The Thankful Choice

It’s the week of Thanksgiving, and while surrounded by blessings that grace my life, I do not feel teeming with thankfulness.  I feel rather sullen and numb.  Guilt engulfs me like a weighty blanket, or overfilled basket waiting to be balanced on my head.  I have not yet learned how to live with it’s presence.  My neck cramps at the idea.  I should be thankful.  I should be someone who is more than I have become.

In truth, I’ve seen  suffering with my own eyes.  I remember the Asian faces of spirit-broken widows and orphans who knew only concrete beds we called sidewalks with damp wind for blankets.  You could smell them coming down the crowded city streets, ambling among the Tibetan furniture bazaars and outdoor markets before their frail unfed bodies came into sight.  Flies accompanied them feasting on their open sores.  Their hollow eyes looked down in hopeless shame and want.  For all the thousands of people brushing their shoulders as they passed, they remained invisible.

Not accustomed to such poverty, I would gasp and gawk in an effort to muster up the compassion the moment called for, guilt ridden by my offended senses.

I have seen and touched the children in Macedonia whose deep brown eyes and olive complexions in vunerable exposure, would gently tap our arms with outreached hands in hopes of daily bread.  Bending down to smile into their faces, I can still hear their bloated tummies rumble as the smell of hunger lingered on their breath.  Children who were no older than my own.  Where is their future?  Who is their hope? The question still asks my selfish mind.

In Mexico, I sat in cardboard houses built on  land fills holding babies  under a portrait of Jesus, who would not live to see another birthday.  On London streets, I chatted with prostitutes who sold their bodies for a bowl of soup.

In hurricane devastated Texas, I gave boxes of food to two boys who had not eaten in days.   Their home and belongings were carried away by gusting winds.  They lived.   Their mother gave them gum to chase away hunger while waiting on the government that would never make it to their county.

In an effort to sort out the madness, there were no answers to my questions. Why are we so privileged and they are not?  The haunting reality lives in my mind, that could be us.  Those children could be mine.      I vowed to remember everything I saw.  I vowed to be thankful.

But today, I feel want.  For all I have, for all I own, it means nothing.  I find the deepest parts of my soul crying out for more.  I claw and grasp for all that is precious to me, to have and to hold, while it dances away.

It evades me.

Like my children, who in the back yard stack up household boxes and crates on the  trampoline,  trying to build a ladder to the reach the next passing airplane, all I hold dear, desiring the most, feels so out of reach.

My whole being, mind, body, soul, is strangled with desire and longing.

In this place of want, I have misplaced my sense of gratitude.

So, while there are years  when with ease  my eyes are fully opened to the brimming, no overflowing goodness, and my hearts is full, with a sense of thankfulness for this goodness I have been blessed with; there are also years when in misery I cry out to be rescued from myself.  In these caves of my own making, gratitude is a choice of the will that sets itself up in a battle of thoughts and, where feelings would  typically rule, I say:  I choose to be thankful regardless of what I feel.

Freshman 101

Journal: August 2009

“Tomorrow I will wake up a continued – edition freshman!” The clock chimes eight p.m. and in a fury of excitement the pitter patter of six little feet echo down the hall off hardwood and into my bedroom.   The sun is descending  on it’s ancient  path , and I can see it’s  warm light meandering through outside tree branches  leaving shadowy impressions  on my walls before it fades into night.  “MOM, it’s eight o’ clock!  You should be in bed!” three children giggle and taunt at me.  Expectantly they have waited all day for this golden opportunity to put  their mommy to bed,   “Awe, do I have to go to bed now?” I play along complaining as I  stretch from my work.  They can hardly contain their joy and in their newfound parental representation, feeling oh so very grown up they burst out, “YES!  Right now!”   From my bedroom office where I was editing  portraits, I, the responsible wife, small business owner, and mom surrender my computer. I’m  told to get “jammied up, tooths brushed”,  and be in bed before I can sing my ABC’s  five times because, “tomorrow you have to go to school!”

The words are alive and magical tingling with hope.  In the morning I will be a freshman at our local community college.  Our once spacious bed, actively crams and jams  fifty wiggly toes, some restless elbows, competing knees, and one oversized, black wagging tail who’s body smells strangely like my fresh out of the oven  chocolate cake,  for a bed time story on misplaced comfort.  Actually the children read Curious George Goes to School in honor of my achievement.   For all the squirming I find it difficult to appreciate the monkey’s business and my mind anxiously wandered out to the kitchen table,t trying to remember if I have covered the cake.  From the beasts fresh chocolate scent I deduced I forgot.  Damed dog I whisper under my breath.

From an entangled mess of arms, necks and legs,  bed time prayers are offered to God in earnest for mommy to make good grades at McLennan Community College, have lots of fun,  make great friends, (but not with boys) and make more good grades.  Then, in traditional Stephen’s family style which has been said to resemble the choir equivalent of a chimpanzee, tom cat, buzzard, and earthworm, we bellowed out our I love you song like we do every night of every year.  As my door is being softly closed,  a finger pointing through  wags and wavs in forward motion with a  stern warning by a  small red headed, polka dotted boy who  orders, “and don’t you get outta  bed for any  weason unless your  bwoken or bweeding!”  The door shuts and I am certified, put to bed early for school.

In the cool of night’s darkness under goose down blankets of forced rest and early bed time, an emotion dance emerges.  Suddenly,  and powerful,  it storms onto the stage of  my idle mind overtaking my thoughts like a molesting tango.    It’s a strange dance floor mixed with the euphony of  heaven and the screams of hell.  A place where ecstasy and fears mix into questions that haven’t been asked for a lack of stillness. Will I fail? I wonder.  Am I crazy for thinking I can go to school?  What if I can’t learn what the professor is teaching?  What if it’s been too long?  What if I don’t understand?  What if I can’t do it? But  I think it’s going to be so fun.    I can’t believe I finally have the opportunity to go to school!  I am so blessed.  But what if…what if I try and fail? What IF… screams at me and as I look into it’s hollow eyes I feel small and unprotected from the idea I could be swallowed, chewed up, and spit out by failure.

These are the defining moments that make me  ask, what could I do if I had no fear?

I find sleep in a hide and seek fashion on the eve of my freshman year.

To be continued…

x+y=fail

The car was too far away, I misjudged the distance of the parking lot.  If I were a bird I could fly there I lamented under my breath.  At this moment I would trade myself in on the car lot of souls for just about anyone or anything else.    I feel miserable longing for an out of body experience, or some Calgon to “take me away”.

Walking faster still, as if the road were against me pretending to be a treadmill, I couldn’t seem to reach the safety of my white Haundai fast enough.  I hailed it as a sanctuary and I needed to be inside safe from ambling students and professors.  I needed to be there now.

Not one to appreciate girly emotional moments I rarely have them.  Sometimes the inner simmering that is delicately balanced gives way to a bitter boil and in a tossed off moment I’m caught off guard; like today, like right now.

I try to hold my emotions hostage like an armed bank robber in a forced stick up.  I’m in control, I can handle this,  I tell myself, but even my inside voice is quaking.

I feel powerless and insult heaps itself upon my fragile emotions as a tear cuts loose like a prisoner on a chain gang running free.

It slides down my  hot cheeks and opens the flood gate for a million tears that pummel down like an angry mob waiting to be released from a puny gate.

I am unable to stop the hot tearful procession as they avalanche down my cheek all wet and stinging.

Unprepared my lungs began to heave in an effort to combat the panic I feel and I’m walking fast but  I no longer know where I’m going.

My audible sobbing elicit stares from the people I pass; my nose leaks and tears mingle like a fire hydrant left unattended.  I am pouring emotions  with out permission from my heart or mind.  Control evades me, I’ve lost it amidst the endless rows of cars that all look the same through tear jammed eyes, heavy and sad.

I’ve come from math and I failed.  The paper in red ink screams at me, “NO CREDIT”.   One might have expected a death in my family.  No.  Not today.  I’ve simply run out of strong.  Bleary and spent my perspective runs away like my dog on our nightly jog.  I know it will return, but in this moment it’s gone and it’s return is a dimmer hope with a looming what if that creates a vacum of unknown for this moment.

It’s the realization I offered up my best and it wasn’t good enough.  Confidence stabbed my back, and cut my throat and now it was leaving me alone to face my failure.  My perspective fleeing, I could feel the emotional clubs that would beat me senseless.  How could you think you did so well and do so poorly.  You should quit.  You won’t pass. You can’t do it.  You don’t have what it takes.

My car was where I left it, ironic, I know.  As I slid into the peaceful quiet behind tinted windows a mourning emerged.  It was much more powerful than this one moment.

It was a sadness that cried out for every baby I could not keep alive, for every client I couldn’t please, every loved one I let down, and every math problem I couldn’t equate.

It was a moment that reconciled my humanness and lack of perfection.  An equation of my inadequacy plus high expectations with no room for failure that amounted to a person who gave all of herself up and was found wanting, lacking, not enough.  Humiliation graces me a lone in my thoughts.

A small window in  time opens where failure wraps itself in the fibers of my identity, not because it defines who I am, but it marks what I am.  And what am I?  I am loved and I am loving, striving for perfection; but today I failed my math test.

?-!!!

I have too many of these??????????????????????????????????????

and…

not enough of these!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IF

If I were queen:

Chocolate bunny makers would no longer allowed to fill the centers with air.  NO HOLLOW CHOCOLATE BUNNIES
Toe nail polish would be illegal.
Jeans n’ Tee’s would be fashionable ALWAYS
Fat would be thin
Fun would be required on an hourly basis
Offices would be outside as much as possible
Vacations… MANDATORY
Public Transportation… highly efficient and always on time!
Middle aged people wouldn’t be so boring and stuffy
Families would be happy and fun
Moms would be required to play at the park WITH their children
(in fact I’d have park benches removed maybe)
Everyone would climb trees, throw balls, fly kites, read books, and smile.

Do As I Say Not As I Do

It’s our weekly accountability time;
a time after school chilling in the living room where we encourage and critique each other.
A little love and a little wounding in the name of love.

It’s a safe place where with love and humility anything can be said.
Does it hurt?  like hell.  Does it heal?  better than aloe.

So I always go first, and I hate going first because you never know what three little people are going to say.  I much prefer being last, but I am  the grown up.  So I went first.

In one word tell mommy one thing about me that you think is great, I asked.
I’ve asked this before and they always surprise me…

your fun, adventurous, creative, loving, wonderful, great, cooker ??? not sure about that one
the list goes on.  I told them to limit it to one word, but if they can’t that’s o.k.    I like to be encouraged.  
I think my kids love me.

I’d like to stop there with warm fuzzies.  I’m reminded of the best of me and it would be so easy to end it feelin’ so fly.
I could think of a million reasons to not go deeper.

But I want to go deeper so I hold my breath and dive in knowing my lungs will burn, my legs will cramp, my heart will explode before I get to the other side.  But I dive.

Now use one word and ONLY one word to describe mommy in a way that communicates something you want me to change; something that makes you say, ‘when I’m a parent I won’t ever…’ 

It was the girl who spoke up and her readiness made me cringe.    
I knew I had a lot of faults and weakness but I thought they might, ya know, need a nano-second or something to think up a word.

Nope, she was ready.

In her sweetest, most humble way, she said, “I know something mommy, duplicity.”
It was a weird, foggy moment looking at  this 9 month old face in a big girl body, staring at me using big words that I barely know the meaning of and  everything felt swirly, twirly for a moment as I  tried to hear her.  ” You’ve always told US to respect others with our words, actions, and attitudes; but when daddy makes you mad, you won’t even do it yourself.”  Then she chuckled a nervous laugh, gasp, something I don’t exactly recall.

I wanted to justify myself.  
I wanted to think she was disrespectful.  
I wanted to run and hide.  
I wanted to say she was wrong.  

So I said something profound,

“wow”

wow is profound because you can say it the same way backwards, “wow”.  It’s also a totally wicked space filler when you need to say something but your thoughts are in like say China and you need them back right now, but you can’t get to them just yet.

“so” is another great staller and when combined to make “wow, so…” you have exactly 2 seconds of time with which to pull yourself together and utter something understandable.

I went with the, “Wow, so, um, hmmmm, tell me how that makes you feel?”

and she did, they all did.  They all agreed with her.  

I had to confess that I’m a jerk, I need help, pray for me, just because I’m the mom & grown up doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing.  I need to work on this, grow and mature, and take my own advice.
I had to say, “You are so right!  I’m so wrong, will you forgive me?”

Next time I’ll take it a step further and say, ” I’m so proud of you.  I”m so glad you won’t be like mommy when you grow up because your aware of these things so young.  You won’t have to be 30something dealing with this…”  I’ll  give her hope that she doesn’t have to grow up to be like me! 

Maybe, just maybe, I’m raising a psychologist here. (and she’s free)

Tri-ath-a-what?

Some of you might remember earlier this year when I decided to run a 5k.

I’ve actually decided to run a 5k every year for the last 10.  Before your impressed you should know this year was different in that I actually left the sofa and did it!   I ran a 5k and finished without stopping!  It was so fun I decided to sign up for more races leading up to a gasp, marathon!  

I LOVE running.  I’m super slow, but I still love it!   I used to make post it notes and tape them to the door that said:  ”You HATE running” because I would forget how much I hated it, and go out to run… until I got past the mailbox… then I’d remember again.  But now I run every day and it’s what passes for fun in my book.  If I didn’t have such amazing fields to look at, I might actually remember the point is to get faster and actually ya know, get faster.  I might also not fall into pot holes, but the fields are nice this time of year.

My sweetie came home tonight and said, “Let’s do a triathlon this summer.”

SO, are we totally crazy?  YES!  We are doing a short triathlon in July.  Pardon me, I’m still learning the lingo here, perhaps it’s a sprint triathlon, not sure.  It’s the short one.
It’s in July and I will have to swim in the God made awful Brazos River and for all who know me I HATE that river from the shore.  I won’t go into it’s grosseness in case your thinking you might want to join me.   I don’t swim in rivers where you can’t see the bottom, ever. ever. ever. ever.

I’m not a fast swimmer, I’m an especially slow runner, and I bike at leisure around the neighborhood…  when I have a bike.  So, I should be fine for finishing in last place, but mark my words I WILL FINISH!

So, does anyone have great advice or tips for training for a  triathlon?

empty

I am  empty right now.
Being empty isn’t the horrible thing I thought it was.

I’m simply waiting to be filled up.

Being filled up is a result of being emptied.
It’s a necessary dance
and it doesn’t care that I have two left feet.

The Sum Of All Things

If one plus one is two

why did my cat have four kittens?

Let It Rain!!!

 

When the kids were little we went outside nearly every day of the year; rain, sunshine, ice, cold, hot and everything in between.  Some of our favorite memories are on unusual weather days when we should have been inside, or in bed.

Today it was raining.  I threw the soccer ball in the trunk, picked them up from school and went to an empty field close by.
It was muddy and wet, and pouring.  The light posts marked our “goals” and I took on three fast children who’s one desire was to take mom down, literally.

I hope it rains again tomorrow and the next day and the next.