Forty Days: Lenten Renewal

I used to give up candy and then binge on bags of peanut M&Ms on Easter Sunday.

Once, I gave up gum and ended up not chewing it again for two years.

I've given up soda and dessert. As an adult, I've given up alcohol.

I have made these physical "sacrifices," but I prefer to take action, to do something rather than give up something.

Lent 2018 has snuck up on me - it begins next week, on Valentine's Day, in fact, and I needed to sit down and think about how I will honor this sacred time of year.

In our church, we often talk about working inward and working outward. I like the feel of that, and so I have two focuses, one about my mindset and one about turning outward to my community.

Honoring My Husband

Over the past half decade and change (since a certain tiny human made his appearance), I have not necessarily focused as much as I would like on my husband.  We go on date nights. We try to have time together, but, especially in the last year, I realize that a part of me has almost ignored him. 

That's not fair.

We've gotten caught up in the busy-ness of life. We talk about home repairs, about school choices, about weekend plans.  I've slowed down to work on myself, and as the fog has cleared, I can see my husband there, patiently waiting.

In January, I decided that I need to jump back into focusing on building my faith, and the first study I completed was Five Days of Praying for My Husband. 

Towards the end of the plan, I was prompted to make a list of the ten top reasons my husband blesses me.

After I wrapped the brief devotional, I browsed through the additional resources and found Thirty-One Prayers for My Husband. Once I realized that Lent starts next week, I decided that this book would focus me during this season.  I enjoyed taking a structured time to focus on my husband, and I want to build on that.

Giving with Grace

Over the span of just a few years, we needed a lot of help. We bought our house and started making it our own. We had two energetic kids, including one who still would prefer to never sleep.  We began truly building our careers. I lost my mom.

Our community gathered around us and helped.

For the first time in a long while, I feel ready to start giving back with more than a quick donation. 

And so...forty days...forty acts of service.

I am certainly open to suggestions, and I am aware of my own limits.  I want to start small, but I want to start.

For now, the ideas only involve me, but it would simple to bring my children, especially my kindergartner son, into this spirit of giving of ourselves.

I've opened this up to my small book club, and I'll share on social media. I want to hold myself accountable, get ideas for opportunities to serve, and build community in the process.

I'm ready to say THANK YOU to all those who have helped our family over the past several years and begin giving again. 

With these two plans in place, I feel ready to observe this holy time.

How will you focus during this Lenten season?

 

Enough

In five days, it will be 11 months since my mom died. I've been motherless for nearly a year. 

As with many other truly difficult things in my life, it hasn't gotten easier, but it's gotten less hard...most days.

On the good days, I can answer someone who compliments my dead mother's purse with a simple, "Thank you," instead of having to tell them it was hers.

On the hard days, I tear up because I can't text her about the 45-minute conversation I had with my son about "anvelopes" and how they can have "one deer baby in their lives, just one, because that's all that God will allow. After that, they only have anvelopes." And by conversation, I mean that he told me about this great discovery of his for 45-minutes straight.  And I didn't get to tell her about it and laugh, and laugh.

On the really hard days, I face a complicated blend of joy and sadness.  I felt it when my son actually performed at his holiday performance.  He has a history of...not performing.  And there he was, after waiting patiently for over an hour for his class to perform, up on the stage, singing, and doing the gestures, and smiling. 

And she didn't get to see it.  

This year has been painful, joyous, nourishing, incredible. It has been a year in a life.

I've let a lot go.

Side gigs and small businesses.  The Facebook App. "Building a Brand" (whatever that even means, anymore). 

I've realized where my focus should rest.

I keep focusing on nourishing myself, body, spirit, and soul.  I dedicate time to my mental and physical health. With distractions aside, I've become (or hope I have become...or am in the process of becoming) a better wife, mother, daughter, and friend.

I have realized a lot of what I am not.

I am not the writer who can tune in daily or twice a week, or...on any regular schedule.

I am not the writer who refers back to old journals. In fact, a couple of months ago, I took a bag of my adolescent journals and had them shredded.  I let it all go.

Along the way, I've learned a bit more about what I am.

I am the writer who writes, in my mind, at 3 a.m., awake in my bed, often snuggling the five-year-old who has more or less sneaked in. 

I am the writer who has forgotten most of the writing by the time I wake up.

I am the writer who writes in my head, as a meditation, as a prayer. And by the time I've woken, I've bled myself dry.

I give what I can, when I can. And that will have to be enough.

It's been a strange 11 months.  I don't know what Mama would think of how I've handled it. 

I hope she would say that I am enough.

On Gratitude: Let Them Help You

Let people help you.

Make sure you ask for help.

Let me know if there's anything I can do.

In the minutes, hours, and days since my mother's death, I've had these words rolling around in my mind.

We're okay.

People are doing too much.

My husband feels ready to move back into our normal flow, into making our own dinners.  I'm not quite there yet, and so, I am grateful for the meal train that keeps moving, for the texts, messages, posts, cards, that keep coming my way.

My mom drilled into me that thank you cards make society function.

As of the day of her death, as far as I'd gotten with thank you cards for CHRISTMAS was...to buy the cards.

I had decided to give myself grace this year, to not write them. My life has begun, again, to overwhelm me, and I have to let some things go, bit by bit, if I'm to survive this with any bit of my sanity intact.

Part of me wonders if my mom is shaking her head at me, because thank you cards matter. The rest of me knows that she understands. 

Do what you have to.

Don't let the little stuff get to you.

And other choice language.

I need grace right now, and I have to give it to myself, too.

While I might find the process of writing post-funeral thank you cards cathartic, I have decided to write out my gratitude here, instead.

You wanted to help. Thank you for that.

You made me let you help. Thank you for that.

You helped in 1,000 different ways.

You texted me.

You called me.

You messaged me.

You posted on Facebook or Instagram.

You shared stories, condolences, good wishes, connections to your own life.

You reached out once, twice, thirty times to make sure that I am managing through this all okay.

You understand my relationship with my mom and know that the feelings of loss will come in waves.

You sent flowers, well-thought out and important flowers.

You shopped to help fund her memorial scholarship fund.

You prepared our home.

You flew across the country to remember her and support us.

You came to her viewing.

You snuck in the back of the funeral with your baby.

You cared for my children and entertained them while I dealt with the sorrow, the pain, the organizing.

You held my hand.

You walked beside me.

You made us food.

In each gesture, no matter the size, you loved me.

I will always remember your kindness and support.

Thank you. 

Pay Attention

I didn't set out this summer to be an example, a lesson, in what not to do, but the last two weeks and three incidents have proven that I should, indeed, be a lesson to others.

Here are three things you should avoid, if at all possible.

1) Obsessing over photos of your ridiculously cute children when you are far too close to a gravel road.

2) Cleaning the garage barefoot.

3) Leaving anything of value on view in your vehicle.

So, when you see those in print, it's like, "Well, of course, who does that? Let alone all three things?"

Me. I did. All three. In the span of ten days.

The phone's not such a big deal...it's a #middleclassproblem, and I'll survive until November with a mildly cracked phone. It'll cost money, but my contract is up, and there was a good chance I would get a new one anyway...but still.  Don't be an idiot. Sure, my kids are crazy cute, but I didn't actually need to take that photo in the 100 degree heat, squatting down on gravel. I could have waited for another time. But the one year old was waving and saying, "Hi," to goats...Excuses, excuses.  Pay attention. Put the phone away. Tell everyone later how cute it was for that sweet toddler to wave at goats.

The garage thing? Yeah, literally five minutes before "it happpneeedddd," I said to myself, "I shouldn't be out here barefoot."  True story. The kids were in bed. The littlest one was still fussing a bit, and she fusses more when she can hear me. I went out to move some things around (because garage cleaning, in my world, happens in the little moments), moved one box of photo albums to be over near another box of photo albums, and the next thing I knew, I had two purple toes and one less toenail.  I'm glad the weight that was clearly not stored in the right place fell on me and not one of my kids, but still, I wish it hadn't fallen at all.  Let me be your example: Pay attention.

Fast forward a few days, and we are limping along in San Francisco. "I'll leave my bags in the car, and then we can hop in on the way back," I said to myself as we left my best friend's house for a quick walk before heading home.  "It'll save time," I said to myself.  Had I said this outloud, my best friend would have helped me not be stupid and would have told me to put my bags in the trunk or hidden in the backseat.  Alas, my attempt to make the most of time has cost me three days of dealing with shoddy customer service and the hassle of getting the car seats out and in again, and that might even be the most important part. Lesson? Again, I tell you: Pay attention.

I get caught up in my own little world, forgetting everything around me. The pictures need taking, the garage needs cleaning, and the kiddos need back in the car ASAP so they can nap on the way home.  But my needs clouded my vision. I have no one to blame for these incidents. Sure, there should be better people in the world, and I shouldn't have to worry that my diaper bag will get stolen from my front seat. But I do know that - this wasn't my first time in San Francisco.  I'm an adult. I'm a parent, for crying out loud. It's my job to pay attention.

So, please, don't you also end up with a cracked screen, two crushed toes, and a broken car window. Pay attention.

On the flip side, in the days after the break in, friends and acquaintances have flooded out of social media, offering to replace my stolen clothes (over $300 worth of LuLaRoe) and bags (over $100 worth of Thirty-One). My high-deductible insurance wouldn't have covered those personal items, but I don't feel their loss anymore thanks to good, kind people.  One friend drove over 100 miles round trip to pick up my kids and me since my insurance couldn't be bothered to figure out how to get me home. Kindness (though she admitted that the ride there, alone in the car without her kids, wasn't exactly painful...).

I want to pay these kindnesses forward, to do good for others, to pay attention to who has needs and try, in some way to meet those needs. I don't know what that looks like yet, but I'll be taking notice and stepping in to help.  Maybe someone will see me in action, and I can be an example in those moments, too, I'd much prefer that than showcasing photos of my batered toe on Instagram (which I only did for a couple of days...you're welcome for stopping...).  

So, friends, go out there. Pay attention.  Don't hurt yourselves and do help others.  

 

Grateful

This week, I had the opportunity to read scholarship applications for what amounts to nearly a full-ride to UC Berkeley (my alma mater).  I read through 25 application packets, some better written than others. For confidentiality reasons, I can't talk about what was in each application essay, but I can tell you that those essays made me incredibly grateful for my life.

Prospective Cal students wrote essays explaining what hardships they've overcome, and let me tell you, there were some gut punchers.

I have read applications like these over the years, but I hadn't read them since I became a mom.

I felt so many...feelings...reading those applications.

First, I clearly remembered my own UC application essay, in which I also had to write about overcoming a hardship. And I wrote about having an asthma attack in the middle of a swim meet.  It was a good essay. And having asthma sucked.  But, man, am I privileged.

Yes, we bought clothes on layaway at K-mart. Yes, my dad worked as much overtime as he could. Yes, we only went on vacation every other year, and then we always had to drive. But I mean, look at that last sentence. One of the hardest things about my life was that my parents could only afford to take a week off every other year. Come on. Talk about #middleclassproblems.

I had parents who adored me (and usually adored each other). I always knew where my meals were coming from. I went to private school to avoid the definite beating-up and bullying that would have occurred (trust me, this isn't hyperbole...I would have suffered, and my parents knew it, and they were able to save me). While they weren't in the fanciest neighborhoods, my parents always had a mortgage, not a rent payment.  We had luxuries like baseball tickets and trips to Great America. I've been to Disneyland more than once in my life.  Despite chronic illnesses and a, shall we say, messy, extended family, I grew up loved, cared for, and lacking for nothing.

As I read, I stopped thinking about myself and started thinking about my children.  I have a lot of hopes and dreams for these tiny little creatures, not the least of which is that they will go to college. These kiddos have college savings funds - I can tell you that not one applicant had the luxury of a college savings fund.  They have parents discussing what school we will attempt to open enroll in so that they get the best opportunities for their specific skills, abilities, and personalities. They have grandparents and aunts who shower them with gifts and attention.

As I read, I realized that the one thing I want most for my kids is that they have no need to write an essay about the hardships they've overcome.  I can't guarantee that. I can't guarantee the future, but I can surely hope it.

The big word in education right now is "grit." We want kids to work to build perseverance, to not be handed everything, even the instructions, on a silver platter.  We want master builders, not kids who have to follow the picture on the Lego box. But.  That says something about our community. We are in a position to provide our kids with artificial hardships to overcome.  What a luxury. What a gift.

After my hope that my children have a good life, as good as I can provide, my next hope is that they can turn around some day and say thank you.