Your voice DOES sound like that, but it’s okay.

Yesterday, I had a near-death experience. It made me think about a lot of stuff. This is pretty erratic. You’ve been warned.

When I was a kid, my parents were hard on us. They expected certain things that most parents do: respect, good grades, honesty, responsibility. There was another unspoken expectation that no one outwardly acknowledged, but we all knew existed: Perfection. I’m not beating up my parents. They did the best they could with the tools they had to raise us into productive members of society, and I don’t hold them accountable–anymore–for my shortcomings. I beat myself up instead.

As a young mom, I was super hard on Chloe. I didn’t get on her about her weight or hair color, as my mom had done with me, but I pushed her to excel at everything she did. When she was about 15, and I witnessed the crazy high standard of excellence she imposed on herself, I realized that I had instilled in her not only a drive to succeed, but also a drive to be perfect. I really beat myself up about that. I still do sometimes.

Beating myself is something I have excelled at for decades. When I was very little, I was frightened by my dad’s yelling, but I quickly learned that I could be just as mean and scary by yelling and saying mean things. I also learned that when you say mean things to yourself, it doesn’t hurt nearly as much when other people say those things. Since I’d told my 100 pound 13-year-old self how fat I was, my mother’s admonishments that I “didn’t have the eating habits of a thin person,” went in one ear and out the other.

Still, I am a world-class champion when it comes to being hard on myself. It makes me laugh sometimes when people say or write derogatory things about me. Sticks and stones, pal; I’ve said way worse to myself.

My quest for self-awareness threatens to be pathological at times. My husband says, “Baby, you’re too hard on yourself.” My girlfriends say, “You’re a good person.” My kids say, “You’re the best mom.” My mental health professional friend says, “Try not to overthink your parenting.” I read and pray and try but still continue the complicated cha-cha of self-acceptance and self-improvement.

Today, however, I had a revelation taking P to school. Revelations often happen in the car, and I hear Anne Lamott advising, “Writers always have a pen and paper handy to write these things down.” And I do, Annie, I do, but I’m driving!! So, I open the notes app, press the little microphone and blurt out my revelation as fast as I can before it gets lost in the great abyss of nonsense I fret about.

Then I come home, make a wonderful cup of coffee and sit down to write an encouraging piece based on this revelation. But I open my notes app and it says: “All of thenthings we thought made us unlocks let.” What the fuck does that mean? Read it again…slower this time… “All of thenthings we thought made us unlocks let.”

You know when you hear your voice on a recording and think I don’t sound like that? Well, I do sound like that (my recorded voice is high-pitched and childlike, not at all sexy and ScarJo as I envision it) and evidently, I don’t speak in complete thoughts but weird fragments of ambiguity instead. That. Just. Figures.

Now, if you’re still here, I promise I’m going to get to the point. Or at least a point. Sometimes, Brad asks me, “What made you think of that?” And I give him a long complicated story such as the dog was dreaming of running and the way her toenails clicked on the floor reminded me of tap dancing which made me think of Chloe in her only dance recital and how she stood in one position tapping her heel in a little purple costume and the sequins scattered all over my car which reminded me that I used to pick up sequins off the floor at Joann Fabrics when I went there with my mom and she took me to the dairy queen after but wouldn’t let me get a peanut buster parfait like I wanted and made me get a small chocolate cone. I hate chocolate cones. It’s so exhausting to be in my head for even one minute, you guys.

Anywayyyyyyy, my revelation was this: Sometimes the people in our lives who are “supposed to” love us fall short. Our parents, siblings, you know…the blood people. When this happens, God, or the Universe, whatever you believe–personally, I think we quibble more on semantics than actual beliefs–provides other people. These people love us not because they are “supposed to” but because they choose to. They look beyond our brokenness and imperfections, our past mistakes and current shortcomings and actually see us. These are the friends who encourage us, the partners who forgive us, the kids who adore us. They are the ones who look at all the things that we thought made us unlovable (that is what the illogical fragment meant, btw) and see instead what made us so special and unique.

This past week, I’ve been on self-help reading overload. I’ve mined my childhood for memories of my mom and dad and found both delightful and disturbing ones. I’ve written personal mission statements and examined what annoys me about other people and how those traits manifest in me. I told Brad this morning that I was really tired, and I’m beginning to realize why. So today, I’m going to smile, relax and be kind to people. Starting with myself. And you too.

Still not mother of the year

The past few weeks, my life has been a little busier than normal. I’ve felt–quite frequently–like I had a lot of balls in the air, and that one of them was bound to drop sooner or later. I have been talking to myself. A lot. I fit in pretty well at the nursing home. It’s like when I am trying to remember a phone number, I’ll say it over and over again in my mind since I can never find a paper to write it down.

Now, however, I’m saying all these things in my head because I wrote them down somewhere, but I can’t find the damn paper so my inner dialogue is like, “Pick up Peyton at 5 or 7, wait what day is it: Monday, okay 5, I think. Lily has gymnastics. Drop off the recycling. Pick up my mom’s laundry. Bring her insurance card. Did I bring her clean undershirts and the kind of socks she likes? Did I text Chloe good morning? Did I check on Lori? Did I pack lunches this morning or were the kids buying? Did we study spelling words or did Lily really write “whore” instead of “were” anyway?” True story. Good that her teacher is a precious angel who finds humor in my parenting shortcomings.

All of this has made me feel much more compassionate toward those around me as I think most of us probably have way more going on than anyone knows. Since, I’m always trying to work those four agreements and lots of times getting stuck on not taking things personally, this is helping.

I have a really bad habit of sinking into myself. Crawling into my shell and dropping out of every inessential (by inessential, I mean no one will die if I don’t show up) part of my life. That means, I don’t really talk to my friends. I don’t go anywhere with anyone. Often I’m short if I remember to respond at all. All of this is an effort to protect and nourish my spirit, but it can often seem to people who care about me, that I’m mad at them or being a bitch. I’m really so sorry.

I’m working on doing a better job of communicating. And at the same time, I’m going to make some vows to you, my girlfriends, who are doing so much more than anyone knows, often at the expense of taking care of yourself the way you need and deserve to be loved and cared for. If you would, though, please pass it on…

1. If you forget to pick your son up from any sporting event, I will take him home. I will not tell anyone that you forgot or give you any shit about it. We don’t ever have to speak of it.
2. Those pants look good on you. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow too if that is what you choose. I don’t care how often you do laundry or if you gained 10 pounds and they’re the only comfortable thing you have. I promise I didn’t even notice until you told me.
3. Your daughter is beautiful even if her clothes don’t match and are too small. I know that she has a whole wardrobe of matching adorable clothes but it isn’t worth fighting with her in the morning.
4. I don’t judge you for yelling at your kids. Good lord, if someone had a hidden camera in my car or house, child protective services would be at my door daily. I am at times a horrible raving lunatic.
5. I couldn’t care less if your kids valentines aren’t homemade. I force my child to do crafts so we can bond, dammit; she would much rather have store bought ones. We’re all works in progress.

I could go on and on and on. Sometimes we are just so mean to each other. Judging and comparing and competing and gossiping and bleck, bleck, bleck. I promise you all, right now, if you’re reading this: I am never going to judge you, your clothes, your kids, your parenting, your weight, your hair or anything else. I get it. I understand. I feel you. My mantle is still void of a mother of the year trophy. Actually, I don’t even have a mantle! What do you think about that?

Please, let’s be kind to each other. And more than that? Let’s be kind to ourselves.

xoxo

You’re so…DELETE.

Every once in awhile, someone sends me a handwritten card. Out of the blue, my sweet Chloe will send a beautiful, touching, or sometimes silly card but inside are her words, handwritten, which seem ever-so-much-more personal than a text or email or facebook post. A few other friends also do this, and I treasure these little keepsakes. Yes, I love the ability to communicate instantly, but there is something about those cards … like there is a little piece of the sender’s heart in there.

Spurred by my own affinity for receiving them and my constant pursuit to find unique and different ways to encourage and love people, I bought some beautiful note cards and decided to handwrite notes to a few people in the hopes that they would feel as touched as I always do to receive one.

Here’s what I didn’t bargain for: I have become dependent on delete. When you are handwriting a letter, especially on an expensive note card, you’re committed once you put that ink on the paper. Ughh…I tried saying sentences over in my head before writing them. Still, upon re-reading, I felt, “Oh no … that sounds stupid. Did you misspell that word? Honestly? That looks like an m but it’s really an r. Does that make sense? Is this legible? Jeeze, are you illiterate?”

I may have mentioned before that my inner voice is a nasty shrew.

I am by nature an editor, not a writer. I’m way more comfortable fiddling around with words that are already on the page than actually putting them there. I really like to edit and proofread. It makes me giddy to make writing sound clearer and more concise. It’s like polishing silver. I like that as well. I’m an odd duck.

Anyway, when I do write, it’s usually a lot of nonsense–kind of like having a conversation with me. If we have spoken in person, you may have considered me snobby or not very bright or even pondered if English was my native language. True. I promise I’m not snobby; I’m not a mensa member either, and I’m certainly not bilingual. I’m way more comfortable listening than talking. And since my tongue is usually tied, I’m going to spend the rest of my day–or week, depending on how significant the perceived flub–analyzing what I said and how stupid it sounded and perhaps if it was even offensive. Oh no, I hope not, but maybe?

My head is a dark and exhausting place to reside sometimes.

Anyway, my saving grace with typing is edit, delete, cut, paste, read, reread, does this make sense, reword that; it’s already not all ready already. I usually spend twice as much time editing as I do writing, and even then sometimes something will slip through the cracks, and my brother will put me on blast.

So, handwriting is like jumping without a safety net. I’ve become so dependent on all Word’s great tools to optimize my writing and only reveal it at its best that it’s a bit unnerving sending anything out unpolished. (I wasn’t showing off using its and it’s there, but you’re welcome if that particular grammatical conundrum has been vexing your mind.) This is also why I’m tiptoeing into the water with great trepidation trusting my raw writing only to people I am pretty confident aren’t going to smash my heart with the hammer I’ve just given them.

All of this brought me back to something my young friend, who happens to be an amazing speaker and championship encourager, said last week at church, “When negative things come into your head, simply say, ‘Delete.'” We don’t have to own negative self-chatter or criticism from others any more than we need to let an extra letter or a rogue apostrophe go. Just … Delete it.

Try it. It’s more fun than polishing silver. I’ll give you an example from my own inner shrew:

“You didn’t even make it to the gym today. You’re lazy and worthless” Delete
“You should have gotten more accomplished today. You’re irresponsible.” Delete
“You didn’t even manage to do yoga. You’re never going to be in better shape.” Delete
“You should wash your hair…” DELETE!!! Sometimes, that b#$%h really hits below the belt.

While I have been using the delete button to make writing sound better for a long time, I’m just learning how to use it to make myself feel better about negativity from outside and from within. Now that I know this tool is at my disposal though I plan to wield it like my trusty red pen.

What nonsensical negative chatter do you need to delete?