What Now?

My favorite game to play with people has always been “questions”. Basically it consists of me asking a million and one questions until my nosey apatite is satisfied. When I had sleepovers with my childhood friends, I would make everyone, (I was nosey and bossy) write down questions and put them in a hat. The game then obviously consisted of you answering the question you drew out of the hat. As I have gotten older that game has progressed into what can be a relentless beating until I am happy with the answer. It is not, however, a one-sided game. I am more than happy to answer the questions I am asked. Being an open book has always been one of my best and worst qualities. I will answer pretty much anything asked of me, honestly, except one very simple question, “what is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?” I will usually say, “I fell cheering during a game once,” or, “I spilled a cup of hot coffee all over an elderly lady waitressing one day”, and while those instances weren’t fun, I don’t get embarrassed over things like that at all.

                If I were to answer that question honestly, which I guess I am doing now, the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me, and seems to continue to happen to me, is my standards. The seemingly ever- descending set of standards I have for myself, and the people I allow into my life. I have had my share of crappy friends (who hasn’t), but why it takes me so long, and so many heartaches, and disappointments,  to get to the point where I have had enough; enough embarrassment and humiliation to remember I matter, and I need to be done, boggles me.

                I think about this a lot; I pray about it a lot. My question (of course there ’s another question) to God is always the same, how did this happen? When did this happen?  I look back and can’t find Freudian insight into where I was neglected or abandoned, or where my needs weren't meet and I became dependent on someone else meeting them. I was raised with the best example of a woman I could have asked for. Dependency and vulnerability outside of what is endearing in a person wasn’t modeled for me. My mother was incredibly strong, and able to admit weaknesses, but she didn’t tolerate disrespect from anyone at the risk of not having someone in her life. There was a time that neither did I. There was a time when I considered myself the strongest person I knew, and although I was forgiving beyond what was necessary at times, I was okay with that. I owned it as a part of who I was, and it made me feel good to know I was following the path Jesus laid before me….

                What scares me, what saddens me, is that that ability and genuine desire to forgive, has somehow shifted into my accepting what treatment I’m handed, until I reach a breaking point of feeling completely disrespected, demeaned, embarrassed, brushed aside, or the worst out of all of them, afraid to even look at myself in the mirror because I am so disgusted with that I am allowing to take place in my life. I find myself saying ridiculous things to justify another person’s actions. In relationships, “well, he doesn’t hit me or call me names, I wouldn’t tolerate that.” In my friendships, “well, I know my dad just died but she has a lot on her plate so it’s okay she was nowhere to be found.” Why? What purpose does it serve to have people in my life that are counterproductive and don’t seem to appreciate the position anyways? At some point we all have to grow up and stop choosing who we meet for coffee based on wanting to have a date for prom and friends to sit at lunch with. I am not at an age where friendship is entirely based on proximity, and whoever sits next to me in fourth period English is my best friend that year. Boyfriends should not be chosen based purely on the height requirement. I am blessed, beyond blessed, to finally have found a support system of friends that set the standard higher than I even imagined it could be, but I am not so lucky in the relationship world.

                I don’t want to berate the relationships I have been involved in ,or demean their character anonymously because some of them were incredible people and at one point or another in our journey together showed me what it means to be in a healthy, loving relationship; but most of them have been, quite frankly, a complete waste of time. I hate when I hear people say, “Well, they taught me what I don’t want in a relationship”. Really? Did I need to be cheated on to learn I don’t want that? I know the divorce had a larger impact on me than I admitted, or maybe I'm just now realizing for myself. However dysfunctional a marriage between two young people can be, at the end of the day, I really, really wanted us to make it. He was a horrible partner. He drank and lied and cheated and spent money he didn’t have.  He allowed me to work three jobs, go to school, take care of the house, and the dog he wanted that I didn’t, all while driving an hour and a half from a military base to do it. I realize no one deserves to be treated like that, but we made a promise before God to love and honor each other forever, and one of us took that seriously.

                The divorce, well, I guess more so the marriage completely broke me down. The eating disorder was the easy part of those years for me, and it is so difficult for me to look back at the treatment I accepted. I tell myself all the things I would tell my client, people treat you the way you let them, you give people the power to hurt you, etc. etc. It is different when you are the one involved in the whole sloppy mess. That is something I need to remember as a therapist, and it is something I try to remember as a person. I guess at some point in the recovery from the devastation that was that divorce, I let my standards for what is acceptable and what isn’t take a complete nosedive. I will justify it all by saying, I’m busy, I’m pursuing a career, I don’t have time to offer more of a commitment than I already am, but that’s crap, you find the time when you find the person worth finding the time for. Maybe I haven’t found that person, or maybe I have and he hasn’t found me. All I know is, as hard as it might be, as difficult and lonely as it can sometimes feel, being with someone who doesn’t put you in the same position in their lives that you put them in yours is WAY lonelier than having no one at all.

                Maybe it’s time I revert back to myself for that relationship, maybe I need to date myself and remember what it is I am worth before I cheat on myself with someone less deserving again. Maybe those amazing friends that make every single day better deserve the effort I put into wasted space put into them. Maybe I should call my mother right now and thank her for not only showing me what it is like to fall, but that it is entirely possible to get back up, stronger and more ready than before. Maybe I should pray, and ask a different set of questions. Questions like, “how do I move forward from here?” A little less, “Why?” “How?” “When?” and a lot more, “What now?”

The Finish Line

I was not the pretty girl in class. I was not always the smartest. I was not the fastest, the nicest, or the best dressed. I had tons of friends, and tried to be nice to everyone, but my own insecurities and issues built a wall around me that was often perceived as snobbiness. I didn’t go to parties and I wasn’t allowed to date. I had cheerleading, and I was a 4.0 student. As graduation got closer, most of my friends were planning summers full of concerts and barbeques to attend before they moved away to college. I got a job and prepared to start the local community college- I had no plans beyond getting money in the bank and getting myself through my bachelors program. I was focused and excited, but I was not prepared to accept life outside of academic success. I wasn’t the popular girl having a difficult time adjusting to being a small fish in a big pond suddenly; I was an insecure girl who had validated myself through grades and winning cheer competitions, only to find myself sitting in a classroom full of smart kids with the same 4.0 I had.

I got a job waitressing. My tip money went to a new shirt to wear to the club and gas money to drive all over Southern California with my friends. I had freedom and took it for granted…deciding my parents had no clue what they were talking about up to this point in my life, and I had been a victim of communist brain washing. Saving money? Pssh. That’s for the birds. Health? Sleep? Not for this know-it-all. Basically, like most kids my age, it took me one year out of high school to go from a 4.0 student to academic probation, I was in credit card debt and had worn myself exhausted and bored with seeing everything I had seen. I had no idea what I wanted to do.

Then I met a boy. I fell ridiculously, recklessly, blindly in love with this boy. Needless to say, the cliché continues and I married said boy. Two and a half years later I packed everything I owned into my Chrysler and moved back home. I took the dog, he kept his girlfriend. The insecure girl was back, this time with an eating disorder and someone else’s debt. I felt like a shell of a person, and to be entirely honest, out of all the things I’d lost being with him, my dreams were the hardest pills to swallow. Where did the girl with all the ambition in the world go? Where did the girl who listed journalist, lawyer, veterinarian, and singer (I can’t sing), all at once mind you, when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up disappear to? Who was I and what was I supposed to do now? The divorce destroyed me. I didn’t say it out loud. I got really good at pretending. I was hurt, beyond hurt, and betrayed, and I was embarrassed to admit I missed a man who had treated me so badly as much as I did. I was ashamed I was getting divorced, and the innocence in me was officially gone.

I just muddled through life. I waitressed and continued to hang out with my friends. There were good times. I started to laugh a little more and dated again. I carried emotional turmoil everywhere I went, but at least I was getting out of the house.  I missed him still, I was still ashamed and hurt, but I was treading water like hell trying to get back in the race.

I went for an interview for an internship yesterday. I got the position. I am beginning my internship for the completion of my Masters degree Monday. My Masters. I don’t know what happened. I woke up one morning and told my mom to meet me at Chapman University, I was finishing my Bachelors degree. That was five years ago. Now I have a matching Masters to hang next to it. I will be starting my second Masters next year, and maybe I’ll go for my doctorate one day. I have plans to own a business, and have worked hard to surround myself with a support group that builds me up and lies down with me when I fall. I have a God that I stopped running in embarrassment from, realizing He was with me all along. I have gone through therapy and read books and had endless conversations with the people that love me, and that is why I am here, sitting in the same Starbucks I have been studying in for eight years, realizing the finish line is in sight. It’s here.

I don’t have a tragic story full of obstacles I’ve had to overcome. I have parents that divorced but remarried, I have insecurities that led to an eight year eating disorder, but I have strengths that helped me overcome it. I have a job that has blessed me enough to go to school, and I have relationships today that nurture me.

When I was going through my divorce, I stood in front of the person I had given everything I absolutely had too, and I asked him how. How could you do this to someone who gave you what I gave you without ever asking for anything in return? He looked at me and said, “Well, if someone is dumb enough to give it to you, why not take it right?”

Right.

Except this time I was dumb enough to give it to myself, and by God’s grace it worked out. See you at the finish line. It’s been awhile, so in case you don’t recognize me I’ll be the one on the other side of it.

Belonging

How many people do we belong to in our life? How many times do our hearts open- close- then re-open themselves to an old love? Start a fresh journey with a new love? The thing that intrigues me the most… is I loved them all the same, yet so different. I love my mom entirely, with all of my being, and I belong to her.  My dad and I fought the battle every day to get to the place where we are now, and I belong to him, yet, I belong to my mom? My heart feels completely full when I think of either one of them, but when I think of my Jesus, my sister, him, and even the hims before him, it feels the same way. I belong, or did belong to all those people.

I have asked myself so many times, can we really love more than one person, soul mate kind of love, in our lifetime? For the longest time, usually to comfort myself through a break up, I would tell myself no, that there is only one true love, and the rest was practice...but how can that be? It’s not, I can’t believe that. I have been lucky enough, more blessed then I can ever comprehend, to have gone through my life thus far with an amazing collection of best friends. Most I am still friends with, some I am not…and whether we don’t talk anymore because we out grew each other, or because we made the conscious decision to go our separate ways, for the season(s) they were in my life, I belonged to them.

We are not supposed to have regrets, and for the most part I don’t. I subscribe to the ideal that God has a plan for me, and my sinful nature guided me off that path more times than I’d like to remember, but God always met me where I was at, and readjusted things from there. I have fought a bloody war, and I am grateful that there haven't been more casualties. I am not okay with losing one friend, let alone the number of friends I have, but what upsets me more than coming across old pictures or an inside joke now and then, is the little piece of my heart they took with them…the loss that comes with no longer belonging. Where this is all going, if it is going anywhere at all, is that the loss of those friends seems lonely, but I love the friends I have now so much I don’ know where I would find any room to love more.

I look in his eyes and I know. I just know. It doesn’t take away from the fact that I knew then too. There were a few I didn’t love, even if I thought I did, but there were some I did, and for the short time I was in their lives, I belonged to them…..

My dad told me something a few weeks ago that hasn’t left my mind since…. We had an honest discussion, well; I had an honest listen, to him talking to me about the divorce. It’s a touchy subject, as it should be, and we haven’t had much dialogue about the topic since it happened. I have struggled since the day the decision was made to end things, with an overwhelming amount of emotion, most of which has been guilt for putting my family through such heartache. Being responsible for hurting someone(s) you love, someone(s) you still belong to, is the hardest thing I have gone through. I can deal with anger, I almost wish for it to make things easier, because to love someone, still, but know you have to make a decision that is best for you, that will hurt them, there aren’t enough tears to cry. The second my dad brought the guilt up, and how I need to release it…give it to the God I thank for forgiveness and grace every day, I began to cry. This is my dad, the dad I belonged to until I married someone and belonged to them for a short while, only to end things resulting in me not really belonging to anyone (except my mom, Jesus, my sister, my friends- get it?) … and he’s telling me to forgive myself….then he says, “it’s okay Megan, you think with your heart not with your head, you always have. It’s who you are.”

It’s who I am.

The thing is my heart doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to my mother, my father, my sister, my Jesus, my best friends, and him….. The greatest commandment of all is to love like Jesus loved. We have become a people that view putting others before ourselves as a weakness. It’s me...me...me...” I’ll love you as much as I can but only if it isn’t at a sacrifice to me...” Ugh. There is a lot of back and forth I don’t get involved with, I don’t do soap box, I don’t do debates, but this is one thing I am adamant about. True joy, pure and true joy in its most natural form, comes from loving others, doing for others, giving to others. My heart hasn’t belonged to me since I was old enough to use it, and the problem (for me) does not come with figuring out how to grow up and take back my heart, to think for myself and only myself, but to find a balance between thinking with the heart I have left, that belongs to who it belongs to now, and not letting the pieces of my heart that were given away to those I used to belong, to damage me. Make me a cynic. Lonely.

I have loved more than I have done anything else, and I have not always done it perfectly but Lord knows I tried. I don’t just love a little, I don’t even know how- I give it all, everything, every part of me to belong to every part of you. I guess what I am wondering, what I still haven’t quite figure out, is how I can love so entirely the people I belong to now, when there is still so much of me belonging to those that aren’t here loving me anymore. What a humbling position to even be in.

Home for the Holidays

There’s this couple that live in the corner house on my block. The first time I saw them was a couple of weeks before Halloween. They were outside together putting up their decorations, which sadly, blew away the next day.  Thanksgiving rolls around, and there they are, dressing up a scarecrow and sticking fall flowers in their flower pots.  Two days before Thanksgiving I had my house completely decked out. I thought I was the first person to have my Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving had its turn, but the couple on the corner had their colored lights on Thanksgiving night.  It is my first time decorating my own home, and besides a wreath my mother made me and an ornament I got for Christmas a couple of years ago, I had nothing. My best friend and I spent a day, and a lot of money, roaming the aisles of every convenience store in my area. After losing our mind, okay, after I lost my mind in one store, we had to caravan our carts across the parking lot. There are few times, especially with the stress of life in the past couple of months, that I get to just laugh. Laugh like when I was a kid and would spin in circles until I was dizzy with my sister in the backyard, but this was one of those moments. Every time I walk by that tree I think of Carolyn and me trying to hold onto these carts with the wind blowing us all over the place. Those are the memories Christmas is made of, and thank God we allow ourselves to take a step back from diets, bills, rush-hour traffic, and chores to enjoy life, even if only for the few short weeks of the holiday season. I don’t know when we became a society that is in such a hurry we need the excuse of a holiday to justify not taking life so seriously, but I am glad we at least have that much. I walk by my tree every morning, a little disappointed I am so busy with finals and working to have time to sit on my couch and enjoy the twinkle lights and the candles burning….

That’s why I like this couple so much. I like to make up stories about people I see a lot but don’t know, and I have decided this young couple is living in their first home, enjoying their first set of holidays as co-inhabitants of a home they will look back on one day and say, “remember when we spent all that money on those Halloween decorations and they blew away the next day?” ..Or, “remember how small that house was and how we would bump into each other even standing in the kitchen together?” Thank God for small houses and the love that overflows them. I grew up in a small home, my sister and I shared a room, and there was one bathroom to the four of us. I was the happiest girl in the world when we moved into the big house my senior year, I got my own room!! However, I wouldn’t trade the years laughing in bed with my sister or doing my make up in the bathroom with my mom for anything in this world.

I was getting my usual holiday, red toes, pedicure yesterday, enjoying my coffee and listening to everyone talk about their holiday plans and what they were buying whom. There was an older guy next to me, and his granddaughter was on the other side of him. He was one of those happy- all- the –time people, you know? He was smiling and greeting every customer and worker that walked by his chair. When his pedicure was finished, the nail tech asked him how he felt. He said he felt wonderful and that he mostly came because he wanted to create a memory with his granddaughter, one that they “could look back on later and laugh at”, then he said, “This is a good memory.” I cried, instantly. I would give anything in this world to have my grandfather here to get a pedicure with, purely just to create a memory we could laugh at later. Thank God for family members to make memories with, maybe those family members have left us sooner than we would have liked, maybe time and anger have combined to create a rift so huge it appears irreparable right now, but thank God there are some, for all of us, that we can look back on and say, “that was a good memory.”

These are the things that tie us all together. These are the memories, and the day to day activities, that put the same smile on my face as the girl behind me in line at Starbucks has on her face during this time of year.  She probably didn’t just spend an afternoon scouting Target aisles, caravanning four carts full of ornaments and lighted garland, but something has happened in her days leading up to the holidays that has made her smile. The couple on the corner, in a small house in the middle of Adelanto, the man at the pedicure shop, excited to spend 13 dollars to sit with his granddaughter for forty minutes, just the two of them, Carolyn and I trying to balance wrapping paper rolls in an already full cart, they’re all special, and rare, moments to the people experiencing them.

It might not be much, but its home. Home for the holidays, at least for now, if not the rest of the year, its home.

NASA

Three days after my parents brought my sister home from the hospital; I came to my mother in the kitchen and  said, “Remember when you brought that baby home and I didn’t like her?” That’s all it took. Three days of holding out until I surrendered to being completely infatuated with my sister. She is three years younger than me, but from the way I talk about her you would think she was ten years old. I realize she is an adult, but hard as I try, I just don’t see her that way. I see the little girl posing in trash cans and with our dogs because our parents made the mistake of giving us idiots a disposable camera. I see the girl who had to have her stuffed animals lined up perfectly on her bed. I could write a sweet, emotional blog about her, but I do that every other blog. In honor of our relationship- I think it would be more genuine if I told it like it is.

Court was nine years old, in third grade and growing a little too big for her britches (I’m the older sister I can say that). I was twelve and we were outside doing our weekly Wednesday chore. Raking up the dog poop and taking out the trash. I hated this chore because, well because I hate poop, but also because she was so much smaller than me so when we would carry the trash cans to the street I would have to do all the work. My side would be tilted up because I was actually carrying it, and her side was so much lower the trash can would hit me in the ankle the entire walk down the driveway. I would always yell at her to pick her side up and she would always get mad and twist her determined little face up. She would grab the trash can with both hands and try to lift it up as high as she could. It was never high enough but dang it if that little girl didn’t try…. We were usually both so irritated about this chore we would start arguing instantly. This particular Wednesday was windy and cold. We decided to use our technique (we had a few) where one of us held the snow shovel (my sister) while the other one (me) raked the dog poop onto it. Court was getting mouthy (once again, I’m older so I can say mouthy) and she made me mad. One minute she was running her mouth, and knowing her she probably hit me with the rake, and the next minute I took the entire shovel and threw it on her. She went screaming into the house and to this day I laugh hysterically every time I think of her running and yelling, “She threw poop on me mom!” My mother actually believed me that the wind did it, and for once in a million fights, I actually got away with something.

I was eleven and my sister was eight. Our Dad worked nights and would sleep a couple of hours in the day, then get up till my mom got home and he could go back to sleep. My sister and I were on the same track, so we were off for six weeks every few months together. By the end of the first week we were over each other, so although we had no one else to play with and had to get along for the sake of boredom, we would fight like crazy. One day she made me mad over who knows what, probably a debate over watching Where in the World is Carmen San Diego and Saved by the Bell, so I told her I as running away. I packed six dollars and three pairs of socks in a back pack and made it to the end of the walkway before she came outside after me, crying and begging me not to go. The second I saw her sad face it was over and I was making sure my sister wasn’t sad. Ninety percent of the time growing up I was the one making my sister cry, but the second that she did, I would do anything in this world to make her stop, I still would.

My sister was a freshman and I as a senior in high school. She came home one day and said this girl, who at one time was her friend, stole her shoes and she saw them in her locker. My sister has no problem confronting anyone, about anything, but the fact that she had handled the problem for herself didn’t matter to me. I went up to this 80 pound freshman girl the next day at school and in front of all her friends started yelling at her for stealing my sister’s shoes. I told my sister about it later and she was entirely un-amused. She let me know she had already handled it, and I let her know I didn’t care, she was my sister and I wasn’t having that. Then she made fun of me for being a loser senior going after a freshman. But that’s what my sister doesn’t understand; I would go after Goliath for her. If those were my shoes I would have convinced myself they weren’t, I would never confront someone for myself; but I will for her, even if she doesn’t want me too.

I remember little memories from growing up with her all the time. We have our own sense of humor, our own ebb and flow that comes from years of sharing a room and a seatbelt in our dad’s old truck. Whether it was good or bad, big or small, scary or fun, we did it together. Our age difference put us in entirely different spots in our life once I hit junior high, and we haven’t met back in the middle yet; but I have the best memories of our elementary school years. She was my best friend, still is. She was always pissing me off, I would put together a stage set for whatever play I was making up, and it never failed; by the time I got the stage set up she was bored; when it was my turn to be the customer instead of the order taker, she was over it; I finally get to be the teacher and she doesn’t want to play school anymore. We would be coloring or playing with our dolls, or “prank” calling businesses by calling them and asking them what time they open, and she would say, “I am going to go get a drink,” ten minutes later I’d find her in the living room sitting with my dad. She annoyed me, she never wanted to share her clothes with me, when her friends came over and I talked to them she would get mad; but she is my best friend and favorite person in the world.

It is my turn to drive her crazy. I text her every other day telling her not to drink and drive (she is on her way to work), asking her to eat with me (in the middle of her day), making her talk to me and tell me all about her life (I stopped by unexpectedly and she is in a hurry to get ready for work). I know I boss her around. I am bossy, and over-protective, and defensive, and much more “second mom” than “older sister”; and it probably drives her crazy, but she has no idea what it’s like to be the older sister. To worry about your baby sister who isn’t a baby anymore. To know the stupid mistakes you have made and things you have put yourself through, and how you would give just about anything to protect her from that.

I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent, but if it’s anything like being an older sister it is an unconditional love that makes room for forgiveness, respect, and a whole lot of annoyance. She may be old enough to fight back now, to put me in my place when I need it, but to me, she will always be the blue eyed baby sitting across the table from me, making up commercials to each food item on our lunch plate, while our dad slept. Just me and her, in our own ebb and flow, talking away about who knows what. And then- I punch her. The end.

SHOUT-

Wake up. Run. Starbucks, Work twelve hours. Class. Sleep Wake up. Run. Homework. Starbucks. Work twelve hours. Class. Sleep. Wake up. On Sunday there is church.   Everyday is the same. I am like a robot with goals. Lately I have had the nerve to start feeling a little sorry for myself, because I am more tired than usual. I am more frustrated than usual. It seems to be getting more and more difficult to live in the dotted in-betweens of my life’s timeline. I don’t complain, ever, because I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I don’t want God to think that I don’t appreciate everything I have, including the opportunity to exhaust myself, because I do; but I was praying the other night, and God knows my heart, which made me realize because I don’t vent the feelings out loud does not mean they don’t exist. I try to purge them when I run…with every step I take I try to pound out the weight of the emotions, but it doesn’t work the way it used too- maybe because when you run from something, all you’re really doing is giving it the chance to follow you.   I wouldn’t give up any of the things I do if I had the chance, but maybe I should. I know God will slow me down when it is time for me to take a step back, but until he does I just pray for the energy to get through. I don’t know if energy is enough anymore. I want to feel alive, connected. I need something to slap me in the face to remind me, “You chose this.”   Everyone has someone they look at as an inspiration in one form or another. That person has something they possess that makes a person stop and say, “I don’t know what that is (or maybe I do) but I want that.” For many people it is Oprah, or a sports star, a famous speaker or an actress; but for me, it is this man I pass on my runs all the time. We always wave, and he is always smiling long before he sees me, but the other day I was able to see him in motion, while I was standing still. I had just finished my run and was stretching in the driveway when I heard this noise. It was far away so it was hard to make out, like the sound of your alarm clock when you finally wake up and realize you have been listening to this noise for five minutes. I see the running man coming towards me and realize the noise is coming from him. He is singing along to a song on his ipod, a song that only he can hear, and I have never seen a person more oblivious to the world around him than this man was at that moment. He was almost yelling, and I realized he was saying, “shout”. It took me two seconds to realize what song he was singing, and in the weirdest way, I was now singing along to his song too.  I caught myself standing there for a couple of minutes, watching this man and listening to him until he was out of sight. I was taken a back when I realized that was the first time I had just – stopped- for two minutes, in longer than I can remember. I literally cannot remember the last time I was just- still-. I don’t know what that man’s story is. His life might be as hectic and stressful as mine, but whatever he does everyday, whatever his schedule looks like, it includes a run around the lake, singing to a song only he can hear. I want that.   I prayed a different prayer today, one that is probably more honest, and it made me feel better. I stopped in the middle of my run and prayed- “Lord, I am tired. I don’t know what it is, or where I started to slow down and burn out, but I did, and I need your help to reconnect with my life. I want to be present, and I want to be inspired, and I want to go back to the days I was busy, but excited to be working towards a dream. My dream. My song. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Amen”   I kept running. I had run a mile and half when it occurred to me, I ust rana mile and half, smiling, thinking about something that had nothing to do with anything I needed to purge on the pavement. It felt good. It made me want to shout.

New Kids on the Block and Saturday Night Live

During my “on-my-way-to-work-jam-session” as I like to call it- New Kids on the Block came on to my iPod. Usually I would skip the song and go to the next, but today I decided not to. I downloaded the NKOTB C.D. onto my iPod with the intentions of taking myself back. The second the song came through the speakers  small memories started coming back, the memorabilia I collected, the time when I had finally saved enough of my allowance to buy the NKOTB picture I had been wanting forever at the swap meet, but those were drowned by one particularly beautiful memory. My mother bought me the NKOTB concert video, and I watched that thing a million times. My parents had JUST separated, my mother was working two jobs, and now, as a divorced adult myself, I am realizing she was probably beyond overwhelmed with the reality that life as we all knew it, was changing. My sister was only three, but I had personally decided I would take on the responsibility of raising her, and in my seven year old brain that was what I was doing. …… One morning my mother was cleaning up the kitchen from breakfast. My sister was playing on the floor next to her, and I was, of course, watching my NKOTB video. My favorite song on the video was, “Please don’t go girl”… mostly because I liked the melancholy-mullet-ness/rat-tail look they had going on during this sad and sullen interval of the show. Don’t judge me; it was early the 90’s. I asked my mom to dance with me to the song assuming she was busy and would say no; but she didn’t. She came over to the living room and had me stand on her feet and we danced. I was able to be seven, and silly, and laugh with my mom. I was able to “take a break” from raising my sister and being serious and I was just a little girl, dancing with my mom in the middle of the living room to my favorite concert video.

In the middle of all that pain, there was beauty.

My grandpa died the summer before I started my junior year in high school. He truly was my hero. I loved him in ways I didn’t know how. The day he died I just felt, different. I didn’t crumble under the weight of the loss like I always imagined I would; but I walked out of the living room where I had gotten the worst news I’ve heard in my life to date, and I just knew life was different now. That feeling of being my grandpa’s little girl, even at 16, was gone. The day I got home from the funeral I met the boy who would be my first love. It was the typical teenage relationship, but he was my close friend for a long time.

In the middle of all that pain, there was beauty.

When I came home after leaving my husband, I had nothing to my name but my dog, a box full of MAC, and a broken heart. I was a waitress and college student and had left every piece of furniture, candle, and picture frame I owned at the home I left. The first few nights I was home I was sleeping on a mattress in the middle of my old room;the  first room I had all to myself. The room was familiar, There were the seashells my mother had painted on the wall, (no two the same) and thecurtains I had picked out to match the bedspread that i was so excited to pick out when we first moved in to the house......... I knew I was home. I knew I was in a place that was safe, where I wouldn’t be told to leave should I do something wrong, get in an argument with someone, break a vase or get home twenty minutes earlier than I said I would. I was home. But I was alone. I was supposed to be living with my husband, but he had other plans, so my plans changed. I had been home three nights when I finally let myself cry so hard I literally thought I would die. I was on the same mattress I l fell asleep on countless nights, dreaming of my wedding and decorating our home, praying for his safety in Iraq and looking at our pictures, but it was on the floor in the center of my room now, and he was gone. Two days after I cried, I came home and my parents had put a queen sized bed in my room. There was a black bedspread with all my leopard pillows I had left there. My heart was still broken, but I had a bed.

In the middle of all that pain, there was beauty.

I don’t know where the fear of pain began to outweigh the search for pleasure, but it did. I guess I got my heart broken enough times, got excited to see my Dad and something would fall through...again, came home to pictures being put in dresser drawers, missed out on being invited to enough events; was excited over an accomplishment only to share it with someone who wasn’t as excited, was chosen second by someone I had chosen first, left one too many voicemails..and it changed me. I didn't become defensive as much as protective. I let myself feel things, enjoy things, laugh with friends, and fall in love; but the whole time I am smiling there is the voice in the back of my head saying, “enjoy this, it’s going to end soon.”  I am always running, trying to escape the bottom dropping out. What intrigues me the most, is when I am happy, I am assuming the pendulum will soon swing the other way and I will be sad again...but why is it when I am sad I don’t prepare myself to embrace the happiness that will soon come my way. Does the pendulum only swing one way?

In a conversation  I had with Shee about this very thing recently, I mentioned that the balance comes when there is no preparation for sorrow in the midst of the happiness; there is no “losing” happiness because sadness has crept in; but finding a balance between the two. Crying when you need to cry but knowing soon you will laugh again. Meeting friends for coffee on days I’d rather crawl in bed and hide; enjoying the beauty of the air in my lungs and the breeze on my face during my run on days the world is too much for me.

Of course my life will have periods of sadness! What a gift from God to wake up and realize I have survived this “sadness” before, and I will be able to do it again. I have been alone on a mattress in the middle of my room, sad and broken hearted, but laughing at an episode of Saturday Night Live. My life can be a real mess sometimes, but it's a beautiful mess; and it is my mess.  The people I love will be sad, will struggle and experience heart ache, but my responsibility is not to exhaust myself trying to shelter them from the world, but to simply lie on the floor next to them when it is their turn to be knocked down.

I will be sad many more times in my life, of this I can be sure, but I am not afraid anymore. I have a God who is always with me, soul mate friends that will walk beside me, a sister who thinks I can do no wrong, even when I have, parents whose purpose on this earth is to love my sister and I, I have strength and courage that has been tested, and I have a mother who will let me stand on her toes to dance with me in the middle of the living room.

And in the middle of all that pain, there is beauty.