Month: October 2017

Easton has been telling me for over a week now that she had a science fair project due. Since I never saw a paper about it I kept brushing it off, thinking that I would help her with it as soon as I got the information. She kept saying, “Mom I think my project is due on Friday.” I said I didn’t think so because Friday is a half day. Well this morning I was going through some papers on my dresser when low and behold I found a paper that said science fair project due Thursday March 13. Oops!

I felt so bad because it was clearly my fault that she didn’t get it done. So I ran out to the kitchen and said, “Somebody think of a really quick science project!” Landon came up with the idea to test the differences between the heartbeats of a person, a dog, and a guinea pig. I grabbed some colored cardstock and told Easton to quickly draw some pictures of Landon, Jack (our dog), and Clover (our guinea pig).

While she did that I ran around looking for something that we could use for the display board. Jackpot! We still had the large cardboard box from our new dryer. I cut off a chunk of it and folded it into a board. Landon helped Easton check all of the heartbeats then we typed up her findings, printed them out and slapped everything on the board with some doublestick tape. Whew! We did all of this, including getting everyone ready for school, in about 30 minutes. Can anyone top that procrastination story?

Five in the morning is when my subconscious mind decided to wake me with this gnawing reminder, “You did something stupid yesterday.”

I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock then tried to roll over and fall back to sleep when, “Oh wait!  I did do something stupid yesterday!”  And with that I was wide awake and ready for the day.

Though my subconscious mind’s mocking words were meant to scare and protect me from ever doing anything stupid again, what she didn’t know is that she was playing right into–what I like to call–my “defusing my stupidity” plan.

Allow me to explain.

After making the stupid decision to get bangs yesterday… Bangs.  I love bangs on others which is what got me into this predicament in the first place–dadgum you Pinterest–but I had forgotten how much I hate them on me.  Ugh.  Anyway after I returned home, no longer drunk on Pinterest dreams, I took a sober look at myself and thought, “Okay, well now what?”

Coming up with the plan to wear my hair pulled up with a headband securing my bangs against my head for 3 maybe 30 months seemed reasonable enough but I never expected it to change my entire life!  Ok so that might be a little dramatic but also kind of true.

Allow me to explain.

For four months now.  Four long months.  I’ve been begging myself to start working out again, every time receiving the same Scarlett O’Hara response, “I can’t think about that today.  I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

But for some reason my ponytail, headband plan awoke a memory in me that left me wanting to shout, “Down with tomorrows! I’m working out today!” My ponytail, headband plan reminded me of when I was a workout beast, proudly sporting that ponytail, headband look everyday.  And I wanted that back.

One of the sayings posted on my kitchen’s vision wall tells me that,

And I guess the same can be said about a powerful hairdo (or whatever else makes one feel powerful) because today–after four long months–with ponytail and headband in place, I got up and did my workout.

But shhh.  Don’t tell my subconscious.  Her mocking, scornful words wake me up so much more efficiently than my alarm ever could.

And she doesn’t have a snooze button.

(Bobby pins and buns will also be playing a significant role in my 3 maybe 30 month plan)

 

 

Once upon a time a little boy decided to color his mommy’s carpet with mascara just as they were getting ready to go upstairs to play guys and blocks (the little boy’s favorite game).

So the mommy said, “Now I can’t play guys with you because I have to clean my carpet instead.”
The little boy, feeling very bad, retreated like a turtle inside of his 3 big shirts (he wanted to wear 3 of daddy’s shirts yesterday (?)).

When the mommy finished cleaning her carpet, which wasn’t easy let me tell you, she turned to the little boy and said, “If you want to tell me that you are sorry then we can go play guys.”
But the little boy lay silent and still.

So the mommy covered the remaining stain on her carpet with an area rug, looked at her preciously adorable, 3 shirt wearing turtle boy sleeping so peacefully on her floor, and smiled as she thought, “Well if having a 3 shirt wearing sleeping turtle boy means that I must also have stained carpet, then I’ll take it.”

It’s a small price to pay.

“For those who are not ready to say #metoo out loud, we love you”

I’ve seen this message again and again lately, leaving me to think to myself, what if we never want to say #me too?  Why should we have to say it, especially on social media?

And then a song rose up in my heart, “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know…”  and I cried.

Growing up, something always felt a little off inside of me but I could never quite pinpoint it.  Until at 23, truth walked toward me in my dark bedroom.  It was actually my husband I saw that night. He had turned out our light and was coming to bed but his silhouette walking towards me in the darkness awoke a fear in me that I felt in my very bones, sending a guttural cry up from the core of my soul and out into our quiet room, “Help me.”

I had perfected conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know so well that I had become a stranger even to myself.  An oddity that I still don’t fully understand.  But I like to think that perhaps my Savior stood between me and the darkness of that trauma,  covering me in His light.  Until, when I was old enough and in a safe place, He stepped aside and let me see.

He didn’t step aside because He wanted me to feel pain.  He stepped aside because He wanted me to FEEL.  And He knew that in order for me to do that in the highest most perfect sense I had to open those parts of me that had been closed off for so long.

He wanted me to share in His understanding of Love, His understanding of truth and His understanding of me.  He wanted me to reclaim me–all of me–for me.  And, though I do not wish to sugar coat my journey in anyway because often times I felt lucky to come out of it alive, I am awed by it.  “Seeing” has been and continues to be one of the most intense yet magical journeys I have ever experienced and through this experience my Savior has been able to open the windows of heaven and flood me with His teachings.

So why #metoo?  Why now?  Because I know that my silence is sending a very dangerous, damaging message to that little girl inside of me.  My silence is telling her that she is wrong.

She, that little girl inside of me, showed me this at my recent writer’s conference when–during a simple writing assignment–she began to share with me the secrets of her heart.  I wrote them freely, without question until my tears flowed so intensely that I–in fear of making a spectacle of myself–pulled away. I pulled away and began to question whether I, that little girl, was just being dramatic.  “Perhaps you’re just imagining some of this.  Making it bigger than it really is.”  I told her.

“You don’t believe me either.”  The words filled every part of me.  “How will I ever feel safe if you don’t even believe me?”

So I write this now.  I say #metoo.  And I say to that little girl inside of me, “I do believe you and I will believe everything you tell me from now on without question.  So please, take my hand and join me in this beautiful journey called life, the journey that you were created for.  I promise to keep you safe.”

“but how can you keep me safe when you are still so very afraid?”

“I am afraid but I am strong.  I learned that from you.”

 

 

I didn’t write at all last week.  Nope not one word.  I didn’t write because I find it difficult to write without hands and my hands were full of these handsome nephews of mine.

I also didn’t go to the Depeche Mode concert with my sister last week.  I told her I wanted to go, she bought the tickets, then–remembering my commitment to watch the precious BBs–I backed out, sending my daughter Paige in my stead.

Paige loved the concert and had fun picturing me watching Depeche Mode back in the 80’s when I and they were young. And when she reminded me of some of their songs that I hadn’t listened to in years I had fun picturing me back there too.

Listening to their music transported me back to a time of concerts and clubs, freely dancing into the early morning hours, wearing my perfect 80’s outfits and Aqua-Net hair.  It was good. So good that I heard my younger self begin to whisper, “Aren’t you envious of me?  Don’t you wish you could go back?”

And for a moment I thought that maybe I did feel a touch of longing and envy for what had been. Until I remembered the words spoken by Morrie Schwartz, from “Tuesdays With Morrie”, when author Mitch Albom asked him a similar question saying, “You know we live in a culture that worships youth. How do you keep from envying me my youth?”  To which Morrie brilliantly replied,

“Age is not a competition.  Inside me is every age I’ve ever been, 10-year=old, 20-year-old, 37, like you.  But also a 50-, 60-, 78-year-old man.  So why should I be envious of where you are?  I’ve already been where you are.  You should be envious of me.  I’ve got 40 years on you.”

Hearing Morrie’s words I’m able to tell my young self that we are not in a competition with one another.  I don’t have to be envious of those days because I already lived them.  I can close my eyes and remember being a PYT on the dance floor but along with that I also know what it is to be a newlywed and a woman who has been married for 27 years.  I’ve been a mother with babies, and a mother who is now experiencing the joy of watching those babies grow into the most extraordinary adults. I have struggled, I have thrived and I have lived.  Really lived.  I have 30 years on my young, dancing self.  30 years of wonderful.

And with my 30 years of wonderful I look to those who have a few extra  decades on me and wonder, with quiet anticipation, about the secret they seem to hold just behind their smiles.  It’s a secret that cannot be shared, a secret that must be earned.  And while I may have not yet earned it, I think I can feel the corners of my own mouth turning up–ever so slightly–even now.