Goodbye, Arizona

About two years ago, I started writing in this blog again after taking a three+ year break. Just three posts in 2021 – two where I captured the updates in my life (for better or for worse) and promised I’d be back here to write more and one where I just had to pour out my heart like water after what is still one of the most devastating things I’ve ever had to personally experience (see most recent post if you’re curious).

But the truth is, I don’t think my heart was really ready to publicly write again (to whoever reads this) because writing publicly is an act of exposure – of vulnerability – and the freedom I used to feel around putting myself out there unapologetically had been wrenched from me way back in 2019. But, dear readers, I am finally ready to share the details of why and seal it closed for eternity, so I can continue to move on.

If you don’t like reading gritty details about my life or stories that end in goodbyes, then you might just sit tight until the next time I carve out space and time to write again. Names and places have been changed to respectfully keep some anonymity, but this story is messy cause it’s layered in the harsh truth of what actually happened — But this is my story to share, and I deserve to share it.

In 2019 – at a climbing point of vulnerability in my life – I received an unexpected social media message from ironically one of Chad’s ex-girlfriends from high school. (Don’t act like you’ve never been Facebook friends with an ex or a significant other’s ex! Ha!) Chad and I had been trying to conceive our second baby – a sibling for Travis – for years at this point including several rounds of hormonal medications and failed attempts/miscarriages, while also preparing our hearts to possibly leave the only church home we’d ever known in KC and big changes for me at work on top of it all. All of which is incredibly isolating and lonely. Needless to say, because of the season of life we were in and the sender of the message (we’ll call her Arizona), I was both startled and immediately guarded. It started out seeming like an innocent enough message… she’d seen me post a question about Enneagram and asked if I had ever taken the test. She wanted to know what I’d typed as. I hadn’t taken it yet, as I had only recently heard of it, so she sent me a link. I thanked her and thought that was that.

What happened next happened very quickly. She asked me to share my Enneagram results. I did. Messages snowballed for weeks after that with me feeling pursued, wanted, and – most importantly – not alone. These messages, coupled with a lot of “Me too!” and “Same!” responses, had me starting to feel like I had found my long-lost twin. Late next texts. Early morning messages. Video chats while I went for daily walks (pre-Jovie days), etc. I can’t lie — It felt exciting. It felt wonderful. I am ashamed to say, I became consumed.

Since I was in my young 20’s, I’d always known after speaking with a wise counselor that I struggled with co-dependent tendencies. From extreme versions of codependency the first time I moved away from home as I desperately looked for a place (or a person) where I felt like I truly belonged, to years later after a TON of healing from Jesus and other counselors who had helped me identify my triggers for this and learn to lean into gratitude, contentment, and Jesus in my times of need. At the start of 2019, I’d already gotten really good at that and hadn’t felt like codependency was even an issue for me anymore in years. All of that was thrown out the door when Arizona pursued me in a long-distance friendship as intensely as she did. This is why I say I was ashamed by how much it consumed me – because I knew better. But I was in a weak place in my life and in my heart, and so desperately needed a real friend and didn’t have anyone else around me making me feel so damn loved.

We joked a lot about moving near each other or visiting each other to “meet” face to face for the first time. I had gotten a bonus at work mid-2019 and talked to Chad about me using some of it to fly out with Travis to where she lived and making a little mini-vacation of the whole thing. She lived in a highly-sought after touristy destination, so at the time I thought this idea made perfect sense. After all, she was my best friend. What could go wrong?

Looking back, there were a few red flags leading up to that trip, but I do what we all do when we’re in a state of happiness that follows a season of sorrow and desperation – I ignored every single one of those red flags. That trip is where it all unraveled and – to this day – I am still not entirely clear why or how it happened so quickly. She picked us up from the airport with her two kids. She seemed just like she was when we talked/messaged on the phone, and things seemed to be going great. We drove to her house where her husband was preparing to head out for a hunting trip, and we said goodbye to him and got ready for a girls weekend with our kids. (Her kids were so sweet.) However, if I had known how the trip was going to go, I would not have gone.

The rest of our time there, she acted very strangely. She was distant. Aloof. Disconnected and, at times, unfriendly. My heart was aching, but I didn’t know what had happened to cause this change. I didn’t know how to fix it. I felt those old reminders of codependency creeping up, so I spent a lot of time journaling prayers and thoughts trying to fight my way out of this sudden and unexpected flight/freeze response I was feeling. I had Travis with me, so when she flat out refused to even come out of her room one day, I told her kids to play inside and took Travis down the road to Starbucks where we sat and read, enjoyed some treats, and then headed to the lakeshore (all walking distance) to enjoy the sun and warmth and make the most of our trip. She eventually crawled out of her house and met us there, but was still acting strangely – and quite frankly – killing the vibe.

When we were done at the lake and went back to her house, she went straight back to her room. After I put Travis to bed, I sat on the couch in a loft area she had and just started sobbing. I hated everything about how I felt. In that moment, I hated that I was there, I hated that I’d shared my heart with her, and I hated that I felt trapped and helpless – stuck there with her. We still had two days left in our visit, so I texted her and asked her to come out of her room to talk to me. She did, and we were able to chat for a bit. I won’t share her personal life details here out of respect, but she was dealing with a lot and wasn’t in the position to be a hostess. She said she hadn’t known how to talk to me about it. I told her I wanted to go home and asked if she’d drive me to the airport early – I’d just eat the extra cost to change my flights. She told me that I didn’t have to do that, and she’d try harder to be a better hostess and, sadly, I consented to that. Truly, I was more or less at her mercy, since we were too far from the airport for me to catch an Uber.

As you can guess, the rest of the trip wasn’t any better. Her husband came home early from his hunting trip, so they could both drive us to the airport – I sat in the back in stunned silence, just silently praying for this emotional nightmare to be over and checking in with Travis who – thankfully – was oblivious and just enjoying himself. After our flight in KC landed, I texted her and we agreed we needed distance / longer breaks from one another (to not necessarily communicate all day, every day). I acknowledged I’d slipped into codependent tendencies and thought healthier boundaries in our friendship would help. We didn’t speak for weeks and when I finally texted her again, it went ignored. The next message went ignored too. And the next.

I have never been in the business of ghosting people. I take distance where I don’t feel safe or where my heart is needing time, but I don’t ghost people. If our friendship is going to shift intentionally, I am going to talk to you about it directly. I messaged her asking if she was okay and if she needed more than just “longer breaks” from each other, but she sent back a quick retort that more or less said she was just busy, had other friends, and was focusing on her family. Mmmmmmkay.

I moved on.

I apologized to Chad and some friends for getting so consumed in one other person.

I wept privately and closed that chapter of my life.

Until she called me weeks later. Sobbing. Hysterical. Claiming she was losing it and going to check herself into an inpatient mental health clinic. I panicked. I asked her what happened. She just kept sobbing. I asked if she was hurt. She just kept sobbing. I asked her if it was her kids. She just kept sobbing. I asked her if it had to do with her husband – and then she lost it. She angrily retorted that I didn’t know her or him or what the hell I was talking about and HOW DARE I say anything against him. Years later, I now recognize that she also struggles with codependency – just directed at her husband. She hung up on me, and I realized in that moment that I was done. For the first time, I knew I was going to ghost someone. I was done giving her any piece of me from that day forward. I was unraveled, and she didn’t deserve to have that much of my heart or that kind of power over me.

Months later, her son wrote me an email about 2-3 weeks into the nation-wide quarantine. I forgot he had my email cause I’d only emailed him a picture of himself when we were on our trip. He asked how I was doing. I don’t remember what I wrote back in response, but I kept it unemotional and shared that Travis and I were good and making the most of quarantine. Two days later I received a message from her saying how mortified she was that her son had reached out to me and went on to explain that she had pulled away from me “for my own sake” and blah blah blah.

I didn’t write her back.

I blocked her number.

It felt like a really, really bad breakup and although I made mistakes several times all along the way – most of which were ignoring my own gut instincts and red flags – I still have never fully understood the sudden change in temperature. This alone impacted the next couple YEARS of my life because I no longer felt safe to put myself out there, and I no longer trusted my own judgment. When someone takes very personal information about you, including details of previous struggles and core wounds, and uses them against you – that takes a lot of time and healing to recover from.

I am happy to say I have gotten the time and distance and healing needed to start to trust myself again and not flinch so severely when someone seems interested in getting to know me. I have learned that there is no such thing as a perfect person who will be the perfect friend, but there are good trustworthy people who are ready to know me and love me. To have connection, we have to open ourselves up to the risk of being hurt by imperfect people – but I still believe it’s worth the risk. I am slower to trust and open up, but I think for the most part that is a good thing. I have learned that while no one is perfect, real friends should not give you so many red flags and real friends don’t use your own heart against you. Real friends are honest/upfront, manage your expectations to the best of their ability (while you also manage your own), and make you feel important in their lives. I have learned (not for the first time) that Jesus is the only perfect keeper of my heart and the only one who can fill those places where wounds have left their mark. God has given me so many wonderful, imperfect friends that I am honored to know and trust with my heart, as I in turn gently hold their stories, hearts, and trust.

So with that, this is goodbye, Arizona. I wish you’d been everything you promised me you were. I wish your lies had been truth. I wish our friendship had been real, but I’m glad I eventually discovered it was not. I wish I had listened to my gut the countless times it tried to get my attention. I wish I could take back all the time and energy and love I gave you, but I can’t. So I am going to keep the lessons learned and come out on this side of knowing you with a few more fractures than I had before, but stronger because Jesus is the one who holds and heals my heart – and He can redeem anything that was lost or broken. I hope your kids are well. I hope your marriage is healing. I hope you find a way to let Jesus heal the broken pieces inside of you. Even after all the pain you caused me (and that I allowed to drag on longer than it should have by my own denial), I truly hope you are well. Goodbye, forever.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

Wait and hope.

“Until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words – wait and hope.” – Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

Are there two things harder to stomach when our hearts ache with pain, loss, unmet expectations, or sorrow?
Waiting.
Waiting for our suffering to end.
Hoping.
Hoping to catch a break – a reprieve.

And then just as we try to catch our breath, life and it’s inevitable chaos throws us down onto the tracks again – with a train looming in the distance – and our hearts, frail and weak, wonder why we ever dared begin trying to hope again at all. I feel like I have been there more often than I can count, and in those moments of despair my core issue is and has always been the same — I cannot see.

In our culture today, we like to think we know everything. We like to feel invincible and in control. We think that if we just do all the right things, say all the right things, and think all the right things then life will be right and that we will have cushioned ourselves from suffering. But life doesn’t work like that. There is so much we simply cannot see and that we cannot control however much we like to think we can. You can do and say and think everything exactly as you ‘should’ and this broken world will still cozy up next to you and find ways to poke holes in the structure you’ve invested so much in building that you think will hold you.

I remember so clearly the moment this truly sunk deeply into my heart. I’ve experienced a healthy amount of heartache all throughout my life in varying degrees of intensity, but several years ago I still held tightly to the false belief that if I could just keep doing all the right things that my dreams for my life would eventually all work out. Years of battling infertility taught me the opposite — no matter how much you orchestrate and plan and make good choices, you cannot be the God of your life. There is only One.

So where does that leave us? Sounds a little depressing doesn’t it?

Maybe.

Maybe if you refuse to open your eyes to see.

The waiting and the hoping at it’s core is a longing. A longing for someone to come and save us – and there is only One who can.

Only One who knows all and sees all. We too often lose sight of Him, but He does not lose sight of us.

This past September, I experienced a deeper heartache than I ever imagined possible. I didn’t ask for new suffering. I didn’t even see it coming… but there I was staring at an ultrasound screen filled with apprehension knowing something was wrong, but not knowing why while this kind ultrasound tech scanned my uterus and whispered softly “something is wrong, let me go get the doctor.”

I was unexpectedly pregnant. For the first time in my entire 38 years of life, I had an unplanned, unexpected positive pregnancy test that had me riding a roller coaster of emotions. Something ‘normal’ people get to experience and that even some take for granted, I was finally experiencing what a pregnancy without significant medical intervention to achieve felt like!

Yet, I knew something felt strange. My head kept telling my heart to allow myself to be happy – but I just knew. They couldn’t find any sign of an embryo in my uterus despite my HCG and progesterone levels being very high. Finally they found it – nestled in my tube.

Ectopic.
Unviable.
Emergency situation.

I was heartbroken.

This little miracle we didn’t even have to move heaven and earth to conceive. This little one who surprised both us and my doctors. This tiny source of immense joy and hope in my heart – here for but a moment and then hope was ripped away as they explained how dangerous my situation was and all my options for handling this now unviable pregnancy. I genuinely felt like the room was spinning and I could not think or speak. I thought I was going to throw up. I got blood work done and then went to sit in my car waiting for the blood results to come back. I was wracked with soul crushing sobs as my heart cried out to the One who has proven Himself faithful to me time and time again.

And then I heard one small thing whispered to me gently and clearly over and over: “I am here. I am here. I am here.”

In that moment, my heart longed for heaven stronger than it has in a long time and then I realized: heaven was already with me. Emmanuel – God with us.

And I knew. I was not alone. I would never be alone. Despite the tremendous suffering this life can bring, He was with me and I was going to be okay. My heart still ached and throbbed with pain, but He never left me. My pain was still there, but I felt His presence so strongly and I never doubted it. He is the God who sees us and He is God with us.

As I recounted to a friend recently about all of this, she asked me with tears on her face how on earth I could tell her my story so calmly. I struggled to understand it myself in that moment – much less clearly convey it to her. I know how many tears I have cried for this lost little one that we will never know this side of heaven. I know the waves of sadness my heart has battled – and still does – every time I think about what could have been.

I think my peace in finally being able to share this story of pain with others comes from knowing it is also a story of hope. Pain and loss and suffering are not the themes of my story, nor of my life. Redemption and blessing and hope are my story. For every single thing life has decided to throw my way, He has been right beside me. He gives me peace. He comforts me with strength to carry on. He lights a path ahead of me, illuminating the darkness. He is the source of my joy. He has given me every good thing. He restores my soul. Through every single moment of difficulty, He has been the constant and steady source of my resiliency and hope.

And so I wait.
And I hope.
And I long for the day when we will leave the pain of this world behind us.
Until then, He is heaven come down to us – to me. God with us – wiping away every tear and whispering in the moments of pain and darkness, “I am here.”

Even so, Lord, come.

The Pursuit of Healing

I’ve been talking recently with a trusted, dear friend about the messages that many of us have internally – in our heads and our hearts – sometimes consciously and sometimes subconsciously. Often, we either accept and internalize these inner messages as we go throughout our day and they eventually shape our core motivation and behavior, or we recognize these messages for what they are and fight to replace them with truth in hopes that we will eventually stop hearing them as loudly or as often.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel like I was fighting to belong or feel like I mattered.

From a very early age, I used to pray for a sister and when it became clear that I was not going to ever get one, I began praying for a best friend. I felt alone and lost without someone to confide in or trust or share life with. As life happened, as it often does, I had to fight harder against this message that I didn’t belong or that I didn’t matter. My biological father chose to walk out on me (and the rest of my family) and didn’t show any interest in ever seeing me again or making sure I was being taken care of. My mother did the best with what she had, but after the divorce would “check out” on us – sometimes for short stretches of time and sometimes for much longer. It made me feel like a burden or something to be managed rather than a person to be known and loved. I had to grow up so fast. Being a single mother to three kids must have been the most difficult thing – I really can’t imagine and have an immense amount of compassion for her… but with great difficulty comes great pain and anger and I often felt like the target of that pain and that anger. We also moved OFTEN growing up, so I felt like I was always the new kid – every time. Always coming into established circles of friends with their established norms and memories and inside jokes. I’d hang out and laugh and act fine, but always on the outskirts of what felt like something close and special…

There have been a handful of people in my life through the years who have welcomed me into their hearts the way that I’d always longed. These beautiful few have had to spend time and energy ensuring and reminding me that I matter and that I am beloved by them. I am forever grateful for these relationships and still keep in contact with them today in one form or another – these people are my family. Some of them have been in my life for a long time, while others are still relatively new. Some of them I have grown closer to and have grown to have greater depth with over the years and others have become less close or less deep but are still precious to me. I know that each and every one has cared for me fully and genuinely.

And yet, I struggle.

Why is it that after all this time and all these relationships that show me over and over again that I am loved and that I matter, do I still struggle to believe it? Why is it that God can prove Himself kind and generous and compassionate and faithful in my life and yet I still struggle to get my heart to rest and to trust? Will there ever be a day when these internal negative messages cease or will this always be a ‘thorn in my side’ that lingers until my time here is done?

I’ve certainly had people come into my life who have worked against my healing. People who claimed to love me and promised me that they were trustworthy, but who – as it turns out – were only using me and thinking of themselves. Some of these people have caused internal setbacks that have lasted for years. I will one day soon tell these stories and dissect all the lessons learned from those experiences, but not today.

Today I am reflecting. I am listening. I am leaning in and whispering to God in the quiet places of my heart to continue to heal these broken places and make His voice louder than the messages in my head and heart. I am not here for pity or even reassurance. I am not writing this to vent or lament. I am writing this to you because maybe you struggle with the same thing. Maybe it isn’t the same message or the same wounds, but maybe you too fight messages in your head and your heart that are simply not true. Words are avenues and by sharing my stories I open the door for you to reflect on and, if you are comfortable, to share yours.

I don’t know about you, but I would rather live my life pursuing freedom, light, joy, and peace in the things I do, the choices I make, the relationships I invest in, etc. I don’t want to be crippled by fear, comparison, doubt, insecurity, or regret. I want to choose to be brave, to risk intimacy and depth, and to surround myself with people who speak life into me and want the best for me. Over time, these messages in my head and my heart will be rewritten. Until then, I will choose to silence the voice in my head that continually tries to paralyze me, and I invite you to do the same. Get support if you need help doing so. Whether you believe in the same God I believe in or something else, make a choice today to stop going through your life numb and believing these lies you’ve heard echoed all your life and look for ways to replace those messages with the truth about who you are — worthy of love and more than enough…just as you are.

What messages have you come to believe about yourself that impact the freedom you have in your life and relationships? What messages of truth and light can we both work to replace the lies?

On the Other Side of All This Time

It’s been 1406 days, since I last posted to this blog. That is approximately 46.19 months or 3.85 years. What that duration of time does not capture alone is how much change has occurred between then and now, and how much that change has made me into a completely different person than I was 1406 days ago. I’ve gone through three failed attempted pregnancies (failed embryo transfer or miscarriages), significant changes at my job in role and responsibility, left the church we’d gone to for 10 years and started at a new church, survived (and still surviving) a global pandemic along with its cultural and political and societal turmoil, had another baby (a girl – our Jovie!), and have experienced new or deepening friendships that have brightened my life in more ways than I can even convey, as well as some relationships lost that have consequentially left their scars forever on my heart.

Through it all, I needed to take a break from writing publicly.

I still wrote ferociously in my private journal, but chose to keep myself walled off from the usual open and honest transparency that I normally don’t shy away from in this blog in an effort to protect my heart as I navigated some of the most difficult or hurtful seasons of my adult life. Here I am, on the other side of these arduous years reflecting on the transformation in my heart, my outlook, and my spirit. Looking back, the growth that God has graciously allowed me to experience through each difficulty has been the gift that gives me peace. He is incredibly faithful – more faithful than anyone or anything we could ever hope for – and He has reminded me everyday of these past 1406 days that He sees me and He has so much for me than my small ideas could have ever dreamed up for myself.

In two days, I will turn 38. This isn’t really a milestone birthday and I am already dreaming of plans for my 40th birthday. But as a gift to myself, I am going to make time to start writing again. To little by little share the things I am alluding to above – the moments and the events that have been so impactful the past several years. Writing is a talent I know God has given me that has been dormant or kept exclusively for myself for a while, but it’s time to share again. It’s time to be vulnerable again. To trust again. To open myself up and share with you the truth and magnitude of all life is showing me for the purpose higher than I can see or understand.

The reason I named this blog Words Are Avenues years ago is that even then I realized that words have this incredible ability to direct us towards a specific purpose — to bring life or to bring death by the way in which we wield them. They both teach us and they shape us. Words are a path laid out beneath our feet that can guide us somewhere straight and sure, or somewhere crooked and treacherous. So between working a full-time demanding job, being a supportive wife and caretaker of our home, changing diapers and washing bottles, shaping a precocious boy towards someday becoming a responsible young man, being an intentional and engaged friend, learning how to love myself towards strength and health…. between all of life’s demands and ups and downs — I will be here on the other side of all this time that has passed ready to share with you about every step along this path that He is taking me.

A Million Little Things

I was recently able to spend some time with a friend last Sunday, who I do not get to see as often as I would like. For both of us, life in our mid 30’s has become a whirlwind that we just try to manage the best we can without it pulling us below the surface. After we got some delicious Pho and saw a movie, we ended up talking about this conundrum of friendship that women in our season of life are experiencing in countless communities, but that no one necessarily prepared us for.

Life is a beautiful, chaotic mess and the amount of time we have in each day remains the same. Whether you’re 10 years old, in high school, in your 20’s, or in full-blown adulthood; you still only have 24 hours in each day. Even at work where I see the same people for 8-9 hours a day, I still have work to do and can only take the time to invest in a very limited amount of those relationships. Life is just plain busy. I used to naively think that I wouldn’t ever feel this way, since I do not have a Type-A personality and I refuse to let my kid ever play seven sports at a time. Oh how wrong I was. As nice as it would be to even blame this on graduate school (although it does take up A LOT of my time), the fact remains that even after I am done with grad school, I will still have a lot of things vying to fill my time.

Once you reach a certain season of life, you have choices to make with how you spend your time. Your choices become your priority and you can’t prioritize everything. If you want to be a good friend to a lot of people, you can’t climb the ladder as quickly or ambitiously at work or spend as much time with your family. If you want to be the top executive at your company or the world’s best parent, time with your friends will inevitably take a hit. The American dream that says you can have it all is misleading. You can have the things you choose to prioritize, but you certainly cannot have it all – at least not with any depth or quality.

I am so thankful to have friends in the same season of life I am in who understand that I may take 5 days to respond to their text message (or not at all, but they know I read it and am thinking about them! I appreciate those who I may only see once every 3 months, even though we do not live that far from each other and the time we spend together is still precious and meaningful. I appreciate it when I am not held to silly, shallow obligations like Facebook birthday timeline shout outs or the pressure to increase the quantity of communications or time spent together in order to prove that I cherish a relationship.

These things just aren’t always possible. Sometimes I’ll have a really crappy day at work and when I come home all I want to do is sit in front of my TV with a drink and not talk to anyone. Sometimes, I have had to be away doing homework for days on end, so all I want to do is spend the day with Travis and give Chad a break. Sometimes, it’s been weeks since Chad and I have had a conversations that did not revolve around schedules, to-do’s, or logistics and we just need to have fun together. There is always something to clean, some house project left unfinished, some book I have been meaning to pick up and escape into, or some show I have been meaning to catch up on.

I have certainly had to adapt. My personality has always been bent towards being a “best friend” kind of friend verses a “many friends” kind of friend. Do I miss the days when I could see and talk to my friends as much as I wanted with no sacrifices made anywhere else (aka anytime before I was 25)? Of course! Without friendship and deep connection, I am a wreck. Quality time is and always will be incredibly important to me!

We just have to choose those times now. Schedule them. Prioritize. De-clutter. It’s both taxing and freeing, saddening and life-bringing at the same time. That quick message to a friend becomes a source of joy. That lunch we were able to fit in, becomes an anchor. That conversation in a parking lot late on a Sunday night becomes a breath of fresh air. That trip to see a long-distance friend becomes revitalizing.

This is just life and it is normal and it is fine.

Out of the Dust

Change has always been difficult for me. My personality tends to lean towards the familiar and I find comfort in things I can predict, understand, and grapple with. Yet there is an amazing, hard-won beauty that comes from growth, which can only be achieved through change. I think we all know that you don’t progress by staying the same or remaining where you are, yet it is so easy to resist change because change forces us to be uncomfortable. It forces us into the unknown.

Last year I set out to get healthier and ended up losing 40 lbs in roughly 3 months in addition to participating in three different 5k races – the first of which was the immensely challenging, KC favorite: Hospital Hill. It was incredibly difficult, but I had just lost 40 lbs and I needed to do something with all my newfound energy!

This was me after the race last year:

I felt so accomplished and invincible after that race! I am sad to say that since then I have gained all of that weight back and then some. This was honestly due to the stress of my schedule combined with choices I made to focus my energy and attention primarily on graduate school, work, and my family. Even though deep down I know I had plenty on my plate to deal with, I’ve felt like a failure the past several months to have made such amazing progress forward only to take 2 steps backwards. After I ran Hospital Hill last year, I had immediately signed up to run it in 2017. Little did I know how out of shape I would be leading up to this race.

It was the last thing I wanted to do.

Truly.

But I knew that if I chose to not run this race in my current state, that it would be the first of many choices to remain unhealthy. By running it (knowing it would be difficult and painful) I knew it would be the wake up call I needed to initiate some much needed change in my life.

So I did.

I got dressed after work. I put my headphones in my ears with my music set to shuffle randomly through all the songs in my library. I navigated to the back of the crowd behind the starting line knowing I would be among the slower participants in the crowd. Hospital Hill is nearly an all-uphill run; if it’s not truly ALL uphill, it certainly feels that way.

As I made my way up the first mile’s worth of hill, I felt my legs begin to burn pretty intensely. My lungs were already struggling to provide the oxygen I needed and it was only the first mile! I would push through as many steps as I could until I was forced to catch my breath, then I would resume running once I felt I could breathe again.

I began to feel discouraged, but then my playlist began a new song and I heard these words:

“All this pain. I wonder if I’ll ever find my way. I wonder if my life could really change, at all… “

One foot in front of the other…  I felt overwhelmed. What was I doing out here? God, this is hard!

“All this earth. Could all that is lost ever be found? Could a garden come up from this ground, at all…?” 

I don’t know if I can do this! I don’t know if I can finish this race! It’s only Mile 1!

Then….

“You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of us.”

In an instant I was a girl, running slowly with my eyes closed and literal tears on my cheeks. Overcome. In that moment, I realized something I once knew, but I’d forgotten:

I was beautiful in that moment of pain. I was beautiful because I was strong. Not strong physically (yet!), but a strength welling inside me that resolved to knowingly tackle something difficult and painful with a hope of things to come. A fierce determination in my core that refused to allow a lesser version of myself to exist when I knew who I was and what I am capable of. A strength that could see and acknowledge my own weaknesses and lay them before God’s throne in surrender, asking Him to help me.

So I pushed on.

Up and up and up past Mile 1, Mile 2, and Mile 3. Somewhere before Mile 3, I actually began hyperventilating because the hill I was climbing was so steep that even the seasoned runners were walking up this hill at best. I panicked because I was so miserable and so exhausted, but still only 2/3 of the way through this race. I also had the insanely embarrassing and socially awkward encounter of a fellow racer stopping to help me slow my breathing. That was very nice of her, I just hate feeling like I am burdening someone else for my sake – ugh!

Once I regained my composure and was breathing steadily again, I lunged forward. That last mile was honestly a blur as I just focused on putting one dead weight of a foot in front of the other. At this point I am sure those of you who run regularly are wondering how exaggerated and dramatic I am being, but I assure you this took all my energy, all my will, and all my focus. It really, REALLY sucked. When you haven’t been training for a run of any length and you have been eating unhealthy and weigh as much as I did on that day, each step forward in an uphill race feels like it just may be your last step on planet Earth altogether. With some unrelenting tenacity, I finished the race only 8 minutes behind my time the previous year. I thought it would be so much more!

This was me after the race this year (literally laying in the grass):

I am sharing this embarrassing, 5k-from-Hell story to simply say that change (although difficult and sometimes painful) is uncompromisingly intertwined with growth. They’re a double-edged sword and you cannot have growth without change. In that crowd around me were numerous running T-shirts shouting things like “No Pain, No Gain,” “Sweat is fat crying!,” and my least favorite, “If you can read this, I am not last!”

But they reminded me of things I had learned a long time ago in my early 20’s…

“PAIN IS TEMPORARY, GROWTH IS PERMANENT.”

And this gem:

“But I beat my body and make it my slave, so that after proclaiming to others, I myself should not be disqualified.” – 1 Corinthians 9:27

It will be worth it and I am not alone.

So I am giving in.

To change.
To the pursuit of discipline.
To a journey full of ups and downs with my eyes set ahead towards progress and growth. To becoming stronger.
To living the life I want to live, not passively letting it slip away from me.
To focus, to work hard, to push harder, and to keep going forward.
To giving this challenge to Him day after day after day until He makes me new….

He makes beautiful things out of the dust…. out of us….

Adult Friendships: Better than Waffles?

Many of us spend a significant amount of our younger adult lives overcoming our childhood for a variety of reasons, while a smaller percentage must continue to strive to feel well-rounded, put together, and somewhat whole well past our 30’s. It’s sometimes difficult for those in that smaller percentage to even feel like you’re really an adult despite the number of candles on your cake when you have those moments, those days, or even sometimes those weeks where you feel small, insecure, and insignificant. Honestly, I often wonder if any adults ever really feel whole or grown up. There are some that certainly seem like it and I admire them immensely….but does everyone get these moments where they just can’t seem to figure out their role or their place in a world of people that seem to be thriving?

I have my moments certainly where I do some amazing rockstar things and feel unstoppable. Those times where I just can’t help but smiling when I think back on them because for those moments I used my God-given strengths to shine and it felt amazing. I hate that those moments feel unbalanced on the scale against the weight of doubt. Am I making the right choices in this season of my life? Am I where I am supposed to be or did I take a wrong turn somewhere? What more could I be doing that I am not doing? Do the people who seem to care about me really, genuinely care or do they just need something from me?

That last one especially plagues me.

It’s hard to be the one who chooses to be open when it’s so ridiculously hard to remain open. Safety is in closing off. Remaining guarded. Keeping a safe distance. Weighing risks. Approaching slowly. To choose to open yourself up to someone is to willing subject yourself to the highly likely risk of hurt or rejection.

I had a thought this week that sometimes my struggle seems to result from feeling like I oscillate between being a Leslie Knope and an April Ludgate (Park and Rec show for those of you who don’t know. Stop reading this and go watch it! It’s incredible).

Aside from our shared love for breakfast foods, Leslie Knope is the epitome of confidence in action, being an inspiration, and being an amazing friend.

The thing is….Leslie is the friend everyone wants, but also the friend no one knows how to be or how to let in. She is unashamedly passionate about her friends and doesn’t hold back how she feels.

I 100% agree with her philosophy on friendship and yet she is the mirage of friendship – completely fictional! Friendships don’t really work this way do they? (especially in our 30’s and beyond, amiright?) For me, being that open comes at a very high price. I have taken this gamble before and lost big time, which makes it exponentially harder the next time to get up the nerve to take that risk again.

Which is what brings out my inner April Ludgate.

April despises small talk, all things unauthentic, and prefers animals over people.

She shys away – like we all so often do – from genuine intimacy. It makes her feel uncomfortable so she closes herself off. The thing we – and I – want (genuine connection) makes us uncomfortable because I think we either question if it’s truly genuine or because we’re weighing the amount of effort and risk it may require to form the connection.

I will be honest… The combination of past wounds and a few gasoline-drenched, burned bridges have left me wondering if the effort and risk it takes to form long-lasting genuine connections with people is even worth it. It doesn’t help at all when you remove forced social situations like high school, college, and other venues where friendships are easily forged. The older we get the harder making genuine connections with people becomes; it honestly becomes awkward and makes me feel awkward. Isn’t there a happy middle place out there between the unattainable friendship bar Leslie Knope sets and the people-hating, closed off persona of April Ludgate? Or am I the only one that can’t seem to find that middle ground?

Whatever the answer, I am thankful for the genuine connections I have been lucky to find and the depth of friendships that have come out of those connections. When forming new connections, I will continue to feel awkward and insecure as I approach the risk the openness required for those connections necessitates…. But I can handle a little insecurity, a whole lot of awkwardness, and even some hurt if it means that there’s a chance that those connections can begin to form with the people who are worth it….

Succeed on Purpose

Part of me just wants to start this post with another typical “It’s been a while,” but I think we all can see that clearly. In some sense, I kind of started out that way anyway. Oh well 🙂

I just needed to write tonight.

This season is all consuming and I won’t really catch any long-term reprieve for a while. I work a job where I support others, so all day long I am meeting other’s needs whether big or small. Honestly, even though I can daydream about a job where I can read my homework all day long, I actually find it incredibly energizing to help people in my office who truly need the help. Not the mundane, boring stuff that anyone can do, but the stuff that I am particularly suited to help with. Those busy days when I am strategically solving problems, putting out small fires, using my writing skills, or lightening the load of one of my bosses are my favorite kinds of days… I wouldn’t want my days to be any other way…

I also come home to a little boy who looks to me to meet all of his needs. He brings me his shoes. He comes to me for snuggles and asks for his milk cup when he is getting tired. He now says “thank you” to me whenever I do anything for him and it’s incredible to me how much he looks to me for his physical, mental, social, and emotional needs. He is in that typical toddler stage where he LOVES his Mama and wants ME and I would not want it any other way…

Chad has learned how best to support me in this time and I could not do this season right now without him, but even he is his own person with his own needs and it’s a hard balance to find the time to be his wife, be his friend, be his support, and give him the time he needs to be himself when I rely on him so much right now. We’re being forced to communicate better, be more selfless towards one another, and look for the small ways to show we love each other in this season of very, very limited down time. We’re growing together and I wouldn’t want it any other way…

And then I am a student and my professors want so much from me right now because dammit I am in grad school and grad school is supposed to be demanding, so I just buckle up and do what I need to do. I am being challenged. I am learning things. I am navigating difficult waters, but “nothing worth having comes easy” and I wouldn’t want it any other way…

And so here I am drowning in the chaos of my own life… by choice.

I fondly remember when I used to be able to take a great novel to the Starbucks patio on Barry road and read for hours on end with not nearly enough sun screen. I remember when Chad and I could just go catch a movie because we wanted to and that that didn’t require any planning other than showtimes and ticket pick up. I remember when weekends were spent with friends and long conversations with those friends about everything and nothing.

I know that this is a season. I won’t always be an admin. I won’t always have a toddler. I won’t always rely on Chad so much as I do now. I will one day have friends again and quality time and deep conversations.

Until then, I am just managing more stress than I let on and trying to remain positive even though that is difficult for me.

I am tired.
I am drained.
I am sleep deprived.
I am lonely.
I am angry.
I feel guilty.

I have so many needs that are not being met, but I am taking things one day at a time right now. This is a season of growth, and perseverance, and strength. I have never been so busy in my life, but I have gone through hard times and I know now just how much I am capable of.

I am not lucky to be where I am or have what I have. I am thankful to have been given what I have and I have worked hard to get here…

I was inspired recently by a story of a young girl who with dedication, commitment, and hard work achieved so much at a very young age and was recently named “the most accomplished performer of UNO’s Division I era.”The thing is, she came from a long line of accomplished siblings because their parents taught them that with hard work and commitment, you can achieve anything.

I want to teach that to Travis. I want to model that for him.
It might be hard, but it will be worth it…

Haters Gonna Hate (and other things that I don’t have time for)

For everything in our life that is worth holding onto, there are things we must choose to let go of. I feel like this is the essence of ‘growing up’ and maturing. What once used to send me spiraling in my 20’s, I am now forced to shrug off in my 30’s.

In the end, it all comes down to time and priorities.

I don’t have time to pander to someone else’s drama or political game. I don’t have time to hold someone’s hand beyond an appropriate amount of time for things I learned to do independently a long time ago. I don’t have time to play the guessing game, second guess myself, or dwell on someone’s true thoughts or intentions towards me. Did I have a dirty look on my face when you walked by because I was focusing intently on some task I was working on? Yes, yes I did. Did I not triple-double check with you on something that has very little impact on anything related to you, but you just want to feel involved? Sorry, not sorry. Did I offer up a glowing, flowery apology for something that offended you, but in reality I didn’t do anything wrong? Get over it.

It’s not a lack of heart as those who have been enabled and pandered to their whole lives may claim. It’s a sign of healthy boundaries and shifted priorities. I have a job to get done and I am trying to do it well, so I can’t play your game. You’re being a bully and I will not be budged. I have very little time to devote to people I deeply care about, so if you’re going to be a manipulator or emotionally exhausting – you’re gone. It is essential that I take time to renew and recharge myself (so I don’t become the world’s most heartless, overwhelmed bitch to my husband and son), which means that I can’t say yes to every single request thrown at me and I can’t apologize every two seconds.

In my 20’s I would bend over backwards to please people. It is my nature! I love to make others happy and, honestly, I still do. It is unbelievably difficult for me to tell someone no or to let someone down just because of a lack of time or my shifting priorities. My ungodly-high levels of empathy will certainly be the death of me someday. In those moments, I grit my teeth and think of all the massive amounts of things on my plate and choose to give only what I am actually capable of giving. If someone decides they don’t like me because I am not an overflowing vessel of sunshine and rainbows, so be it. If someone was used to me being their “yes” girl and going to great lengths to help make their lives easier, they’re in for a hard truth now. I just can’t anymore.

The only thing that has actually changed is that those who sought to use me, exploit me, or manipulate me no longer have any foothold on my life. Those haters no longer concern me like they once did. I just don’t have time for it anymore. I am baffled by how many people spend so much time and energy trying to make other’s lives miserable to make their own feel or seem better. These people have not hesitated to throw me under the bus, smear me with slander, and manipulate circumstances at my expense. How very sad their lives must be that this is what they spend their time and energy on.

Do you know how I spend my time and what I give my energy to? Do you know what I am still able to do with focused priorities and healthy boundaries? I can still love the least of these. I can still be a great wife, a loving mother, and an extraordinary friend. I can accomplish my goals, serve and love my family, give generously, and love deeply. I can still do all that I can to be the hands and feet of Christ to a hurting world and to give to those who are in need. Love alone is worth the fight.

Little Things

Sometimes it’s the sun steadily, but lazily warming your skin. It’s the earthy pleasure of fresh ground coffee and the effects of that 2nd cup at just about 2 in the afternoon. It’s flip flops with toes a fresh shade of walnut. It’s the contentment of turning that last crisp page. It’s watching shadows crawl across your skin as the sun dances in and out of the clouds.

It’s the sensation of butterflies that you didn’t see coming, but despite their chronic unpredictability you can somehow look forward to them nonetheless. It’s a true and unbelievable story following by synchronous laughter and wink that feels close and familiar. It’s anticipation and hesitation and a sense of hope and foreboding.

It’s the hug that melts away anxiety and the treasured words that absolve tension. It’s thoughtful prep work and setting delayed brew while singing old Folger’s commercials. It’s late nights and shared looks and interlocked pinkies and contagious laughter.

It’s blades of grass peeking between toes and tickling fat feet. It’s nibbling on iced, pumpkin-shaped cookies in the shade on a warm September day. It’s little hands that won’t be pudgy forever and an infectious smile of merely two and a half teeth. It’s giggles and unruly curls and a sticky chin with crumbs everywhere.

It’s short-lived moments and small details that magnify connections and love and life. Sometimes it’s the little things that make everything else worth anything at all.