“Sometimes the place you are used to is not where you belong.”
I woke up this morning in mental quicksand. I had a dream that elaborated and twisted about a situation that happened years ago in real-life. A situation I hadn’t thought of in years. One that never found fairness in my eyes, because no matter how I explained my intent, I was already found guilty by the other party. The whole thing left me feeling icky and rotten.
I have hesitated in sharing the following writing for almost two years. One reason is respecting the privacy of my child and protecting the safe space to let him grow and mature. Another reason being I didn’t want to give a tiny handful of people the satisfaction of getting a glimpse into our lives. For now, that pride has been worked through and has been replaced by a healthier pride. A mother’s pride.
May should come with a daily mascara alert. Also, a personal soul cheerleader reminding you that you can do all the exhausting tasks this month throws on us.
I’m overwhelmed. Which accurately describes every mother at the end of the school year. But this year feels different having a senior. Because it is different. It’s so different. And dumb. I wish Senior year could have moved as slowly as his Fourth-Grade year – that one was a dousy.
My Momma-Heart is raw. My brain keeps cheering me on that I can do all the hard things, while my heart is singing Meatloaf lyrics and informing me that it won’t do that. It doesn’t feel like it can take one more last. Not when there are so many things that I still need to tell him and teach him. My friend gave the advice to have all the conversations and say all the things – so that keeps me up at night. Only my darling isn’t too receptive when I pad my bare feet across the house to have a heart to heart, hoping he is awake as well. Nor does he care about learning how to perform the heimlich maneuver on himself or the most efficient way to load a dishwasher.
I don’t want to brag, but I handle being overwhelmed like a champ. In the case you need some advice on this so the rest of your May can be smooth, let me offer some tips that I find helpful:
The biggest lie is that this will stop the inevitable from happening. Time marches on, whether we are present for the moments or not. The world doesn’t stop turning just because we are stuck in reliving our memories. I’ve learned we miss a lot of sweet moments if we are staring into space thinking they aren’t happening.
CS Lewis tells us, “What you see depends on where you are standing”. This is never more true than when your baby is about to leave the nest. I stand behind him and see my handsome boy standing in a pile of beautiful baby feathers he has shed throughout the years. He stands at the edge of our nest and sees his future laid out wide in front of him. It is sweet to watch him stretch his wings in preparation to fly, but the sweet is wrapped in a somber blanket of not wanting it to be over.
You may not have a senior, you might just be dealing with the other side of our current crazy – end of the school year crap. Banquets, Recitals, Award assemblies, class parties, school parties, standardized testing…bless. You just thought you turned in all the paperwork in September. There is a whole ‘nother pile of summer camp signups for everything your child ever considered doing. Then the darlings decide to take a growth spurt the last month of school and you’d better go buy them all the new clothes since their shorts are closer to the “booty short” description than “prep length”. It’s enough to overwhelm June Cleaver, no wonder we get stuck in sensory overload.
While I can’t take out the calories of our emotional eating, I can offer this…
Pause Momma. Say no to all the unimportant tasks that aren’t relevant to this short season. Create margin for breathing so you can have the energy and strength to be present for living. Live this day.
The towels might end up learning how to fold themselves. After all….we did figure out how to put a man on the moon. I’m just sayin’….
A few years ago Amy and I were sharing funny stories about high school days. We became friends in adulthood, actually through motherhood, so we didn’t share our teenage experiences. While laughing at our choice in ex-boyfriends, crushes, and fashion, (Hello high waisted jeans…please go away for good) Amy mentioned that she always ended up talking to guys she wasn’t interested in because she didn’t want to hurt their feelings. If I communicated only in Emojis, there would be the gal with her hand raised here. Same.
Always. My people pleasing ways had no boundaries. Zero. None. Zilch.
If you haven’t met Amy, let me explain a few things to you. Amy was the All-American girl, she will hate this whole paragraph, but it’s all true. She is blonde, blue eyed, great athlete, cheerleader, good friend, Homecoming Queen, Buckaroo Queen, a Texas Tech Red Raider, a teacher…and later a great mom and good friend. She is so beautiful that it’s stupid. She and her daughter have these blue eyes that deserve to have a crayon named after them, only to be rivaled with their hearts and smiles. Her facial expressions make me laugh harder than any other, especially in moments that I’m not supposed to. So, can you even imagine being a teenage boy and NOT liking her?
Amy and I, It’s true that every brunette needs a blonde best friend.
Apparently, there were a couple of guys that were really vying for her attention, and put forth their best effort by pulling out their most impressive talents. Her doorbell rang a lot that year.
One ring brought a kid that wanted to show her his karate moves. Amy politely watched and kindly told him how good he was. Another visit brought a boy who wanted her to listen to all the different languages he could speak. The last straw came when the knock on the door produced a guy who came to show Amy that he could do the splits. Then dropped down in them. The splits. Seriously. Amy smiled, and again, most likely said all the right things to make him feel good about the talent he had brought forth.
But her dad had finally had enough. He was shutting down all the home visits. As Amy tells it, he hollered, “That’s it, this is CULL THE DWEEB day! No more performances on the porch!” He was done with all the Tom Foolery, and can you blame him? There were boys risking hamstring injuries on his porch, and his daughter was too nice to simply not answer the door. Her dad took over the job.
Cull the Dweeb Day. If only we knew which exact calendar day it was, I’d petition for it to be a National Holiday, only maybe renamed “Cull the Crap Day”.
A few years ago, in a completely different life category, I had a Cull the Crap moment. I was done being the person that others wanted or needed me to be. So. Passed. Done. I knew if I didn’t do something about it, my soul would drown. (No one has ever accused me of being low on the dramatics scale.) I had finally slowed down enough to feel it. The loneliness. The sadness. The drowning. The separation of self and spirit. It was as if the scales of “busy” had fallen from my eyes and the life I was living didn’t resemble anything that felt good, real, or true. I had allowed others to make decisions I didn’t want to live with any longer. I basically had zero boundaries set up to teach others how to treat me, which allowed for disrespect and manipulation. Please understand, I was just as guilty as any other party for the pattern of these relationships. I had allowed the foundation to be laid the way it was, sacrificing the best parts of myself for some that didn’t care, and others that it would never be enough.
Here is the thing about drowning. You just want to reach the surface to fill your lungs with enough air to breathe again. There isn’t a map or under water navigation to the surface, you just have to look for the light and head towards it. In efforts to breathe, my only decision was to face the light and honor my truth. As much as I love list making, I didn’t sit down with pen and paper to decide who I would allow in my space and who had to go, I just focused on slowly becoming more myself every day. Peace and joy were my guidance system. More and more, when decisions or trouble would arise, I sent someone new to answer the door. My true self, and not my representative.
This was new to some people, and they didn’t like it. Change is not comfortable, especially when others didn’t choose it. It didn’t work for some relationships and they decided to quit ringing the doorbell. They weren’t comfortable with who was answering the door now. Again, it wasn’t completely their fault, all they had known was the People Pleaser, and it worked for them.
The hardest thing about relationships is that they sometimes change or end before you are ready. Sometimes they simply don’t want to walk down a path with you, and that is okay. It’s also okay to walk the path meant for you. Sometimes the most spiritual things we do are physical, like walking down a healthier path. It’s heartbreaking when this includes family, and sometimes just as sad when it’s friends. Not every relationship is meant for a lifelong endurance. When they are unhealthy and you are drowning, a Cull the Crap day is a good starting place.
Boundary Brooke is in charge of answering the door now. Sometimes the old People Pleasing Representative will sneak to the front, and it never ends well. Boundaries have to go up again, and shockingly, the circus on the porch gets tired and leaves.
Cull the Crap. You can thank Amy’s sweet dad later.
Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls…” Psalms 42:7
As the kiddos have entered into the teen years, we started to feel them slip away from spending as much time with us, the parentals. I’m sure you are as shocked at this news as we were. They didn’t get the memo that we are totes cool. We were sad about this fact since we really kinda like those kids. So, in a desperate attempt to attract teenagers back to the fold – we bought a boat. Worked like a charm – yolo.
My favorite feature on the boat is the depth finder, it seriously amazes me. However, the infatuation I have with that little tool of information is distracting to everyone else on board. Especially since I usually end up sitting wherever there isn’t a kid, tucked in a corner where it’s hard for the Hubs to hear me yell, “Chad! How deep is it here?”
He will mouth back, “Huh?” Then point to his ear and shake his head – the universal code for “I can’t hear you.”
I’ll repeat my question until he slows the boat down enough to hear me and then give me the answer. The answer is always followed with one of my children rolling their adorable eyes and telling their friend on board, “She is obsessed with the depth finder.” Imagine this scenario on repeat x 101. It only took us a whole summer to come up with a code for my same ol’ question, because we are quick problem solvers.
Look at those teens, WITH their parents. #winning
It’s fascinating and terrifying that there can be 86 feet of water under us one minute then, without a sign or warning bell, it goes to 23 feet deep. I just need to know where we figuratively stand with this water thing. My friend Christine would feel better if the lake could be drained, just for a day or so, then we could see exactly what is under the boat. I think this plan is brilliant, no matter how crazy the Corp of Engineers think we are.
I wish people came with a depth finder gauge. Think of all the small talk we could cut down on – we could fit so much more in our day if we simply checked their depth gauge to determine if it is worth the energy of a chat or not. I have a friend who is honest enough to admit she has a disdain for small talk, and claims to be horrible at it. She is best suited in the deep waters of conversation, this has found to be true. She can give you several embarrassing examples of her attempt of the task. Word to those who want to converse with her – throw on a lifejacket and doggie paddle out to the deep. I love this about her and, for the majority of the time, I am dog paddling out there alongside my friend.
In my own life, there are areas I can go as deep as the ocean, and then others I’m about a shallow as a kiddie pool. My most shallow moments show up while organizing family photos – the highlight of every mother’s year.
Since a young age, I always wanted three boys. What I did not account for was planning boys outfits for family photos. Especially now that they are all basically the same sizes, and throw fits when I try to dress one in burgundy colored jeans to pull in the color from the other kiddo’s plaid shirt (Sorry son, sometimes you have to take one for the team, just think of it as a character building moment). It isn’t trendy or cool to completely match, we have to simply coordinate. Coordinating is supposed to look seamless, almost as an afterthought. Kind of like we all showed up, looked down at our clothes and airily laughed that we all wore the same color scheme, how precious.
It is freaking hard. Gone are the “Everyone throw on a black shirt with your jeans, and let’s go take a picture.” days. I miss the Aussie hair product family’s advertisements, where they proved how simple and fun matchy-matchy family photos could be. Gone are the simple times with robes.
Nothing says “Happy Family” like matching robes. Nothing.
For our 2017 family photos, I text the oldest darling at work and said, “What are you wearing tomorrow for family pictures?” We went back and forth discussing what he had and what we might need to shop for that night. T-minus 22 hours before execution. I informed him we were going with grays, warm neutrals, with a pop of red. He replied that we had already done red. I reminded him that was maroon, and his little brother had asked to do red for years and we had ignored him. Mason said, “Fine. But what kind of red are we talking about – Blood red, Lorena red, or like a muted red?” You see how I’m used to the deep waters of topics and conversations.
By the time we actually show up for family photos, I’ve given up on caring about the perfect-nice-normal-family photos. The pop of red was thrown out (sorry bud, maybe next year) and we just smiled. No matter my level of stress, the photos always turn out amazing, because any photo with my babies captured in it usually is. They are just handsome little suckers that will always have my heart, no matter the depth of our current water. Also, I might have had a wine spritzer inside of my yeti to help me chill out – this is just an assumption, not an admission.
See? Perfection.
To be authentically you, one has to be the same at 1 ft. of depth than you are at 80 ft. Authentic – who doesn’t love people who are described by that adjective? To show your real self, to live in your own skin and stand in the truth of who and whose you are is the best gift to give the world. And yourself. To put it eloquently, you do you boo. I’ve frequented both levels on my journey -swimming in the deep or wadding in the kiddie pool, and I’ll take deep waters over shallowness any day. Each come with their own scary stuff (Jaws and alligators – both equally as terrifying), but life is less peopley in the deep end, there is much less chatter. For that fact alone, swim out sister. After family photos of course.
* 2017 Photos by Taylor Nicole Photography
**Not the Aussie Hair family photo…that was produced by google.