Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

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The regular practice of pruning {and the price of neglect}

Long before we lived here, someone planted an ornamental pear tree right outside the kitchen window. In our years of inhabiting this place, it has been home to squirrels scampering up and down its trunk, frolicking in the branches. Most mornings, it sings, or rather the birds perched on its branches sing and fill the kitchen with music before I’ve turned on any electronic device. Once, a snake, six feet long, black and terrifying, slithered up its trunk as we watched both in horror and fascination.

Sophia Nicholas via Unsplash

In the spring, the blossoms burst white and remain green for all of summer. They yellow in the fall as they drop to the ground, joining the neighboring trees in scattering the driveway with a carpet of autumnal beauty.

Kids climb its low limbs and recently my husband was up in the tree, contorting around the trunk to saw a few branches that were long overdue for a pruning. Since we’ve lived here, some of the tree’s upper branches have scraped against our neighbor’s second-floor windows.

So one day this week, without notice, our landlord showed up with a hand saw, then a chain saw, and began cutting away the branches my husband could not reach. For an entire afternoon, large limbs crashed to the ground outside our kitchen windows, seemingly dropped from the sky. As our landlord dragged limb after limb to his waiting trailer, I could only wonder what would be left of the tree when he was finished.

Read the rest of this post at Putting on the New, where I write on the 12th of each month.

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Banged-up groceries and a bruised soul

We filled a shopping cart with groceries from the local scratch and dent store this week. If you don’t have these where you live, let me just tell you that you are missing out. We didn’t have them where we lived in Illinois, not that I knew of anyway, but in Pennsylvania, there is at least one in every county, if not more.

Inside these groceries you will find shelves full of outdated, beat-up, dented and sometimes damaged goods. Our cart full of groceries cost us less than $70 and re-stocked some of our basic pantry needs, not to mention filled our shelves with snacks for summer.

While I am generally wary of food with expiration dates from a month or more ago, sometimes the food is just fine. Sometimes there are pallets of Cheez-its with March Madness marketing, no longer relevant on the shelves of the chain grocery stores, but the crackers are still edible. I notice this a lot more these days, that when the special marketing period ends, the value of the product decreases. I bought back-to-school name-brand tissues for half-price once because school had been in session for months.

It seems to me a waste to spend so much effort on marketing products like tissues for a season when they don’t actually “expire.” I think this is why I prefer Aldi so much these days, although even there, I am not free from the special deals and the target marketing.

Still I wonder: Why must the value of the product decrease because the external packaging is seen as outdated? Why is the quality in question because the container shows slight damage?

—

I didn’t really come here to talk about groceries. I’m not really sure what I’m doing here right now. Blogging these last few weeks has been a struggle to say the least. If you’re a regular reader, maybe you noticed the silence save for a book review or two. Maybe you didn’t notice at all.

I’ve noticed, but I’ve been trying to ignore what’s been slowly happening. I’ve been withdrawing from things. Retreating like a turtle into its protective shell, snapping at those who dare get close. (This, at least, is what happens in my mind. I’m not sure I’ve literally snapped at anyone.)

Nick Abrams via Unsplash

This year, I’m supposed to be cultivating tenderness in my life, and in a way, I have. But I misjudged the amount of hurt that can come with a tender heart, how easily one’s soul can bruise when it softens. Somewhere on the journey, I started building a shell around the tender heart. And with each new hurt, new perceived insult, I drew back a little more and a little more until I didn’t even realize I had retreated into a dark hole with no light, just me and my tender heart protected from a big, bad world.

I thought it would be safe in there. In a way it is. But the farther I retreated into the darkness, the scarier the world out there became and the only people I could call “friend” were the ones I knew could understand the darkness, whose hearts were as tender as my own. Everyone else, they were dangerous. Enemies.

I might have stayed there in my dark shell. I wanted to. I still sort of want to.

But the light is drawing me out.

Jen Timms via Unsplash

—

I spend the majority of the time in my therapist’s office crying. Mostly, it’s my clue that whatever we’re talking about needs to be talked about. If it brings on tears, then I’m not okay with it. Sometimes, it’s entirely surprising.

During a recent appointment, we were cruising along talking about life and all of a sudden I’m bawling because I don’t want to go to church anymore. It’s not as simple as that, and I don’t want to drag it all out here, but my therapist started pulling on the loose threads of my arguments and before I knew it, I was a bare-naked soul with no solid answers for why I was feeling this way.

I left her office with raw emotions and a tear-stained face, thankful for a 25-minute drive and a couple of necessary errands before rejoining my family back at the house. She had reached into the shell and urged me to come out. And not only to emerge but to chip away at the shell encasing my heart. Where do these feelings come from? What birthed them? And what made them grow?

It would be easy to blame the election and politics and maybe there is some truth there. I have never before felt so much sadness and anger on a daily basis as I read articles, scroll social media and watch the news. I want someone to blame and “evangelicals” have been an easy target. I am angry that people who claim to love Jesus act in ways counter to the love of Jesus.

But if I am angry at them, I have to be angry at myself, too. Because me hating a group of people who don’t have faces or names because they hate people who don’t have faces or names is the definition of irony, I think. I have spent a lot of energy on anger in recent days. And that wouldn’t be a problem if I had let it fuel my actions. Instead, it has drained me, and I have lost a sense of purpose and passion. (My therapist used the D word–depression–and I’m not ready to go there again.)

I will spare you the specific laments I’ve been singing about my writing. Disappointment and discouragement have been unwelcome companions, and once again, I’ve wondered if I should just give it all up, the writing. (I won’t. I’m not.) In another session, my therapist provoked a question I hadn’t considered: What would it look like for me to write simply for the joy of writing? For the pleasure of the One who made me a writer? Not because I want more people to read my writing (even though I do). Not because I want to be published. (Also, yes.) Or because I’m being paid. (Just a little?)

But just because it is what I am meant to do.

Green Chameleon via Unsplash

I have not arrived at that place easily. Actually, I’m not there at all yet. Just on the way.

—

These feelings I have about church and evangelicals, they are tied to my desire to live in the city. In my mind, I am already there, but every day, I return to a house in the suburbs where I feel like I’m suffocating. Better to cut ties with the people in my “neighborhood” now before we move downtown, I think. If I’m honest, I am pushing people away, even if they don’t realize that’s what I’m doing, because I don’t think I belong and maybe I don’t want to belong and maybe they’ll reject me anyway so I’ll just go ahead and pre-reject myself.

Except I also had this realization: I tell people all the time that I don’t want to move to the city to save the city. That’s not what this desire is about. But I’m seeing that it’s possible I’m counting on the city to save me.

And it simply can’t.

Just like a person, if I expect the city to fix what’s wrong inside of me, if I move there thinking it will be what saves my soul and sanity, then I will find myself in a deeper state of disappointment.

The city can’t save me. It can’t heal me. It can’t fulfill my deepest longings.

For years, I’ve been told that only Jesus can do those things, and I do believe that He can. But it’s not as simple as it sounds.

It takes works. And I’m certain that He and I together can get to the source of these feelings.

I can’t promise I won’t snap or retreat to the darkness. But I tried something new at church on Sunday. I opened my hands to receive instead of balling them into fists preparing for a fight. It’s not easy to admit that my internal posture has been one of defense in the past months. Before I even set foot in the building, I was looking for a fight.

My words, my opinions, my voice–they still matter. What’s inside is still valuable, still useful, even if the outside is a little rough around the edges.

The start of something new: Review of With You Always by Jody Hedlund

Jody Hedlund continues to be one of my favorite historical fiction authors. Her new Orphan Train series kicks off with a page-turning story of family love and loyalty in With You Always.

Elise Neumann is caring for her younger sisters in 1850s New York and after a week of living on the streets, they find refuge in a women’s mission. Temporarily. But when a financial crisis strikes the city, the jobs for women dry up and Elise is forced to make a decision to leave her family and find work in the Midwest, where towns are developing along the newly constructed Illinois Central Railroad. It isn’t everything she hoped and speaking her mind lands her in some trouble with the land developer’s assistant and her hope of a brighter future for her family dims.

The man developing the town where Elise is working is Thornton Quincy, a member of an elite New York society family who has been pitted against his twin brother for their father’s inheritance. They’re challenged to build a sustainable town along the railroad and win the heart of a woman suitable for marriage before six months has passed. Thornton is driven to accomplish the task before his brother and win not only the challenge but his father’s approval.

It’s historical romance, so of course, Thornton takes notice of Elise and is drawn to her outspoken nature and her passion for ethical and fair treatment of the workers. As their relationship develops, they both struggle with the differences in their stations in life.

Whether they can move past those differences is what keeps the pages turning. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher. Opinions shared in this review are my honest ones.)

Elise is one of my favorite of Jody’s characters. She is spunky and not at all weak. And I love the banter between her and Thornton. This is one of Jody’s strengths in developing characters–dialogue. I also loved that part of this story took place in Illinois. Most of Jody’s books, at least recently, are set in Michigan and as a native Illinoisan, I love seeing my home state in fiction.

This book is the first in a series about orphan trains, a subject I don’t know much about but want to now that I’ve read a little bit. Jody’s books generally introduce me to a historical event or topic that I want to study further. Anther of her strengths.

As a bonus, here are a few Q&As from the author about the book. 

What is the inspiration behind your new Orphan Train series?

I have long been fascinated by the era of the Orphan Trains and the heart-wrenching stories of the homeless and helpless young orphans that were taken from the streets of New York City and other eastern cities and shipped West by the dozens. I was familiar with stories of those scared orphans who were placed out in what was thought to be a more wholesome, healthy environment of the newly settled Mid-Western states. Some of the orphans found happy endings and were adopted into loving families. Others experienced great abuse and heartache in their new homes.

While stories of the orphans who rode the trains have been told—and rightly so—the stories of the women who were involved in the movement are not as well known. One of the things I particularly like to do when telling my stories, is focus on women who have been overlooked by the pages of history. I consider it a great privilege to be able to bring forgotten women to life for our modern generation. Thus, throughout this series, I’ll be focusing each book on a different aspect of the Orphan Train movement, particularly from the perspective of women who experienced riding the trains in one form or another.

2. An e-novella, An Awakened Heart, kicks off the series. What is the novella about, and is it a must-read in order to understand the series?

An Awakened Heart is not a must-read in order to understand the series. But I do highly recommend reading it. (Plus it’s FREE, so you have nothing to lose by giving it a try!) The e-novella introduces a couple, Guy and Christine, who are both passionate about helping the poor immigrants crowded into the overflowing and dirty tenements of New York City. The novella shows their efforts to bring about change in the city, but also brings them together in a satisfying love story.

The novella also introduces the three orphan sisters who will each become main characters for the three full-length novels in the series. It gives some of the background information on their situation, particularly how they become orphans, which I think readers will find helpful as well as informative.

3. How did you come up with the idea for the first book in the series, With You Always?

For this first book in the series, I decided to base the story around the placing out of women that happened in 1857 as a result of a financial crisis and economic panic in the autumn of that year. Women laborers were already at a disadvantage with poor working conditions and low wages. In September of 1857, estimates of New York unemployment ran as high as forty percent. Female employment was cut by almost half. With prostitution already a main source of income for many women, the recession drove even more to desperate measures and the number of women in prison rose as well.

To meet the growing crisis, the Children’s Aid Society in New York, along with organizations in other cities, who were already sending children West, decided to set up special placement offices to find jobs for seamstresses and trade girls in the West. The associations only wanted women of “good character” and they were required to provide references. If the women met the qualifications, then they were sent on trains to towns in Mid-Western states, particularly central Illinois where the demand for cheap labor was prevalent. They were presented to western employers as “helpless females left without the means of support.” Placement of these women continued until the spring of 1858.

It was my hope through the first book in the series, With You Always, to give readers a glimpse into the disadvantage of women during this particular era by showing the heroine Elise Neumann’s struggle, first in New York City and then also the continued heartache and problems that arose after leaving her family behind so that she could attempt to start a new life in central Illinois.

4. What special research did you do in writing With You Always?

In the beginning phases of writing this series, I did a great deal of reading about the orphan train movement. In particular, I really loved Stephen O’Conor’s book, Orphan Trains, because he includes so many personal stories and details about real orphans, which are heart wrenching.

I also read, A History of New York City to 1898, by Burrows and Wallace, which gave me great insights into the lives of immigrants, particularly immigrant women. Masses of foreigners were arriving into New York City on a daily basis, and the book gave a detailed look into their pathetic housing situation, the difficult working conditions, as well as gang problems and the underworld.

Finally, another important aspect of the story that required a concentrated amount of research was the development of railroads. The mid-1800’s was an incredible period of growth for the railroad industry in the Mid-West. The new railroads aided the orphan train movement but also brought about the settlement of the Midwestern states, including Illinois, which is one of the settings of the book.

5. Many of your previous stories are set in Michigan. With You Always takes place in both New York City as well as Illinois. Why did you decide to change settings?

I definitely could have used Michigan as the Mid-western setting for this book since the very first orphan train went to Dowagiac, a small town in southwestern Michigan. However, as I studied railroads and town development, I decided that the plains of central Illinois would really add to the story, especially because the Illinois Central Railroad (IC) was built between 1851 and 1856 during the time of my story.

With this new railroad that ran the length of Illinois from north to south, investors were looking at attempting to build towns along the railroad in order to attract new settlers who would use the railroad. Since my hero, Thornton Quincy, is involved in the development of the IC, he and his family have an invested interest in seeing the growth of towns along the new railroad. Adding in a competition with Thornton’s twin brother for the development of one such town made the story and setting in Illinois come alive.

I also loved having my heroine, Elise Neumann, be able to travel from the crowded dirty streets of New York City to the plains of Illinois where she experienced a culture shock. She’s taken from a bustling city life to an isolated farming town that consists of only a few buildings when she arrives.

What are you working on next?

The second book in the orphan train series releases next summer in 2018. The story continues with Marianne Neumann. She gets involved in the orphan train movement as one of the placing agents and accompanies the orphans as they ride the trains west. I hope readers will enjoy Marianne’s story and also appreciate learning more about the orphan train movement from the eyes of the compassionate workers who tried to place the orphans into new homes.

Find out more about Jody and connect with her online in these places:

Facebook: Author Jody Hedlund

Twitter: @JodyHedlund

Website: jodyhedlund.com

Instagram: instagram.com/jodyhedlund/

Pinterest: pinterest.com/jodyhedlund/pins/

Saying ‘yes’ to God: Review of The Lucky Few by Heather Avis

My experience of motherhood couldn’t be more different from Heather Avis’, author of The Lucky Few, but I loved this memoir of adoption and found it relatable in so many ways. (It’s much more than just a story of adoption, though.) Heather’s story is about what happens when you say “yes” to God in a season that seems all wrong and find that it’s the only place you ever wanted to be.

The Luck y Few is a story about Heather’s experience with infertility and her struggle for joy as she watched others around her (including family) become pregnant. And how everything changed when she and her husband were led to adopt a baby with Down Syndrome.

I first heard Heather speak on a podcast about how her kids with Down Syndrome are such a joy and treasure in her life, and that’s how I discovered this book. (Check out her Instagram: @macymakesmyday) It would be easy to call her and her husband heroes but they are just people who walked the path on which God led them. Even if you don’t think adoption is your path, this book is relatable if you find yourself presented with a God-given opportunity that you never thought would be yours. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the Booklook Bloggers program but opinion is my honest one.)

Heather doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges nor does she demand that others do exactly as they have done. The book is full of grace and is so inspiring. I believe the title is true. They are “the lucky few.”

 

A story of us

The hanging flower basket sways in the wind on this rainy morning, its blooms all but invisible. The purple and green leaves are struggling for life because of neglect. Watering the plants wintering inside the house is not one of my strong suits, so I feel a bit responsible for this, especially because of the plant’s significance.

I remember the day we picked it out, a tangible memory of the weekend we spent picking up the pieces of what was left of our marriage, seeing if we could put it back together again. It was my first time away from our youngest, still a baby at the time, but we were only a couple of hours away and both of the kids were in good hands. It wasn’t even a question, this time away, even if we couldn’t afford it with time or money.

We stood in the gift shop of the conservatory where the colors and smells had revived something inside of us in the dead of a Midwest winter. We didn’t need a knick-knack to commemorate our time. We needed a living memorial. The wandering jew caught our eye, although the name still sounds odd on my tongue. (Its official name: Tradescantia zebrina. Also a mouthful.)

That particular plant actually died years ago, but we replaced it with one that was discounted at Lowe’s. It thrived. And now it’s struggling again so it might be time to purchase another one.

I used to feel guilty about this inability to keep the same plant alive. As a metaphor for our marriage, I thought maybe it was a sign that we were destined to not make it as a couple. I’m over that now because what we’ve experienced is a continual process of planting and uprooting; of dying and thriving. The symbolism of the plant is as true when it is struggling for life as when it is thriving.

Our marriage has had those seasons, too.

Today, it’s been 10 years since the church filled with people and I donned that white dress to meet you in the sanctuary in your pink suit. Certain memories of that day will never leave me. But sometimes it seems like someone else’s life. Was that really us? (I feel the same way when I look at our engagement pictures, the last professional pictures we had taken together. Who are those people?)

It was us.

And so were all the other us-es from then till now.

Sometimes I want to toss out the uglier moments, but like the plant hanging on our porch, I come back to our marriage again and again, even if it often feels like something entirely different from what it once was. Its very existence reminds me of all the struggling and the thriving and the beauty that’s worth the result of having both.

I used to feel sad and a little bitter when I looked at pictures of younger us. I would feel sorry for them and their ignorance of the things to come. But now I know that we couldn’t be “us” now without “us” then and there are things we will face in the next 10 years that will contribute to future “us.”

I used to write these anniversary posts hoping to impart some wisdom about marriage, to celebrate and memorialize the years. I’ve never been the mushy type though I do love a good love story and to be honest, ours is my favorite. Even with all the times our union struggled for life. I’m not sure I would like us as much without all the hard stuff we’ve endured and overcome and are still overcoming.

I have no great wisdom just a lot more to learn.

And a grateful heart for where we happen to be right now, in a place of thriving. (We have known long seasons of near-death, though. I keep bringing it up because I want you to see more than appearances. We have smiled in pictures when there was no love in our hearts, celebrated our marriage while hiding hard truths.)

I still don’t understand how 10 years can feel like the longest stretch and a blink at the same time. That might be the only thing that really scares me about the future. How in 10 more years I’ll wonder how it was possible that so much time had passed.

Maybe 10 years is still too little time to really know what marriage is like but it feels as if we’ve crossed a milestone.  And all that we’ve endured propels me toward the next milestone.

Marriage is no sprint. It’s a marathon.

I’m glad we’re running together.

The gathering and the waiting

I used to think people standing along the side of a busy road was weird. WHAT are they doing? I would ask myself. I haven’t always lived in a place where public transportation is normal and available. After four years in this county, buses are a regular sight and I no longer think it’s strange when people are standing alongside a road in what looks like an unusual place.

In fact, at least once a week, I’m one of them. I’m just a girl standing next to the road hoping the bus will stop for me. Usually, I’m the only one at my stop, but there are other stops on other routes that attract a lot of riders at the same time.

Even after months of riding the bus once a week or so, I’m still not 100 percent confident. I have a real FOMO (fear of missing out) which also manifests as fear of being abandoned, so even when I am early according to the bus finder app, I still wonder if maybe I missed it. Or if maybe this would be the one day the bus doesn’t come.

So far, the bus has never let me down. It might be late or on time, and I might have to wave my arm to make sure the driver sees me, but I have always met the bus at my stop at the time it was expected.

—

As comfortable as I am with groups waiting at bus stops, a once-a-year gathering of people along an interstate-like highway still leaves me anxious and a little weirded out.

Every Mother’s Day, people pull their cars onto the side of this busy highway and pull out lawn chairs and blankets and picnic lunches. We have yet to watch from that side of the fence, preferring to set up our viewing party inside the park adjacent to the highway, but it is a spectacle nonetheless.

We are all gathered to watch a truck convoy but that isn’t evident from the road. Sometimes the pre-show is as entertaining as the show itself. Some travelers in cars or vans will honk at the spectators. Others lower their windows, stick their heads out and wave, as if we have assembled simply for them. (Confession: I’m sometimes angry at this because the purpose of our gathering is serious AND fun but it is not a joke. Of course, the average passer-by wouldn’t know this. Still, I’m annoyed.)

I would think it was odd, too. In fact, the first year we lived here, we heard the sirens and truck horns and wondered what was on fire. What tragedy was happening in our neighborhood. It was nothing of the kind. It was hundreds of trucks spending a Sunday afternoon making wishes come true and raising money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The next year, we watched. And every year since, we’ve made it a priority on Mother’s Day.

If I think too much about it, I’m overwhelmed by the emotion. Inside these hundreds of trucks are families fighting serious illnesses in their kids. And on this one day, we celebrate their journeys by treating them like superstars. Kids wave from the passenger windows of big rigs and fire trucks and even though we aren’t close to the road, we can see their smiles.

This gathering of people on the side of the highway is weird, but it’s important, and I’ll do it again and again.

—

Cristina Lavaggi via Unsplash

I feel like life is more a waiting time right now than an accomplishing time. I used to call it “being stuck” and felt it was my job to get unstuck, but I’m tired of making an effort at the wrong things, so I’m trying to let the waiting time be a kind of gift. A chance to pause and evaluate and do the necessary work but to not force myself out of this season.

Waiting sounds so passive, almost lazy, especially when you live in a culture that is all about doing and doing more. I’m anxious even as I write these words. I’m certain our life looks lazy to some but with a limited amount of energy (mental, physical, emotional, spiritual), I’m no longer interested in spending it on the wrong things. And if that means NOT doing for a time, then I’m going to be (mostly) okay with that.

The thing about waiting is that if one person does it, it looks a little nutty, right? If one person set up their lawn chair on the side of a highway, we would think they were not quite right in the head. But when many people do it, the attitude shifts. Instead of Look at that fool, we think I wonder what’s going on.

All the noise of the truck convoy drew one woman from the park to the edge of the fence. “What is this?” she asked. And we told her. Another couple walking through were concerned because cars weren’t letting the ambulances through. “They are part of the convoy,” I said.

To the casual observer, it’s a confusing scene but it’s hard to ignore.

—

I’ve written a little bit about my struggles with church right now. It’s complicated, that’s all, and there is no easy answer for my questions, but this whole gathering and waiting thing pricks something in my soul.

We gather, yes, on Sundays and sometimes on other days as people professing similar beliefs. We claim to be people all going somewhere but sometimes I wonder if we will miss the bus when it comes.

When I stand at the bus stop, sometimes I bring a book along, if I think I’ll have a long wait. But usually, I tuck it back in my bag because I don’t want to miss the bus’s arrival. I track it on the bus finder app, but even then, it’s rarely accurate. The expected time is usually close but the little bus icon on my screen is never in the right place. I could easily miss the bus while I’m standing at the bus stop.

Joshua Davis via Unsplash

I think this is true of my church experience. I‘m showing up at the right place but I am not waiting for God to show up. I am distracted. By my kids. By the other people. By my own thoughts. I think I have convinced myself that God is showing up anywhere but here so why on earth am I in this place? I often feel like I’m at a bus stop where the bus hasn’t picked up in ages and even if it did, I have no idea where we’re going or even if I want to go there. (This is a commentary on church at large not a specific experience.)

Going to church because it’s what we do is not enough for me right now. I am on the lookout for the places where God is showing up and I will find them in the gathering and the waiting. I need the church to show up in surprising places, to be weird enough that it gets noticed by people who otherwise wouldn’t pay any attention at all. I need it to be a place where we’re as comfortable with waiting as we are with doing, where we wait together on this shared journey.

I don’t know how to end this post on a high note, which is what I always feel pressured to do, especially when I talk about the church and my complicated relationship with it. I love the people we have known through church and there are many, many situations we have been in where we would not have gotten through without a church family. We have much for which to be grateful.

But I still struggle with belonging, and I always want to blame myself. I know I can be critical. I know I have failed to do my part in the church. I know I’m not an easy person to get to know.

I just don’t understand why I feel so much more a sense of community when I’m not in church.

There. That’s the heart of it. I don’t know what comes next only that I want to be in church less and less and I want to be on the lookout for God more and more. Even if it’s in unusual gatherings and extended times of waiting.

You don’t have to tell me I’m a great mom

It’s Mother’s Day.

If you’re on the Internet at all today, you’ll find all kinds of reactions to this one day in May. I know I’ll see friends who post the flowers or breakfasts or jewelry they’ve received from their families. I know I’ll see friends post about how hard Mother’s Day is for those who are not mothers, who have lost their mothers or who have tricky relationships with them.  I will see people posting kind words to all the mothers they know, generally or specifically.

Mother’s Day is no one-size-fits-all holiday.

It does get us thinking about mothers and motherhood, though.

I’ve been a mother for nine years, which in some fields would make me an expert or professional. People earn advanced degrees in less time than I’ve been a mother. Some presidents serve two terms in that time. After nine years of motherhood, I thought maybe I’d feel more sure or certain. Like I’ve totally got this.

Isn’t that what we all want people to think about us moms– that we’re the CEO of this house, the ringleader of this circus, the driver of this crazy train?

Sometimes people will read something I’ve written about my children, or comment on a picture I’ve posted, and they’ll tell me I’m a great mom or that I’m doing a great job. Those compliments bounce right off me because I tell myself if they only knew the truth, they’d know I’m really just an okay, average mom.

The truth is I don’t want to be “great” at motherhood, mostly because I don’t know what that means. A hundred moms would have at least 50 different definitions of what it means to be a great mom and all of them would hold some truth. When people say I’m a great mom (which doesn’t happen a lot, just to let you know; I don’t want you thinking this happens daily or weekly), I don’t know what they are seeing to make them say that. My husband says maybe they are seeing something in me that I can’t see in myself and they are trying to affirm that. Maybe he’s right.

I worry, though, that they are seeing their definition of greatness and applying it to me. Like if I post a picture of the one time in the last three months we bake together (and zero pictures of the flour mess all over the counter and no sound bites of all the times I yelled in frustration), someone will think I’m a great mom because I bake with them. No single picture posted on Instagram or Facebook can fully illustrate the experience of motherhood.

And maybe nobody really thinks that. But I know how I sometimes feel when I see pictures or status updates from other moms doing something I don’t. I feel like that other mom is doing something right and I’m not.

Most of us moms need all the encouragement we can get. I haven’t met a mom who, if she is honest with herself, doesn’t feel like she’s getting it all wrong at some point. I’m not saying we shouldn’t honor or encourage moms. I just think we have to use our words carefully.

When I’m honest with myself, I realize that motherhood has been both the best and the worst thing to happen to me. (Put that on a greeting card and try to sell it.) I love my kids and I try to hold on to a sense of wonder that these two humans hold part of me and part of their dad and all kinds of genetic code passed down through generations. They add to our lives in ways I can’t count.

But being a mother has exposed some of the worst parts of me. I’m more selfish than I ever would have imagined. For me, motherhood is a constant battle between what I want to do and what I have to do. Still, there were months where those duties saved me. I got out of bed and started the day because a small child needed me. I left the house and arranged play dates because I could not offer all the socialization my kids needed. Being a mom has forced me to speak up and make decisions on someone else’s behalf. But that brings with it all kinds of doubt about whether I’ve made the right decisions.

If I wasn’t a mom, all that internal junk would still be a part of me, but maybe I could hide it better. I believe motherhood has the potential to bring out the best and the worst in a person. And mostly that’s okay.

If you tell me I’m a great mom, I can think of at least one example of someone who is a better mom than me. And that mom could probably think of another example who is better than her.

It also makes me question greatness. Is a mom on welfare not great? Because I’ve been her. Is a mom who volunteers in the classroom every week great? Because I can’t handle that many children at one time. What about the Pinterest mom? Sometimes I envy her but not the mess of the craft projects. To be great, do I need to do it all and do it all perfectly?

I’m okay with being an okay mom. Maybe I’ll have moments of greatness, but that’s not my aim. I want to do what I can and accept what I can’t. I don’t want my kids to be perfect because that’s an impossible standard. I don’t want to be known for all the things I gave up and sacrificed for them because presumably I’ll still be around when they leave for good. Being a mom is only one role I have in this life and being “great” at motherhood would require being mediocre at something else. In the early years, my ideas of what a mom should me cost me my own health. And almost my marriage.

Ann Voskamp says what is on my heart so much better so I’ll leave you with a link to her blog post and a wish for any moms reading this to be the best version of you, you can be. Not the best at everything or the best at what other people think you should be but the best YOU. That has led me to more “great” mom moments than anything else.

The rough work of healing

I notice the bandages on his knee after dinner.

“Did you hurt yourself at school?” I ask my seven-year-old son. He wears shorts almost exclusively now that the temperature is reliably 50 degrees and warmer.

“Yeah, I fell on the way out to recess,” he says with a shrug. No, he didn’t cry, he tells us.

“We need to take them off before bed,” I tell him. His eyes widen with fear and he shakes his head.

“No, it will hurt too much!”

My husband and I convince him that we need to remove the bandages. After some protest, he agrees and my husband rips them off quickly as our son screams how it hurts. When we see the bandages, we know we also have to clean the wound. Again, our son shakes his head. He just wants us to cover it back up and let him go to bed.

We coax him into the bathroom where I wet a cloth and gently dab at the scrape on his knee where blood has dried and pieces of the blacktop or mulch or ground where he landed have embedded themselves in the wound. He whines, on the verge of panic, as I do what needs to be done.

“I know it hurts,” I say. “But it will hurt more if we don’t clean it and leave it open to heal.”

Will Oey via Unsplash

To read the rest of this post, visit Putting on the New, where I write on the 12th of each month.

How I thought it would be

I had a birthday last week, my 39th. I remember when I turned 29 and then 30, I had this sort of desperate feel to my life. At 29, I was three weeks away from getting married. At 30, I had an almost-two-month-old. These were monumental, life-goal type of events, and I remember feeling like once I hit 30, that was it. Life was over. I was officially old.

Annie Spratt via Unsplash

Almost 10 years later, I laugh at my younger thoughts. At 29, I wanted to cling to my 20s, or the thought of them. They were full of fun and friends and discovery and adventure. For a few years, I would not admit to my real age. I was 29 plus one or something like that.

Now that my 30s are almost behind me, I’m mostly relieved to have survived them. Motherhood to two kids 20 months apart might have been the thing that broke me all on its own but the last decade also saw our marriage crack straight to the center and we’ve spent years repairing the rift. There was grad school (for my husband) and the letting go of what we thought our life might be. There was financial struggle and a move. And while I wouldn’t call our life stable yet (will it ever be?) I don’t feel the same kind of desperation I did back then.

Bear in mind, my life is not really what I thought it would be at 39. I thought we would have our own house by now. I thought I would be some kind of “success” or that as a couple at least one of us would be working in a profession for which we earned degrees. I thought I would feel more like I had it all together. I thought the feeling of desperation, of clinging to the past, to the life I once had, would overwhelm me. I thought maybe I’d have some kind of mid-life crisis. I thought life would be more like the middle-class American dream.

And it’s not that my life doesn’t bear some resemblance to some of those things, but if I told my 29-year-old self what the 39-year-old version of herself would be, she have laughed and dismissed me as a lunatic.

At 39, I know better who I am and what I want, even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m not longing for the good old days of my 30s because they weren’t all that good. I know I’ll have challenges in the next 10 years (by the time I’m 49, my oldest could be in college–what?!) but all I feel is free and sure and accepting. Yes, there are times I still wish we had a house of our own, that we could measure our success by our professional lives, that our life didn’t sometimes look like failure when compared to others our age.

But I’m not sorry for who I am now, even if I do feel a bit like a late bloomer. At 39, I feel rich in the things that matter most: friends and family, purpose and passion. I ran 1.8 miles on my 39th birthday and I’m prepping for a 5K with my daughter. It is one evidence of health. If you could see inside my mind, there would be a change there, too.

I no longer fear 40. I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself, but I want to make a sort of wish list for my next decade: the things I’d like to do, see, experience, become. Not a bucket list, necessarily, but something that gives some intentionality to my 40s. I feel like my 30s happened to me and I spent a lot of time reacting and playing catchup. I want to set the tone for my 40s. I know I can’t control everything that will happen to me in the next decade and that’s not exactly what I mean. It’s just that I feel more capable of saying ahead of time: This is how I’m going to be, this is the direction I’m going to keep moving, no matter what happens.

Sebastian Molineras via Unsplash

My 30s felt like clawing my way up a hill I desperately wanted to climb only to find myself back at the bottom. The last 10 years drained me mentally, emotionally, physically and at times, I didn’t want to attempt the climb again.

Not so now. In my 40s, I don’t want to see falling as failure, setbacks as stop signs. I want to dig deep and find the grit I know I’ve got inside of me. To give myself grace when things don’t work out like I planned. To look around at the beauty of the moment, even if I’m stuck on a proverbial hillside and the top seems so far away.

Life doesn’t feel as much like a race anymore. It’s more like a stroll. I want to fill my days with beauty and meaning, even if I’m doing things I don’t like. (I’m looking at you housework.)

In my 30s, I thought I had to accomplish a lot of stuff to matter in the world.

Now, I see that my very existence matters in the world, and I want my life to reflect that. I don’t have to get somewhere in life to make a difference. I can make a difference right here, right now. (And making a difference might not look like much. Maybe no one will even notice.)

And I could be wrong about all of it. Maybe my 40s won’t be what I thought. Still, I feel more prepared than ever to face the uncertainties and maybe even welcome the surprises.

First Friday Five {May}

The last month has had some wild ups and downs for us. Usually, I’m thinking about my list of favorite things off and on throughout the month, but this month is a little different. Many of my favorites this month are within the last week or so.

Still, I hope you enjoy!

  1. Birthdays! Mine was yesterday and even though this was a birthday ending in “9” for me, I’m excited for the year and decade ahead. I also love celebrating with treats and birthday freebies from restaurants and hearing from a variety of friends and family on Facebook. The celebration was nothing fancy, but it was just right.
  2. Boston. My husband and I just took an early anniversary trip to Boston, Mass. and although Chicago will always and forever be my favorite city, Boston is a close second. We experienced history, culture, food and drink, and baseball, among other things. We can’t wait to take the kids back and do the historical stuff with them as well as experience other things we just couldn’t fit in to this trip. (I’ll have a separate post wrapping up our Boston adventures in more detail.)
  3. Baseball. It’s back in full swing (ha-ha) and we are still riding the high of the Cubs winning the World Series. Our kids are more interested in listening to games with us, and while my husband and I were in Boston, we got to go to a game: Cubs vs. Boston. And it was so much fun, even though it was cold and the Cubs lost and we were, in our section, surrounded mostly by Boston fans.
  4. Spring flowers. Our lilacs bloomed already and the lilies of the valley are popping up on the side of our house. We’re getting ready to start planting some of our favorites to bring color to the earth, and everywhere I go I see these bursts of spring color. I love how everything turns green finally after a gray/brown/white winter, but the color that precedes the green is such a treat. (Pictured above is a lilac bush at the Adams house in Quincy, Mass. These are Abigail Adams’ lilacs!)
  5. Marriage. Later this month, my husband and I will celebrate 10 years of it, and believe me when I tell you that marriage has not always been my favorite thing. We have survived some tough stuff in those 10 years, and I finally feel like we’ve found solid footing, a good groove. I’ve heard that the 10-year mark often signals a shift. I’m looking forward to the next decade of marriage, also.

What have you been enjoying this month?

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