25 years

Today is February 5th. I hate today. I’ve hated it for 25 years. Five years and one week longer than my daughter has been alive. I have lived so many lives in those 25 years. All of them mine but all of them different. I’ve been angry, jealous, bitter, sad, in love, loved, depressed, hopeless, hopeful, dreamy, flighty, stupid, and happy.

Today, like every February 5th since 1989, I will relive that awful morning. Hearing my mom’s voice. Knowing something was wrong. The huge pit in my stomach. I wonder why, but I don’t dwell on it. I remember his smile, his smirk, his strong arms hugging me so tight I thought he’d break my ribs. I will cry but just a little bit.

When my brother died, my life took a sharp turn. I was no longer loved, cherished, protected…safe. I felt alone. Nothing could go wrong when he was here. But now, everything could go wrong. And lots of stuff did. And then stuff went right. And then wrong. And more right. Hills and valleys.

Brene Brown talks about foreboding joy–the fearful sense that joy is fleeting. Something bad will happen. Don’t get too comfortable being happy because it won’t last. That’s how I lived a lot of my life. Brad asked me, “Why do you always go to the worst case scenario?” Because the worst case scenario had played out in my life. A couple times. I wanted to be prepared.

But preparing for the worst doesn’t stop it.

Instead of preparing, I’ve learned to heal, love, and let myself be happy without waiting for the bottom to drop out.

After my brother died, I heard him called lots of things. A junkie, a drug dealer, a liar, a thief. But to me, he was amazing. What a gift that I could carry that person who loved me wholeheartedly around forever, letting his memory fill in the broken places in my heart. Maybe if he’d lived longer, I would have been forced to see him as some of those other things.

I try to be real, honest, and transparent, but there are people who don’t like me. I spent a good part of my life doing cartwheels, saying the right thing, doing the right thing, but always for the wrong reasons. If people would just see me, love me, understand me, then…I don’t know what. Then it would be okay? What would be okay? Life? I would be safe? I wouldn’t be alone? I don’t know.

Looking back at 25 years of changes, I realize I like who I’ve become. I don’t always like the number on the scale or the color of my hair or the waddle under my chin (seriously, I really dislike that freaking waddle), but that’s not the point.

Today, I worry less about what people think of me and more about how I treat them. I don’t care if people judge me, but I try not to judge them. I don’t need to tell everyone my story, but I sure love to hear theirs. I don’t need people to think I’m a good person; I want them to know they can count on me. I don’t memorize scriptures to preach to people; I help them feel Jesus’ love in how I treat them.

Twenty-five years later, I still think my brother hung the moon and rocked the world, and I will love him forever.

Fast On.

For 21 days, we are joining our church family in the Daniel Fast (we started Monday, so this is day 3). If you aren’t familiar, this fast involves eliminating meat, dairy, animal products, sugar, coffee, tea, leavened bread and more. You basically eat fruits, vegetables, and nuts and drink water.

Historically, people have fasted for many purposes: clarity, peace, closer relationship with God, an answer to a prayer and so forth. My fast is about surrendering deeper to God’s call on my life. I didn’t make New Year’s resolutions this year for several reasons. First, resolutions feel a lot like rules, and I don’t like rules. In fact, I have spent a good part of my life breaking them. And second, I have quit all the things I want to quit, and I don’t intend to take up any new bad habits. If I do, then I’ll rethink this next January 1st.

What I do, however, is start every day with the promise of being kinder, more patient, more compassionate. I really believe turning 40 changes you, and I feel now more than ever that I can really be in the moment. I no longer get all worked up about a stain on the carpet or a broken glass or any other sort of material loss that would have unhinged me before.

Things aren’t as important anymore. I used to want new furniture and new clothes and new stuff (we did just get a new car, but that was a necessity not a luxury), now, I am outrageously happy with what I have. My kitchen table scarred with glitter, nail polish, paint, and more. My sofa worn from three kids bouncing on it. Our house and our stuff is more than good enough.

And in that same vein, so is my body. This morning, when I looked in the mirror, instead of seeing hair that desperately needed to be washed, I saw little fingers twisting that hair to fall asleep at night. I saw the one perfect curl that falls beside my face every morning because my husband twirls it around his finger when he falls sleep. And I am enough. My unwashed, uncolored hair is good enough.

Instead of thinking what new exercise I could pin (yes, pin, someday I will actually do them, maybe) to flatten my stomach, I remembered the three times that same stomach had been stretched to outrageous proportions as my most precious gifts grew inside. My not-as-flat-as-it-once-was stomach is good enough.

I looked at the lines on my face and thought not of what new wrinkle cream would come in my Birchbox, but instead of all the experiences etched in those lines. I might have considered the wrinkle cream for minute; give me a break I’m in process. I thought of eyes that winked at my little athletes so they knew I saw their play and lips that had kissed so many boo boos and feverish heads. The face in the mirror doesn’t look the same as the face in my mind. The face in the mirror doesn’t look the same as it did 10 years ago, but it’s good enough.

In my 20’s and 30’s, I wanted to take pictures and make scrapbooks of every single moment (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but now, I just want to live in those moments. The memories are all ready captured in my heart and my mind.

So today, hungry, 15 pounds away from my goal weight, with dirty hair and a cold, I’m good enough. Good enough for my beautiful husband, my amazing little loves, my friends, and most of all for God. So, if you are looking in the mirror and seeing flaws, please stop. Look at what’s right. Be as kind to yourself as you are to your best friend. See yourself as the person who loves you the most sees you. You are more than good enough; in fact, you are wonderful, and you are loved.

One Heart at a Time

Here’s my unfortunate experience with church people: They are fake, judgmental hypocrites. The people who were most revered in my growing up church beat their kids, cheated on their wives, gossiped, judged, hated, and looked down on people. Ain’t nobody got time for those folks and their God.

At The Movement, I encountered different people. Loving, accepting Christians who had kind non-judgmental hearts. However, even some I thought of as my kind of Christians show me their humanness if I mention hot button topics such as: Brad and I drink alcohol, my brother committed suicide or my sister-in-law is a lesbian. They don’t judge me to my face. Honestly, if I weren’t observant of body language I might miss their judgment. See, it is so subtle: an averted glance, an uncomfortable shifting in their seat, a quick, “Excuse me,” as they hurry away from me.

Honestly, there is a part of me that kind of enjoys making people uncomfortable. Not because I’m sadistic, but because I much prefer those who are just right out in the open with their hate to those who pretend to be loving and accepting. So, when I tell you my feelings about homosexuality and suicide, I’m probably trying to gauge if we have any chance of being friends, and I’ll know very quickly based on your reaction.

I am an open book. If I’m mad at you, I will tell you. If I think I offended you, I will apologize. If you say something that I don’t agree with, I will listen to your point of view, but I probably won’t change my mind. If you say something outwardly hurtful to me, I will be hurt, but I would rather be attacked to my face than gossiped about behind my back.

I try every day to be kinder, to be more patient, not to say unkind things about anyone, but I’m a work in progress, and I mess up.

This weekend, people showed up in a church in a bar not knowing what to expect. People who might have felt judged or looked down upon in church because of their clothes, past, or sexual orientation. But I think they felt loved and accepted. I saw them smiling and sharing their stories with others that they may never have met if not for a church in a bar in downtown Warren.

Some people mock God, church, and me, but that is okay, they’re works in progress too. They might have been raised to believe that God is vengeful and punitive, and Christians are phony. We’re all works in progress. But, I’m super grateful to a crazy redheaded pastor who trusted God enough to trade good for a chance at great. I’m grateful to my pastor/brother-in-law, who is the first Christian I ever met who loved and didn’t judge. I’m grateful for my sister-in-law, who in her quiet unassuming way is gonna change the freaking world.

I’m outrageously blessed that I get to love and be loved by my beautiful family every moment. But today, I am overwhelmed by the opportunity to bring love to a community one heart at a time.

P.S. I don’t really know how to spell judgement or judgmental, so I have relied solely on spell check and apologize for what I’m sure is a lot of inconsistency. Also, I promise this isn’t a passive aggressive dig at any person. If you feel called out, it might be because God is telling you to check yourself.Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Trouble in this World

The weeks surrounding my 40th birthday are memories I will cherish forever. I received the most wonderful, thoughtful gifts and sentiments from my family and friends, a surprise trip to Florida that became a surprise trip to the Keys, and massive and overwhelming amounts of love. In fact, I’ve never felt so loved.

When things started to return to normal, I remained enamored with a magic new age that held so much promise and basked in the afterglow of all the love. Last week, I crashed. Although, I’ve never used cocaine, I’ve heard you experience a super elated feeling and when the drug wears off, that feeling is replaced by intense despondency.

Well, I was high on love and adoration, and when things went back to normal, I let my guard down, the anniversary of my dad’s death crept up on me, and before I could grab a lifeline, depression had me in its unrelenting grip. Granted, I’ve dealt with bipolar-ish disorder for most of my life, I self-diagnosed it in grad school, and then a doctor confirmed a few years ago. I say, bipolar-ish because I have depressive episodes and manic episodes but they are not usually long enough to meet the diagnostic criteria.

One time I actually had to be medicated out of it. Technically that was too close to my dad’s death to be a major depressive episode. Since it doesn’t happen that often, I mostly just deal with it.

I explained, again, to my darling husband that depression is different than sadness or the blues. He has witnessed these episodes many times over 22 years and encourages and hugs and walks on eggshells around me reminding me to pray and count my blessings. For me, it’s as if someone throws a wet, black, blanket over my head, which I can’t lift no matter how hard I try. So, I quit struggling and just give in to the darkness. I pray so much. I am overwhelmingly grateful for my blessings. No amount of prayer and blessing counting changes it.

Last week brought a really discouraging realization. I honestly felt that as I drew nearer to God, as I made myself smaller so that He could be bigger, as I focused on using the gifts He gave me for His purpose and His good, I never questioned that I would suffer, but I didn’t think it would be from depression.

I was blindsided. Why is this happening again? Am I not following You? Am I not doing Your will? Have I not fasted and prayed and sacrificed as You wanted? I didn’t feel as if God had left me, but I did feel confused. In the past I viewed my depression as caused by emptiness, and I thought that once I was filled with God’s love, filled with the Holy Spirit, I wouldn’t suffer from it anymore. I was wrong. I thought my depression was situational. I was wrong about that too.

It just happens. Sometimes bad things happen, and we can’t understand why. God wasn’t punishing me or using this to show me that I was on the wrong path, I fully believe that now.  In John 16:33, Jesus reminds us, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Fortunately, I don’t have to have to figure out or overcome this world because Jesus all ready did. Fortunately, I am surrounded by amazing people–many of them mental health professionals, go figure that. Fortunately, I recognize the symptoms and the onset even though I am powerless to control them. Fortunately, this time, it lasted only days rather than months. Fortunately, I was rewarded with a day of manic cleaning energy to make up for the days that I wandered around in a stupor managing only to work and nothing else.

I am not a mental health professional just someone who has dealt with this for many years. If you suffer or have suffered from depression: You aren’t alone. You aren’t crazy. You aren’t being punished. If people tell you to cheer up and get over it, they might be trying to help, but they aren’t the right people to help. Find a doctor, counselor, friend, pastor or someone with knowledge about depression. Don’t suffer alone.

Sidetrack Sally, Suffering and Sacrificing

Since I was raised a good little Catholic girl, I always gave something up for Lent. Usually candy, soda, chips…I was always a healthy eater–insert eye-roll and confession that I lived a whole year on cheese puffs and Tang. Although I moved away from the Catholic church, I love Jesus and have always identified with His praying, fasting, and meditating and wanted to offer something in return.

Now, to quote my friend Jen: Let me back up a minute. Whether it was the church, my family, or simply my own perception, I came to this conclusion as a child: Suffering is good, and the more you suffer the better of a person you are. Since Jesus suffered tremendously, my wee little girl mind believed that by suffering, I could earn favor with Jesus. 

So my takeaways from a childhood of Catholicism: Suffering and guilt. When I was about Lily’s age (6), I used to kneel for hours in church on November 1, All Soul’s Day, praying for souls in purgatory and unbaptized babies in Limbo. Always an intuitive empath–though I didn’t know that until my 30’s when an honest-to-goodness definition for my particular neurosis emerged bringing validation and relief–this weighed on me tremendously. In my little kid mind, unless you left the confessional, did penance, and then dropped dead, you were probably going to go to purgatory for a couple hundred years until some good little girl prayed you out.

And what about people who had no family? What about the orphans? I hoped that God would make exceptions and use my excess prayers for them. When I think about this as an adult, as a mother, it makes me sad. I want to give my little girl self a hug and reassure her. My darling son is an empath too. He would agonize over souls in purgatory.

Back to Lent, see why my kids call me “Sidetrack Sally?” So, I share my feelings and interpretations about Lent with my own children not as a way to make them feel guilty or as if they need to suffer, but as a way of acknowledging Jesus’ suffering on our behalf. No pressure. Chloe is taking 18 credit hours and running 5 miles a day. I didn’t mention this to her: She’s all ready suffering enough. Peyton gave up computer games. Lily went back and forth and ultimately chose soda, but last night she climbed like a spider monkey onto the counter to finish Brad’s Coke, so we might need to revisit that.

I chose alcohol. I’m not an alcoholic. And for those of you who know me, I don’t drink excessively anymore. Yes, I know I had a drink in my hand in every Florida picture. Have you been to Key Largo without your kids? Cut me some slack. The point is: I really enjoy an adult beverage. I love a good glass of wine or a craft beer. One of our friends brews his own beer. It’s AMAZING. I’m looking forward to enjoying one in 30-some days. So, I thought this would be a good sacrifice as well as a liver cleanse.

If you’re still here, you probably need a beer. This post was rough and disjointed. Maybe I am an alcoholic. Maybe this is what withdrawal looks like. Go ahead. Have a drink. Call my girlfriend; we made a pact never to let the other drink alone. She’ll have a beer with you. She promised.

I’m a Mess.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

 

Again today, I felt our pastor spoke directly to me. It’s a gift he has–I realize, after discussing with other people at our church who have also felt singled out. It’s kind of creepy. Anyway, today’s topic was the condition of our hearts. How God doesn’t care if you are carrying a Louis Vuitton bag or a garbage bag, or if you have $100 shoes or holes in your soles. He isn’t impressed by the airs people put on. He cares about our hearts. So, if we feed the starving, shelter the homeless, and clothe the poor, but don’t do it with love, we might as well stay home and watch tv, because we missed the point. Well, I guess the poor, homeless, and hungry people benefit regardless of our motives, but you get the point, right?

So when your patience is thin, when your kids are arguing for the 65th time, when your husband has forgotten to take the garbage out for the fourth week in a row, how you react then shows the true condition of your heart. Not when everything is rosy. Not your Sunday morning shined up for church look but how you act when no one is looking. Well, I will be the first to admit: I am a mess, and I am ashamed of some of the ugly things that are in my heart.

I came home from church today thinking, “Why do you even try?” Because I do try. I try really hard to follow Jesus, to love God above all else and to love others, but I fully admit that when Lily calls my name for the seventh time in 10 seconds while I’m trying to read an email or send a text or whatever ridiculously important thing I’m doing, my response is not, “Yes, my love, what can I do for you?” Nope, it’s more like, “WHAT DO YOU WANT? CAN’T YOU SEE I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING?” Ugly.

I will fully admit, when I get in the car to take Peyton to school tomorrow morning if the garbage cans are not at the end of the driveway, I am going to say ugly things about my husband. Maybe just in my head, maybe under my breath, and maybe fully aloud so that the skunks, oppossums, and whatever else might be wandering around in our yard in the early morning hours can hear. And they will undoubtedly think, “That’s ugly talk, Mary Bell.” But even if I don’t say anything out loud, God will see the ugliness in my heart.

So, before I beat myself up any further, I decided to spend a few minutes mindlessly reading what people were grateful for today on Facebook. Unfortunately, that backfired. WOW! Add bitterness, and resentment to the ugliness in my heart. Good grief, so I took to the safety of my bed to pray, write, and sort things out.

On our message map today, it said, “Examine the condition of my heart.” My heart is a wreck. But as I sit in my bed typing this a sweet little curly-headed girl crawls quietly in and snuggles up against me. Her presence pulls me out of the self-depracating depths and back into reality. And as I take a moment to feel her soft little cheek against my arm, I hear the still small voice of my God whisper, “Yes, you are a mess, but I love you anyway.” And so I’ll get up and try to do better.