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It’s OK to not be OK

March 13, 2020

I don’t know about you but my anxiety is peaking right now. I took half a Xanax yesterday morning for the first time in months because I could feel the pressure building in my chest. It sits there like a heavy weight I can’t shake off and when it doesn’t go away after 30-45 minutes, I start to wonder if it’s going to plague me all day. Some days I sense that I’ll get past it without medication. That if I just get moving with my day, it’ll go away. Other days, I sense that it’s going to be a rough day without it. Yesterday, it was the latter feeling that won.

Yes, I am worried about coronavirus, specifically COVID-19 and its rapid spread across the globe. I don’t want to lose you here because I know there are a lot of BIG FEELINGS about what’s happening right now. My 10-year-old son is borderline depressed because all the watchable sports are cancelled, and my husband is looking for a new hobby (because, sports). Last night, I countered my anxiety by watching Bob Ross episodes on Netflix and trying to write my way out of these feelings instead of eating my way through them. Our daughter seems to be handling this the best so far, but she’s 12 now, and I expect the emotions are brimming at the surface. (Her field trip for today was cancelled due to COVID-19 and a statewide halt on large group gatherings, so we’ll see how she takes the news.)

If I’m honest, it’s not the virus itself that worries me, although I do fear for family and friends who would be at risk of serious illness or death if they contracted it. I spoke with my grandmother last night who volunteers at a hospital and she has already been instructed not to keep doing that if a confirmed case appears there. What worries me more is all the disruption to my normal way of life. I know this is a very privileged thing to say, and I almost hate that it’s the thing that’s causing me anxiety. But it is. Here is a list of my worries, however small they may seem to you:

I worry that the schools will close and I won’t work and/or get paid for an extended amount of time.
Related, I worry that we will have bills that go unpaid because we have no plan B/backup/rainy day fund for emergencies.
I worry that we won’t be able to find the things we need because others have hoarded them.
I worry that people I care about will be sick and I won’t be able to visit them.
I’m afraid that human kindness will not be what prevails in this time of crisis.
I worry that plans we have for the summer will be canceled or altered.
I worry about being a carrier of the virus and unaware of the symptoms and/or unable to get testing/care.
I worry that my fears won’t be taken seriously.

—

At church on Sunday, we sang hymns a cappella, a practice I’m usually excited about, but the second hymn we sang left me mute because I couldn’t sing the words. I didn’t believe they were true.

Not a shadow can rise,
Not a cloud in the skies,
But His smile quickly drives it away;
Not a doubt or a fear,
Not a sigh or a tear,
Can abide while we trust and obey.

It’s the last half of that verse from “Trust and Obey” that had me almost shaking my head right there in the middle of the singing. Did the hymn writer really believe that if we trusted and obeyed God we would haven’t any doubts, fears, sighs or tears? Maybe. But I sure don’t. It almost made me mad because I know there were people in church on Sunday, myself included, who had one or more of those things–doubts, fears, sighs, tears–and still felt they were trusting God.

Jesus wept with the grieving, even when he knew resurrection was coming. He showed mercy to those who doubted, abiding with them in their questions. I don’t believe that faith and doubt are mutually exclusive. I don’t believe that trust and obedience drive out all doubts, fears, sighs and tears. I believe we can both believe and doubt; cry and trust; fear and obey.

So, I want to say this to you because I need to say it to myself: It’s okay to not be okay right now. You can still have a strong belief in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and be afraid of the times we are living in. You can be anxious and still trust Him.

—

I wasn’t sure I needed to put this in writing, but my anxiety was amplified after a trip to the salon yesterday. My daughter and I were both way overdue for haircuts, and it worked out that we got an appointment on her birthday. While she was getting her new ‘do, I was listening to the conversations. Of course people were talking about coronavirus. A man was scrolling his Facebook newsfeed and suddenly invoked Psalm 91 from the Bible, or what he thought was Psalm 91. “No plague on this house!” he declared, pointing to the door of the salon. Honestly, it sounded more like something you’d hear in a Shakespearean play than in church. I’m not sure what reactions my face betrayed at this spectacle. To be sure he had the right words, this man asked his phone to read him Psalm 91. He seemed to believe the act of speaking these ancient words would somehow keep him and this place safe from the coronavirus.

This is some of what the psalm says:

Surely he will save you
from the fowler’s snare
and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.

I have no problem with someone taking comfort from these words, but I wonder if they truly believe that God will spare some people over others because of their faith in Him. If someone is afraid of “the plague that destroys at midday” does that mean they haven’t take refuge in God? If they are struck by a deadly pestilence, does that mean they are unbelieving?

And if merely speaking words made something true, would we not all go around declaring health and well-being for ourselves and our friends and family? The Bible is not a spell book and its verses are not incantations. I know that sounds sacrilegious but I don’t think that’s what the Bible is for. Maybe I’m wrong, but this man’s actions brought to mind the hymn we’d sung, and I can’t help but think that these sorts of things are what discourage people rather than encourage them.

There are other passages of the Bible that talk about the rain falling on the righteous and unrighteous in equal measure. I do not believe the God who sent Jesus into the world with a message of love, mercy and grace sends diseases into that same world to wipe out the wicked. Maybe that’s not what we’re saying either when we sing that song or speak Bible verses over a place of business or residence, but I know what can happen to a person’s faith when they believe they’ve done and said all the right things and personal disaster still strikes.

We have enough to worry about right now, so if you’re a person of faith struggling with the messages you’re hearing/reading/seeing about the virus these days, I want to say again what I said earlier: It’s okay to not be okay right now. You can still have a strong belief in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit and be afraid of the times we are living in. You can be anxious and still trust Him.

Also, if you or someone you love contracts the virus, it’s not because God is punishing you. (Sometimes I wonder why we have to say these things, but I know that’s what I thought for a long time: I screwed up. I didn’t do enough for Him. So, He’s mad at me. Toss those thoughts right out of your mind. They’re not true.)

—

I don’t want to live my life in fear. Sometimes I feel like my opposite response to that is to stick my head in the sand and pretend nothing’s wrong. If I can’t see the news about the coronavirus, it doesn’t exist!

It is okay to withdraw for a while, and it is okay to have fears and worries. What I’m striving for is a middle ground–to live in such a way that I am informed and cautious, caring about the health and vitality of those around me while not being so afraid of what’s to come that I’m hoarding supplies like the zombie apocalypse is upon us. I’m washing my hands and trying not to touch my face with my hands, but I’m also in a school every day with kids I care about whose needs are often greater than I can meet. I don’t always get to wash my hands as often as I want to. And even when I tell myself not to pick up their pencils or go through their binders, I do it anyway because it’s part of my job. (A job that doesn’t have paid sick time, I should add.)

If I end up not working, I will trust even as I fear. If I end up sick, I will trust even as I fear. When I doubt and cry and sigh, I will not believe that I have been abandoned. I will trust that God draws near in those times.

—

How are you today? If you’re not okay, it’s okay.

How can I help? What words of comfort, assurance or commiseration do you need to hear? I’m here for you.

I Wanted To Give Up

January 21, 2020

The alarm went off at its usual time, 5:40 a.m., and I couldn’t get out of bed. I was physically capable. That wasn’t the problem. It was inside my head where the problem lay.

The weight of the previous days was like a crushing force holding me down. I couldn’t lift it myself. I didn’t want to get out of bed or go to work or do anything except curl up under the covers and sleep the day away. Maybe with a side of Netflix and chocolate. I knew that wouldn’t cure me, but I couldn’t make myself engage in life. Disengagement is my go-to coping mechanism when life is overwhelming and for whatever reason, that was the day that it all combined to overwhelm me.

But I made the first move toward overcoming these feelings: I told my husband how I was feeling. And he spoke words of life and love to me and helped me release the overwhelming emotions. Then I took a shower. It helped but it wasn’t the cure. I kept moving, going through the morning motions of eating breakfast, drinking coffee, getting dressed and making lunch. I drove to work listening to the one song that always fights the darkness inside of me. It is as much a prayer for me as a song, and it had been too long since I listened to it.

I was feeling better but not great when I arrived at work and my first duties of the day are usually in solitude, so I continued my attempts to shine light on the darkness.

This new medication I’m on, the one the nurse injected into my backside to help treat my endometriosis, I think it’s messing with my moods. I haven’t noticed any strong side effects–the occasional hot flash, a feeling of perpetual PMS–but this dark mood made me wonder if the medicine was to blame.

I hoped it was because the darkness scared me. I’m not prone to long bouts of depression. I have the occasional despairing moment but it hardly ever lasts longer than a day or two. A good night’s sleep. Some self-care practices. A run or walk outside. These are usually the things that get me through the dark moments. And the will to just keep going. It didn’t feel like me to not want to keep going.

For this reason, I’m grateful for my job. It forces me to keep going. I move from class to class every 43 minutes and no day is ever truly the same because the personalities I encounter are never the same, and I like it because it’s challenging. The previous two days had been some of the most challenging of my short educational career, and I didn’t know if I wanted to continue doing the work that I have found so much joy in.

When these days come, and they always hit at some point in the school year because education is a mentally exhausting profession, some positive thing happens to remind me that it’s worth it to keep going. I longed for such a sign on the day I wanted to give up.

And I got it. From the unlikeliest source.

I did nothing to deserve it, and I didn’t make it happen. It was a gift, plain and simple, and it got me through the day.

By the time my work day ended, I was feeling more like myself. And I took myself out for the afternoon to work on writing projects that just don’t get the attention they deserve. I spent almost three hours at Panera, writing and responding to messages and generally feeling like me again. I almost floated home, I was so full of light and goodness.

Not all was well when I got home. Nothing major just the usual frustrations that come from parenting after school and cooking dinner. My husband was in the midst of both of those tasks, and the darkness tried to creep back in, trying to convince me I’d been selfish to take all that time to myself. (The darkness is a liar. Don’t listen to it.)

We managed the evening routine without too much trouble.

The next morning I wanted to do something for my students who had earned a lunch party in our classroom. They’d begged for this specific kind of donuts, and I hadn’t signed up for anything to bring to the party. I left the house early for work, drove 15 minutes to the bakery and snuck a dozen of the famous-to-Lancaster-County long johns into the school. I didn’t want anyone to see me bringing them in. I wanted to surprise the kids.

When the teacher I work with saw the donut box not long after I’d arrived, she asked me about them. I told her I’d found them in the parking lot with a note attached instructing they be delivered to our room and it was my duty to comply.

The kids ate them up. Literally. I told them the donut fairy had delivered them but of course they knew better.

It was something I felt I had to do. The darkness inside of me had affected my relationships with my students earlier in the week. We are halfway through the year, and it is hard on all of us. Maybe they didn’t deserve the donuts, but I gave them to them anyway.

Grace is often like that, and I needed it as much as they did.

For now, the darkness is at bay. I wouldn’t say it has left completely, but getting out of bed isn’t a problem and getting on with the work in front of me isn’t a problem. I’m struggling with some health and body image feelings, but I need to keep reminding myself that the year is still young. It’s only been two-and-a-half months since my surgery, not even a month since I’ve been exercising regularly again. Last fall took a toll on my body, and it will take time to get back to where I was.

In the meantime, my clothes don’t fit right and my body doesn’t feel right, and my doctor and I are trying to find a way to keep me off my blood pressure medication, and I’m doubting the possibility because I have an anxious nature.

One day, I wanted to give up.

It was just one day.

The next day was better, and the one after that.

It won’t always happen like that. For some us, the days we want to give up outnumber the days we don’t.

Can you just hold on for one more day? (Yes, I have that Wilson Phillips song in my head now too.) And one more after that?

This year will be different

January 14, 2020

It’s a third of the way through January, and I already feel like I’m doing it wrong. Doing what wrong, I’m not sure. It’s just that I have this sense that I’m somehow squandering the new year. That a new start should feel more productive, more monumental. While I appreciate the opportunity for renewal that comes with the start of a new year, I kind of hate all the pressure that tags along. We’re “supposed to” dream big and plan and set goals, none of which are bad things, but how can any one day of the year hold that much expectation?

If I’ve learned anything over the years it’s that the planning, the dreaming, the goal-setting is a constant process of re-evaluation. We can make our plans, dream our dreams and set our goals, but life often has other plans for us and if we don’t hold those things loosely, we can easily convince ourselves we’ve failed if we don’t achieve what we set out to do at the beginning of the year.

It’s the bigness of the dreams, goals and plans that bothers me right now. A dream, goal or plan doesn’t have to be big to be good.

—

I spent half of last year dealing with an ovarian cyst. Between the discovery of it, the surgery to remove it and the recovery from surgery, it was five months, not all of it active, but the issue was looming in the background. In the fall, before surgery, my health took a scary turn–high blood pressure and extreme anxiety. I had been taking on too much and not taking care of myself.

I was squeezing extra work–writing, reading–into the margins of my day. I felt really productive most days, but all that constant working was taking a toll on my body. The month of recovery after my surgery left me with quite a shock. I couldn’t do all the things I normally could do. I rested. I read. I watched shows and movies.

And I thought about what needed to change for this year. What settled in my soul is a hard statement to put into words.

The truth is: I want to do less this year.

(There. I said it. And I survived. Even now, though, I want to erase it.)

Do less? Who wants to do less? Who makes that their goal?

I am fully aware that we live in a world where more is the word that grabs our attention. Every advertisement convinces us we need more of this or that. More savings. More stuff. More money. More, more, more.

I’ve been wrestling with this plan to do less for months, and I’m still not completely comfortable with it. Will people think I’m lazy if I say I want to scale back and do less? Will I appear apathetic or uncaring when I say “no” to some things?

Honestly, I don’t care what people think about this plan. I have no proof, but I think this elusive quest for more is killing us, and I’m over it.

I didn’t know how much I needed the break from everything until I was on medical leave, and it’s almost embarrassing that it took a medical reason to force my rest. The pace of life slowed way down for me in November, and I tried hard not to let it ramp up again in December. Fortunately for me, my body wouldn’t allow me to jump back in to life as it was before the surgery, so I had to ease into it.

Now it’s January and the pressure to “get back to normal” is creeping back in. But I don’t want to go back to normal. Not the normal that had me sobbing in two doctors’ offices with terrifying blood pressure numbers and prescription anxiety medication in my hands.

Friends, that’s not normal. It can’t be. (Please don’t hear me say that anxiety is not normal or that it’s somehow wrong to take medication. That’s not what I’m saying, not at all.)

As much as I might want to do more, this year, I’m focusing on doing less.

—

You might know that I choose a word every year–something to center my life on for the year, a word that becomes my focus.

Last year’s word was “intention.” It was a good word, a good plan for the year, forcing me to think ahead about some things and not just drift through my life. I didn’t write much specifically about that word, but I do feel like it changed me and helped me grow throughout the year.

For this year, I pondered a couple of words that went along with the theme of less doing, more being, words like rest and return, but the one that keeps speaking to my soul is “abide.”

It’s a bit archaic, the meaning I’m going for. It’s the idea of living or dwelling with. It’s not quite the opposite of intention, although it feels a little like it is. I don’t mean to accept whatever comes my way or tolerate bad behavior or anything like that. I just need to reconnect with this inner sense of being.

Apart from what I do and produce in this life, I want to abide as who I am at my core. And to do that, I have to strip off all the expectations that what I do, what I produce, makes me who I am.

It is no small task.

One way I’ve started implementing the idea of abiding is by letting the morning hours be leisurely. Last year, I was waking up around 5:30 a.m. trying to write or otherwise do creative work for an hour or so before I felt everyone had to start getting ready for work and school. A lot of mornings, I would be frustrated because my kids wake up early, and I wanted to protect that hour. I did get some things done, but I always felt a bit rushed in the morning.

Since my health issues, I reformed the morning hours. I still wake up around 5:30 a.m. but the first little bit is for spiritual practices. I listen to a short prayer program called Pray As You Go, and I read the daily passages offered in the Book of Common Prayer. These are things I had abandoned in favor of productivity last year, and while I don’t hold any expectation for these practices (i.e. if I start my day with prayer and Bible reading, the rest of the day will go well!), they do help me fight the urge to do.

When I finish those two practices, I make coffee and breakfast. I read for leisure. And then I start getting ready for work. It’s a rhythm that’s working for me right now, and I do feel better able to start the day on a more centered note.

—

The temptation, with a word like “abide,” will be to let some things slide. I am letting go of some things this year, but my hope is to create more space for the things I feel are more important. For example, I’m planning to take one afternoon/evening a month to leave work and head to a coffee shop and focus on my writing until I’m ready to come home. I will sacrifice some family time to do this, but if I want to accomplish my writing goals, I have to.

In other ways, I’m starting over. Like with running. I’m back to the plan I used when I first started running, if only to ease my body back into the habit. My muscles remember, though, and as badly as I want to just run and keep running, I’m forcing myself to stick to the running and walking plan for now. Last year, I ran five 5k races which was not something I planned to do. But I consider it a great accomplishment. Last year, I wanted to try a 4-mile race for the first time, but my husband got sick and I couldn’t follow through with that.

This year, I want to run a half-marathon with my husband–13 miles to celebrate 13 years of marriage. This is a goal that terrifies me, especially since I’m practically starting over with running. Maybe that doesn’t sound like it fits with the “do less” plan. It is probably the biggest goal I have this year, and it will take discipline and focus. I will have to do less of other things to stick to my training plan.

—

Forward. Forward. Forward.

It’s the way we’re always told to be moving. To grow is to advance, and I don’t think it’s always wrong, but I don’t think we give enough credit to the idea of circling back. Of returning. Of starting again. Sometimes we need to return to the places we’ve been, to walk a circle instead of a straight line, to revisit a place, physical or mental or spiritual, that we think we’ve moved on from. And we need to see it as part of the process, instead of as negative progress or regression.

If you find yourself in a place of returning, a place of circling, a place of starting over, please know that you’re not doing it wrong. More isn’t always better. Forward isn’t always the best direction. Growth and change can happen when you’re standing still (just ask the trees). It can happen when the world is cold and dark (just ask the seeds planted in spring).

Whatever you choose to focus on this year, may it bring you joy and peace.

These past few weeks

November 26, 2019

When my doctor first told me I’d be off work for at least four weeks, I was devastated, and it wasn’t just the thought of not having a paycheck for a month. It was all the other stuff I wasn’t going to be able to do. Things like driving or helping with housework. I briefly had visions of dedicating this time to writing but the reality of healing and recovering from surgery was more intense than I expected.

I have not been able to put together words like I had hoped. Sitting down to write something, anything has felt like too much work, even when I’ve had the smallest of desires.

These past few weeks have not been a waste, though. I’m slowly starting to see that. Aside from the physical healing of my body, these weeks have shown me some things about myself.

Like, how far I’ve come. And how far I still have to go.

—

Two years ago, I sat on a couch in our friends’ living room celebrating Thanksgiving by sobbing. The source of my sorrow was the prospect of getting a job. At that time, it had been 10 years since I’d done anything outside of the house, and I was afraid of all I would lose by giving up hours a day to something else even with the promise that those hours would come with a regular paycheck.

These past few weeks I have felt (heard?) the echoes of those days before I stepped out of what was comfortable into something that was ultimately better than I could have imagined. I have both embraced and resisted the hours stretching before me with nothing scheduled. In the first few days, those hours were spent in bed, reading, watching Netflix, listening to the world that is my household go on without me. I rested and slept, took medicine every few hours.

I cried. A lot.

My perceived helplessness and the effect it had on my family saddened me. I felt guilty for being so incapable of even the smallest of chores. I had small measures of hope that every day would get better, that my body would return to its normal, but fear lurked in the shadows. What if it was always going to be like this?

I reached a low point as I wandered around the house for the umpteenth day wearing pajama pants with nothing on the agenda except the choice between a Netflix binge, reading, and a jigsaw puzzle. On this day, it was easiest to choose the Netflix binge because it meant I didn’t have to move much from the couch. And while we were overwhelmed with food from caring friends, almost everyone brought dessert with the meal which meant there were a lot of sweets in the house and me, unsupervised.

I think I’ve gained 10 pounds since I’ve been home recovering, partly because of the desserts and partly because taking a walk has been a scary prospect. I haven’t begun to think about what returning to running will look like.

The pajama pants, the inactivity, the too-many-sweets. These are the echoes of my former life, and in the last two years, I’ve worked hard to reverse what were for me some negative habits. A month at home recovering from surgery has felt like the largest of setbacks.

But the experience of those two years is what keeps me from total despair.

I know how my life can be different.

—

Two years ago, I had lost myself. Or maybe I was hidden from myself. The past two years have been a gradual act of discovery, of becoming a person I didn’t even know could exist in my body. I sensed the change. Others could see it. The past two years have been some of the most fulfilling and purposeful of my entire life.

And these past few weeks, I’ve worried that I’m losing myself again. It is too easy to slide into old habits and patterns when there is little to no structure to my days. To force myself out of the house, off the couch with no outside force acting on me.

But this is not the same thing, I tell myself. This is not a season without end. I might have to start over, in some ways, but I haven’t lost everything I gained in the last two years. The me that I’m becoming is still there, even if she’s slumbering for a bit.

All is not lost.

—

And yet I wonder: What do I have to show for all this time off?

I joked about trying to write a novel for National Novel Writing Month since I had an unexpected month of “free” time, but I knew early on that wasn’t going to happen. What I’ve learned about myself in the past few years is an unstructured day is not conducive to writing for me. I get more writing done when I have to squeeze it into smaller chunks of my day. At least, that’s how it works for now, while I’m still learning and developing my skills.

What these past few weeks have taught me is I’m addicted to productivity. My worth is equal to what I can or cannot do instead of in who I am as a person. I’ve felt like a burden as my husband and kids go to work and school and then come home to take care of me and the house. I have felt needy and vulnerable–because I am–as friends have dropped off meals and stepped in to help with transportation and care for the kids. I had no idea how independent and self-sufficient I had become until I had to be utterly dependent on others.

I measure my days by what I accomplish, so when I look at these past few weeks and wonder what I have to show for it, I try to list the things I’ve done: the books I’ve read, the Netflix shows I’ve watched, the crossword puzzles completed, the progress on learning Spanish via Duolingo, the minimal amounts of housework I’ve been able to do.

What do I have to show for this time?

A healed (healing?) body.

It is enough.

I am enough.

—

One of the books I finished these past few weeks is Glorious Weakness: Discovering God in All We Lack by Alia Joy. I had started it before my surgery and found it an appropriate companion on my healing journey.

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These thoughts, in particular, are the ones I can’t let go of:

“I am a whole version of me even when I am broken or weak or sick.” (p. 172)

And,

“The world expects you to grow forward, march down a line. Do more, be more, have more. Then you will see the hand of God and his blessings. … But God is not about upward mobility so much as inward expansion.” (p. 220-221)

I am confronting my need to do all the things. These past few weeks, when I’ve been unable to do much more than live, breathe, eat and heal, the world has spun on without me. My kids have done housework. Or housework has gone undone. My husband has shared the load. I have asked for help and not been rejected. I have not “produced” and I am still a valuable part of my world.

So.

What does this mean when things go back to “normal”? I’m still a week away from what I hope will be my return to work, and I can already sense the pressure to do, do, do.

The only antidote I can think of is to be, be, be.

This, I believe, will be my focus in the year to come. When I choose a word to guide my year, it will have less to do with achievement and more to do with the inner work of becoming.

The pressure to produce will be hard to resist. I know it will be a struggle.

—

I did not ask for these past few weeks. In all honesty, I did not want them. I wanted life to go on as it had. (Don’t I always?)

Rarely do I recognize this kind of thing as a gift from the start, but it has been a gift, even when it’s been hard.

Life will return to some sort of normal soon. My hope is that I won’t forget all that I’ve learned these past few weeks.

—

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Surprised by New York (part 3)

October 30, 2019

Why is she writing some random post about a Sunday morning in October? Read parts 1 and 2 of this series to catch up, then rejoin us here.

Sometime in the six o’clock hour, I woke up. I can’t help it. Or maybe it was closer to 7, I don’t know. One reason I don’t stay up late often is because my body is used to waking up before 6 a.m. and does not always adjust according to how late I was up the night before. Phil and I talked about our plan for the day while we let the kids sleep. He decided to wander down to find breakfast. Just after he left, our daughter woke up. Everyone was awake by the time my husband came back with beverages and some breakfast goodies. I made a cup of decaf coffee in the room, and we dressed so we could go back down for breakfast for all of us.

This, too, was a happening place. Sometimes, the hotel breakfast area looks like a dead zone in the morning, but ours was full of families and groups, many of whom were not speaking English. We took our time gaining sustenance for the day ahead. I was ready to get on with it. We needed to pack up our stuff and check out and drive to our first destination. Our time was limited and I wanted to ensure we could see as much as possible, so I was not as patient about how long breakfast was taking as I could have been.

We gathered our things and checked out of the hotel, found the car and paid for parking, then made our way toward Staten Island, where we planned to take the ferry across to Manhattan. It was a 30-minute drive, uneventful, and by the time we parked we had a short wait for the next ferry. We filled our water bottles and used the bathrooms and watched the people–again, so many people! When it was finally time to board the ferry, we followed the crush of people, aiming for an upper level view.

After we settled for a bit, we decided to go to the first level where we could slide open the windows and see the skyline and the Statue of Liberty as we approached. This ferry didn’t have an accessible deck. We hoped the return trip would give us that experience.

It’s been years since we visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. The kids were too young to remember, but I remembered much as we passed both places on the water. We are making plans to go back. It’s an unwritten tradition that our vacations have some kind of boat involved at least once. This year, we failed at that during the summer so being on the ferry before the year’s end fulfilled that “requirement” in my mind.

As we disembarked, I was unprepared for the onslaught of cruise vendors for the Statue of Liberty. At least half a dozen asked us if we were checking in for the statue tour or if we had cruise tickets. Our standard answer was “not today” because that was true, and it worked for a while until one vendor broke from script and said, “But if not today, when? I can get you a deal.” Maybe we should have clarified that we’re talking months from now, not days.

Approaching Manhattan from Battery Park was an entirely different experience than emerging from the subway closer to midtown. More tourists, for sure. Our plan was to wander toward the Wall Street area before heading further north toward Central Park for a midmorning brunch of bagels. We passed the raging bull statue and I was flabbergasted by the line of people waiting to get a picture.

There were lines on both sides of the bull, if you know what I mean.

We kept walking and found Trinity Church, where I insisted we spend some time because it was the closest I was going to get to satisfying my Hamilton obsession on this trip. (Sing it with me now: “You will never be satisfied!”)

I finally got to see Hamilton–just not the musical yet.

Visiting cemeteries, especially old ones, is one of my favorite things to do in a city I’ve never been to. This one also held surprises. Not only was Alexander Hamilton buried there but so was Robert Fulton, who is kind of a big deal in our home city of Lancaster. I don’t know why seeing a grave is significant to me. It’s a connection in some ways. (I can still remember how moved I was to be standing in the church where William Shakespeare was buried in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. That was more than 20 years ago.) We wandered both sides of the church graveyard before exploring more of lower Manhattan.

We passed Federal Hall (closed on Sundays) and found the Fearless Girl statue and the New York Stock Exchange. We accidentally walked past the Trump building on Wall Street.

Then it was back to the subway and north to the vicinity of Central Park. We stood in a ridiculously long line for bagels–worth it!–and took our midmorning fare to Central Park where we sat on a bench listening to a man play and sing guitar while fending off small birds who were interested in our food. It was raining lightly, but I was mesmerized by the entire Central Park vibe.

We sort of had a plan as we walked, after finishing our bagels, and I finally felt my soul breathe and my shoulders relax. There were still people in the park, but the pace was not as frenetic. More strolling. Much less honking and sirens.

There was the famous stuff from movies and TV like the Bow Bridge and lesser known (to me) areas of the park like The Ramble. Huge rocks! In a park! In the middle of the city! The rain was picking up, but we could not be deterred. We made it to Belvedere Castle, taking the steps all the way to the top for more breathtaking city views. I needed this balance of being right in the middle of the city yet separate from the bustle.

Our plans for the day were flexible and we could have skipped Central Park. Even with the rain, I’m so glad we didn’t. Our final stop in the park was the visitor center and gift shop, and on the way there, as it poured, we found the Literary Walk and statues of writers. Even when they’re not alive, I’m at home among writers because it’s our words that outlive us and keep the connections strong. I mentioned Shakespeare earlier and bought myself an appropriate souvenir. (To find out more about that, you’ll have to subscribe to my monthly reading newsletter. I share about it there in next month’s issue, which posts on November 1.)

And then it poured. Like drenching rain. We brought no umbrellas with us to New York. Maybe we would have been less wet but I don’t think we would have been as efficient in our walking. I personally was almost stabbed in the eye several times just from trying to walk near people with umbrellas. So, we hung out under the covered portico in front of the gift shop for a little while, and it was here that I caught sight of the literal tail end of a New York City rat. (I reported to my brother that we saw two rats on our trip and he assured me that number was low for a visit to the city.)

Checking radar, we saw a small break in the rain and decided we had to keep moving, no matter what. Dinner awaited. Back on the train, this time to Chinatown in search of noodles to warm us.

The moment we emerged from the subway station in Chinatown was magical. Immediately, I knew we were somewhere different, and I loved it. Where we had been bombarded with offers to take a cruise to the Statue of Liberty in lower Manhattan, here I was offered purses, wallets and watches at least a dozen times. I don’t know what changed for me when we stepped into Chinatown but suddenly I got it. I understood why people were enamored of New York. Why they went back again and again and missed it if they hadn’t been in months or years. I’m still not exactly sure what clicked except that maybe I was more comfortable now that we were experiencing a part of the city that was less touristy than the other places we’d been.

X’ian Famous Foods was our home for hand-pulled noodles, and it was the exact thing we needed to refresh our soggy selves. We learned here that “regular” spicy is not “not spicy” as it might be if we were eating Americanized Chinese. We went back to the counter for a “not spicy” bowl for our daughter and ended up with extra noodles to take home. (Not a fail.) We were tired and ready to head home after dinner, but we wanted to explore a little more. In his research, Phil had found mention of a local market that had tanks of live sea animals. We wandered that market, marveling at the unfamiliar fruits and vegetables, mouths agape at the tanks of live eels and a crab bigger than any I’ve ever seen anywhere.

This was from the outside. See that crab in the upper left? It looks like something I wouldn’t want to encounter in a nightmare. But it’s probably delicious.

Leaving there, we realized we were close enough to Little Italy to pass through on our way back to the train. We stopped in an Italian market and passed a restaurant with cannolis in a case outside. We paused long enough–because cannolis were on our food list for the trip–that a server approached us. We mentioned that we wanted cannolis to go and were ushered inside where we were surrounded by the feel of Italy. According to my husband’s research, Little Italy is not as authentically Italian as it once was, but I would not have believed that standing inside this restaurant. Every person we encountered spoke with a heavy Italian accent. We ordered our cannolis and paid, then this happened:

As I was waiting for them to hand over the cannolis, I felt the urge to speak Italian. I know maybe two words of Italian but one of them was totally appropriate for the situation so as I took our cannolis, I said, “Grazie.” Every male head in the place turned and belted out a “thank you!” as we left, and I still can’t tell you why I did it except that it felt like a way to connect. As we walked out the door, my son said, “What does that mean?”

“‘Thank you’ in Italian,” I said.

“How do you know that?”

I sighed. “Because I visited Italy once.”

“Oh,” he said, and I remembered that I don’t always tell my kids about the life I had before we were a family.

On our way back to the Staten Island Ferry, we walked through yet another neighborhood. Leaving Little Italy, suddenly there were interesting window displays and fashion focused ads.

“Is this Soho?” I wondered aloud. We had to confirm it later because neither of us knew, but I was kind of excited to have guessed that without knowing it.

We made it to the ferry in time to take a different boat, one that had outside decks. But it was raining and chilly and we were already soaked. I remember being tired and having a little tension about where we were going to stand or sit. We climbed the stairs to the top level and then my daughter decided she had to go to the bathroom. So, we went back to the level with bathrooms but they were closed for cleaning. So, we went down one more level and used the bathrooms. The back deck of the ferry was on our way back to the stairs, so we took a moment to step out and watch the city fade away.

This may be my most enduring memory of the entire trip because it felt so iconic and stereotypical but I experienced it at just the right time. It was the perfect ending to our trip. We found the boys on the outer deck on the level we had left them and watched the city and the statue from there for a moment, too.

And then we were back on Staten Island, crawling into the car and starting the long drive back to Lancaster, tired, wet, chilled and full of too many memories to count.

—

New York, we’ll definitely be back, and that is maybe the biggest surprise of all. I worried at the start that I wouldn’t like New York, or that I’d like it too much. (Chicago, you’re still no. 1 in my heart). I’m eager to explore it more, and my husband and I have created a shared map of places to see the next time. And the time after that.

It may take us years, but we’ll keep going back until we’re sure we’ve seen all we want to see.

So, what should we add to our list?

Surprised by New York (part 2)

October 29, 2019

It’s been a week now, as of this writing, since we set out on our New York City adventure. You can read the part 1 backstory to catch up on how and why this all came about, but here, I’m continuing the story of our one day/night.

Driving is not my favorite thing. I am a nervous passenger, even though my husband is an excellent driver. It’s the potential for catastrophe that worries me. Did I take my anxiety meds before we left on this trip? You bet I did, and there was a noticeable decrease in the number of times I gasped or tried to grab at the door handle to brace myself for what I thought would be impact.

We drove the turnpikes for ease of travel. The Pennsylvania Turnpike is no stranger to us but we’re usually driving it west to Pittsburgh and beyond. The New Jersey Turnpike was a new stretch of road for us and it was–surprisingly–the most pleasant part of our trip. Six lanes of traffic with three of those lanes unavailable to trucks. Beautiful. At least, on a Saturday afternoon it was.

When we finally arrived in Jersey City, it felt like our adventure was truly beginning. The hotel we were staying at had character. I purposely chose it because from the outside it looked like an old apartment building or an older style hotel. It was right in the middle of a neighborhood and a short walk from the train station. And it was priced right. As we approached, we had to circle the block once because we missed the parking space for check-in. The downside of it being in a neighborhood was no parking lot. Our check-in process was smooth. We unloaded the bags, and the kids and I rode a noisy elevator up one level while Phil tried to find parking.

The hallways were wide, reminding me of apartment buildings I’d seen in movies and television. We opened the door to our room and our son announced, “There’s only one bed!” But we discovered the second bed in an adjacent room, the most unique hotel layout we’ve encountered as a family, I think.

A quick Internet search later led me to believe the building was apartments at one time. It was exactly the unique vibe I wanted for our trip. A Catholic school sat across the street and the old fire escape was just outside our window.

We stretched our legs, changed and waited for Phil to return. It took a while because he was advised to find street parking since it was the weekend, but we should not have taken that advice because we know how weekend parking goes in the city. When he did finally return, he had put our car in the garage down the street. We gathered our things for a night on the town and walked to the train station.

It took us a moment to recognize the train station and how to get inside, but after a quick stop at the vending machine to get our Metrocard loaded with fares, we were on our way to the city. Our friend who was originally going to meet us had given us an itinerary with subway stops, which helped us orient ourselves initially. We exited the train at 33rd Street station and my husband guided us in the direction of Bryant Park.

New York was overwhelming at this moment. I had no idea what I was looking at or where I was. Even now as I look back at the map and try to figure out which path we took, my memory is foggy. I remember seeing Macy’s, but did we pass the Empire State Building and I didn’t even know it? We were tired and hungry and on a bit of a time crunch to find dinner. We were hoping to find food trucks in or around Bryant Park, but we hadn’t done a lot of research. I just remember being relieved to be in Bryant Park because the city was noisy and full of people, and I felt on high alert the whole time we were walking.

I was trying to capture the lights and the trees and the night, and there’s my husband waiting for our food.

We settled for a kiosk that had sandwiches and soup and drinks. I’d never heard of Le Pain Quotidien but we would soon discover them all over the city. I started referring to them as “upscale Panera.” That night, it just meant food at the time we needed it. I’ve since learned that the restaurant name means “the daily bread” and it couldn’t have been a more appropriate choice. We sat at a table nearby and ate under the lights of the city. Eating outdoors in the evening in October felt like a gift.

Bryant Park felt like the kind of place I could frequent and love. On our way out of the park, my husband exclaimed, “I just saw my first New York City rat!” This was momentous and also killed the mood a little. I could have lived my entire life never hearing those words.

Our show was to start at 8 and our kids’ companion for the night was meeting us in Times Square around 7:30, so we finished our dinner and began walking toward Times Square. The walk, again, is a blur. If I thought New York City was overcrowded with people before we reached Times Square, then I hadn’t seen anything yet. I could not grasp Times Square. We stood on a corner near our theater and just watched people go by. I took a picture of us and texted our companion so she could find us. It had been years since we’d seen each other and I wanted to be sure we didn’t miss her.

Not long after that, she came right up to us holding her phone out to match the picture and said, “I found you!” I hugged her right away because I still couldn’t believe this was happening. She introduced herself to the kids and laid out a plan for their evening. “What is the cookie/candy rule?” she asked. It was a getaway trip, so I said there wasn’t one. (I would maybe come to regret these words.) We planned to check in after our show and see where we could meet, and then they were off and we were standing in line to enter the theater.

Seeing a show in Times Square is not something I ever would have put on my “must do” list. Having a date night in Times Square is not something I ever thought we’d be able to say we had done. Often in places like this, I feel inadequate. Am I dressed the right way? Do I belong here? We nearly wandered into the wrong hallway to find the bathrooms. A security type person let us know pretty quickly that we were not in the right place. When we found our seats, we were four rows from the stage and dead center.

The show was Foil, Arms and Hog, a comedy trio from Ireland whose weekly videos my husband watches regularly. I know how comedy shows worked and I prayed that our placement in the middle of the row would not require any audience participation on my part. Phil got us something to drink and we settled in for a lot of laughs and–to my great relief–no audience participation from us other than what was required of the audience as a whole.

Meanwhile, our kids were having a TIME. They walked out of the M&M store with what felt like 5 pounds of candy and a grinning benefactor who said, “They promised me they wouldn’t eat it all at once.” They stood on the steps overlooking Times Square, rode the subway twice, tried to go to the Met museum but it was already closed, took two taxicabs and saw the view of the city from a rooftop. Our show started late so by the time we were finished and had met back together, it was almost 10:30. At night! I’m usually in bed by then.

We parted ways with our companion who offered her help the next day if we wanted it and promised the children a future visit to the Met. We had promised the children a slice of pizza after the show and seeing how there was pizza by the slice on every block and none of the places closed until midnight, we trekked a few blocks to a place Phil had researched, New York Pizza Suprema. We passed Madison Square Garden on the way, and after we’d selected our slices and slid into a booth, I noticed a picture of Anthony Bourdain hanging in the restaurant. We were in a good place.

A word about pizza: We are Chicago loyal and love us some deep dish pizza. But at 11 o’clock on a Saturday night, a slice of New York pizza hit the spot and gave us the oomph we needed to get back to the train that would take us to New Jersey.

It was 1 a.m. before I fell asleep.

Some final thoughts on part 2 of our adventure: New York was not deserted at 11 p.m. Not by a long shot. I remembered that one of its nicknames is “the city that never sleeps.” We saw evidence of that. The people in Times Square looked like they might be there all night. We did pass significant groups of people sleeping on the streets, both in the city and across the river in New Jersey. But I never felt unsafe. At least, not any more unsafe than I would usually feel walking around somewhere at night, even in my own community. When our friend first suggested that we might be out that late on our first night, I scoffed, thinking we’d surely be back to the hotel long before then.

I was wrong about that and so much more.

When it comes to New York City, I knew next to nothing. And I was okay with that.

To be continued (again) …

Surprised by New York (part 1)

October 28, 2019

Last weekend (the third one in October), our family took an overnight/day trip to New York City. I ended up with so many thoughts and stories about our time that I broke it up into three parts so if you read this, you won’t feel overwhelmed by it all. If you want to read it all in one shot, come back in three days.

For now: the backstory.

It started months ago, when a comedy trio from Ireland that my husband follows online announced a U.S. tour with stops in Philadelphia and New York City. He had some money left from Christmas to spend, so he bought two tickets. For the show in Times Square.

When he told me this, I began to panic. Philadelphia is right there and Times Square is over there. How in the world were we going to see a show in Times Square on a Saturday night in October? I listed all the reasons it wasn’t going to work, and I freaked out numerous times trying to think through a plan for the kids. How much did hotels cost in New York? Would we hire a babysitter to stay overnight at our house? Try to find someone to keep our kids for a night at their house? Did I even want to do this?

Technically, it would be a date night but the logistics were overwhelming. Date nights take work no matter where they happen for us, and this one seemed especially hard to plan.

So I ignored it for months.

I waited until my surgery was on the calendar before even attempting to start thinking about how we could do this. I wanted to be sure that I wouldn’t be recovering from surgery when our trip was planned.

I should mention that our family has never been to New York City. Not to explore. I mean, we’ve been to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island (technically New Jersey?) when the kids were too young to remember. (FYI: I just re-read that post from 9 years ago and cringed. Grace for the people we used to be.)

Exhibit A: What our family looked like the first time we saw the Statue of Liberty.

We’ve picked up family at LaGuardia. And Phil and I went to a Mets-Cubs game one time. I don’t really count those as visiting New York, though. Having lived in Pennsylvania 11 years, not visiting New York City feels like a crime.

One night, as Phil and I were tossing around ideas about New York, he said something like, “It’s too bad we couldn’t take the kids and have a family day on Sunday in New York.” Take the kids! I latched onto that idea almost immediately. It seemed like the perfect solution to my worries. Surely we knew someone who could hang out with our kids for a couple of hours in New York while we were at the show. My husband was surprised that I was pursuing this idea. He hadn’t necessarily meant it seriously.

I, however, was certain it was possible.

So, I went to my online network and asked: 1. Am I crazy to think that this is possible? and 2. Did anyone know anyone who could help? Almost immediately, a name was recommended by several people and this friend was enthusiastic and willing to meet us in the city and hang out with my kids, even though none of us had met in person. (I’m going to pause here because yes, this sounds weird. Bu this friend and I are connected through a group of women who have been sharing, supporting and encouraging each other online for something like four years. I would trust any of these ladies with my kids and my life, so this was not at all weird to me.)

I breathed a sigh of relief. We had the beginnings of a plan! With the first piece of the puzzle in place, more plans came together. We booked a hotel. We made a list of things we wanted to see. (It was too long.) Our friend helped us plan our sightseeing day, even figuring out what trains we might need to ride from one place to the next.

In the midst of this planning, my husband and I had an argument. Maybe it was more of a disagreement, and I’ll admit that it was primarily my anxiety and stress that caused it. I wanted to put a whole bunch of activities on our to-see list. He wanted us to walk around and take in the city. At the root of the disagreement was this feeling that maybe I wouldn’t like New York. I know tons of people who LOVE it, and I worried that I wouldn’t “get it.” I’m used to trips where we do things, like visit museums or historical sites or national parks. None of that was on our plan. (Actually, some of that was but we quickly realized we couldn’t accomplish all of it in one week, much less one day.)

As we took a realistic look at our time in the city, we whittled the list down to just a couple of sights to see, and as our trip approached, my excitement grew. Some of the stress transferred to Phil as he planned our food stops because the other thing we like to do when we visit a new place is eat local.

In my mind, it was all coming together beautifully.

A few days before our trip, the friend who was going to meet us messaged me and said she hadn’t been feeling well. She wanted to let me know that it was possible she couldn’t meet us but that she was going to work to find us a backup among her friends. I still trusted that this was going to work out but my anxiety was increasing. The night before our trip, she was still not feeling well and still looking for a backup. I didn’t sleep much that night as I tried to work a solution. I had one more option, and as soon as I woke and it was a reasonable hour, I set to work finding a backup companion for our kids when I should have been packing and doing laundry.

Early in our planning, when I was trying to figure out what our kids would do in Times Square while we were at the show, I messaged my brother who travels a lot and has good recommendations for things to do/see/eat. Also, his wife’s family lives in New York City. During these discussions, his wife’s parents made an offer to help show us around New York while we were there. We weren’t sure we were ready to take it at that time, but when the Saturday morning of our trip arrived and we had a snag in our childcare plan, I knew exactly who to contact. My brother put me in touch with his mother-in-law and what ensued was a flurry of text messages over the next several hours.

I did not ask her directly to watch my kids on short notice. I only wondered if they would know of anyone who could.

So my first surprise of New York was an enthusiastic offer to hang out with my kids for a couple of hours from a woman I have only met once at a wedding celebration years ago but who loves my brother and considers us all family.

It was a relief in so many ways. We made a plan to meet later that night, and I set out to finish the packing and try to get the house in some sort of order.

Her generous offer would not be the only surprise New York had to offer.

To be continued …

The leaving and the staying

October 16, 2019

I started this blog post in early summer, but in reality, I was writing it months before that. I probably started it in late April when we got some news about our dearest friends. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

Sometimes when I write to process my feelings, that means I’ve dealt with my feelings, but when the anxiety put itself front and center last month, a friend gently suggested that maybe there was something I hadn’t dealt with yet. “Just wondering if some of the struggle this summer is that you’re grieving … but maybe not acknowledging and grieving it well.”

First, let me say, that it is a gift to have friends who will say this kind of thing. Did it hurt a little to read? Yes, but only because there is truth to it. I have been grieving something all summer, but I haven’t let myself truly feel the weight of that grief.

—

In April, we learned that our dearest, closest friends–the ones who feel like family–were moving to Arizona. If you didn’t know, Arizona is thousands of miles away from Pennsylvania. My heart cracked right down the middle when I heard the news, even as I wanted to celebrate this next step in their family journey.

In May, we planned a get-together on Memorial Day. They came to our house. We ate. We drank. I cried. A lot. I almost couldn’t talk about the reason we were getting together. I could not acknowledge that this would be the last time we would gather in this way. Every time I looked at our friends, I burst into a fresh round of tears until I finally said, “Tell me why this is a good thing for you. Tell me what you’re looking forward to.” And that got my mind off of our loss and their gain.

I grieved as much for our kids as for myself. Our kids have grown up together. We have known these friends for three-quarters or more of our children’s lives. Our sons have been mistaken for twins or brothers on numerous occasions because their birthdays are only a month apart.

(Their fathers also have been mistaken for brothers.) And we have watched our daughters grow from little girls to young ladies.

That day at our house, the kids played together and tried to say goodbye as best they could. Our two gave small tokens of remembrance to each of their three children. And when it was time to say goodbye, well, I can hardly talk about it. We took a billion selfies outside under the dogwood tree, and we made promises of visits in the not-too-distant future. We hugged and cried and hugged some more and when they pulled out of our driveway, I felt like part of my heart had gone with them.

It would be another month before they left but summer being summer, we weren’t going to see them again.

On the day they started their cross-country trek, I could think of almost nothing else. Technology being what it is, we texted and I followed along with Facebook and Instagram posts.

It was really happening, and I could only watch from our place in Pennsylvania.

—

It took me a while to find words to describe what I was feeling. It was the leaving, yes, and the change to our friendship. (It is not a loss. We still communicate. Maybe more than we did when they lived here, but I miss their faces and their actual physical presence in our lives.)

But it was also the staying.

In 12 years of our married life, Phil and I have always been the leavers. After our honeymoon, we left our hometown for a central Illinois town offering us schooling and work. A year later, we left there for an even smaller town in Pennsylvania for further schooling. Our five years there was longer than I thought we’d stay, but we knew when we moved there that it wouldn’t be a permanent place for us. The next move brought us to where we are now, a farmhouse “apartment” our kids have outgrown, steady employment and rich relationships.

As much as we love Lancaster, I never thought we’d be the ones to stay while others we cared about left. Leaving is ourjob, I’ve thought, and I’ve spent lots of time wondering why I think that. I also realized that when we were the ones who were leaving, I didn’t think as much about the ones we left behind. Leaving is exciting even when there’s sadness. Leaving is also stressful but it feels like a good kind of stressful because there is hope and change and possibility in the future.

Staying sometimes feels like being stuck. As I watched our friends follow God’s leading, as they prayed for His provision for jobs and purpose, I was a bit envious. And then I was embarrassed by my jealousy. I hadn’t been asking God to do anything big or life-changing. I had stopped praying for anything resembling a purpose or that would take miraculous intervention. I was trusting in only what I could see, what I thought was manageable.

Maybe we were stuck, I thought, because I was stuck in unbelief.

—

Sameness comes easy to me. If I don’t have to rock the boat, I won’t. I don’t rearrange the furniture on a whim or change my hairstyle to whatever is fashionable. I like schedules and routines but also choosing to sit in one place and read a book for hours.

I’m what inertia would look like if it was human. If I’m at rest, I’m staying at rest. If I’m moving, I’m going to stay moving. Until an outside force acts on me to change the resting or the moving.

Our friends leaving for a new home on the other side of the country is one of those outside forces.

I know we can’t live in this house forever, but taking the steps to change that is daunting. We saw a place we were interested in this summer, got back in touch with our real estate agent and the bank, secured a letter telling us the amount of loan we could afford only to find out that we were a day late and the property we were interested in had gone under contract the weekend before we got all our ducks in a row.

The house search has been stagnant ever since, but I wonder if we’d have even bothered to take those other steps if we hadn’t seen the way God provided for our friends.

—

On my 40th birthday–almost a year-and-a-half ago now–these friends gave us a gift card to a local craft brewery near their house. “Bring the kiddos to us and enjoy a date night,” they said. For whatever reason, the gift card sat unused so we found ourselves more than a year after the gift driving the familiar roads toward our friends’ house after they’d already left for Arizona. My husband wondered if this would be too hard, driving so close to where they had lived, to the home that was always open and welcoming to our family. It was and it wasn’t. I almost felt like we should drive by the house just to prove to my eyes that they were gone, but seeing pictures on the Internet was enough to convince me.

I thought of them often as we ate and drank, even sending a text to show the number of sample glasses at our table while I tried to make up my mind about which beer to drink.

Before they left, they had gifted us a bookshelf, and earlier that same day, we moved the bookshelf to its new place along a wall in our living room. We filled it with books, which felt like another fitting tribute to our friends. Between us, numerous books exchanged hands as well as countless book-related conversations. I think of them whenever I look at it.

Part of saying goodbye is mourning a loss but it’s also remembering the good times. I don’t believe the good times are over for our two families. We are planning a vacation out west to visit them next summer. I believe we will pick up where we left off. It might be different, but it will still be good.

—

At a writers retreat this summer, someone asked me if it was always the same, meaning was the content repetitive from year to year. The format of the retreat was the same and the location had been the same for years. It had been two years since I first attended, and what I noticed about the retreat was how different it was for me because I was different. At a different place in my writing. More confident in myself as a whole person. Others at the retreat voiced a similar sentiment. One of them noted that sometimes we need sameness to notice the differences in ourselves.

It was a powerful observation, and I’m wondering what I would have missed about my own rebirth, my own unbecoming and renewal if my life hadn’t been steady with a measure of sameness these past few years.

In other words, staying doesn’t have to mean “stuck.” Maybe it just means “steady.”

—

I’m still processing my grief over our friends’ move.

And I’m seeing how much we relied on their friendship to sustain us. We are having to invest in other relationships as a family, not as a replacement for our friends but because we need people in proximity to us. It takes work to build friendships. Ours certainly didn’t happen overnight, although it sometimes feels like that. This summer, we experienced some deepening of friendships, and we know we will have to work to maintain those relationships.

—

I have no tidy ending for these thoughts because grief is not tidy. Nor does it have a time limit. Some days I miss our friends more than others. There’s always an empty space, a bit of an ache, but it doesn’t always hurt to the core.

I’m remembering these words from Glennon Doyle in her book Love Warrior: “Grief is love’s souvenir. It’s our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love was once mine. I loved well. Here is my proof that I paid the price.”

I’m grateful that this friendship isn’t truly lost, and I know now that it’s okay to grieve the change in it.

Highs and lows

October 3, 2019

I’ve been watching the temperatures this week. We hit 90 on Wednesday, the second day of October, which just made me cranky. A day later, the high was projected to be 25 degrees lower than that and by the end of the week, there was a projected low in the 40s.

Fall, finally. I fully acknowledge that some of us love summer and hate to see it end, but I’m the kind of girl who longs for the relief of fall, when you can open the windows and leave them open and wear layers of clothes without sweating through them. I know fall means winter is coming and the cold with it, but even that is not something I dread. I need the variety of seasons in my weather and in my life.

Besides the temperatures, there were some other highs and lows I noticed this week. Each one is significant in its own way, a signaling of a season change or a subtle shift.

Let’s start with a high.

300.

Last week, on a whim, I decided to ask people for likes on my Facebook page. It’s not something I do all the time, but I wanted to see if I could get to 300. I was surprised when it actually happened because Facebook is such a finicky place to be.

It’s not that 300 is any kind of magic number or that I’m desperately seeking attention. It’s just that Facebook page likes are a necessary part of what I want to do with my writing, and since I don’t always talk about that, I thought I’d try to explain.

I’ve pretty much always been a writer. I was filling notebooks full of stories as far back as elementary school, shoving them into the hands of unsuspecting guests at our house. When you’re a child writing stories, there’s not a lot of risk involved in showing someone what you’ve written. Few people will squash a child’s creativity, at least that’s my experience. But when you grow up, it’s different. I’ve had dreams of writing books and having them published. This dream may not go back as far as my early writings but it’s been with me long enough that I can’t ignore it. And I’m learning that it’s a lot of hard work, no matter the path you take. Dreams don’t usually land in our laps or get handed to us like gifts. They take work.

So, three years ago, I created a Facebook page as a way to establish myself as a “serious” writer. (Note to all writers reading this: you are a serious writer, even if you don’t have a Facebook page.) I had been to a writing conference and met with a couple of agents, one of whom asked me how I was reaching my readers. And I was all like, “What readers?” (Just kidding!) But her question had me thinking that I could do more, so I created the page and tried not to send an invite to everyone on my friends list. As much as I’d love for everyone I know to read my writing, the truth is not every person I know or have ever met is going to be a reader of my writing.

Still, finding readers is hard when you don’t have a lot for them to find. The world is saturated with words, so finding MY readers sometimes feels like whispering into a noisy crowd. I sent some invites and had my blog posts sent to the page, but I didn’t do a whole lot more to “grow” my readership or engagements.

Last year, when I turned 40, I made an after-40 list. I’ve talked about this more than once here, how it’s not a bucket list because I’m not interested in a literal deadline for the things I want to do. Some of the goals I put on that list are writing goals, things I don’t want to say I’ll do “someday.” And then this year on my birthday, a writer I respect, who changed the way I think about a lot of things, died at the age of 37. And I realized even more that I want to chase my dreams in every way I can.

So, asking people to like my Facebook page is one component of that dream chase because the writing I’m doing is not just these sometimes blog posts or the occasional Chicken Soup article. I’m writing novels, and some of you don’t know that because it’s hard for me to talk about something that I hold so close to my heart. I have three novels in various states of progress, and I’m actively working on one to finish it.

I tell you this, hoping you’ll stick around for more than just blog posts.

300 is just a number. But it’s also more than that.

I’ve told you about my recent anxiety struggles and how I’ve been given medication to take to help with it. It’s an as-needed kind of medicine, and I’m using it sparingly, often as a last resort. (Please don’t take that to mean that’s my belief about medication for you or anyone else. Take your meds, if you’ve got them. Do whatever it takes to be the best version of you.)

As I’ve been able to manage the anxiety with medication, I’ve also been able to take action on some of the stressors in my life. I haven’t removed them completely, of course, because that’s mostly impossible. But taking these small steps has lessened my anxiety about all the things I think I’m supposed to be handling right now.

So, “four” is the number of days I recently went without taking any anxiety meds. I had been taking a small dose most days to get through, and after those four days passed, I was back on the meds for a couple of days.

I’m not going to lie, those four days felt really good. Like I had accomplished something big, and I could “handle” this on my own. But I’m also trying not to frame my days as good or bad based on whether I take meds or not. A day with meds or a day without, they’re just days. They’re different but one is not better than the other.

I’m still working on that perspective.

108/74.

A month ago, my blood pressure was so high that the doctor who is going to perform my surgery made a funny-not-funny joke about having a stroke. After being on blood pressure medication for years and then making some positive health changes and being taken off the medication, this was a difficult time for me. So, I went back on a lower dose of my previous medication and gradually, my blood pressure returned to the normal range.

When I went to the doctor this week for another check, my BP registered at 108/74. That’s about as low as it was earlier in the summer when we decided to take me off the medication. For now, I’m staying on it, and I’m so relieved by this number because that should mean that surgery will go ahead at the end of the month, and that I’m finding my “normal” again.

Almost a week ago, I decided to swap out my regular coffee habit for decaf to see if it would help with the anxiety. The four-days-without-meds coincided with this decision, and since I haven’t really noticed a negative effect of switching to decaf, I’m sticking with it for now. The only drawback is I’m tired by about 9 o’clock, but maybe that would happen anyway.

Have no fear, coffee lovers, I’m still choosing to drink high-quality decaf coffee. I’m planning to pick up some premium local decaf this weekend, no matter the cost because if I’m going to choose to drink decaf, then I’m going to make it count.

Ups and downs. Highs and lows. Ebb and flow. Life, I’m continuing to learn, is not about either-or. It’s both-and. Even when those things feel like opposites.

Held together

September 24, 2019

I should be reading right now. And not just because it’s my favorite thing to do in my free time. I have a deadline looming for a contest I’m judging, and it’s coming down to the wire. All of my available time should be spent reading so I can finish this obligation.

Instead, I have Bob Ross on the TV painting “happy little trees” because I need something creative and soothing to add calm to my evening. Homework was a challenge tonight and we’re dealing with some behaviors and attitudes that are also a challenge, and in general, parenting is just hard work right now. I don’t say that to negate the hard work anyone is doing in any other arena of life, simply to acknowledge this part of this life right now.

—

A few weeks ago I blogged about my current medical issues, and since then, I’ve come to realize that some of what led to those issues is me holding a lot of things inside. My husband even said it should have been more obvious that something wasn’t right when I hadn’t blogged in months. On the document I use to track my word counts, there are weeks of empty slots. I wasn’t even writing a little bit during that time. Sometimes these seasons are okay and necessary. I thought that I was in one of those seasons, but really, my mind was backed up with thoughts and feelings for which I’ve had no outlet.

Besides my surgery, there are some other things going on.

Parenting is one of those things.

I want to respect my kids’ privacy and treat them with dignity, and I don’t want to shame them or ridicule them publicly (or privately). I haven’t always set this boundary well in the past, so I’m going to be careful about what I say here. My digital inboxes are open for further details and questions if you have them, although I reserve the right not to respond, also.

Parenting has been hills and valleys. I used to think I wouldn’t survive the toddler years. I mean, I was an emotional mess as a mother when the kids were in diapers. The two of them are only 20 months apart and when our son was not even a year old, our marriage faced a severe crisis and geographically we were far from family. I thank God every day for another seminary family who lived in the same town as us. They were a life-saving support during that time.

The kids’ needs were so overwhelming, and I wasn’t used to staying home, much less handling a major crisis while trying to keep everyone fed, clothed and clean. I’m not good at entertaining children, and my husband was gone a lot. Working. Studying. We were very poor and living beyond our means with credit cards. To say it was stressful is an understatement.

We made it through. The kids became more independent. Eventually, they went to school, and our world seemed to tilt back toward level. I rediscovered myself and my passions, stepping into new opportunities for volunteering and employment.

Now, we’re shifting again.

Our daughter is on the cusp of middle school. A tweenager, if you will, and the emotional roller coaster is one I was not prepared for. (I should have been because I know my parents could tell some stories.) Everything, and I mean everything, is a tragedy leading to outbursts and tears. We have a lot of stomping and door slamming and yelling. And most of the time, it doesn’t matter what I say, it’s the wrong thing. And then within the hour or later the same day, I’ve got a snuggly daughter again who just wants to be with me.

It is an exhausting ride, and I don’t always know when to withdraw and when to press in.

Combine that with our son who is more even-tempered but has his own struggles. For some time, I’ve begun to suspect that his behavioral issues are not just because he’s a nine-year-old boy. (Or a seven- or eight-year-old boy.) But I’ve been unwilling to really entertain the thoughts in my head.

This summer, though, that changed at his annual checkup when our physician’s assistant asked about whether he had any behavior issues at school. He doesn’t. But home is a different story. I hesitated and then voiced my concerns about some of his home behaviors. I cried because I’d been holding these things in for so long. Our PA listened and suggested we pursue some behavioral health care. She referred us to someone in office, and we waited most of the summer to get something on the schedule.

That appointment happened the day before my doctor follow-up when the high blood pressure and anxiety manifested.

I struggle with how to tell you about this because we don’t know anything for certain, but we are taking steps toward learning how we can respond positively to the way our son processes his world. We are facing head-on a family history of mental illness and acknowledging the impact an early-in-life crisis had on him. It is exhausting work.

It is also good and necessary work.

But it is not always easy to tell people what you are going through when you know they may not see the same things you see. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to learn that we are not alone. The more I have talked about this issue with friends, the more solidarity I’ve discovered, both in what they’ve seen in our son and what they’re experiencing as a family.

Holding it all inside has been the wrong move.

—

My father is a man of few words, so when he speaks, it is worth taking the time to listen. I don’t know if all daughters feel this way about their fathers. I don’t think I always did, but age has a way of changing your perspective. A man who has experienced life for 60 years has seen and heard a lot of things. Having lived for 41 of those years, I’ve learned to trust the wisdom and experience of those who’ve seen a few more things than I have.

Besides, my dad has such a unique way of seeing the world. He has given his life to fixing machines, and I’m convinced he can solve any mechanical problem either in person or on the phone. His perspective always teaches me how something works and why. And he sees what I never would even think to look for.

Last Thursday night, my mom texted me.

Do you have time to talk?

I had just settled in with the baseball game on the television and my computer in front of me to finish up some writing work, but I almost always say “yes” to these requests because I only get to see my parents in person a few times a year. I was pleasantly surprised to find both of my parents on the phone (I was on speakerphone). They were sitting on the porch and just wanted to check in on me. While I told them all about my work week, which was stressful but also hopeful, my phone alerted me to a text message. I’m not good at multi-tasking on my cell, and I wasn’t sure who the text was from until my dad yelled into the phone “counterweight!”

“What?” I said.

He asked me to look at the text he’d just sent, and when I did, this is what I saw.

These are the kinds of pictures my dad takes while wandering around Chicago.

“I don’t know what I’m looking at,” I said.

The previous weekend, he had spent part of a day wandering around Chicago while my mom was at a cooking class with my brother. There are drawbridges across the Chicago River, and they are beautiful sights to behold, as is the river itself. What my dad was showing me in his picture, though, is something no ordinary tourist would seek out.

He explained that for there to be a drawbridge, there has to be a counterweight, something to balance out the bridge as it raises. (I should add that I did not record this conversation and so I’m probably getting it wrong.)

“It’s old and ugly but you don’t have a drawbridge without it.”

His point, I think, was that sometimes the thing doing the most work isn’t the most glamorous but it’s necessary, and the awe-inspiring work can’t happen without it.

I sat on my couch in stunned silence. This was exactly how I’d been feeling about my work life.

And I’ve been thinking about that counterweight ever since.

—

Most mornings, I listen to a meditation on an app called “Pray As You Go.” Years ago, my husband heard about this Jesuit program and enjoyed it, but back then I was still a devotional snob and thought I needed to see the words in a book to really appreciate them. In recent months, it’s been difficult for me to choose what to read in the Bible, so when a friend suggested the app at a retreat this summer, I decided to give it a try.

There is music and a passage of Scripture and quite a bit of silence to pray and reflect. The questions posed often stick with me throughout the day, and the music is soothing and beautiful.

The morning after my high blood pressure/anxiety episode, I lay in bed with my earbuds in, listening to the words and music of the daily meditation. And this is what I heard:

In Him all things hold together …

It’s from the letter to the Colossians, found in the New Testament of the Bible, and these words always remind me of that song we’d sing a lot with kids at church: “He’s got the whole world in His hands.”

In Him. All things. Hold together.

I rolled those words over in my mind and let them settle in my soul.

Because that morning, I felt like I’d dropped everything I’d been trying to hold together all by myself. And I was reminded that I don’t have to hold it all together.

I don’t have to. And I can’t. It’s not my job to hold everything together all by myself. But boy, do I sure like to try.

This is what I’m telling myself these days: “In Him, all things hold together.” And I don’t mean that I’m just going to relieve myself of any responsibility and trust God to just take over and control my life like a puppet. I’m not even sure I’m trusting Him to take my anxiety away.

Mostly I’m just reassuring myself that the “all things” He holds together includes me. He is holding me together when I think I’m going to break. And He is holding things together when the glass bottles I’m juggling hit the ground and shatter into a thousand pieces.

—

I don’t know who the counterweight is in this illustration: if it’s me or God or other people. Maybe all that matters is that we’re not meant to do our work, our life, all on our own. That whether we see it or not, we’ve got a counterweight available to help us do the work. That maybe the counterweight is God, if that’s how we see the world, and maybe it’s other people we let into our lives and struggles. And maybe we are the counterweights for others in their struggles.

In the days since my body let me know it couldn’t handle any more, I’ve been letting more people share the load, and little by little, I have felt more balanced. I told someone this week that our family is fighting on a lot of fronts right now, and every week, I feel like I only have the strength for one battle. First, it was my health. Next, it was my job. Now, it’s my family.

I cannot even begin to hold it all together myself, and I’m a little sad that I tried so hard for so long.

I’m not really sure where to end these thoughts. I feel like I’ve rambled a bit, so maybe I’ll just show you one more picture of what this looks like for our family.

A family brainstorming session of all the jobs in our house

One night after dinner, we brainstormed a list of all the “jobs” there are in this house. Just a straight-up list of all the things that keep our house functioning. (Actually, it’s probably not all the things, but it’s a solid start.) And we talked about how it’s too many jobs for just one person to do because there are four people that live in this house. (It’s probably a conversation we should have had long before now, and I probably have been making myself out to be some kind of housekeeping martyr, but we’re headed in the right direction.)

Then I asked the kids to pick four or five jobs they could reasonably do on a regular basis. Phil and I also picked jobs. “E” on the list stands for “everyone.” We haven’t set this plan in motion officially, but just having an outline of a plan makes me feel like I’m bearing less of the burden.

Maybe that’s all this post comes down to: Bearing each other’s burdens.

We need each other. We’ve got to help each other through.