Words Will Break My Heart

Words.... there are so many things I love about words. I love the way they sound. I love the cadence of certain words, the satisfaction of a good alliteration. I love the way the meaning or sound of a word can change depending on the words that surround it. I love the heady rush of being able to spout words off faster than thought, a well turned phrase, a sentence that stops you in your tracks. 

Awhile back, a friend of mine sent me a list of  the 100 most beautiful words in the English language. Many of them have a musical cadence, a bouncing from one syllable to another. Some evoke certain emotions, sights, thoughts, smells. The truly beautiful thing? Not all the words have beautiful meanings. 

The most beautiful thing about words: they are one of the most powerful forces begat to us humans. 

The book of Proverbs, chapter 18, says, "The power of life and death is in the tongue". James chapter 3 says our tongues steer us the way a rudder steers a ship. 

Such a small, simple thing. A rudder. A tongue. But with the right pressure, the right power, able to control entire vessels. 

Don't believe in the Bible? That's okay. There are plenty of sayings, metaphors, colloquialisms that acknowledge the power of words. Call it positive or negative reinforcement. Call it good or bad vibes. There's the well known saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." 

Whoever came up with that saying was deeply cloaked in denial. 

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will break my heart. 

In my head swirl the words of many, many people who have hurt me, betrayed me, encouraged me, valued me. They're all swimming around in there. The family friend who said my chin resembled Inspector Gadget's. A person in my life that I was desperate to be loved by, to be valued and seen, who told me I was a thorn in their side- a reference to the Apostle Paul's painful trial that could not be overcome, no matter what. The first person who told me I was pretty. My youth pastor, who called me faithful. A friend who always tells me they admire the way I throw an outfit together. The first person who asked me to sing. The first person who told me I could write. A person who flippantly asked me- in their mind, as a joke- what I was doing with my life. Telling me I was slipping. 

They're all in there, taking turns using up space in my mind, fighting that battle between life and death. Repeating, replaying. Over and over and over.

People. 

Your words are mighty. 

Your words can be merciful. 

Your words can be malicious.

Your words hold poison.

Your words hold power. 

Your words can wound.

Your words can heal.

Your words can rip apart or bind up.

Be careful, friends. Be the good words that someone remembers in twenty years. Be careful what worlds you create or tear down with your words. 

Be wise. Be kind. Be beautiful.

Be careful. 

This Place, Your Home

Sometimes it's hard for me to get started writing. There are so many thoughts and words and emotions, bundled all together in a knot, and it's so hard to pull just one. And usually when I can manage to find one to pull, all the others unravel after it. So I've found, for myself at least, that the best way to start writing is to just START. You know... "Start at the beginning. And when you get to the end, stop."

Right now, there is no end in sight; I'm waist deep in trenches I never thought I'd be in, and I'm still watching this story unfold in front of me. 

Many of you may have followed along with the losses our family has been through these last few months. If you're unfamiliar, you can go on Instagram and search the hashtag #welovefoxhill. See, Fox Hill is a small "city" within the city where we live. It's also where Jeremy grew up, right across the street from his grandparents. And, this year, from April 29, 2016 to September 21, 2016, we lost both of his grandparents. Words can't describe what a hole this has left in our family, in our identity. In some ways, it feels like the ties that have been grounding us have been suddenly cut loose. 

What's worse, my youngest, Atleigh, has had an intense battle facing this loss. Before she even reached 8 years old, she's watched two people she was incredibly close to lowered into the ground. She's attended two funerals. She's placed flowers on two graves. She's witnessed her family, her safe place, struggle with sorrow and displacement and a heavy weightlessness that can only be described as grief. And she has suffered for it. More so than I would ever have imagined. She's developed a stutter. She's faced cruel comments from her classmates, and in some instances, school faculty, words like, "Spit it out", "Why can't you talk?" "You must not be very smart." She's developed anxiety, separation anxiety, fear over routines being changed, fear of CHANGE, period. Anyone who knows Atleigh knows that she has always been completely wide open. Not only does she embrace change, generally she is a catalyst for it. She sings and dances and does whatever she feels is needed to make everyone around her laugh. She is the quintessential class clown. 

Until this year. 

Those who follow my sporadic blogging also know that every year I do a birthday photo session with each of my kids. This year, Atleigh told me emphatically for weeks that she didn't want pictures. She didn't think she could smile "good enough". I didn't push her. I told her that was fine, even when it killed me on the inside. I told her if she changed her mind, that was fine too. I would never make her smile for photos if she didn't feel like it. 

And then, miraculously, last week, almost two weeks after her birthday, she told me she wanted to do the session. So I took her to Target and let her pick out an all new outfit (I don't know about all of you, but an all new outfit is a definite occasion for getting your picture taken, in my book). She chose the entire outfit on her own. Every piece of it was so significant to me, even if she didn't realize it. She chose a hot pink, glittery, floor length tutu that, to me, was a complete representation of who my baby really is on the inside. The shirt she chose says, "Never let anyone dull your sparkle." She chose a fluffy hoodie with the head of a unicorn, golden horn, rainbow mane, and all. In most stories, unicorns represent magic, innocence, purity and joy. And if anyone on God's green earth has the spirit of the unicorn, it's my Atleigh Naomi. Naomi: laughter, joy. Everything she truly is. And that outfit, while seeming small and coincidental to most people, was as holy to me as if God Himself had opened heaven and spoken to me, saying, "Your Naomi is still HERE. I see her. I hear her. I have not forgotten, I WILL NOT forget or forsake her."

I took her out for the photos. She didn't look at me a lot. She didn't smile a lot. A large portion of the photos are of her facing away or running from me. And that's okay. I'm okay with that. 

Later that afternoon, she was humming a refrain from a [completely moronic] Netflix cartoon- a refrain borrowed from Phillip Phillips's song "Home". I told her it was from a real song, and asked her if she'd like to hear it. As soon as I started playing it for her, all the hair on my body stood up. The lyrics say, 

Hold on, to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you’re not alone
'Cause I’m going to make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone
'Cause I’m going to make this place your home

She asked me to play it for her, over and over and over. And so I did. 

And if I've learned anything from this season that we're in right now, this uncertain, unstable, fraught and frayed season, it's that my role is to be her home. Her safe place, more than ever. And to point her to the Safest Place that we are all invited to live in. She can always be found. She's not alone. I will make this place her home. 

Happy 8th birthday to my littlest love, my unicorn soul, my lioness spirit. Your Safe Place sees you. Your Safe Place is ready for you. This Place, your Home. 

{{Here are a few of my favorites from Atleigh's unicorn 8th birthday photo session. Regardless of the valley we're traveling through, I think this will always be one of my favorite birthday sessions. She is magic.}}

*All photos © 2016 Mary Smoot/@what_if_i_said*

Courage, Dear Heart

I'm writing this on my very, very badly cracked phone screen. In all my years of having cell phones, I've never cracked a screen. I feel lesser, somehow. Like I've lost a piece of my pride. And while you'd probably think it would be more sensible to type on my computer or even my iPad, my spoiled millennial thumbs can only handle an iPhone screen now, cracked or no. 

This blog is going to be a hodge podge of my thoughts. Believe it or not, I've been physically writing in a journal occasionally over the last few months. All of these thoughts are to do with my most recent "disconnect" which I've written about before. It's a bad one. A long and dark one. And I've brought it on myself, but by naming it and accepting it, I'm hoping to finally force myself out of it. Bear with me as I try to string together what may seem like a long line of non-cohesive thoughts. (Apparently, incohesive and uncohesive are not words? I must have made that up.)

April 1, 2016

Atleigh is lying next to me in bed, while Jeremy is working late. I just realized she sleeps exactly the same way I do: one knee drawn up to her chest, her other leg kicked out behind her. The fan is making her hair sway, ever so slightly. I should not be letting her sleep here tonight. And yet I am, because I'm depressed and lonely. 

It's a frightful juxtaposition, this loneliness. A cosmic April Fool's joke. I fall into these disconnects and I want nothing more than to be alone; yet I crave the human interaction even as I crave the solitude. Grasp and grapple. Catch and release. 

I read somewhere once, on a Myers-Briggs test, that Jesus was an INFP, like I am. I don't know how accurate that is; as far as I know, Jesus never took the Myers-Briggs test. But I can't help but feel that He probably often felt the way I feel now. Wrestling with His need for solitude, reconciling it with His human nature that needs other humans. How exhausted He must have constantly been! It's no wonder He disappeared into the desert, climbed hills and hid out in ships' holds. And yet, He chose people. He chose interaction.

Did he really need the disciples to help Him with His work? Surely the Son of God, the one who raised the dead, could have managed to the spread the word and feed the crowds on His own heavenly strength.  But He didn't. He chose interdependent relationships. Tiresome, hurtful, confusing, disappointing. He chose that, to live out His father's words of, "It's not good for man to be alone."

It's not good.

Not, "it's not possible" or "it's wrong", or "it's not healthy". 

It's not good. It's not God's intended best. 

I can choose isolation, absolutely. God knows lately I've wanted to. When relationships that I've poured my heart and soul into begin to feel like a barren wasteland, and I'm futilely watering parched earth at my own expense, I want to give up. 

When I've spent week after week interacting with strangers, attempting to make the small talk that I am so woefully inept at, I want to hide. 

When I'm battling it out with my kids day after day, never a moment's peace or solitude, I want to retreat. 

People are hard work. 

Relationships, the care and cultivation of them, are hard work. But it doesn't mean they aren't worth it. And it's not good for me to be alone. 

Tonight, after a long few days of struggling with a heavy weight of feeling discouraged and unmotivated, I took myself to the beach. As soon as my mother in law came to take the girls to church, I gathered my things, put on my oversized beach hat, and made my way to the bay. And I wrote. 

I'm sitting out at the beach and the wind is blowing hard in my ears. It smells salty and feels sticky and sounds louder than I thought it would, with the cries of the gulls and the shrieks of all the high school kids celebrating the end of another school year. All in all, it's making me smile more genuinely than anything has in months, it seems. 

There's a girl with hip tattoos that I feel sure she'll regret, and a couple of young children who just came close to me and pretended to be stuck in the sand. 

And I'm sitting here on the low concrete wall, pausing every so often to look around me, to see my shadow stretching out long and lean in front of me as the sun sets at my back. 

And I'm crying. 

I'm wondering how I've gotten into this place of isolation again. A few weeks off- that's what I wanted. What I'm sure I needed. But at some point it shifted into what it is right now, a heaviness and a weakness to move. 

And I think of the joy I had wrested- seemingly from the hands of the enemy himself- this past year. 

I think of the roots I have planted, willingly and unwillingly. 

I think of the niches I have carved for myself, knowingly and unknowingly.

And even just thinking of it, writing it, makes me tired. I've let myself lose the ground I fought so hard to gain. I've slid down into a valley, and looking up to where I was is daunting. 

I am not brave. 

I am tired. 

But right now I'm thinking of Narnia. And I'm thinking of how every time I read those books, no matter how old I am, something new speaks to me. Bravery in danger. Hope in hopelessness. Adventure in unknown. I'm reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader right now, and I just sailed with the Narnians out of the Dark Island. I'm thinking of their terror in the darkness- that fear that they would never get out. That lost and hopeless feeling. 

And Lucy did all she could when she "leant her head on the edge of the fighting top and whispered, 'Aslan, Aslan, if ever you loved us at all, send us help now.'

"The darkness did not grow any less, but she began to feel a little- a very, very little- better. 'After all, nothing has really happened to us yet,' she thought."

Their fear wasn't even anything tangible. It was unexplainable, untouchable, unable to be argued against for its very vagueness. Just nameless darkness. In that moment of terror, all Lucy could do was cry out to the only One who could help her- she feared even her brother and her friends in that moment. And even when she called His name, the darkness did not grow less. She only felt a very little better.

Yet it was a step. A tiny step, an arguably pointless step. But it was only after she called that help came. The whisper of, "Courage, dear heart," meant only for her ears, came when she named her fear and spoke over it. 

So this is me. Speaking from my tired, dark place. Naming my darkness and calling for help. Hearing and accepting that whisper of 

Courage, Dear Heart. 

I'm leaving that Dark Island behind. If you've been living there, too- trapped in a nameless, wordless place, if you need some courage, come with me. There's plenty to go around. Let's do this together. After all, it's not good for us to be alone. 

Hurricane Hormone

I finally got around to taking Ashton's 12th birthday photos earlier this week. What with him being sick on his actual birthday, then the hubbub of the holidays, I'm pretty proud that I got them done at all. I managed to get both of the girls' sessions done, but I haven't blogged either of them. You see? Motherhood is just a constant balance of choosing which child will get neglected today. (Kidding! I'm kidding.... Mostly.)

Ashton... Where do I begin? I've been kind of whining a lot lately about my battles with my preteen. Ashton has always been old for his age. To tell the truth, his "teenage angst" began several years ago. At least, that's what I thought. Nothing could have prepared me for the hurricane of hormones that now resides in my precious baby boy's bedroom. Most days, I feel like I'm just caught and pulled along in the powerful gale that is my pubescent boy. Most days, I'm just clutching my hair in bewilderment, trying to keep whatever shreds of sanity I have left after the toddler years inside my exhausted brain. Most days, I have emotional crying jags more than he does. Because, just like with every emotion he experiences since the moment he entered this world, I am right there with him, feeling them, hating them, loving them. One of the potential downsides of being an empathetic INFP personality, I suppose. So this crazy roller coaster he rides everyday has me strapped in right beside him. 

Is it hard? 

Yes. 

Is it exhausting and overwhelming?

Absolutely. 

Would I trade it back for those sleepless nights, diaper changes, and temper tantrums?

Eh.... Yes. Sometimes. A lot of times, okay??

But, this is where we are now. This is the season we're in, and I'm here to love him fierce, to hug him hard in the moments he'll let me, and to respect him with personal space in the moments he won't. I'm here to mirror the type of adult he can become, on the other side of this godawful maelstrom he's caught in right now. 

And, you know, it isn't all bad- I know I make it sound like it is. But we still have laughter, and smiles, and dance parties (although he'll swear up and down that he hates to dance. Even when I catch him at it every time I turn around). We still have our reading time, and movie time, and just plain talking time. In some ways, I'm enjoying him even more, enjoying this little sneak peek into the relationship we can have as he grows older. And every once in awhile, he'll look at me with those crinkled blue eyes, and I'll see my baby boy looking at me all over again. Those moments make all the others seem so small. Those moments more than repay me for all the others. Those moments are the ones I'll hang on to.

{{Here are a few shots from Ashton's 12th birthday photo session. It's mostly a lot of sarcastic smirking, exasperated glaring, and stone-faced staring. But on reviewing them while editing, I decided not to try and redo the whole shoot. After all, I'm a huge proponent of being honest, of showing your messy life. And pictures of a happy go lucky 12 year old Ashton, more likely than not, would not be a true representation of where he is right now. One day, I'll be able to show him these pictures and say, "Remember when you were 12, and thought that everything was awful all the time? No? Oh. Well I just so happen to have some photos right here..."}}