Beauty on the Backroads

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.

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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.

“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.

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.