Making Space

(As I started writing this, Alexa *smartly* started playing ‘the space between’ by DMB)

Do you remember learning in elementary school how forest fires work? In a natural and unspoiled world, the fire ignites organically, and the flames engulf all of the old trees and brush in order to make space for all of the new baby trees and sprouts.

In my mind, this has been a metaphor I’ve revisited so many times in my life to compare and explain what’s happening when something in my life crashes down and bursts into flames. Like when my dad passed when I was 11, and then when I endured my first divorce at 26, and on and on and on. Because that’s what life does, right? Shit happens and then we die? I mean, that’s at least what some of my more colorful friends shirts and bumper stickers said when I was younger.

To be fair, it’s not that far off. But that broad blanketed statement (like many) is a little too dumbed down to be much more than off-the-cuff humor. It’s the stuff that happens between shit and death that keeps us hanging on and makes this craziness more than worth it.

It’s the happy birthday celebrations after an especially challenging year. It’s the Christmas morning when you’re awakened by the smell of cinnamon rolls wafting through the air. It’s the first kiss that feels like the last first kiss you’ll ever want. It’s the long road trip to the beach when you’re exhausted and have to pee and don’t have as much as another ounce of patience to make it one more mile. So you park and drag your tired stiff self down to the sand and take it all in for the first time; that hot smooch of sticky wind, the white creamy welcoming sand, the salty taste of endless ocean, and your toes mercifully digging in to relaxation….at long last. It’s the moment when you reach the end of your hike, when your legs are throbbing and your pulse thumps beyond your chest, but that view!! That view could cure even the deepest sorrow.

That’s how this all works. Life. It’s ugly, and messy, and sad, and joyful, and incredible all at once sometimes. But it’s life, and it’s a blessing to experience ALL of it, not just the beautiful moments, but the ugly ones too. Those are the forest fires. Those are the moments that feel like an ending and are endings, but they also happen to clear the way and make the space for more beautiful moments than you could ever imagine. And those moments will happen at EXACTLY the right moment. Not on your time. Not on your kid’s time, your mom’s time, your dog’s time. In God’s time. The right time. All because space was made and the forest was cleared again so that we finally see those trees.

Through the Eyes

Scrolling through my PInterest out of pure habit, and in the midst of every meme I’ve seen a gazillion times, I bumped into one that truly grabbed my heart and made me take pause and a deep breath. This meme said ‘I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything’ – Bill Bryson.

How true is that, right?? It reminded me of that time 21 years ago when I was four months pregnant in Mexico at a resort where only the guests spoke English. While I was not in the most rugged of places by any stretch, I truly had no idea where I was in relation to home, nor did I understand the culture no matter how many years of Spanish I had taken in high school and college.

Mexico was a different planet, especially when we wandered downtown and walked through the city with the locals all calling out to us from their produce stands, jewelry boutique tents, and souvenir sheds. What sometimes felt unsettling and unnerving was also like a great big breath of newness and wonderment, and I did feel just like a child. Everything was a surprise again. Everything was new.

I was reminded even more so more so of that time in Ireland just 6 years ago, when I stayed in a castle out in the country followed by a three day stay in the big city of Dublin. Throughout the country, there were no streetlights, the roads were the size of sidewalks here in the states, and everyone drove on the wrong side of the stone walled roads because, well….that’s what they do over there! There were different languages, different accents, and diffierent perspectives. Everything was old and had a story or a hundred stories attached. Cemeteries were as plentiful as churches and pubs, and instead of seeing dilapidated barns, cabins, trailers and broken-down-cinder-block cars strewn along the countryside, there were castles and ruins and lots and lots of cows who were so agile they could maneuver across The Burren as if they were made for it.

Of course… they were.

And therein lies the magic. Because while we’re all living our little lives in a bubble in our special corners of the Earth, so is everyone else living theirs. You know what though? We’re all experiencing life differently. Getting out there into the world and seeing what others are seeing, living how others live, connecting with people from totally different places? That’s the magic. That’s what changes us from the inside out.

So let’s vow to be like children again, to view the world like we just awoke, and to speak with others to relate and share, but most importantly to listen and soften. Because as one of my other favorite memes says, we’re not trees, we don’t have to stand still. Instead, let’s wander.

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

Count them All

Is it just me, or have you ever noticed that just when you’re sulking the deepest ever in your own sulk is exactly the moment when God throws a great big ugly beautiful truth at you and forces you to recognize your blessings in the kindest most Godly way imaginable? It may be just me. Or maybe not. All I know is that is exactly the perfect summation for my week so far.

See, I started on yet another new journey in the ‘career’ portion of my life just a few weeks ago. I was at that terribly awkward space where I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that every member of my team would benefit from my departure. Not from a lack of my efforts, and not from a lack of my desire to please others, but from the sheer misfortune of failure and disappointment at being crappy at my job no matter what I tried. It was a lonely place and a depressing one, and the fog just refused to leave and take with it that big black cloud of apparent incompetence. So I found a new career path, which by the grace of God, took no time at all to find.

I quickly transitioned from a student support rep for a University to a recruiter for a solid international staffing firm. It’s a no-brainer really. After serving time recruiting and managing as a small business owner, and then guiding students on their career paths, recruiting is an obvious next step. Of course, I want a forever step, but only time will tell. I need to finally be good at this ONE job I have to do.

Rewind (yes, I said that) to yesterday. I left my new career feeling rather defeated after covering for two branches. I didn’t feel that I had done my best even though I hadn’t taken a moment to breath all day. I was questioning my ability with people and even more so….my ability to learn. I had gone home, taken very little time to take care of my youngest son, and had sulked in bed wondering if I truly ‘had it in me’ to help people in the way that I want & in the way that my organization needs.

After praying myself to sleep, I woke up with a mission and with conviction. I would give it my all, and that would be enough. So halfway through the day, these two charismatic ladies walked through my door with three mentally challenged men. They told me that their guys wanted to interview. So I quickly had the men sign in, and I took them one by one for very simple but realistic interviews. I told each of them about our jobs loading trucks and each of them instantly wanted the positions. While their coaches winked at me, and whispered some guidance, I watched each of the men’s faces light up with hope. And while none of them are ready to work according to their coaches, each of them left with a real sense of what a true interview entailed.

My lesson? We are all in the right place in the right time – in God’s time. We can feel sorry for ourselves all we want, but at the end of the day, what matters most is that we are real-life, well-rounded human beings, with hearts and souls and the drive to do what’s right. On a superficial level, these ladies will likely remember my company for our ability to sympathize and adapt to the situation. On a much deeper level, I acted just as God would’ve wanted. That doesn’t happen everyday. I’m nowhere near perfect. But I heard my purpose today, and I think that in itself is a full-blown blessing.

Pity Party

We all go there sometimes, with or without hats, streamers, and blow horns. We may have been invited by a disappointment, or we may not even know how we ended up there in the first place, hog-tied and teary eyed. Pity parties are the parties that everyone has gone to at least once. And if you have only attended once, count yourself especially special. We have a million things that make us happy. We have things in our lives that make our hearts smile, people in our lives that are there when everyone else goes to their own pity party and ignores the invite to ours. That’s okay.

That doesn’t mean they’re any less of a friend any more than it means we’re any less of a friend when we can’t step out of our own muck to join in theirs. Which is why reflection, during times of joy, is particularly useful and powerful for all of us. If thinking about what we don’t have can get us into our own pity-party, then maybe thinking about what we do have can get us into our own celebration of gratitude – which is typically much healthier, not to mention good for our spirits.

I spent too much time over the holidays indulging in my own pity party. I even pulled others in, and blocked some out completely. It’s easy for the guilt-ridden part of me to focus on that, to drown in my own stupid selfishness. But now that I’m done with that party and my sunshine has shone its rays across the horizon of life again, I find that I have no interest in going back. Sure, the raccoon bagged red eyes were a beautiful site. The hunched over zombie crawl of going through the motions has its haunting attraction. But maybe it was a little ungrateful and self-indulgent of me to be that version of myself. I don’t have Cancer. I have two amazing kids. I have some of the sweetest friendships, a man who loves me even through my obnoxious moments, and a dog who revolves her days around the comings and goings of her two-legged mommy. Sure, I’ve experienced lots of death & heartbreak. I’m 40.

Still, I have 100 New Years Resolutions, and only one year to make it happen. 365 days of self-pity-free openness to life. That should cover all 100 resolutions. I’m so far from perfect, and I’m not so rose-colored as to think that I won’t struggle with this mission. But like anything else worthwhile and life-changing, I’m taking it one day at a time. My wish is that everyone takes time this year to reflect on the good, take inventory of the blessings, to reach out to those who struggle more than ourselves, and journey toward that ever-changing silver lining. Pity parties after all are so 2016. 2017 is about JOYful gratitude.

As for me…

This month, it will be four years that I’ve been the only adult in my home. That’s the longest I’ve ever been ‘head of household’. Ever. Right now, as I’m interviewing for jobs, there is on consistent theme going on in my conversations. I am Robin. I am the sidekick. I am not Batman. I may be at home, but I don’t want to be full-time, all the time, day-in and day-out Batman. I just don’t have it in me to be the happy boss lady. My mom was the boss. I was the minion. And maybe I wasn’t okay with that until she passed away, until I HAD to be Batman and was forced out of my sidekick flip-flops and into my superhero boots. Still, that has been my epiphany. Some people are born leaders, and admittedly, I always thought I was one of those. Maybe in a way, I still think I am – on an emotional intelligence level but NOT on a business level. 

I am the girl who will give everything away if it’s up to her, and no one is telling her to do otherwise. I am the girl who understands people’s hardships a little too well, and will cave in to their sob stories. And guess what? I don’t want to change a thing. I could’ve become hardened by now. By the grace of God, I haven’t. Have I grown wiser? Yes. At least I hope so. Have I stopped caring so much what others think? Yes. That sort of ended with the passing of my mom. So what’s a girl with sidekick talent and no live-in superhero to do? 

Wait for it.

That’s all. Don’t dive in. Don’t rush things. Just wait until his time is right. Can I get an Amen?!

After two divorces, the absolute LAST thing I want in my life is a husband who is NOT ready to be married, or be committed, or say ‘forever’. Robin is Batman’s sidekick because he respects his superhero and his superhero is respectable and committed as well. Robin didn’t just start following Batman around one day in hope’s that maybe…just maybe he would be accepted. There’s is a mutual friendship, and a mutual commitment. That’s how it should be. That’s how a marriage should be as well.

I don’t know, but I’m pretty certain that Robin could handle his household just fine without Batman. He could pay bills, do laundry, handle the kids’ fighting, keep the yard tidy, shop for the groceries, get the mail – he could do all of that perfectly fine without Batman. Batman could do all of that without Robin. 

But no man (or woman) was created to be ‘a rock’ as Simon and Garfunkel would say. We were made for each other, in our own time, when we’re both ready. Because while both Batman and Robin are perfectly fine alone, together they save the world.

We will also save the world, in our own little way. Until then, we have daydreams and roadtrips. We have weekends and long talks. We have time to savor. Time together, until we have all the time we are given  and we are ready to fly as one. 

Changes

Changes. Nothing moves forward without them. No one gets uncomfortable without them. Everything stays the same without them. We are human. We are not equipped to stay the same, but we’re also ill-equipped when it comes to instigating our own changes.

A new pair of shoes has to be ‘worked in’ before they can ever become anything close to resembling those favorite comfortable shoes. When we move, we are faced with working out a whole new routine; the best route to the grocery store, how to avoid school zones, the nearest gas station, the nearest church, new neighbors, new schools, new teachers, new postman.

It feels like starting over. WE are now the strangers, the freshman, the low man on the totem pole. When we change careers, the same thing happens again. We are now the one in training instead of being the trainer. We have to follow others until we work ourselves into a new routine. We, who once lead, now are shadows, learning our way but leaning on everyone around us. There is a sense of vulnerability, of humility, that kicks in & takes over our thinking.

But while some change is forced on us by loved ones or circumstances (i.e. getting laid off, divorced, a death in the family), lots of change is pre-meditated and intended, even initiated by the changer. Those changes are fun. We don’t tend to change careers unless we are unhappy, and we don’t tend to ask for a divorce if we are content and happy with our current spouse. If we liked where we were, we wouldn’t choose to leave.

For many of us, those conditions have to decline to the level of deplorable before we even flinch. Why? Because change takes more energy than we have to muster when we’re so miserable where we are. One of my favorite things about being human and having free will? Having the opportunity and the freedom to wait for the right time to make changes.

You hear people say that there is really ‘no right time’ for anything, be it getting married, having babies, changing careers, deciding to live a healthier lifestyle, whatever. I disagree. The right time is exactly at that moment of your day, your week, your month, in the middle of the night, where it hits you and you know that you truly are FED up with that area of your life. In THAT moment it really doesn’t matter that you don’t have enough savings yet, or that you may hurt someone else’s feelings in the process. When it’s time, you will know, and in that moment, you will relish in the freedom of free will and know that, because it’s time, everything will work out in the end. And whether you end up where you want or not, you can at least say that you did your part. You took the path with your full heart. There can be no regrets.