Tag Archives: thoughts

this introverted mama

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I used to think that being an introvert meant you were shy.  And extravert = outgoing.  Not being a terribly shy person, I was always told and believed myself to be an extravert.  But a few years ago, my friend, Belinda explained to me that no, I was not an extravert; that I was, in fact, quite the introvert.  I didn’t believe her.

Here was some basic evidence she pointed out:

  • You could not pay me enough to enter a room full of strangers and mingle for an hour.  Well, maybe you could.   But I wouldn’t like it.
  • I cannot get enough alone time.
  • After our weekly community group meets on Tuesday nights (which I enjoy immensely), I am EXHAUSTED
  • Large parties are always a daunting business.  In large settings, I’d prefer to find one person, sit on the couch and not move.  At all.

Here’s the VERY basic definition as I understand it.  This is by no means an exhaustive look.

Introvert = someone who is energized by being alone.
Extrovert = someone who is energized by being with others.

Like this…

I instantly felt like I understood myself in a whole new way.  My life growing up with my extremely extraverted (and very dear) sister, who doesn’t even like to floss by herself, suddenly came into focus.  So much of my behavior made more sense.  Belinda was right, it turns out.  Does everyone already know this stuff?

So I’m an outgoing introvert.  Who knew?  I don’t just like having time to myself.  I need time to myself.   And it has occurred to me recently that being an introvert is at direct odds with having toddlers/preschoolers.  I know that it will not always be this way.  One or both of my boys might end up being introverted as well (pretty please) and then we can all live peaceably together with long periods of silence and navel gazing in between all our dance parties and chatty meal times.  That’s what I’m telling myself anyway.  But right now?   If there is a coping thresh hold for introverted parents, I think I reach it almost daily.  Kids are so… up in your business.  Physical boundaries don’t exist.   They are completely needy.  They whine and carry on about totally unreasonable things.  And the talking.  Oh my word, the talking.  The sheer amount of words coming at me at all times from all sides.

This morning…

Isaiah: Ca’ I have ‘stachios?  (“Could I have some pistachios?”)
Me: Yes, I’ll get you some pistachios.  Let me finish getting brother some juice and I’ll get you some pistachios.  (Gryffin, meanwhile, saying “Mom, did you for-get my juuu-ice?  Did you for-get my juuu-ice?”
Isaiah: Ca’ I have ‘stachios?  Ca’ I have ‘stachios?  Ca’ I have ‘stachios?  Ca’ I have ‘stachios?   Ca’ I have ‘stachios?  Ca’ I have ‘stachios?  Ca’ I have ‘stachios?  Ca’ I have ‘stachios?  Ca’ I have ‘stachios?   Ca’ I have ‘stachios?

Until my head explodes.

Seriously, they just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk.  Constantly.   In so many ways, I love it and wouldn’t want it any other way.  Except maybe with intervals of complete and total silence.  I’m not suggesting that you extraverted folks would be able to handle this kind of incessant banter better (would you??) but my thresh hold for it seems much lower than, say, my sister’s or some of my other extraverted friends.   Jason is also an introvert (though slightly less so than me, I think) and some (ok, most) evenings after we get the boys in bed, we do not speak to each other for at least an hour. Sometimes longer.   It’s like we physically can’t speak.   And I would guess that it’s the reason why some weeks we struggle to feel as connected with one another as we would like.  We both just feel completely filled to the brim and we’ve got nothing left.   So we retreat to our blissfully silent places in survival mode, sitting side-by-silent-side on the couch, reading, writing or just spacing out.

I like my friends, my family.  And I like spending time with them.   And I love those boys crazy much.  But I seem to have an “all filled up” capacity and I reach that capacity SO much sooner now that the boys are at this particular life stage.  It’s a fun stage and I’m thoroughly enjoying it but I’m functioning at my absolute limit most days.  And the thought of spending the boys’ nap time in anything but complete solitude is mildly alarming to me.  I’m wondering if other introverted people find this stage of life difficult?  Does it get better?  I’m constantly seeking out space that is quiet or solitary.  Or if you’re an extravert, what difficulties do you have that might be different from your introverted counterparts?    Like, is nap time lonely for you (I cannot fathom that this is so)?   Talk to me, people.

And in the meantime…

 

fear(less)

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For my 33rd birthday a few months ago I made three goals.  Has a nice ring to it, no?  Three goals for my 33rd birthday.  That’s how I wrote it in my journal.   Anyhow, one of them was to take more walks.  Not workout walks.  Just walks.  Strolling.  Leisurely cruising.  Like my uncle John does.  I think he walks nearly every day.  Heads out first thing in the morning (at, like, 5:30am – that was not part of my goal) and just meanders about, sometimes for hours.  My grandpa, Walt, too.  He also took a walk every day, up until the last year of his life.   It’s good for my body and my soul, I think.  It gives me space to think and I enjoy being outside, looking at people’s gardens, strolling around the pond by our house and just slowing down for a few aminutes.    Since my birthday I have taken a grand total of 2 walks.    In… three months.  I think I need to up the ante a little!    I’ll work on that!

Anyway, so I took a walk yesterday.  And as I was walking I was thinking about fear and anxiety.   I’ve mentioned before that I struggle with anxiety sometimes and have to work hard to focus on what is happening, rather than what might happen.  And I’ve been doing well lately.  I recently read Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, a memoir by Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail alone in the mid 90s.  It was a good read and she talked several times about fear.  How she had to choose to be unafraid.  That hiking alone in such dire conditions was treacherous and intense and she had no choice but to be fearless.  It was the only way she could proceed each day on her journey and it seems worth emulating.  I can to choose to be fearless and as I was walking yesterday this all kind of solidified in my mind.   I was thinking back over the last several years of my life, how I’ve made good strides in this area, how I no longer asume that every person out there is a threat or somehow dangerous, how my default now is to generally trust that most people are good and kind and just trying to get by – you get the idea.  It feels good and freeing to feel this way.  And I can continue to make that choice, to choose to be unafraid, day in and day out, as fears and uncertainty get heavy upon me.   I decided as I was walking that my new anxiety mantra would be “If it’s NOT happening, I’m NOT going to be afraid.  If it’s not happening, it’s not worth my mental energy.”

So this all sounds fine and good, right?  Look at me all enlightened and what not, right?  But get this.  As I was walking along thinking all these positive thoughts about how I’m not afraid and that the world is a decent place after all, I decided to walk down a street that’s just a few blocks up from ours.  I’ve walked down it once before (on my other walk!) and it has some beautiful yards that I wanted to see again.  Halfway down the block I was passing in front of a house and I noticed that the downstairs (street level) lights were on and there was a man standing near the doorway.  I looked away and keep walking as I heard him shout “heeeeey!”   Being the oh-so-carefree and totally-not-scared person that I am now, I assumed he was talking to someone else inside his house and kept on at my leisurely pace.   But then he let out this long, low cat-call whistle.   One of these… but longer.  And not at all cartoon-like.

And then I heard his screen door slam so I knew he was outside, behind me.   At that point, I started feeling uneasy.  He whistled again as I quickened my pace and put my hands in my pockets so I could grab hold of my phone.   I crossed the street, heart beating faster, and decided to just head toward home and take a different route for my walk.  I didn’t hear much for a couple minutes so I thought the coast was clear, and I decided to head over toward the pond.   But half a block later, I heard a car slowly inching along a short distance behind me and another long whistle out the window.   Now feeling significantly scared, I turned left down our block and headed toward our house at a much faster pace.  A couple cars happened to pull out onto our street as I turned so the car was thankfully stuck a couple cars back.  The man whistled two more times out his window before I turned up the walk toward our house.   Once I was safely near our porch, I turned around and his white van was just sitting there idling as he looked out the window at me.  Then he slowly inched forward and drove away.

Now, obviously I’m not hurt and while I was shaken and a little teary when I got inside our house and relayed the incident to Jason, I am completely fine.  I know that I live in a relatively safe neighborhood and there are so many horrible things done to women every day around the world and this is not even a blip on that radar.  But seriously?  What gives?  As I’m taking a walk thinking about overcoming anxiety and conquering my fears, this happens?   Seems sort of unbelievable, doesn’t it?  Jason wasn’t a big fan of the whole situation (duh) and ordered me some pepper spray this morning.  And I’m ok with that, I guess, but I was kind of priding myself on NOT being that person anymore, you know?  The person who is scared to leave the house and clutches at my mace when I’m downtown or on the light rail.   I want to be a confident and capable woman.  And I want my kids to see me that way.  Not one who is fearful and cowering with her pepper spray waiting for her husband to come to the rescue.  But I don’t want to be naive either.  It’s all a little baffling.  How am I supposed to embrace both?

I also feel angry.  Why do I have to worry about this in the first place?  Jason doesn’t.  Why can’t I take a walk like Walt and my Uncle John, without worrying about some creepy man lurking?  Do I need to change my clothes and wear baggy sweats if I want to walk at all?  How do I balance all of those things I sorted out in my mind during my walk with my actual experience while walking?    What do I do now?  I’m not entirely sure.  I’m still trying to figure it out.   But I have decided that I am still going to choose to be unafraid.  I’m still going to take my (admittedly infrequent) walks.  And I’m going to carry on as the capable and confident woman that I am. I guess I’ll just have to be sure to carry my pepper spray as well.

present

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Last night Isaiah was talking in his sleep and it woke me up.  I didn’t need to get out of bed (halleLUjah) so I just rolled over and waited a few minutes, making sure all was well before drifting back to sleep.   But during those 2 minutes of wakefulness I had the urge to check my phone.   You know, to pass the time.   To pass those 2 minutes by checking my email, maybe Facebook, do a quick browse on Pinterest while waiting for Isaiah to settle down.   And it struck me while I lay there resisting the desire to pick up my phone… what is this about?  Why on earth am I tempted to check my phone at 3am?  Who has possibly emailed me, besides GAP, Amazon and Living Social, since I went to bed 5 hours ago?    And unless my friends on the East Coast are updating Facebook suuuuper early, chances are there is nothing new there either.  But I wanted it.  I wanted that little dopamine release that comes from checking my phone.   I resisted but not without effort.

This has been a frequent topic of conversation in our house over the past few years.  Since we got iPhones, really.  You know the drill.  In the car and you have to wait at the light for, I don’t know, maybe 17 seconds?    Check your phone!  Maybe someone texted you!  In the elevator and need to kill a whole 24 seconds riding to the top floor?  Check your phone!  Might have a new email!     Got two glorious minutes while your kids play on their own after breakfast?  Check your phone!  Might be your turn in Words with Friends!  (totally legit, btw – I mean, it works your brain - unlike all the other mindless apps).    You know what I’m saying.  That’s how it’s been for me, anyway.   And Jason, too.  We’ve talked and talked and talked about it.  We’ve long known that these aren’t good habits, not good for our souls, and not something we want our kids to emulate.  We’ve made resolutions regarding our screen time.  We’ve made rules for ourselves, tried to encourage each other and sometimes scold each other for being sucked back in.    We’ve tried putting our phones in different rooms, in the cupboard, on silent, deleted superfluous apps, you name it.  But nothing has really stuck.  It’s always taken monumental effort to change our patterns of behavior with our phones.  And we so easily slip back into old habits.

A few weeks ago, Jason took the boys to the frisbee park for a couple hours and I found myself with some unexpected free time.  I had about 17 loads of laundry to fold and I wanted something to entertain me while I worked on it.   I won’t lie, I was tempted by Dawson’s Creek (season 3) but I had heard recently that my alma mater had a youtube channel with all of their chapel talks so I decided to check that out instead.  Good decision, it turns out.   Not that Dawson and Joey aren’t good company but I found a lecture by one of my favorite professors* and was transfixed almost immediately.

  • *Quick disclaimer – I credit Greg Spencer with changing the course of my academic life (and thus, in some significant ways, my personal life as well) during my undergrad years.  So I might be completely biased but the man is brilliant.  I know you’ll agree.

The lecture was in September of 2010 and was based on material from his book, Awakening the Quieter Virtues (we just got the book from the library and Jason has already snagged it so I’m currently waiting for my turn to read it).  It spoke to just this topic of information overload and gave me a new framework and a new way to think about the use of my phone, and all technology for that matter.  Anything that is competing for my attention, really.   I won’t try to paraphrase his lecture.  You should check it out, or better yet, read the book.  But the one thing I think about now on a daily basis…

  • Am I being a good steward of the present?

I’d honestly never thought of such a thing.  I have thought about being a good steward of my money, the environment, my resources, and so forth.  But never the present.   And it’s flipped everything on its head for me.  Instead of making up rules for myself and my use of my phone, I’m asking myself that question.   Dr. Spencer said (I’m paraphrasing here) that instead of trying to fill up each moment in our life with as much as we possibly can, believing that more is always better, we should focus on giving our full attention to one thing, and one thing only, in each moment.    Instead of multi-tasking, which isn’t really possible anyway, we should uni-task.

I’ve found this much harder than I thought it would be.  I’ve got 2 young kids and multi-tasking saves the day, right?  Making lunch for the boys, scanning FB on my phone, prepping dinner, picking up toys, and starting a load of laundry between, say, 12:05-12:25, sounds about right to me.  It’s hard to slow down.  It’s hard sometimes to give my full attention to making lunch.  Just lunch.  It’s hard sometimes to sit in the backyard with the boys without bringing my book so I can catch up on some reading at the same time.  To give my full attention to them as they dig in the sandbox and pick up bugs.  It’s hard to go to the bathroom without my phone (I am totally embarrassed to admit that, by the way, but it’s true.  I rarely go to the bathroom without my phone).  But the more I attempt to be a better steward of the present, the more I work at it, the easier it gets.

And I’m finding this week that in those moments, those little spaces in the day, those brief seconds in the car at a stoplight or those 10 minutes in the morning before the boys come banging into our room, if I just sit, just be, rather than fumbling for my phone, those are often the “thin spaces” in my day.    It’s an image I like from the Celtic tradition, referring to “a moment and space in time where heaven and earth are so close together that the spiritual and the natural world intersect.  A place where it is possible to touch and be touched by God.  Thin spaces are the moments when we experience a deep sense of God’s presence in our everyday world.”

So it’s not about whether or not Facebook or email or smart phones or television are inherently bad.   For me, it’s about trying not to talk to one person while texting another (we all know how good that feels).  It’s about resisting the temptation to troll Facebook while playing trains with Gryffin and Isaiah.  It’s about focusing on one thing, not 3 or 4 or 7.  It’s about sitting quietly so that I can sense those thin spaces.  I’m finding that they are not so elusive as I once thought.   It’s a struggle still (I’m finishing this post while the boys have their afternoon snack…  sigh) but it’s sure worth the effort.  Thanks, Greg – you came through in a clutch once again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason reaping the benefit of a good stewardship moment.  Can’t beat that!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Wiggles dance party that needs my full attention.

The Myth of the Perfect Birth

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What is “the perfect birth”?  Does it exist?  I’m a birth doula and in the doula-ing (not a real word) community and in Seattle and even amongst friends in other cities, there seems to be a hierarchy of birth stories.  Certain ones are better than others.  In some ways it’s unspoken but we certainly all know what it is.   You know what I’m going to say, right?  The best birth is the all-natural birth.  The birth without any interference.  The birth where you just went with the flow, trusted your body and the birth process, and it was empowering and euphoric and transcendent.  Yes?   Still with me?  And, if, for whatever reason, you did not have the above experience, you feel… what?   Guilty?  The need to explain why you didn’t have that experience?  Weak for getting an epidural?  Like a failure for needing a C-section or unable to have that VBAC?  The need to justify the choices you made?

Chatting with Jason about it, we batted around various reasons for this myth of the perfect birth and we came up with a few feasible ideas;  what might be called the cult of perfection or the cult of purity chief among them.  We discussed our propensity for “pure” things, especially in a climate like Seattle.  Our desire for only organic foods, the money spent on “age-defying” tips and tricks, full-body cleanses floating around pinterest, and so on.  Is that it?  Is that how we got here?  I don’t know.  I’m not really certain why we’ve done this but we have, perhaps unwittingly, created and perpetuated a culture of comparison and judgement surrounding birth.   So in an effort to reframe how we think about birth, here are a few of my thoughts on having babies, in no particular order…

  1. If you have an “all-natural” birth at home that is empowering, euphoric, and transcendent, that is truly incredible and something to be cherished.
  2. If you have a birth with an epidural that is empowering, euphoric, and transcendent, that is also truly incredible and something to be cherished.
  3. If you have a C-section, you absolutely, without a doubt, will be able to bond with and breastfeed your baby.
  4. Even if you have that “all-natural” birth, you might have trouble breastfeeding.
  5. Conversely, if you have a C-section, you might have so much milk that you are able to donate the excess.
  6. If you have a traumatic birth, for whatever reason, whether at home, in the hospital or in a parking garage, I am so very, very sorry.   You will, however, still have the capacity to be an amazing mother.  It’s important to process your experience, seek help or counseling, but you are no less a mother, no less a “rock star” than the woman who powered through with relative ease to the home birth of her dreams.
  7. We need to change the way we speak about labor and delivery.  The “all-natural” movement came about to debunk the over-medicalizing and the fear surrounding birth  and for GOOD reason.  It revolutionized and changed the way our country thinks about birth and I am so grateful.  But somehow, I think we got de-railed and have lost our way.  We’ve made the un-medicated, home birth the only way to have a satisfactory birth experience and that is absolutely untrue.  We refer to the women who labor without any medical interference as “rock stars” or “bad ass.”  But when you talk about getting an epidural or having your membranes ruptured, it’s often met with questions, tight-lipped nodding and the sense of inward, silent judgement.
  8. There are so many women who dearly want to have a baby and cannot.  Let’s keep perspective, shall we?

I’ve mentioned it on my work site but I think it’s worth repeating. Studies have repeatedly shown that the way a woman feels about her birth experience, the way she perceives it in hindsight, has a direct impact on her confidence level as a parent.  And I think parenting is hard enough, without starting out in the red.  So let’s celebrate women giving birth, period.  Let’s rejoice in the fact that we sustained and grew these babies inside of our bodies and have brought them out into the world, one way or another.

Jason and I on the day I gave birth to Gryffin, 2008

Parlez Vous Francais?

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It seems that every time I call my mom or my sister lately, they are together.  Off to the grocery store, the yarn store, the fabric store, grabbing coffee, working on projects or just hanging out.   It’s always fun to talk with them together but it also makes me sort of sad.  I feel left out and more than a little lonely.  I’m usually driving to the grocery store by myself.  Or taking the boys out alone for some outing or another.

I meet with a really great group of women with young kids every Thursday morning but only one of them lives nearby (hallelujah for that!) and outside of that group, I don’t have many friends with kids.   So I was at the park with the boys on Tuesday, sitting alone on a blanket while Gryffin & Isaiah ran around when this group of women walked up to the playground.  It felt like the scene in Mean Girls when the “plastics” are introduced as they walk down the hall in slow motion.   Something about those women just made me stop and stare.  Their hair was impeccable (seriously, how do they do that?), they were all wearing the big sunglasses, and just looked so…together.  So with it, you know?   Their clothes were clean and fresh-looking.  One had on skinny jeans and the other two were both wearing these flowy, wrinkle-free linen pants.   They each had a couple of kids in tow and for some reason, I just couldn’t take my eyes off of them, these friends hanging out together at the park for a play date.

At one point I got closer to their group when I was chasing down one of the boys and get this… they were speaking French.  For some reason this just sealed the deal.  I’m sure that they were talking about tantrums and poop and time-outs but everything just sounds so cool in French.   I walked away feeling glum, looking down at my dirty clothes, thankful I couldn’t even see my hair at that moment and wondering why the only language I can speak fluently is pig latin.

It was just one of those days.  And it probably sounds worse than it was.  I took some photos of the boys to help me keep perspective and we headed home on a high note.  But now I’m feeling kind of blue again and I’m really looking forward to my brief trip home to California tomorrow.  I’m flying down alone for 2 days to surprise my niece for her 10th birthday.  I can’t wait to hang out with all three of my nieces, laze about with my mom and sister (and my dad and brother-in-law, of course, though they really aren’t the “laze about” sort!), and hopefully sleep in a little.    One of the pastors at our church is always saying that if you find the grass looking greener somewhere else, then you need to water your own grass and it’s true.  But I water my grass plenty and sometimes it’s just nice to lounge about in someone else’s yard for a change.  Comprenez-vous?

A few shots from the park…

A lot of the parks in Seattle have these mini excavators and last Summer, Gryffin couldn’t manage to work them at all.   This was his first go this year and he was so excited that he could operate it this time.

He kept saying things like “Do you see how hard I’m working, Mama?  I’m working so hard.
It’s a tough job but I’m doin’ it”

Poor Zeebo.  He couldn’t make a go of it at all.

Even with big brother’s “help,” he got so frustrated and finally contented himself
to just sit on my lap and watch brother work it.

G taking a breather so some other kids could take a turn.
It was almost more than he could bear to step away from it.

Love this face!

Perspective

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Life is all about perspective, right?  How you view the world and yourself in it?  While we were on our mini vacation last week, Jason and I discovered that our perspective on our life with toddlers is so much more upbeat when we take lots of pictures.    Look back at this post for evidence.   Don’t we look so happy, so ain’t-life-grand?  In reality, that morning was pretty rough.   I said that Gryffin was sort of grumpy, which was actually the understatement of the year.   But in the late afternoon, while the boys were napping, Jason and I looked over the photos and both of us felt like the morning had been a real hit.   We reminded ourselves that we were both fed up and frustrated, had a minor argument of our own, the boys full of their own cranky toddler drama and it was actually kind of rotten.  But you’d never know it by looking at the pictures.   It changed our perspective.

Back in college, in my rhetoric course, we spent a small portion of the semester talking about picture-taking.  How pictures can change our perspective and our experience of something.   Do you remember your wedding, say?   Standing at the end of the aisle and that thrilling feeling as you gazed at your spouse-to-be?  Or do you remember the pictures of your wedding?  Or the video?   Based on those conversations in college, Jason and I discussed at great length before we had Gryffin and Isaiah about whether or not to videotape their births. I wanted to remember it from my own perspective, to recall how it felt to push them out of my body, to feel them in my arms, not just what it looked like on camera.   In the end, we decided to go for it and Jason put together some incredible videos for each birth.  I’m so grateful that we have them.  But it did change my perspective and the way that I remember them.  A little.  Not entirely because I made an effort to be mindful of it, to write down their birth stories as well and to preserve the experience in other ways .

With all of that in mind, I got rather hooked during our vacay on taking photos of some of our everyday experiences.  Jason and I enjoyed pouring over the photos each evening and it brought out the highlights of each day.  And that really helps a glass-half-empty kind of gal like myself (that feels sort of embarrassing to admit, that I’m a glass-half-empty sort, but my mom always said I had a real flair for the melancholy and it’s true).    Here are some shots of yesterday morning at the spray-ground in Ballard.    Was Isaiah rather ornery all morning and unwilling to get in his carseat without tears and drama?  Yep.  Was Gryffin bawling his eyes out in time-out in the garage before we even left the house?  You bet.  Did I tweak my back and spend the evening on the couch, unable to move or breath without great pain?  Sure did.  But I didn’t take photos of those moments.  Here are the ones I did take.  I captured some of the genuinely good moments of the day.   I look at these and I don’t think about all the difficult moments.  I just smile and think ain’t life grand?

Gryffin when the water started spraying for the first time

Isaiah scoping the scene, checking things out


Taking a quick pomegranate break

Isaiah kept asking me to “take picture” but he would NOT smile for me

Some brotherly collaboration

Safety-less in Seattle

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I am not a theologian.  Not by a long shot.  Kind of married to one, though.  And I find that sound theology (subjective, I know) grounds me.  When I feel anxious, overwhelmed, grief-stricken, confused or frustrated, reminding myself of what I believe, what my community of faith believes, to be a source of great comfort.  Even if I’m not feeling it at the moment.   Last week was a rough one for Seattle.   There was a shooting in a cafe and downtown that left 5 people dead and the shooter ended up killing himself just a few blocks from our house as the police moved in.    And a few days earlier, there was a stray bullet that killed a father driving through central Seattle with his kids and his parents.  He died in his dad’s arms.  Not to mention several drive-by shootings and other gang-related violence in various parts of the city the past couple of weeks.

All the helicopter activity and general chaos in our neighborhood last Wednesday unnerved Jason and me.  We spent a lot of time talking about it.  You just never expect to be in that sort of proximity to something like that, to a man shooting himself in the head on the sidewalk.  It rattles you.  And maybe this sounds silly but a shooting in a coffee house seems so… I don’t know… un-Seattle-like or something.    Hitting us where it hurts.   Coffee shops are our thing.  I frequent them regularly with my kids and so do most of my friends.   I generally assume they are safe places, you know?

Obviously we know that all of this didn’t have anything to do with us, on one level.  That we are still so very far removed from the family and friends of the victims who have been thrown so unexpectedly into grief.   And we talked about the fact that this is all just a teeny tiny blip on the radar of evil and deep resounding sadness in the world.  But we’d be lying if we said it didn’t shake us up a little.   When I went out for my morning run on Friday, I was jumpy.  I felt strangely alert and aware of my surroundings.   And I had planned to go to Coffee to a Tea with the boys that day, to get some treats and play with their train table, as we often do.   I knew that I was being a bit silly but I just didn’t feel like it.    We stayed home and played in the yard instead.

At some point Friday I ‘fessed up and told Jason that I was feeling edgy and I felt a TON better when he admitted that he felt the same way.  I’m usually the nutty one!  It was good to work through our thoughts a little more together and process it further.  We both felt a vague sense of vulnerability, of fear for each other, for Gryffin and Isaiah.  Not fear of something specific, per se.  Just the uncontrollable-ness of it all, of life, of violence and pain and death and grief.   And as we talked about all of this, about feeling unsafe and unsettled, he reminded me of a line from one of my favorite books.

It was a line from The Hiding Place.    It’s a book about WWII and the ten Boom family in Holland.  A true story.  Early in the book Corrie ten Boom gets out of bed in the middle of the night because she can’t sleep and she hears her sister, Betsie, making tea in the kitchen.  When she returns to bed later, she finds shrapnel on her pillow, having come through the roof from the fighting aircraft overhead…

I raced down the stairs with the shrapnel shard in my hand.  We went back to the dining room and stared at it in the light while Betsie bandaged my hand.  ”On your pillow,” she kept saying.  

“Betsie, if I hadn’t heard you in the kitchen–”

But Betsie put a finger on my mouth.  ”Don’t say it, Corrie.  There are no ‘if’s’ in God’s world.    And no places that are safer than other places.  The center of his will is our only safety…”

That last line – about the center of God’s will being our only safety.  It helped me take a big, long, deep breath.  I needed to be reminded of it.  It’s a line that has helped to form my theology of safety over the years.  Years when we’ve lived in mildly unsafe neighborhoods (depending on your perspective) and years when we’ve lived in what have generally been considered “safe” neighborhoods.   It has reminded me many times that there are no places that are “safer” than others.   And it has helped me sort out some of my fears with the boys.   There are so many things you can do to make your kids “safe,” so many ways that parents can attempt to exert control over their safety, that it overwhelms me sometimes, as I try to figure out how to balance my desire to keep them safe and the need to open up my clenched fist of control.

Of course it also begs the question of God’s will.  What is it?  How does it work exactly?   I don’t really know.  The logistics are not clear to me.  Does God have a specific will for whether or not I go to a coffee shop with my kids one morning?  I’m not sure.  I doubt it.   What I do know is that it is God’s will that I love my neighbor.  That I spend my time, my energy, and my focus loving others.   Love is the center of God’s will.   So I guess it doesn’t matter where I go or what I do, so long as I’m doing that.

Seattle on a good day.  Gryffin checking out the view and throwing rocks on Alki last winter.

 

Higher Highs, Lower Lows

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Yesterday Gryffin told me for the first time that he didn’t like me.  Ouch.  And I’ll admit that one of my first thoughts was charming, kid, reeeeal charming.  I’ve been up with you and your brother every night this week because you are both sick, you’ve been unbelievably cranky the last few days, and earlier today, you sneezed in my face and got some of your snot in. my. mouth.  This is just great.  But another part of me felt so bereft when I heard those words and I thought yeah, well, I don’t like myself very much right now either.  I had lost my temper several times over the course of the afternoon and felt at my absolute wits end with him.   It was not my best day.  Not by a long shot.

Jason and I continue to be amazed at the heights to which we soar with Gryffin & Isaiah, how good we feel around them, how much unabashed delight we feel in their presence, just watching them move about and do their thing, and yet in almost the same breath, the depths to which we can sink when things aren’t going well.  How quickly we feel frazzled, frustrated, and overwhelmed.  And it can happen in the span of about 2 minutes sometimes.    Seriously.  One minute we are absolutely swooning, as we watch Gryffin fall down and see Isaiah reach him first, bend over and put his hand on Gryffin’s back and say “hug?”   Oh, my heart.  Those moments.   Nothing makes us feel better than to see our fellas moving with ease in the world, being silly, showing kindness, learning new things, just generally being their inquisitive, goofy, transparent selves.   But just seconds after said exchange between the brothers, one of them is kicking the other, spitting on the floor, and thrashing about because I told him it was NOT ok to lick the butter straight from the butter dish.  Sigh.  And just like that we’ve gone from the highest to the lowest in the span of 1:32.

It’s hard not to let the negative parts of the day (and some days there are A LOT) outweigh the wonderful parts.  To be bogged down by all the cajoling, coercing, bargaining, time-outing & tantruming of toddlerhood.  But, I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again – mainly to remind myself this week – that I am going to miss these years.   These are good, good years.  They really are.  My friend Stefanie reminded me once that the days are so long sometimes but the years are short.   These boys have changed us, Jason and me, so completely, so utterly, so unexpectedly.   We often find ourselves reflecting on our life before they were born and wondering what it was that we were doing.  How could we not have had them in our lives?   We can’t wait to watch their lives spread out before them.  And last week we were talking about what life will be like when they are grown and gone.   Jason, feeling forlorn, asked what I thought we would do with ourselves, our life together, once they are out of the house.  And I said “oh, I think we’ll have plenty to do.  The question is really whether or not we’ll enjoy it half as much once they aren’t with us anymore.”

I remember reading once (again, I can’t recall where… I need to work on this!) that having kids means that you will have higher highs and lower lows.  And it’s been absolutely true for us.   So we’ll take the low days, the difficult weeks, the trying times if we get to sail to such unbelievable, breathtaking, chest-swelling heights.

Some of the highs from the past few weeks…

The boys were sick on Sunday but they really rallied for a few hours in the morning,
making for a good Mother’s Day brunch

Jason making me, hands down, the best breakfast of my year

Jason’s mom was still in town so we got to celebrate Mother’s Day with her as well

A couple weeks ago down at Lincoln Park Beach

Gryffin sharing his drink with Isaiah at the park
(no, little brother does not need that bike helmet but he insists!)

Heading out for a walk with Aunt Rita & Uncle John,
who came up for a much-too-brief visit a couple weeks ago

Uncle John brought some photos of tractors and such just for Gryffin.  They really poured over it.

J and G in the doughnut at Volunteer Park

View from the doughnut

Every night Jason and I sneak quietly into the boys’ room before bed to kiss them one more time, pull their blankets up and just kind of marvel at them together.  Jason was out of town a couple weeks ago so I tiptoed in on my own.  This was how I found the G-man.  All his cars lined up just so.  His hands tucked under his chin in his signature sleep position of late.  All it takes after a discouraging, disheartening day is to behold him sleeping like this…
…and just like that, I’m flying high again.

Right in Front of Me

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I struggle with anxiety.  Always have, it seems.  As far back as fourth grade I remember battling anxiety.  It’s never been too intense.  I’ve never had a panic attack and it usually doesn’t affect my day-to-day life.  It mostly just hovers and hangs out below the surface and I’m usually able to cope with it pretty well.  Sometimes, though, it seems more intense.  Something will set it off, set it in motion and then it’s kind of like seasonal allergies (I have those too).  If you don’t get a handle on them soon enough, they just get worse and worse.   So too with anxiety, and if you hadn’t already guessed, I’m currently in a season of… over-anxious-ness.   I find myself struggling more than usual and it’s not terribly surprising, I guess, considering the various things going on in my life.  And I know this season will pass.  But still.  I wish that it wasn’t such a constant companion.

I like control.   I like to plan things, to know how things are going to play out.  And nothing has thwarted my sense of control more than being a mother.  I have so many hopes, desires, dreams, deep-in-my-marrow yearnings for my two boys.   And I have absolutely no idea how their lives are going to play out.  How our life as a family is going to play out.   I read a news article a few weeks ago about a father and his 3-year-old son here in Washington who went out for a canoe ride on the lake near their house and never came home.   It seems unfathomable to me but they both drowned.   I cannot even begin to imagine the pain with which this wife/mother is now confronted.    Or maybe that’s the problem.  I can imagine what she’s feeling.  I can imagine the depth of her sorrow.    And that’s what anxiety is, really.   It’s not fear.  Fear is being afraid of something that is happening.  Anxiety is being afraid of something that might happen.   And there’s the rub.  I spend a lot of energy worrying about things that might happen.   It keeps me up at night.  Pushes aside others joys and things that make me genuinely happy.

Our community group watched the movie Run, Lola, Run a couple weeks ago as part of our study of Ecclesiastes.   There is this scene in the movie where Lola screams.   If you’ve seen the movie, it’s pretty hard to miss.  Things are overwhelming and loud and noisy and she just screams.  She screams so loud that it shatters the glass in the room.  That’s how I feel when I read a news article about a father and son drowning.  Or hear about the mother of a 3-day-old in Texas shot dead in a doctor’s parking lot in order to kidnap her baby.  For just an instant I allow my mind to wander.   To Gryffin.  To Isaiah.   To Jason.  And the clenching grip of anxiety seizes me, squeezes me, and I just want to scream like Lola.  To scream so loud and long and high that it cancels out even the possibility of a 3-year-old drowning.

But that isn’t possible and I have to keep getting out of bed every morning in spite of it.   I’ve been reading through a book about anxiety and have found some of the suggestions incredibly helpful.  I try to do the deep abdominal breathing exercises at least once a day, exercise often, and various other things.   But it was a line from a blog post I read recently that has resonated quite a bit over the last few weeks.   I wish I could remember which blog it was so I can give credit.  But I think I found it via Facebook and I haven’t been able to find it again.  It was written by a woman with young kids and she was having a rough day.  She was fed up and tired and just wanted to throw in the towel.  They were incredibly late and it took much difficulty and toddler drama to get her kids buckled in the car and off to dinner and she said something to the effect of  ”As we raced off to dinner I sighed this huge sigh.  This huge sigh as though my wide open life was so oppressive.”    I really don’t remember anything else about that blog post.  But that one line has stuck with me because I find myself doing that a lot.  Sighing as though my wide open life is so oppressive.  My anxiety gives me a negative outlook and little things become big things.  Little frustrations become big ones and I feel like I just can’t catch a break.    But my life is wide open.  It really is.  And I want to see what is in front of me.  Not what might be in front of me someday.  I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow, what tragedies or troubles or joys or jubilation might come.  But I know what is happening today and I’m trying to focus on that.

Like this guy!   Who turned 2 last week.  

And our friends who came over to celebrate his life with us

And Jason, my husband of 11 years.  He’s pretty cool.


And having my folks up for a week.

Watching them walk in front of me at the arboretum.
These two who have been married for over 40 years strolling arm in arm.

And my G-man, taking a  ”little rest” on a park bench.



Life

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Life is funny sometimes.  Last weekend I was out of town and away from my boys for the first time and I pined away for them and lamented missing out on a weekend with my little fam.  But this weekend, when I was home, it was kind of the pits.   Although Friday and Saturday night were both very much enjoyable, Jason and I spent most of Saturday arguing (or, rather, festering away over an early-morning argument) and I got my first-ever migraine on Sunday, which completely floored me (literally – more on that later).  But that’s the way it goes sometimes, right?  We just keep on rolling with it.  And hopefully next weekend will find us with our chins up.

So… back to last weekend.  I flew into Burbank last Saturday morning so that I could celebrate my grandmother’s 92nd birthday.  I got to spend some uninterrupted time with my nieces, which was really great.  Since having my own kids, I haven’t had much alone, focus-all-my-attention-on-you kind of time with my sister’s girls and I wanted to live it up.  Be fully present and engaged with them.  And maybe spoil them a little.   I was able to talk with each of them in turn about school, their teachers, their friends, their hardships.  And of course, engage in all manner of silliness with them.

Hannah, 9, trying on hats with me

Emily (7), Mary (5) and Hannah at Build-a-Bear.
It poured rain all day  Sunday so we had to find an indoor activity.
This was a hit.  Whoever came up with the idea of this store was a genius.
It’s ridiculous.  But the girls thought it was the best thing ever.

On Sunday afternoon, my dad’s entire side of the family (save a few) descended on my grandmother’s house to celebrate her birthday.  I’m guessing this was the last time I will see her.  I suppose it’s never easy to watch someone you love age and grow into someone that seems less them somehow.   While my grandmother’s mind seems to still be relatively in tact and alert, she did not say much.  Very little, in fact.  She seemed to just be watching all of us move around her.   It grieved me to see her that way.    It felt both good and sad to be in her house again with all my cousins, aunts and uncles.  New and old family members.  My cousin, Katie and her husband, Dave, who are my grandmother’s live-in caregivers.  My cousin, James, who taught me how to swear (“what the hell, damn it!) when we were kids and his new wife, Laurel.    My brother and his daughter, who I seldom see and miss very much.  So many people I love all in one place.   We talked about old times and caught up on current happenings.   It was much too brief.  And I couldn’t help but think of the next time we will likely all be together again and it made me heartsick.

The only photo I managed to get of the day.  That’s my grandmother at the head of the table, nearest the window.
There were so many more people there but this is the only shot that came out.

As good as it was to be there with my family, I missed my boys and was very eager to get home come Sunday night.  A couple weeks ago when I asked our friend, Brian, about how he and his three boys were handling a week with his wife, Gail, out of town, I remember he answered, “Oh, we’re doing fine.  But Gail is a lot of fun and we miss having her around.”   That’s how I felt while I was gone.  My fellas, all three of them, are a lot of fun to be around and I missed them.  I knew that all sorts of antics, like the ones below were going on without me and I couldn’t wait to get back.

The usual before-bed shenanigans

Isaiah standing in my double boiler.

I peeked in on Isaiah and Gryffin as soon as I got home.  Smelled them.  Just took a big deep breath of them sleeping away in their beds.

The following week we were back to our usual routine.    Morning outings, afternoons at the Y, community group on Tuesday night, a birth on Thursday.  Friday night we went to the Seattle symphony and out to dinner with friends and it seemed like the perfect start to the weekend.  But Saturday morning Jason and I had a fight and it was just one of those that lasted all day and brought both of us down with it.  No good.  We did manage to go out for family haircuts, though, and our guys look pretty snazzy.

Isaiah took it all in stride.  Seriously, does this guy have a neck?

Gryffin was very nervous, as per usual, when it was his turn,
abut the promise of a treat from the candy basket kept him stoic and determined.

Jason and I managed to resolve our argument before I headed over to Kelly’s for a ladies night (I’m not telling what we did!  It’s too embarrassing!) and a night in with the guys for J.  Bad day behind us, we were eager to enjoy the rest of our weekend.  But around 1pm  Sunday afternoon, after a good lunch time with the boys, I had this strange thing start happening with my eyes.  My left eye in particular.     I had this fuzzy blind spot appear.  And while most people would probably just shake it off and assume it was just something random that would go away, I felt pretty anxious.  I lost all of my central vision for 6 weeks when I was 17 and this is how it started.  With a fuzzy spot.  I tried to ignore it.   I could tell that Jason was a little worried, too.  We both wanted to grab a quick nap, though, while the boys were asleep so we laid down on the couch and hoped it would be gone when we got up.  But about 15 minutes after shutting my eyes, I started to feel this strange pounding sensation above my right eye.   The pain got so severe so quickly, I could barely walk to the kitchen for some ibuprofen.   I spent the next 3 hours in agony.   On the floor in the bathroom in case I threw up from the pain and nausea and then in my bed in the dark.   And then, all of a sudden, it was over.  Just like that.   About 430pm I just walked out of our bedroom and it was done with.  I felt fine.  A little wiped, but fine.  What. On. Earth???  We googled for a bit and determined that I had likely had a migraine with aura.   Had virtually every symptom.  What?  Really?  I always thought a migraine was just a super bad headache.  But, uhhhmmmm, yeah, it’s much more than that.  I had no idea.  And now I feel scared.  Am I going to get these all the time?  Will this be affecting my life on a regular basis?  My work?   Do I need to see a doctor?  It’s neurological, according my vast googling yesterday.  What does that mean?   My mom used to get bad headaches and she had a massive stroke a few years ago.  Am I at increased risk for a stroke?  I think I’m getting ahead of myself a little.  I’ve only had one.  But still.   It was bad enough that I hope I never have another.  TIme will tell,  I guess.

I got this card from my uncle in the mail a few days ago.  I think it’s the first time he’s ever written me a letter.  It was kind of cool.  Receiving it in the mail.  You don’t get many letters like that any more.  This is an uncle I hold in pretty high regard.  A recovering alcoholic, he raised his two incredible kids alone, built his house with his own two hands, is kind and compassionate and just a generally nice guy.  He’s certainly been through a lot in his life and I don’t even know the half of it but I know that he is a good man.  And his opinion of me matters to me.  He told me that he had read some of the entries of my blog (a shocking turn of events, considering he lives alone in the woods with no internet!)  and that he thought I was a lot like his mom, my grandmother.   A compliment that continues to choke me up.  And he talked about this post and reminisced a little about his own kids, my cousins, both grown and out of the house.  And then he who is only recently an “empty-nester” and lost both of his parents this past year closed his letter with this line.  ”Hooray, hooray for the continuity of life.”  So I’m trying to sit with that today.    Big sadness and small troubles might swirl about me but I got to bear witness at the birth of another baby last week.   I’m privileged to watch my kids grow and change and delight me every day.  Hooray, indeed.  Hooray, indeed.