Tag: writing

Forever Basically Hopeful

I wonder at what latitude this dread begins for others but for me at 39.627 degrees north, January begins approximately 12 weeks of clinging desperately to the hope of potential warmth in March and consists of a mental countdown and coping strategies not used at any other point in the calendar. 

“It’s January 7th, so January is basically over and then comes February but that’s a short month and we get a few holidays in those months, then March comes and the light shines even brighter at the end of this cold, dark, depressing tunnel, so really if I can make it through this week everything will be fine.” And then I repeat that hopeful outlook until March comes. And sometimes that works. But sometimes it doesn’t. 

Sometimes March is like, you thought January and February were bad…hold my beer, lady, and proceeds to swing wildly between frigid unseasonably cold days fraught with snow storms alternated between sunny warm traps of false hope that lead into rain. Then more rain. And suddenly I haven’t had a good hair day in months and I’m hanging by my fingernails to the edge of a cliff closing my eyes in defeat and waiting quietly for May. 

And oh the joy of late spring and early summer. Nothing tastes sweeter – even a bad day can’t be that bad. The birds are singing, all the baby animals are adorable, and the hope that never actually died but seriously almost did a few times comes bouncing back and gives new meaning to my life as I approach the days with gladness I don’t even have to fake. Until August.

At this point the sun has been out for months; long enough for my fleshly spirit to take it for granted, and it’s hot now. My hair is sticking to my neck and my face in sweaty curls that are unbecoming at best. Ironically it is during this consistent yearly heat wave that I choose to have my summer camp – 10 days of reminding children to hydrate while we willingly hike for miles like sadists. There are times in the winter that I can re-wear an article of clothing. Doing that at this point in the year would be a crime against humanity.

Then just like in Winnie the Pooh on Christopher Robin’s first day of school, a cool wind comes and blows in some relief, reigniting my will to live and allowing me to wear my hair down once again. But only for a minute. Just like March, September and October have multiple personalities and some of them are real jerks. 

Once fall settles in, which is truly my favorite season despite my name, the bittersweet love begins around Halloween, (maybe earlier depending on whether Niña or Niño is winning), as I oscillate between being in the moment and soaking up the temperate climate and dreading the impending post-Christmas reality.

Which is where I am now – in that reality, repeating old and creating new coping strategies to gaslight myself into hanging in there with a smile on my face as I write, learn to sew, go to the gym, try new recipes and love on my horse that isn’t really mine but kind of is. Oh and dress my porch goose I got for Christmas that won’t be going on the porch but sits on a table waiting for me to learn how to sew so I can make her beautiful dresses to go with her wigs. She’s truly fabulous.

Regerts

“Oops!” 

“Crap, sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.” 

“I can’t do two things at once.”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“I’m too socially awkward to avoid this decision.”

Have you ever looked back and thought, “What was I thinking?” Not about major life decisions – those are regrets, and we can’t camp there; we can only learn from them and do better next time. No, I’m talking about the stuff we do that we wish we hadn’t done but didn’t have major consequences. 

A regret I have is passing on the offer to be a residential assistant at WVU my sophomore year. I got in quite a lot of trouble my freshman year, but the dorm director saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself and asked me to be an RA the following year, which would have saved me thousands of dollars in student loans. This is something that had long-term consequences, and while, again, I am not camping there, for purposes of illustration, I’ll dig up those bones for a minute.

A regert I have around that same time period, on the other hand, is the time my roommate and I drove to Key West for Spring Break and I was putting sunscreen on my arms and shoulders, then used that hand to wipe sweat from my forehead. A few hours later, distinct outlines of my fingers glared on my forehead in stark contrast to the redness of the rest of my face. Embarrassing? Yea, absolutely. Life altering? Not so much.

One day when Ayden was an infant, Addison and I were hanging out playing with her sticker book. She thought it would be funny to put a sticker on my arm, so she did that a few times and then I thought it would be cute to put stickers on Ayden’s tiny face and arms and take a picture. We giggled while he sat clueless in his bouncy seat, oblivious that he was a human canvas. After I took the picture, I took off the stickers, but to my horror, they left red patches in the exact shape of the sticker in every spot I had placed them. I panicked, called the pediatrician who told me to give him a bath and wash off the glue. (I blamed Addison when I explained what happened. Dr. Damran, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry for lying.) He was as good as new and I learned never to put stickers on my babies.

Fast forward a few years and I decided I was going to roller blade like I used to when I was 20. “Here’s some knee and elbow pads,” my friend suggested, but I told her I didn’t need them and away I went as Addison, Ayden and Avery watched. At first everything was fine. I was having fun. But then I got cocky – I decided to go down the road and down a small but slightly steeper-than-it-looked hill. Let’s just say I still have scars on my knees and elbows.

A few years ago while visiting my family in Florida I decided to take my sister’s bike on a ride: 19 miles with zero issues. I was about a mile from her house when I missed the turn. The path was narrow, but instead of getting off the bike and turning it around like a reasonable person, I chose to try to make the turn. The tire caught the edge of the paved pathway and I started unintentionally heading toward the metal grated culvert, so I had to bail off. My sternum landed squarely on the middle of the handle bars, my right hand got trapped between the grip and the pavement and the spikes of the pedals embedded themselves in my leg. That last mile was long. I could feel the wetness of the blood under my hand as I rode to her house, handlebars crooked and blood dripping down my leg. I can only imagine what people thought as they passed me. The flight home was miserable. I ended up going to the ER to make sure I wasn’t broken. The doctor came in and said “I’ve got good news and bad news – the good news is, nothing is broken. The bad news is, you aren’t 20 anymore.” 

Amnesia is real, though, because only last year I was on a horse and he went down on his knees, throwing me over the saddle on to his neck, clinging for dear life because I wasn’t paying attention. I had a death grip while I tried to figure out what to do. All of a sudden I could feel he was about ready to make the decision for me so I bailed and landed on the frozen ground squarely on my rib cage, but because there’s something deeply wrong with me, I rode 4 hours anyway. By the time I got back I thought I was going to die. This time I was legitimately broken, and before he could say a word, I told the doctor I was well aware I wasn’t 20 anymore. That regert made its presence known for a solid 4 months.

My car is riddled with regerts. One time I got stuck in the car wash, resulting in the passenger side gouge. That one upset me so much I couldn’t even talk about it for 3 days. Then a few weeks later a deer hit my STOPPED car. Why was I stopped, you ask? I was letting her family cross in front of me but she wasn’t paying attention and crashed directly into the driver’s side passenger door. But honestly, I couldn’t even be that mad at her because let’s face it: Same, deer, same.

A more recent regert happened at 7-11 a few weeks ago when I decided to splurge and try the once-upon-a-time-viral Dubai chocolate bar. It was on the counter staring at me one morning and I thought I would indulge both my sweet tooth and curiosity. I figured it would be about five dollars, which is plenty for a candy bar, but when the cashier rang me up it was closer to $25. Instead of just putting it back like a normal person, I froze and stared at her in shock as she waited for me to pay, which I did. I mean…it was good, but not $25 good.

The point is, we are all human. Humans do dumb stuff sometimes. The goal is to keep the dumb stuff to a minimum and do our very best not to cross from regert to regret. That is easier said than done and takes intentionality on our part. We will make mistakes, but it’s what we do after that matters more than anything. For instance, always double check dimensions when ordering office supplies online. Need a 5’x8′ dry erase board, anyone?

Empowering My Alien

Would you be interested in sending me $200 so I don’t have to go to work this week? Ummm, negative. In fact, I’d ask that you refrain from all further monetary requests.

Was this from a spam email? A Nigerian prince needs me to help him to the United States? No. No indeed. This was an actual request from the alien that used to take up residence in my uterus.

Is she objectively cute? Yes. Is she charming and kind? Also yes. But is she getting my money? No. At least not that time. Approximately two days later she informed me that she needed a bed frame when they move to their new apartment. I was like, “That sounds like a you problem, sister”. But then she reminded me that in a moment of parental supportiveness I did, in fact, promise her that I would supply the bed frame. You got me there, kid.

The process of separating from grown children is especially painful some days. Contrary to (her) popular belief, I do not delight in telling her no when she asks for money to do superfluous things. It requires a level of self control NOT to indulge some of the whims. But my fully developed prefrontal cortex understands that this is the safest time in life to learn the value of a dollar, and enabling bad money management is not an act of love.

Instead she (and all her siblings) can rest in the security that I will never allow her to go without basic needs (and let’s face it, plenty of wants), that wherever my home is she is always welcome, and that I am her biggest cheerleader as she grows into the woman God created her to be. One day we will sit and laugh over coffee about how we barely made it through puberty without bloodshed and then when the check comes, I will have conveniently forgotten my wallet and the circle of life will be complete.

Extra Credit is Absurd

The older I get, the more I realize I understand much less than I thought I did. When I was 21, I had an answer for everything, but then I lived some life and I have realized that what I “knew” were idealistic conjectures, only relevant in a utopian society, if at all. All of my solutions to problems were seen through my lens and based on my personal (very limited) life experiences. I still have my own lens and life experiences, but what has evolved over time is my ability to accept that my way is not the only way. 

For example, Aubrey and I have this conversation that keeps coming up because I keep not understanding no matter how many times she explains it to me. This started about 6 years ago when she told me she had 105% in one of her classes. I told her that was the stupidest thing I have ever heard. How can you have more than 100%? She less than calmly tried to explain it to me in terms I did not hear because they were ridiculous and made no sense so I walked away. Later, perhaps months or years, it came up again and this time she explained it in terms I could better understand: she told me that 100% was the pizza and the extra credit was the pepperoni. Ok, now I kind of get it. 

At no point did it really matter if I understood this concept, but for some reason it still keeps coming up and I just can’t let it go. Now she’s in college and the other day we were talking and it came up again, but more like reminiscing about all the times she tried to teach me about extra credit and I didn’t understand, so she explained it yet again, but I still don’t follow the logic – there is ALL of something and then SOME of another thing but there can’t be more than ALL of one thing. Then she blocked me. (Not really. She asked me for ice cream money after she finished telling me how much of an adult she was, but I’ll save that for another blog.) So, obviously extra credit is a real concept and my inability to understand it doesn’t affect its validity.

I realize now that wisdom has less to do with knowledge and more to do with a posture of humility when it comes to life. I will never know everything. I am not always right. There is more than one way to solve a problem. If I had told my younger self these truths, she would have at the very least rolled her eyes, but older me knows that it’s ok not to have all the answers. What truly matters is having a relationship with the One who does.

Pointing others to Christ is the main purpose of believers. I have been guilty of acting in ways unbecoming of a daughter of the King, yet He still loves me. If this is true for me, it’s true for all of us. How many chances do we get to have our slate wiped clean? As many as it takes, and all we have to know is who Christ is and believe that His death paid the price we should have paid. He meets us where we are and transforms us to His image as we go. Perfection is unattainable for all of us. Instead we walk with our Creator as He makes us more and more like Him, inviting people to Him naturally as they witness the transforming power that could only be explained by the act of selfless obedience displayed on a cross thousands of years ago.