Leah

Everyone has a story.  I’m writing this post as a reminder for myself, as much as encouragement for others, to speak up.  When there is something going on in your life or your heart that is relatable, honest, and true, sometimes throwing it out into the universe makes other people feel encouraged, inspired, or less alone. I have found that with writing this blog.  Sometimes in order to share about myself or my past, I have to include the stories of other people in my life, like my husband, family, or friends.  I choose these stories carefully because as much as I’d like to verbally spew every emotion out onto the page, I realize that some are more beneficial than others.

Basically, I’m an open book in the effort to be as genuine as possible with everyone I meet.  This is tricky because my authentic self really likes to swear.  I love a well placed four letter word.  I hate the idea of treating certain groups of people differently because we’re all humans, whether we’re at church, work, around a dinner table or campfire, the gym, school, daycare, a peaceful protest, a concert…whatever space you’re in, you’re still yourself, right?  Sometimes people adopt different personalities around various social groups in their life.  While I understand this, it’s also a task that requires a massive amount of mental effort I just don’t have at the end of the day.  So to keep it real, I make sure to drop the F bomb around family, friends, coworkers, and fellow Christians alike…not to offend, but just to be who I am because wearing a mask around people is seriously exhausting. If you don’t have a problem with swearing like I do, substitute whatever it is that makes you uniquely you: singing loudly in your car while at a stoplight, cooking for others, reading and snuggling with a pet, screaming at the TV while watching sports, whistling in elevators, conversing with strangers, giving water to homeless people on street corners…whatever it is, do it proudly and be consistent about it.

I also really love sharing what’s happening in life, the challenges, joys, vacations, struggles, and downright sad stuff (like losing a pet) because what I’m finding through all this sharing is that people can relate.  While the idea of splaying myself open and being vulnerable in this way is always a little scary, it’s better than remaining closed off to the goodness of friendship and the reciprocal stories I’ve heard from others.  Think about all the books you love, the stories that shaped who you are.  Imagine if the authors of those stories had never written them because they were too scared of what other people would think…

My generation is not the same as our parents.  Not to make a sweeping generalization here, but most of us think differently about things that once held some kind of weird stigma.  We have embraced therapy. The mark of disgrace that once came with using medicine for mental health no longer exists (outside the church…there is still work to do inside those walls).  We have thrown off the notion that seeking counseling means we are weak or have little faith.  This has led to a generation of healthier individuals, some of whom have conquered past demons by addressing issues from childhood so they could lead stronger lives filled with a deeper sense of well-being.  We have also learned how to leave jobs that we hate to find fulfillment.  We parent differently.  We are more accepting of different cultures and lifestyles.  We are doers and seekers.  Each generation finds its way by learning from the one before.

So back to why it’s so important to share your story.  There have been blogs I’ve posted where someone has tried to shame me for saying what I did, whether it be about myself or another.  I make no apologies.  The reason I feel this way is because friends related.  They responded with stories of their own, how they were feeling the same way too. It made me realize that being our authentic selves and opening up about what is going on in our lives can sometimes open a door to new conversations.  And in today’s environment of hostile division politically and otherwise, we need to cling tightly to the things we can all relate to, whether or not we hold the same beliefs on other issues.

The stories I’ve seen on social media have encouraged the hell out of me and are threads in the vast web that forms our humanity.  We can choose to focus on the division, or we can choose to look harder at what is truly going on in people’s lives.  Sometimes this is tricky to see from a Facebook post, but cutting off the rich knowledge our neighbors can offer us by sharing would be a detriment to ourselves. It takes courage to reveal oneself to friends and family who might not always understand, but please, BE BRAVE AND TELL YOUR STORY….

• Women I know have shared stories about their miscarriages and the pain they felt during that time.
• A couple of friends are going through divorce and they have shared how broken they are in the midst of such a heartrending process.
• Friends in the LGBTQ community have shared relationship photos and stories about coming out to friends and family.
• Pastors have shared stories about transitioning times and beliefs, and the heavy questions held within that space.
• Families have talked about their adoption stories and posted their own blogs to encourage others going through that same process.
• Friends shared blogs about leaving jobs or switching careers and how rewarding and scary that decision was.
• Women (and a few men) have shared stories about sexual harassment and how it affected their lives.
• Friends have lost loved ones and pets and talked about the pain of grief and the hope of seeing them again someday.
• Parents talk about successes and epic fails, and all the humor and angst that goes along with those!
• People have moved to different parts of the country to start new lives and that can be a really lonely place.

We are not islands.  We are not snowflakes.  Our experiences as humans on this planet make us the SAME. I am so grateful for every post that is real and true in the muck and mire of life.  I am working each day on being a little less censored and a little more free. This is a daily practice because it’s so easy to hide in our own shells, staying beneath the bubble of our own denial or fear.  Please keep telling the stories. They encourage me.  They encourage others you may never know about.  Speak truth and life into the mess of the world.

Be you, be real, be free…

     A common thread among the conversations I’ve been having lately with women in my life who I trust and love is that we’re all in a weird phase.

I’m not just talking about a few people here and there who feel this way…it has been the overarching theme of phone calls with almost all of my female friends.  It could be our age, mid 30s to early 50s, but the ones who do not feel this way are most definitely the exception.  For me personally, the only way I can describe it is that I feel like I’m being pulled in another direction, but I haven’t exactly figured out where that direction points.  There is a tug in my heart toward new and different things, but I’m not sure how to pursue those things in a way that is financially feasible, so I feel paralyzed and STUCK in place. This has created an immense internal frustration that has resulted in me feeling like a failure at life.  Does anyone else feel this way right now?

     A friend recently posted this article on Facebook and when I read it, it hit me like a proverbial ton of bricks.  If you relate to anything I just said, make a cup of tea and take 10 intentional minutes to sit with this:  http://www.oprah.com/sp/new-midlife-crisis.html  Ada Calhoun is my hero for reflecting back so many of the feelings I have been unable to put into words.

     As I sat at breakfast with a friend this morning we were talking about our work and the dreams in life we want to accomplish, how we’ve given up on certain ones along the way.  What do you do when the things you once loved don’t sparkle and shine the way they used to?  How do you cope when the glitter turns to dust?  I think there are many contributing factors to this place a lot of us find ourselves in right now and these are the consistent ones I keep hearing.

• The division and lack of connection that exists among friends/family/humanity due the current state of the world
• Level of social media involvement
• Desire to stay informed by watching the news and the inevitable depression that follows from watching said news
• Lack of enthusiasm and purpose in the work that you do
• Desire to change careers
• Fear of not being good enough
• Lack of balance from too much on your plate with family, career, and outside activities
• Lack of time for peace and silence where your soul is nourished.  Or just lack of time, period.
• Awakening to your true self and not knowing how to exist contentedly in your current circumstances
• Not feeling like you fit in where you live/work
• Having everything and still feeling an empty void inside
• Financial instability or the fear thereof
• Total paralysis when it comes to making changes that might contribute to your happiness

     I don’t have any answers, but conversations with others in the same boat have been helping because I realize I’m not the only one.  As soon as I lose the feeling of being alone in a lonely place, I’m able to blink my eyes and open them up to a new perspective which will hopefully empower me to get unstuck.

     There were a couple of things in Ada Calhoun’s article that struck home with me.   She says, “Is it any wonder that women our age possess a bone-deep, almost hallucinatory panic about money? It’s not an idle worry.”  And another common theme in conversations, “Maybe you’ve survived downsizing or scrambled back into the workforce, taken on more responsibilities for less money and less respect because you feel you can’t say no. Or because you need the health benefits. Or because you don’t know where else you would go. It all leads to a particularly virulent form of stuckness—being in a job you no longer like, in a career you can’t remember exactly why you chose, with skills that you don’t think will be useful anywhere else.”

     My own panic about money centers around whether my husband and I will be provided for in the future.  I grew up in a home where the phrases “we can’t afford it” and “we live according to our means” were thrown around like “hello” and “goodbye.”  I watched my parents live frugally, steward what money they had with care, eliminate debt, take us on small family vacations, put me through college, save responsibly, and manage to live in an expensive part of the country without major salaries to support that…all while being really stressed about making it work.  Even as they look to retirement, the concern of making the finances last looms large.  Since we are often products of our raising, I am constantly freaked out by money, worrying that we’ll have enough, anxious about my job going away one day, nurturing misgivings about lack of marketable skills and not being qualified to do anything anywhere, doubting my purpose in life…on and on it goes.  Honestly, who has time or energy for that kind of anxiety?!

“Dogs are the closest we come to knowing the divine love of God on this side of eternity.”   Anne Lamott

 Today our hearts cracked in two. There is nothing in this world that prepares you for the emotional devastation that is losing a pet. Rob and I don’t have kids, and as clichéd as it seems to say (especially to people with children, and I get this), our pets are our family. When we were dating there was a clear understanding that each of us came as a package deal, Rob with Lacy, me with Maddox and Myrtle. I’ve never been a dog person and he has asthma around cats. This is what we do for the people we love. And eventually the pets become creatures we love too because we’re all figuring out this crazy mess together.

Lacy was a shy, stressed out little dog when I met her, and she’d already come a long way. She lived in a house with a bunch of guys, which would have made any woman go nuts, but she happily navigated a world of dirty sock smell and other dogs who weren’t always as kind as her. She barked a lot and kept a general patrol of every noise, car, and pizza delivery guy who came to the door. She stole all the covers from Rob on a nightly basis, but he never seemed to mind. One thing was clear about this cute little hound with the floppy ears, her heart belonged to Rob and Rob alone.

            Rob and Lacy found each other at a pivotal point in both of their lives and I think it’s safe to say that she was his saving grace as much as he was hers. Being true to his nature, Rob went to an adoption property to find her, and when all the other dogs rushed the fence, he only had eyes for the shy one hanging back in the corner. After paying $20 for a dirty little pup with ticks and fleas who was scared of everything, he cleaned her up, and so began the love story of a man and his dog. Anyone who knows Rob knows how much this man adores dogs, but Lacy was the apple of his eye. Through the years as she gradually came out of her shell, she was still only her true self around him.

            When we were getting married and talking about introducing the pets to one another, there was a lot of concern and worry over whether they’d get along and how on earth my house would handle a noisy barking dog. I had some serious anxiety about it. Turns out, Lacy didn’t have much to say to the cats and didn’t mind that they lived here too. Maddox would often chase after her, batting her with his paw as she’d walk past in an effort to rile her up and get her to play, but she marched to the beat of her own drum. When Myrtle and Lacy were first introduced, Lacy took a good long curious look at Myrtle, tilted her head, and immediately put Myrtle’s whole face in her big dog mouth. That was the one and only incident we ever had between the pets because maybe she just wanted a little taste. Lacy was a kindhearted, sweet soul. She didn’t bite and we never needed to worry about her hurting anyone or anything. This rang true when a little neighborhood kid came to our house one day and got so excited to see a dog, he immediately ran and face-planted right on top of her. She was unfazed by the tiny human.

            In the past couple of years that I’ve worked from home, I was able to know her better. She loved to throw up on the white couch right after Rob left for work, so she and I could spend extra time together while I cleaned it up. After years of only being let out on a leash, she finally had the freedom to run in crazy fast circles around the backyard. As she settled into the peace of our home, her barking quieted and she spent her geriatric years lying in the sunshine and soft grass. There were many times when I looked out my office window to see her head raised to the sun, eyes closed in total bliss while sniffing the summer air. No matter how much I checked in on her during the day, she waited for the moment she would hear the car door, signaling Rob was home. Immediately, her face would perk up, the little ears would flop happily, and she’d excitedly jump up to meet him. They played in the backyard. She would fly past him as he tried to catch her and never succeeded. She was a free spirit who adored one person in this whole world above every other.

            At 16 years old, she still had a spring in her step, and of course we hoped she’d live forever. This weekend she took a turn, most likely a stroke, and lost the ability to walk and stand on her own. We cried a lot of tears, trying to decide what would be best, keeping her comfortable, shoring her up as she tilted like a ship in stormy weather. Rob lovingly held her, begging her to get better. He was with her every second. I watched her look at him, following him with her eyes, trusting him to keep her safe, knowing he would take care of her. I knew I was outside of it. What they shared was something special. Today, we held her as we said goodbye, shed tears that are still falling, and hope that in the next life, she’ll be waiting there with her cute ears and tilted head to run ahead of us through the pearly gates.

Our hearts are broken, but you will be loved forever, sweet Lacy…

One of my worst nightmares is being in a large group of people I don’t know. This happens regularly in work situations.  It happens in family situations.  It happens when I go on trips.  Basically, being out in the world is kind of tough for me sometimes.  I hate surface conversations and suck so bad at small talk it isn’t even funny.  Tell me about your life. What challenges have you been dealing with lately?  How is that relationship going? What kind of personal growth have you experienced recently? What made you cry in the last month?  Talk to me.  Wrestle through the deep longings of life and let’s bare our souls together.

I love being alone.  I love being with my husband.  My cats get me.  The garden is where I plow and weed the fields of my inner self.  Hiking alone used to be scary and now I can’t think of a more peaceful, invigorating experience.  I really love having dinner, coffee, or lunch with a friend and catching up on all the good stuff.  Reading alone at night with the TV off is one of life’s delights.  Sitting down and pouring out the present day’s angst in a journal revives my energy, enabling me to face another day. Walking near the sea with the salty breeze breathing life into my being helps me contemplate all the dreams still birthing themselves into existence within my spirit.  These are the things that characterize my introverted nature.  I used to consider this a weakness, a failure on my part to succeed socially, but the more I learn who I am and find freedom in that, the more I understand that this is how I was made and aspects of this perceived weakness are actually my greatest strengths.

I recently met someone who I thought I had a connection with.  She is a woman who has done incredible things with her life.  We talked about where we are in our careers, the “tug” people sometimes feel in their hearts toward new things, and how being brave and stepping into those things can reap great reward and fulfillment.  The conversation came at a time when I needed to hear that message and I felt that perhaps something divine had caused our paths to cross on that particular day.  We exchanged contact information and now I’m getting calls from this person, trying to sell me products from this company she works for, products I don’t need or want to spend money on.  She has used up two hours of my time over the phone that I will never get back and it’s my own fault because I don’t know how to say, “I don’t care what you’re selling, I just want to be your friend.”  The disappointment I feel at this interaction stems from my desire for connection from someone who may have just used me to make a sale.

There have been situations in my job where I’ve worked the room at an event, met someone who really seemed awesome, talked to them for a while, got the whole, “We should do lunch” line only to never hear from them again.  I hate these interactions so much because they are a waste of emotional currency.  I don’t enjoy making the exhausting effort that comes so easily to the extroverted only to have it end in a useless business card that takes up space in a drawer.  I’m not saying that networking isn’t important in professional situations, but the people who’ve actually followed through and made the lunch plans are the ones I still keep in touch with and would stick my neck out for if they ever needed a favor.

My husband’s family is huge. They are nice people who I couldn’t possibly differ more on when it comes to politics and religion, which often leaves us with little to say.  They enjoy gathering in boisterous groups and staying in one place together because they all love each other so much. It’s a beautiful thing to see, and it’s also one of the hardest circumstances for me to handle emotionally and mentally because I crave peace, quiet, and one-on-one connection above all else.  I don’t function well in these spaces and am aware that I come off as the rude in-law from New York.  I’ve made my peace with this because I’m ok with who I am and because I feel lucky to have married into a loving family that brings my husband so much joy.  But seriously, all I want to do is go have a drink with them one at a time so I can actually get to know them and maybe they’d get to know a little more of me too.

When I was in high school, I was painfully shy, awkward, very worried about what people thought, and piously evangelical.  I cringe at the things I said and how black and white the world was for me at that time of life.  But to this day, I still have a few close friends from high school who I adore so much.  We write letters to each other, travel together sometimes, and connect instantly like no time has passed whenever we are lucky enough to be in person together.  Our group was small.  We weren’t popular.  We were nerds.  But that small group of girls was my saving grace in years when I struggled with depression, loneliness, heartbreak, and so many AP tests.

In college, I was still awkward, but a change began to take place.  There was a deepening of my faith in a way that provided more seats at the table, a will and strength that defied professors who said I wasn’t good enough to make it, and friendships so strong that no time or distance has been able to break them.  These relationships were forged in lonely practice room hallways in the music building, lengthy road trips to Fort Myers for Easter, a small artist colony on Martha’s Vineyard where we had nothing but ourselves and a recording studio.  College was where dreams started to become reality before we were all spit out into the world, landing in cities where we gasped for air until we found the spaces where we could breathe.

As an adult, I’ve learned that forming friendships is not as easy as it once was.  People have their families, careers, and priorities that don’t always leave room for new emotional investments.  Sometimes you make the effort to meet someone new for coffee, tentatively testing the waters of compatibility.  Do we like the same things? But more importantly, does this person’s heart recognize something familiar in my own? It’s rare when true relationship is found, which perhaps makes us more grateful for it.  I’d be lying if I said I don’t envy the extroverts of the world.  They make it look so easy with their effortless banter to strangers, the way they flit around a room like fireflies, striking up conversation with the dullest of individuals and making it seem interesting.  I want that!  But I also want to be true to who I am. Being genuine sometimes requires revealing that a day is shitty instead of saying everything is fine.  Life is too short to waste precious effort on people who don’t see you.  Be you, do you, live you to the very fullest, even if it means spending Saturday night with the cats.  After all, they get you…