It’s So Girly

Recently, a quote from Chloe came up on my Timehop. It was probably almost 10 years old; she had said, on a particularly beautiful spring morning, “Mom, it’s so girly out today.”

That’s stuck with me over the past few weeks. There is nothing inherently wrong with being feminine.  Honestly, it’s our birthright, and we should own it. 

I grew up one of two daughters in a family full of boys. My dad will be the first to tell you— so this isn’t me calling him out— that my sister and I kind of fell by the wayside while he busied himself being the father of sons. The only reason I can say that without bitterness, or baggage, or what have you, is because my dad has worked his butt off to become a daughter dad in my adulthood, and it shows. In his life, and in mine. 

Growing up, I wished I was in the cool guy group. The cool guy group got my dad’s investment. I didn’t embrace my girly-ness because I didn’t know that my inherent femininity has so much value. Kingdoms have risen and fallen because of women. I didn’t know that back then. 

There’s good news— aside from my learning to love who I am— slowly but surely, the girls in my family are overtaking the dudes. Besides my two girls, I have SIX nieces (one on the way, due in October-- I just found out that my brother's new baby is a girl, and her name is Charlotte, Charlie for short!)... as opposed to the only two second generation boys. TAKE THAT. On my husband’s side of the family, there are nine grandkids. Only three of them are girls. 

Bear with me, I’m circling back around. Gals, there’s a reason we have songs declaring we run the world. Obviously we don’t literally run the world, but we have so much power and influence. 

And even more than that, becoming the mother of daughters, and the aunt of six nieces, I’m consistently reminded of one of my favorite passages in the Bible, Titus 2, instructing the older women to mother and mentor the younger women. I’m paraphrasing here, but it says older women are to teach “what is good” to younger women. It doesn’t give an age qualification. If you are older than any woman, young woman, girl, child— guess what? You can mother them. You can mentor a fellow woman. Nothing has brought that home to me more than living a life surrounded by girls from the age of 15 to the age of 6 days old, to roughly 6 months in utero: I can mother and mentor and strengthen and empower and cheer on and trail blaze and love and love and love.

It probably seems disgustingly narcissistic to quote myself, but several years ago I was able to go on a U.S. ministry trip, and towards the end, my group met with a few older women. I’ll never forget how struck I was, how small I felt, being surrounded by those women who had lived and loved longer than and farther than I had even looked ahead. The words I wrote regarding that meeting have been circling in my head for weeks. So right now, I’m reposting those passages for myself, for you, but most of all for my girls (all seven of them, daughters and nieces combined). 

“There are days when I think I won't make it. But then I see women like you... Your adventures, your faith, your survival, your hospitality, your tender care of your husbands, the way you've raised your children in Christ, your hunger and determination to seek out the word of God, your miracles.... You've made it. You've made it. You're making it. You're running your race, and you're winning. You're winning it. And for women like me, who are miles behind you in the race, you're an inspiration. If you're winning, I can win. I can do it. So thank you. Thank you." I looked at each woman, thanking her in turn, my throat swelling tight with awe and love. This, then, is the great cloud of witnesses referred to in Hebrews. How can I not run the race set before me? How can I grow weary in doing good? With these mighty women of faith cheering me on, women who have wrestled against the odds and won, women who have blazed new trails and didn't burn in the blazing of them ...... I'll run ahead for the joy set before me. The joy set before all of us. I'll run for the women who have run the path in front of me, clearing the thorns away and smoothing the ruts. I'll run for the women and girls behind me, whose cloud of witnesses I'll be a part of. Oh, I'll cheer them on, I'll cup my hands and scream their names, "You can do it! You're making it, darling! You can win, you can win, you can win!" 

Oh, we can win. Don't give up. Don't stop running. We can win.”

Chloe. Atleigh. Cassie. Hannah. Darcie. Isla. Banks. Charlotte. I promise you with my entire soul, with every corner of my mama’s heart, to be a part of your cloud of witnesses, cheering you on at every single turn. And if you turn in the wrong direction, I’ll love and love you and love you, gently grasp you by the shoulders to help you find your way again, and to help you lead the way with the rest of the women who have blazed the trail before you. Be brave, darlings. You are so strong. You are so worthy. You are filled to the brim with fire and with ferocity. You will thrive. You will grow in grace and godliness. And if you find a younger gal to love and lead and blaze a path for, don’t hesitate. You got this, babes. You are surrounded by so many women with so many stories and so much wisdom. You are a freaking trailblazer. Lead the way. We'll follow, and our love and overwhelming pride will be ever at your backs and surrounding you on all sides. 

YOU CAN WIN.

#momfail

One day, when Atleigh was a toddler, I noticed minuscule slices across several of her fingers, a little larger than paper cuts. I realized a few minutes later that she had waddled into the bathroom and grabbed my razor off of the tub. I started making sure I kept my razor on the side of the tub closest to the wall after that. 

Chloe was invited to a birthday party when she was about 7 or 8. She told me beforehand that her head itched— we were dog-sitting at the time and one of the dogs liked to sleep up on her pillow— I told her she was fine, brought her to her friend’s house, and discovered, upon helping her out of the car, that her head was covered in fleas. 

Ashton has an inch long scar hiding under his mop of hair, from the time he jumped off of his grandma’s couch and straight into the wooden molding around her fireplace and ended up with three stitches... While I was in the kitchen, probably doing something pointless like eating mashed potatoes or flipping through a Christmas catalog. Possibly both.

We use the hashtag #momfail as a joke, with the little things we’re comfortable sharing. The things we know people will identify and sympathize with (although the flea debacle is a stretch for me. I still cringe about that one).

Here’s something I’m discovering every new day with my kids as they morph into teens: #momfail is no joke. It isn’t forgetting to pack your kids’ lunch; it isn’t telling them they’re fine and to walk it off, only to discover later that they’ve broken a bone, it isn’t missing a teacher’s note about late homework, or leaving them in the kitchen only to find out they've eaten a quarter of a block of cheese. #momfail is a lot more damaging— to your kids and to you. 

I fail on a daily basis. An hourly one, sometimes. I fail hard and I fail ugly, and my kids suffer the consequences. I’m the PMSing mom who told my PMSing daughter, straight to her face, “Not today, Satan!”, leaving both of us to infer whether I was calling HER Satan, or saying she was possessed by Satan, or just speaking to Satan as a generality (the jury is still out on that). 

I’m the mom who got into a shouting match with her son, a shouting match so brutal that it left him locked in his room with a pillow over his head, and me locked in the bathroom with a bottle of wine.

I’m the mom who struggles daily, and loses the struggle almost just as much, to parent a child with adjustment disorder and anxiety, lacking patience and empathy and understanding.

These aren’t things you’ll see anyone posting with the cute little hashtag, #momfail. These are things we'll hide, things we’ll cry about in bed at night after everyone else is asleep, the things that rip us apart and make us question who we are, what we’re doing, and how much the therapy bill is going to cost one day. 

Which, as usual, is why I’m writing about it. I’m saying “us” and “we”, when I really mean to say, loud and clear, “ME”. 

Mea culpa. 

My kids are everyday still learning how to be humans. They’re walking a field of landmines, trying to navigate heads suddenly full of grown up thoughts attached to young, changing bodies, friends and enemies and frenemies pressuring them, tripping them up and pushing them down and pulling them sideways; they’re being raised in a bubble culture that preaches unconditional acceptance— unless someone disagrees with you, in which case they’re backward and close-minded and hateful. They live in a world full of confusion and chaos.

And my kids are everyday living with a mom who fails, a mom who is walking through a field of landmines with these growing humans. Sometimes she’s too far ahead, expecting them to catch up too quickly. Sometimes she lags behind, holding them back because she doesn’t understand or can’t follow the steps they take; sometimes she’s right on top of them, smothering them. Very, very rarely is she walking beside them, understanding them, advising them, finding that balance between compassion and coaching. 

Sometimes she accidentally writes a whole paragraph in the third person. 

Every new day I need grace. Every. Single. Day. And if I need room to fail, if I want and need and pray for redemption every day, after 35 years of learning to be a human, how much more do my kids need it— my kids who just woke up one day feeling like aliens in their own bodies, thinking alien thoughts and hearing alien words from all the other aliens around them? 

In the end— and in the beginning, the middle, and every moment in between, our kids raise us as much as we raise them. More, even. Who we are as parents- which, for most of us, becomes the cornerstone of our entire identity, because once you’re a parent, you’re a parent until you die- is so intrinsically tied into who our kids themselves are. Their personalities shape our parenting. They mold us even more than we mold them. So doesn’t it stand to reason that when our kids turn into these alien beings, we become a little alien, too? Everything we learned as parents of young kids is turned on its head as soon as those hormones kick in. We’re not raising kids anymore: we’re mentoring young adults. Whole families, entire households, shudder with the growing pains of one single human; or in my case, three humans. All at once. At the same time. Together. Just in case you were wondering.

In truth, failure, even a watered down #momfail, isn’t really an option. It isn’t even a Thing. Fierce love and forgiveness- for our kids and for ourselves- is our only path, our ONLY Thing. Keep failing, keep learning, keep fighting, keep moving forward. Landmines and all.

Fire and Frost

I'm back at the Bay. I'm sure none of you are shocked by this fact. The high for today is in the mid-50s, but there's a Nor'easter blustering its way toward us, so the wind chill is much cooler than mid-50s. The sandpipers are running in wild, dizzying serpentine lines, skipping in to the foam forming the shoreline, then scurrying away just as quickly. The waves are kicking up, the sand is cold and clammy under my bare feet, and I'm wrapped in the Mexican blanket I've had for 20 years. Braving and embracing it all, because I need this place, and this is where I come when I get full up of feels.

In a recent Instagram post, I said I hoped that someday soon I would find some words that are worthy of what this month has done. I don’t know if I’ve found anything worthy, but the words are dipping and swelling and spilling out all the same. 

October is my favorite month. It always has been. I adore summer, and Christmas is my favorite holiday, but October... October is new moments and old memories, the birth of change and the death of sameness. October is fire and color and frost and fade. It’s smoke and moss and wind and twilight. It’s air crisping up in your lungs and leaves crunching down under your feet, expansive clouds in blue and exuded clouds on your breath. It is everything. 

And my October, my beautiful October, has hurt me this year. Is it ridiculous to feel betrayed by a month of the year, by a calendar, by something that doesn’t know I exist and doesn’t know that I just.needed.peace? 

This year, I hate October. 

I don’t see the new beginnings, I only see the endings. I only see the loss. 

My stepdad passed away on October 10th, less than two weeks after his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. It happened so quickly. So quickly that it still doesn’t feel real. I know it happened. I watched it happen, day after day, watched him suffer and waste away, kissed him goodbye and whispered my love to him after he was gone. I watched, aching and heartbroken, and at the same time, perversely relieved that he was no longer in pain, as he was taken from his home for the last time. I was there for all of it. And yet all of those moments feel like a memory from a dream. It happened too quickly. Beyond my comprehension, beyond my ability to believe.

October has been hard. The fire of it has burned me. The frost of it has numbed me. And I’m tired. I’m so tired. I’m tired of being needed, even when I need to be needed. I’m tired of not sleeping, I’m tired of not eating, I’m tired of crying, I’m tired of the heaviness of grief weighing me down to my very bones, weakening me in my joints and my shoulders and my spine and my neck. I’m tired of mediating, and monitoring, and mothering, and, oh, please, God help me, I’m tired of mourning.

And I’m tired of complaining. I’m sure there are those around me who are tired of me complaining, too. I don’t mean to. I don’t want to. I don’t want this to be the gravitational pull of my life that every day, every thought, and every thing revolves around; but this is what grief does. It consumes. It consumes as surely as the fire and frost of October consumes the last lingering days of summer. 

I wanted these words to be worthy of my stepfather. To tell the story of my life with him, my love for him, and why the loss of him is so monumental. And I will. Someday I will, I swear it. 

But today- just for today, I need to burn. I need to freeze. I need to die with the old and rise again with the new. I need to see the color and smell the smoke and live in what is left of my favorite month, and I need to forgive. Forgive what I can never comprehend, forgive what I can never forget, forgive that so, someday, I won’t be consumed. 

And then... then, the stories, the memories, the words worthy of a man who was a father to me, who lived a worthy life, will be born. Soon. 

I See You

I’m sitting at the beach again this morning— after a Walmart run to get some Banana Boat dry oil spray with the lowest possible SPF you can buy that still contains SPF (it’s 4, if you’re wondering, and after a few more visits I’ll buy another container that contains 0 SPF... what can I say? I like to be tan) —because lately, the beach is where I go when the writing bug bites me. Words build and build, like the waves which I’m currently watching, and I find myself texting mini blogs, full of alliteration, philosophy, and a high adjective and superlative content. As my friend Julia can attest to. She’s borne the brunt of it this past week.

This morning, my spirit is heavy. It’s so heavy. Part of it may be my (sometimes accursed) empath nature, but the truth is, all of our spirits should be heavy today. This morning, we lost another human— I won’t be flippant with the loss by labeling him a celebrity, because his life is of the same value as any “regular” human; no more, no less— to depression and suicide. The second in the media this week. 

I’ve heard more times than I can count, just this week, “But they were rich. They were famous. They had everything.” 
“Everything” is utterly subjective, friends. Maybe the people who have what we deem “everything” realize “everything” isn’t enough. Maybe the people who have “nothing” are also acutely aware that they’ll never “have enough”. Maybe what it all boils down to is that, somewhere, deep inside, there is a fundamental lack that screams they are not enough, everything amounts to nothing, and therefore there is no such thing as everything. It all totals not enough. Every “everything” in the world can’t fill a fundamental conviction of not enough. 

I’d say there’s a sudden epidemic of suicide, but that would be, again, making less of something so large. An epidemic, at least to me, implies a sudden surge of a disease or phenomenon unlooked for; and that is not what this is. This... this is an insidious, long buried, long ignored, long building illness which, because our world has grown smaller due to the internet and media and our constant connection to one another, because of our tiny steps toward acknowledging mental illness as a real illness, is finally rearing its head in a culture that slowly, oh, so slowly, is becoming aware that this issue, this creature, even has a head to rear. 

When I was in high school, I thought I was depressed. Twenty years later, I realize that all I was was a highly sensitive person, with a melancholy disposition that led to a penchant for melancholy music, bad friends who treated me like garbage and contributed to a feeling of isolation that I didn’t deserve, and big heaping helpings of 16 year old “I feel sorry for myself”s. What I felt then wasn’t even on the same planet as clinical depression or anything under the mental illness umbrella. 

Recently, depression has reared its head all around me; from strangers in the news, to friends and family members who have their own stories to tell and who can tell it all in their own good time if they so choose. If it’s this exhausting and weighty to me, I can’t even begin to fathom the everyday battle these brave humans are waging to keep themselves pushing through, when all they want is to embrace the creature that rears its head to them regularly; a creature we don’t even know about or understand, because it’s buried deep to the rest of us. 

I have a confession. One that has kept me awake many nights for the past several years; a wasted opportunity on my part, a failure. A failure. One I don’t even want to share because it’s an ugly truth that I’m ashamed of, but nevertheless feel compelled to share (as I so often do).

When Robin Williams killed himself, I posted a beautiful photo of my daughter in Peter Pan tights, with a favorite quote from Hook. “To live would be an awfully big adventure.” 

I talked about one of our dearest friends, Tommy, who battled depression for more years than many people knew, and finally committed suicide just two weeks before his 27th birthday. I pleaded with people, to please, please, seek help. Seek friends. They weren’t alone. People loved them. 

Following that post, a person I knew remotely contacted me, asking if I would ever be free to hang out with them. They saw my post and it spoke to them. I knew for a fact that this person struggled with dissociative disorder and psychosis. And—oh God, forgive me— I got scared. I didn’t feel equipped mentally or emotionally to dive into a situation like that. I knew this person had endangered themselves on more than one occasion, and there was a possibility they could or would endanger others. I thought of my kids. And I got scared. I didn’t educate myself the way I should have, and I sure as hell didn’t understand half of the compassion I had so fluently written about. So I chickened out. I told this person I didn’t feel like I could give them what they wanted or needed. I referred them to suicide hotlines, programs, churches, organizations. 

That person then told me, in no uncertain terms, what they thought of me and all my words. 

They were right. They were too right. I’ve told very few people about that incident, because I was so ashamed. And now, almost four years later, I think— dear God, I hope— that I would respond differently. I remember their words in vivid detail. I stare at the ceiling at night and wish I could go back and give a different answer. And I wonder, if I am so tortured by what I did, if I relive my words and their words so often, how much more does that other person relive them? A person- a brave human- who stiffened their spine and took an extra shot of bravery and reached out, and was summarily rejected by another human who hid behind words and couldn’t come out from behind them and at least try to be equally brave. 

I don’t share this for absolution. Not even a little. I was wrong. I was so wrong. I share this because I know I’m not the only one who has been presented with or will be presented with an opportunity to shine a light for someone who is surrounded by darkness. I fumbled. I dropped my light. You don’t have to. 

I was afraid of something I couldn’t understand. In a society that wears “happy”; that sloshes the word around like a can of paint for us to slap on our walls and cover up drywall damage, 

we are horribly, woefully, unacceptably undereducated.

It isn’t right. It’s a travesty. People- humans- who run the gauntlet every single day against themselves, just to win the battle to live- something that is a basic human right, the most basic and fundamental of human rights- shouldn’t have to buy cans of that paint, shouldn’t have to wear it like a second skin over what our culture has too long deemed as damaged. It. Isn’t. Right. 

I don’t have answers. I don’t have training, or the right words, and a lot of days, I don’t have a whole lot of bravery. God knows, I wish I did. What I do have is a heavy, still heart, a desire to educate myself, and a big can of paint remover to help scrape that coating off of my fellow humans who are tired of wearing it. 

You are not broken. You are not alone. You are not a waste of space, you are a part of what makes this space we live in so worth occupying. There are those who consider it their supreme joy and honor to occupy this space with you. You’re not alone. I see you. Always. 

**I'd be remiss if I didn't list resources here for those of you (or someone you know) who are bravely battling depression, any type of mental illness, and everything that goes with it. Maybe you've seen and heard it all before, and maybe you won't call. But maybe, just maybe, you will. And maybe "not enough" can slowly become enough.

**The National Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741

**https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

**For those of you who, like me, want to be better educated and better equipped to shine some light, there are more websites available than I could possibly link. If you know of any in particular, please comment. 

Is There Such A Thing As Too Much Eyeliner?

I'm going to go ahead and answer that question for you all right off the bat, and the answer is, absolutely not. There is no such thing. I am firmly ensconced in the "go big or go home" camp when it comes to makeup. If I don't look like a drag queen, I'm doing it wrong.
 However, I do believe there can be such a thing as too much mascara; but that's only because the clumping, and I have an anxious habit of pulling on my eyelashes when I'm stressed out. I won't reveal how many times I've pulled out chunks of eyelashes and ended up with bald patches.

All of this is just to segue into the fact that some days, for me, are just an utter waste of makeup. Some days are just a constant raining of eyeliner tears; when it feels like all the makeup I wore as armor drips down my face, bit by bit: tracking down my cheeks and clinging to my chin for dear life; for hope, for strength, for bravery... until they finally give in to gravity and accept the grief.

Today is one of those days. One of those wounded, broken, Why and What If and What Next type of days.

And no. I'm not happy that my first blog since the birth of this year is me writing about melting makeup. But if you've read my blog enough, you know that I don't fake it. I write what I feel from where I am and I make no apologies.

Because more than anything, I strive to be real.

And today, my reality is hurt and broken and betrayed and frustrated and confused, and my reality is dripping my Go Big Or Go Home makeup down my face.

And you know what? That's okay. This is okay. There is no such thing as perfection and there is no reason to pretend you've achieved it, or pursue something that can never be caught. So these pageant queen tear tracks on my cheeks are fine. They're not forever, any more than perfection would be if I could catch it.

Hurt comes to us. Rejection rears its disfigured face. Stress strangles us. And eyeliner will sometimes leave tracks down your perfectly primed and applied matte powder.

But none of them last. They appear, they swirl around, they rain down, and then they head on their way. Because there is no permanent strength in these things. They're sprinters; they're not marathoners.

So I'll wait out today. And tomorrow... well. I wouldn't be a proper drag queen wannabe if I didn't own plenty more eyeliner.

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.