell you this. I want to always be this way. I want to love until they leave. I want to always be able to say that I did all that I could do, and want to do everything I could’ve done until I can do no more. And honestly, after two divorces and one HUGE broken heart, I think that for the most part, I can say exactly that.

Would I love to have a happy ending with the love of my life? Absolutely I would.

In truth, I am hard to love. I love big, and oftentimes it’s too much. I’m not clingy. Not dependent. But sometimes I can love so much that people tend to think that I don’t need them when in reality they make me completely complete to the extent that it scares the hell outta me and I retreat right back into the shell out of which I crawled during the excitement and the newness of beginning. Beginnings are that way. They bring out the best of us. And as relationships move on, beginnings fade into doubts and fears and before we know it something else has taken over and the very same communication that brought us beauty and clarification in the actual beginning looses strength and fades into apathy.

Apathy is tricky. It seems and feels easier than actual feeling and communication. But eventually, either within the relationship or long after it’s over, we realize that we missed out. We stopped trying out of fear of rejection. We didn’t want to disappoint, so ironically, we disappoint ourselves AND our person equally.

I’ve been with my person for almost a year (off and on). He is incredible. I can talk to him about anything. He truly doesn’t need anyone outside of God. I struggle with this. He struggles with my independence as well, which is really the same thing, because I am nothing without my relationship with Christ. And still, I wonder.

I don’t know if we are right, if this is right. I have had so many moments of affirmation, but I’ve also had many times of questioning who we are and where we are. All that I can say is that I vow to keep trying until God tells me otherwise.

I think that it’s all we can do as humans. We can accept, and love, and glorify with our whole hearts. We can ask God for signs and for Grace. We can do our parts. But in the long run, the only one who actually SHOULD have say is God himself. He created us. He has known us forever. Literally. His knowledge is way deeper than ours.

So before we resist. Before we throw in the proverbial towel. Before we call it quits with all the decisions we have made, shouldn’t we sit with those decisions and simply breathe? Shouldn’t we first see where HE leads us?

It’s not all about you. Really.

Picture it. Farragut (TN). 1993.

I was 17 and so smart and cool as I pushed open my upstairs window so that I could sneakily smoke my Marlboro Red without stinking up the house. Just three puffs in and there’s a piercing knock at the door. All I can hear is my mom’s muffled mad voice ‘Heather, are you smoking in there????’. There’s almost a cry at the end of her pitch in that sentence. I hear something in that that I haven’t heard since my dad passed 6 years ago. Was that…could it be…vulnerability?

My mom’s confidence cracked every bit as much as her voice in that moment. I heard that. More importantly, I felt that. Not as much as she did, but in that moment, I thought I knew everything she was feeling and THAT made me feel like the worst daughter ever. Period.

Of course, I had been smoking and I HAD to open the door because she made me open the door and my mouth – to truth. Lying to my mom had always been an impossibility. She was simply too smart, too scary, and too unpredictable. These, my friends, were truly the best of times and the worst of times, right up until I myself became the mom of a couple of teenage boys.

Now that my oldest is 20 and struggling, and my youngest is 13 and aloof, I understand what my mom meant just following those two puffs, when I hesitantly opened the door and a small cloud of smoke to my mom’s face, all twisted in the thunderstorm where disbelief collides with disappointment and sheer and unceasing guilt and remorse. She had blamed herself in the same way that I am blaming myself now. Was I too hands-off? Have I not motivated or driven them enough? Have I not encouraged them to take initiative and seek true purpose? Maybe I should’ve place more importance on money and success??

I don’t know. I’m no expert. And honestly, I feel like this age is the toughest age when it comes to parenting, and I am failing miserably because I am worried 100% of the time. Did my mom worry this much? My guess is that she did. In truth, at my ripe old age of 44, I still remember 20 like it was yesterday. And that was a damn hard yesterday, my friends, even with a husband and an education and career path. Also, we had no pandemic to challenge all of our plans like my kids have had. Just saying.

The thing I keep coming back to in my thoughts – the one saving grace – is simply these two facts: 1) I never once felt it was my mom’s fault that I smoked and 2) I haven’t turned out so bad.

So while most of us parents may lose lots of sleep wondering what we’ve done right or what we could’ve done better, what we really need to know is simply that we did the best we could with the circumstances we were dealt, and that our kids are healthy, intelligent, and loved. Those are the seeds, the bulbs, the water and the sunlight, but the blooms that blossom? Those are all theirs. Sometimes we need to simply sit back and watch them bloom into their own colors.

Returning Baggage

There comes a time in your life when the switch flips. Not just the ‘oh yeah’ of ‘I need to lose weight and get healthy’ or the ‘it’s time to settle down’ of obligation switch. Those are powerful switches too, but the greatest of these? The greatest of these is the switch that charges us with the challenge of returning our baggage and leaving all our dysfunctional patterns behind.

For years before my mom passed, she religiously watched Dr. Phil. If I went to her house in the afternoon to help her fold laundry, we folded methodically through the tears, interrogative reproaches, and the lessons of the great Dr.. The one thing he most loved to say whether he was talking to a parent whose teen was out of control, someone suffering with substance abuse, or a wife cheating on her husband for the umpteenth time was simply ‘how’s that working out for ya?’. Every single time, without fail, we the audience would at least think if not say out loud ‘clearly, not very well’.

The same goes for baggage, right? I mean, not the Samsonite kind, but the emotional kind. The stuff that leads us into love and intimacy only to force us into heartbreak years later. It’s the same stuff that we pack and unpack through every monogamous adventure. What’s that they say about doing the same thing over and over again? Something about insanity, right?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s completely possible for some of us to go through life carrying that baggage like a medal of honor, never letting it go and never setting it down come hell or high water. We may cling to it like a safety blanket, or a shield, or a wall, or an excuse to prevent us from taking chances that may get us hurt again. Others of us may have never decided to pack a bag in the first place. Those people are my people. Not because I’m like them, but because I wish I were. It must be truly liberating to be so flexible that you are at ease with each moment, each relationship as it exists entirely on its own accord without the impact of past hurts or disappointments.

But for those of us who have been hiking a while and maybe adding the weight of repetition along the way, we may just get to that place where we finally see that switch on the wall. Maybe we see it because a light has come along and showcased it. Maybe we see it because we’ve done the work to de-clutter the wall. Maybe none of that just happened, but maybe it was suppose to have happened right now, just as it did, because the timing is perfect. God’s timing always is.

IF you’re lucky enough to see that switch, take a deep breath. Say a heartfelt prayer of thanks. Close your eyes tight to fully digest this magical moment. They don’t happen often, these moments. Then sit down with that luggage and unpack for the last time. It’s time. This time. You, my friend, have come home.

Stuck in the Middle

Last week, I turned the big FOUR THREE. I know, I know, there’s absolutely nothing special about 43. It’s like Tuesday, or like 10:13 in the morning on any weekday. There is absolutely, positively nothing special about forty-three. Except that in my case, there IS.

See, I’ve spent my whole life truly believing (sometimes quietly, other times not-so-quietly) that I would have only FORTY FOUR years on this planet. How do I ‘know’ this? Well, of course, I don’t actually know it. I mean, I’m not that smart and I’m certainly not any kind of superhero or psychic. I’m just a simple lady in a simple life, but my dad and my dad’s died BOTH died at 44.

Nevermind the fact that they were both in poor health and I am pretty sturdy, and well, a girl. Nevermind the fact that I don’t really know anything about anything, I still have it in my gut instincts that I could possibly bite the bullet next year. With that being ‘said’, I should really think long and hard about all of my life options if this is to be my last full year on earth, right?

I’m pretty sure I haven’t convinced you of anything at this point, and that’s okay. If I were you, I would be rolling my eyes until they rolled out of my ears. But wait! There’s MORE!

Forty three is also the first year in my memory that I didn’t receive a card or a gift or flowers on my birthday. I’ve always been in a relationship, or married, or I had my magnificent mom here to spoil me stinky rotten. Well, not this year. Nope.

This year, I had just broken things off with my long term (non-committal) boyfriend of 5 years. I had pissed him off so much that he didn’t even text me a simple ‘happy birthday’ without punctuation or words at all for the first time in 7 years, and he wasn’t even one of the 100+ strangers who wished me a ‘happy birthday’ on Facebook complete with cute emojis and Facebook generated videos. No matter.

We just spent the last five years together celebrating birthdays, holidays with family, then started weekly family dinner nights, and at one point even talked about which of my boys would have which room in his home. But. It’s okay.

We weren’t meant to be no matter how badly I wanted for us to be. No matter how badly he wanted for us to be. And you want to know how I know?

We’re not together. He didn’t acknowledge my birthday. And I am learning to fly on my own for the first time at 43. I have no plans for my future personal life. I no longer have to fight off my daydreams of my life-long marriage. The one that would finally ‘take’. I can dream of that now without feelings of hurt and guilt and doubt. The man is faceless and nameless, but he doesn’t feel embarrassed about me and he doesn’t avoid the discussion of future things like my ex did.

So, here’s to 43. The year that may or may not be my last full year. But the year that will be nonetheless, the year that I stop waiting on someone else to ‘make my life’ complete. It already is, just as it is, with or without the birthday card. Sometimes all we need is to know that we are loved by the one who loves us all, flaws and all, and that is the greatest gift of all. #surrender

Hanging Tough

The New Kids on the Block aren’t so new or so together as they used to be. Prince has passed on. Robin Williams let go of life. Every day another shining star from our childhood dims from this earth into the subtle distance of memory. Our parents are aging or dying, and our favorite high school hang outs are closing or being torn down so that new Starbucks and Targets can emerge just like in every other city across America and beyond.

Life is like that. The older we become, the faster time flies by. It’s something we hear every day from our friends in real life to our virtual Facebook newsfeed friends.

And yet, here we are. We are leading our nation into new places, with new positive outlooks and perspective. Some would say we are becoming more self-aware, opening our minds to different cultures and lifestyles. Others would argue that we are moving further away from God. But something on which we can all agree is that life is a great big circle. We live, we learn, we die. It’s in that learning part that we learn purpose, and consequently feel what it truly means to be alive.

We exist day to day. We commute to work, milk our lunch breaks with the little errands we have no other time to complete, hustle back to work, and then commute back home & off to the extra stuff that makes us happy, but that we have to pay to do. We parents make choices that either enrich or compromise our children’s growth, and we constantly strive to find balance between the happiness of our children and the fulfillment of ourselves.

Life is like that too. The older we become, the easier we achieve balance, because we learn to meet our experiences halfway. We learn that just going through the motions is surviving, while growing through the emotions is thriving. But we are forced to be uncomfortable. Change does that. Relationships do that. And life demands that. We were not accidentally placed here on this planet simply to procreate. What would be the point in that? We are not amoebas. We are not ‘mere animals’. We are humans, with brains and feelings, and logic. If you ever doubt the reasoning behind the creation of Eve, try to live just 30 days completely solo, with no human interaction. We were not wired to be islands. We were wired to be continents, made up of millions of tiny countries.

Sure, it’s extremely important that we as individuals are strong and independent. But just being strong and individually independent isn’t all together satisfying. No. What truly satisfies us, and the human condition demands it, is the fulfillment that stems from having an overwhelming sense of community. So that when one of us dies, the ripples transcend us. We unite, become stronger, and emerge as complete and joyful as we were intended and created to be.

As an only, and as a human, I have always toyed with the idea of just going off alone and becoming this very self-sufficient, self-satisfying person. I would live off the land, disconnect from everyone and everything I’ve ever known, and morph into this superhuman specialty who depends on no one, and needs nothing for her survival. And then I watched ‘Into the Wild’. My world was forever changed.

My own life has echoed the theme of Chris McCandliss’s life, even though I never burned my money, threw away my car, and escaped to Alaska only to be killed by a tiny little berry.

Sorry for the spoiler alert.

But we can all learn so much from his story, and from the stories of all those great stars we looked up to as kids. Life is short. We are individually okay. But as a unite, as an unbreakable body of Christ, we are so powerful, just as God intended. Don’t deny your true self. Don’t deny your purpose. Don’t deny that you need others. Even if those others hurt you, you are better off for the experience.

Life is like that.

Only the Martyr

I was having lunch the other day with a new friend of mine, who happens to also be an only child, when it suddenly occurred to me. We onlies are expert martyrs. We stink at receiving. Not compliments. Not money. Not gifts. Sometimes, not even solicited advice is welcome.

Maybe it’s due to the fact that we spend our entire lives attempting to negate those stereotypical labels of being spoiled brats. Maybe it’s because we became SOOO good at sharing that it morphed into sacrifice. Whatever the case, it’s not ‘healthy’ to stink so badly at receiving. It’s not ‘healthy’ to play the martyr all the time no matter how naturally it comes for us.

So, why isn’t it good to be a martyr? I mean, giving is good, yes? Taking is bad, yes? Well, not all the time. Here’s the thing – martyrdom, like anything else, is good in small doses only. Here’s my experience-breeds-wisdom based list of WHY you should take up….errr…taking.

• It makes others feel good to give or help – I am aware that this isn’t ALWAYS the case (but really, what is?), still…9 times out of 10, if someone is offering to help you with something, it’s because they can and they genuinely want to, and by giving them the satisfaction of helping you with something you need, you are actually still participating in a different form of giving, right?
• Sanity Maintenance – The more we take on, the better we feel about ourselves, right? Wrong. Up until a certain point, we may feel quite impressed with ourselves, but if you keep throwing more balls into the juggling queue, eventually you’ll end up dropping them all, and it’s not so funny when someone signs you up for the funny farm.
• Taking time for you and yours – Chances are, when we say ‘yes’ to help, we are also saying ‘yes’ to sharing that freed-up quality time with loved ones. While you may do no more than spend that time cuddling or sharing a meal and conversation, one thing is for sure, you won’t regret it. Life is so full of activity sometimes that we forget to enjoy the moments. The more moments we have in full presence, the fuller our lives. Period.
  
• Reciprocity – If none of the other arguments worked, this one SHOULD. The more we allow others to give and ourselves to receive, the more others will allow us to give in the future. Nobody should keep score in love and friendship. I have bought into that philosophy since first watching ‘Love Story’ back in the 90’s (I know…. a little late). The motto for that movie was ‘Love means never having to say your sorry’. If either love or friendship were tallied on a simple putt-putt score card, I’m betting that neither the scores aren’t always tied. This is because we’re human! I’m also betting, however, that when all is said and done, the two most successful ‘players’ end up pretty close to each other – both numerically and emotionally.

In other words, we have to work on being REAL. Being real means admitting when we’re exhausted, lazy, overwhelmed, or just plain over-committed. For the sake of our sanity and the sanity of our loved ones, we’re doing no one any favors by playing the martyr, no matter how naturally it comes to us.

So go on…take that outreached hand. It’s actually comforting to know that we onlies are not doomed to forever be lonely, but we have to make that choice to ‘take’ a chance on others.

Why Worry?

My mamaw was like many downhome Southern grandmothers who had been raised poor and gone through lots of unspeakable hardships. She worried. Constantly. And about everything.

The sun could be shining, everyone employed, everyone healthy, garden growing, food in the pantry and fridge. Everything could be perfect in our family, but she would seek out someone – a cousin of a friend’s sister’s aunt – and worry about her sad diagnosis at the doctor.

This isn’t to say that she was a ‘negative’ person. Not at all. We would pull over on the side of the road in late spring to pluck daisies and black-eyed Susan’s and make bouquets for neighbors. I can’t remember a single night spent with her that I wouldn’t awaken to the sounds of her singing a beautiful gospel song while she fixed up her famous sausage, eggs, biscuits and gravy.

She was so positive in fact, that I can’t see a sunrise, a sunset, or a butterfly without feeling her presence even though she died over 4 years ago.

We’ve all heard it said that ‘worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength’. For the most part, this is true. Like anything else in life, too much worry is bad. But what is worry in the first place but sympathy or empathy ignited by a genuine love of others or self?

Worry in and of itself is not bad because it fills today with a reason to pray, to talk with God, to think about what is on your heart and ask for God’s hand in your life. Should that be the only time we pray? No way! We should always give praise and thanks. But when we come to God as vulnerable, flawed humans asking for help, we are coming to God as naked and raw as the day we were born. This is when we get to experience true closeness to God.

However, like most things in life, we don’t need to dwell in the land of worry for too long. My contention is that worry gets us started in prayer, and that is wonderful, but by the end of the prayer, we should completely give it to God. We do this with sins, with gratitude, with bad memories, but sometimes we surrender to worry and live there forever. This lifestyle spits in the face of Christ. It’s like saying ‘I don’t like what you’ve done with my life, and I’m going to make you suffer through me for the rest of my days’. We’ve all known people like this, right?

Let’s not be that person. Let’s NOT spit in the face of Christ. But let’s do worry. Just a little. A little worry goes a long way in prayer. Just don’t live there! It’s like a houseguest or a vacation – while small doses are appreciated, long stays are overkill. Don’t let worry control you, rather let it guide you gently to prayer.

 

Mother’s Way

She had a way. I remember watching her from the back seat of our Cutlass Supreme, high cheeckbones, delicate jawline, the beginnings of happy lines darting from the corners of her eyes. When she spoke to my dad, her voice softened and even rose a couple octives. It was her special way that she set aside just for my dad, that let me know that he came first. I was at peace with that. That devotion comforted me. I didn’t have to be at the helm of the ship or at the top of the food chain to feel important, worthwhile, or even loved. I just needeed to know my place, and that gave me all the solace I craved as a kid.

When dad’s kidneys failed, she set aside Saturdays for she and I to escape to the local skating rink. She invested in lessons & encouraged me to throw myself into whatever made me happy & gave me a childhood. That was roller skating. I didn’t even need to think about it. Since she was the breadwinner through the week, those Saturdays served as our bonding time. She saw my need to belong to a team, and she always had a way of knowing exactly what I needed months before even I could recognize it.

Watching her run a business, manage employees, talk with potential and existing customers was a true learning experience. I remember thinking  how much I admired her, and also becoming more aware of our differences. We were like a mullet, mom and I. She was the business in the front, while I was the party in the back. It wasn’t that I was ‘bad’ really. It was more that I was the one who wore her heart on her sleeve, had the worst poker face in history, and couldn’t hide anything from anyone. Ever. I am still terrible at all of that, which explains my blogging fetish.

But my mom taught me how to be a lady. She taught me that even if I couldn’t hide my emotions, I should always allow my dignity to outshine them. She taught me that class was a far more desirable trait than pretentiousness, and that the only way we could make it through the hard times was to pray – to believe in something greater than ourselves, and to believe that everyone was created in love. She taught me how to forgive, how to trust, how to love, and how I could always, always depend on her even when everyone else turned away. Which leads me to this – the pain, the grief, the never-fully-healed part of losing a mother that hung my moon.

Sure, sometimes I’m a ship lost at sea. I’m constantly trying to find a shore that has vanished entirely. I don’t want to plant my feet on any other island. It doesn’t know me, and it didn’t grow me in its womb. It sounds silly, I know. But there’s something impossible about completely cutting a cord when that cord feels more like a limb, and maybe even more like a root.

In truth, I am pretty certain I really will never be healed, but I am also pretty certain that my mom knew I needed to cut that cord, because she always knew. When she looked at me and told me that she needed me to encourage others to let go because she knew that I could help, that was HER cutting the cord for me, empowering me to have confidence, and strengthening me for the battle ahead. But then, hadn’t she spent her whole life doing just that?/