Freeform Friday

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Zephaniah 3:17 NLT: “For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with singing.”

I have said before that posting poetry often leaves me feeling exposed, but this feels even more naked than poetry.

*I do have better art photography skills than this, but I was lazy on this one and didn’t use the good camera or tripod or lights – that felt like more work than I wanted to do last night. I hereby promise to reshoot and repost a clean copy of this and to actually do the photography work on all future artwork I share.

Forgiveness – Part 2 – Forgive Others

Part 1 was about forgiving ourselves. Part 2 is no less easy: forgive others. Grief, loss, and depression feel largely self-centered once you finally begin to gain perspective and see past the fog of those emotions, but the pain of loss can also focus heavily on what others say and do to us. Very often, we feel that people say things intentionally to hurt us, or we perceive their actions (or inactions) to be a direct threat or insult. When I am hurting, I see everything that happens to me as piling on – my husband didn’t like what I cooked for dinner, so I must be a horrible cook and a terrible person (even though he just doesn’t like turkey meatballs…); no one asked for my input about a project at work, so they must think I an inept or too far behind to be of any help (even though I really needed the space to catch up and didn’t really need to be part of the discussion…); some idiot at the grocery store asked me when we’re going to have another baby (even though I don’t know this person, so their opinion is completely irrelevant to my life…). Most of the time, my grievances have nothing to do with the person who “wronged” me and everything to do with my emotional state. Occasionally, I have reason to take offense, but then I must follow up on that in a way that honors Christ.

In the instances when I am offended, but there is no reason for the other person to apologize (who can blame my husband for disliking turkey meatballs??), I still have to forgive them in order to let go of the anger their “offense” caused in my heart. I have to let go of that so that I can let go of any grudge I am tempted to hold onto and nurse because it makes me feel better to be righteously indignant. When every perceived slight you experience causes you deep emotional pain, you need to evaluate what the source of that pain really is and let go of the hurt and anger you’re feeling that is misdirected. You can walk around being offended by everyone and everything, but you’ll be an angry, bitter person who begins to alienate people when what you need most is to be comforted by people. Start with the small things and make a habit of mentally forgiving the offense and immediately dropping it. This takes practice because, if you’re anything like me, the offensive thing will keep popping into your head. Each time, I have to remind myself that it is forgiven, and I have to let it go. (Please feel free to sing this the rest of the day. I will…)

I have a few rules that I apply to whether I address a grievance or not. The first rule is whether or not the person who aggrieved me matters to me. Rude cashier who can’t help but comment on every single purchase I make? Doesn’t matter. Forgive and don’t waste breath trying to explain how she offended me. A friend or family member I have a real relationship with and would like to have a deeper relationship with? Worth the conversation every time, but I have to approach the topic when I am no longer angry and can explain why I was hurt. Most of the time, that person didn’t even realize that what they said or did was offensive to me. Most of the time a good conversation without anger leads to a healed relationship and a deeper bond of trust. And then you have to forgive and move on. (Let it go.)

The second rule is one I learned in puppy training school: addressing a problem too long after the fact doesn’t do any good. This one is twofold for me; if after some time has passed, I’m not still angry, then I never address it and just let it go; if I waited for a long time after an offense and never addressed it, then I have lost the right to bring it up again – so let it go. I am pretty terrible at this rule when it comes to arguing or being angry at someone I have a long history with, but I did at least learn in marriage counseling that this is a terribly unfair way to fight and is pretty much toxic for everyone involved. I practice really hard at letting go of things and only addressing the issue at hand.

Honestly, I now find fewer things that I have the energy or desire to pursue later. Almost every time I find myself offended, a little bit of time and space lets me see that I was really worked up over nothing. That hasn’t always been the case, and I carried a lot of anger directed at everyone for a long time. I was angry at my doctors for not finding a problem or not testing for enough things. I was angry at anyone who said something stupid in an effort to be comforting. I was angry at anyone who called me on mistakes and turned it into an issue about them and not me. I was angry at women who were walking through the grocery store for being pregnant or for carrying babies. I wanted someone to blame for my misery, so I blamed everyone. The reality is, God never promised any of us an easy time on earth, and some of you have experienced more pain and more junk than I can even begin to comprehend. I don’t know why. I do know that God is still bigger than all of our messes and all of our circumstances, and he forgives us. And he calls us to forgive others whether they ask for our forgiveness or not. He’s pretty persistent about this point. Here are just a few things Jesus said about forgiving others, one while he was dying on a cross:

“If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:14-15 NLT

“Then Peter came to him and asked, ‘Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?’ ‘No, not seven times,’ Jesus replied, ‘but seventy times seven!’” Matthew 18:21-22 NLT

“Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.’” Luke 23:34a NLT

Still not convinced? Here is advice Paul gave to the early church about how to treat each other:

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:31-32 NLT

“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.” Colossians 3:13 NLT

I love this last verse because it reminds me that forgiveness isn’t about the person who offended you; it’s about your relationship with God. Jesus forgave me, so I must forgive. I wish I had an easy way to forgive and forget, but alas I am human. My best advice is to redirect your thought process when you remember an offense or are tempted to hold a grudge. If you have forgiven the person, change the conversation in your head about that person or event: “It’s forgiven, so I choose to think about her smile instead.” Eventually the thing will pop into your mind less frequently, and you will be able to think of something positive instead of how you were hurt. For the record, this takes great effort, and I still stink at this a lot, but every time I put into the perspective of God’s forgiveness, I realize I am wrong to carry around such hurt and anger. Also for the record, I have some beautiful friendships that would not exist if I had walked away just because I got my feelings hurt. I’m so grateful that my family and friends choose to forgive me, too. Relationships are worth the effort, and a relationship with Christ is worth the act of forgiving others.

Self Portrait

Every time I stare in the mirror, I see the same face I’ve always seen:
Hazel eyes topped by dark brown brows, full lips, 
Average nose with a chicken pox scar on the bridge, 
High cheekbones- the right one with a little straight scar from a run-in with my grandmother’s coffee table.
No matter how much time passes, I feel I am peering into the same face.
I am me no matter how old I become.
I am in an instant thirty eight and twelve.
I wonder how that will feel with each passing decade.
Will I always just see me?
Or will I begin to see my age and my flaws first,
And myself last?
Long before I could imagine growing old,
I vowed to “age gracefully,” to let time fade my hair to gray and trace lines across my face.
I felt I would have earned those marks by a life lived fully.
Now that I look closer, I see that the creases around my eyes are growing deeper,
And the hair around my temples is showing more gray.
But I am not disappointed by these changes.
Each crease is a reminder of how often I smile and laugh.
Each new gray hair is an outward show of hard-earned experiential wisdom.
Each scar is a memory – my grandmother’s house, dance class as a little girl, homemade lasagna, pain I’ve overcome.
I see strength and grace and beauty and hope in every line and curve.
I see a child of God.
I am me, and I am enough.

Forgiveness – Part 1 – Forgive Yourself

This is a special request blog topic. An aspect of depression and grief that we may tend to overlook or gloss over is forgiveness. There can be a lot of guilt in loss – you blame yourself, you blame someone else for causing your loss, you blame God for allowing the loss to happen, and then you feel guilty for all the finger-pointing you’re doing or the anger you’re feeling. We say silly things like, “You have to forgive yourself,” but how do you really do that? What if you really have done horrible things because you were acting on your emotions? What if you really have damaged other people or relationships because of your words or actions (or lack thereof) when you were depressed? See? Lots of guilt. Not lots of grace.

All of the things we do that are less than perfect are sin. Sin is anything – behavior or attitude or belief – that is unequal to God’s standard, which is perfection. The only human who has ever lived without sin is Jesus. You are not Jesus. I am not Jesus. We have all sinned. That’s the bad news; the good news is that God is always faithful to forgive us when we ask. And when we ask for his forgiveness, he wipes our slate clean – that sin is gone forever, removed from us as far as the east is from the west (Psalms 103:12). You may feel like the idea of forgiving yourself is completely unlike the forgiveness of sins, but I think we need to see it in the same light.

Read Psalms 32. The first five verses in the NLT are: “Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty! When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.”

I love reading this psalm because of the physical imagery of a body wasting away and groaning all day long. The image is visceral and heavy and painful to imagine, and I have felt that way over unconfessed sin. I have felt that way in depression over every single mistake I made in a given day; I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep because I replayed every word, every step, and judged whether I should have said or done something differently. Whether or not God’s hand of discipline was heavy, mine certainly was. All the time. I’ve described a little bit of my inner voice and how horrible it could be. I judged pretty much everything I said or did to be the wrong thing, and I hated pretty much everything about me all the time – too fat, too out of shape, too angry, too lazy, too loud, too short, too inefficient, too busy, too far behind to ever catch up, bad at mothering, horrible at wifing, ridiculously awful at housekeeping… I couldn’t forgive myself for anything because everything was all my fault.

Now I can see how self-centered that is and how unrealistically hard I was on myself. It only got better with forgiveness and medication. The medicine knocked the edge off the irritability I felt enough to allow me to view my circumstances with less anger and bigger perspective. I can see past myself enough to see God and others more clearly. So I confessed my sins to God, and he forgave me. Then I admitted all of my real shortcomings (I say real to emphasize that some of the things I felt guilty about in depressive episodes were imagined flaws.) to myself, and I decided that if God can clear my record of guilt I must clear myself of guilt. After all, I am not Jesus, and if Jesus decides to forgive me, do I really think I know better than him? Not forgiving myself was an act of rebellion because it was a way of putting myself before God.

It’s not always that simple in practice, but my inner critic is much quieter these days. I try to be nicer to myself and realize that I will never be perfect on earth, but I can always count on God to forgive me. I try not to be so hard on myself and to focus more on what I got right each day than what I got wrong. I don’t let myself off the hook without some examination because I do need to find the roots of my sin and work to bring them in line with the perfection of Christ, but I do admit now that I am human. When I find my self-talk shifting back into guilt mode, I make an effort to stop that train of thought and say something nice to myself instead. And do you know what? I am strong, I am smart, I am kind, I am beautiful, and (most importantly) I am a loved child of God. I feel a hundred pounds lighter knowing that I am forgiven, not because I earned it, but only because God loves me. “Shout for joy, all you whose hearts are pure!” (Psalms 32:11, NLT)

How about you? What do you need to talk to God about and then let go of to forgive yourself? What guilt do you dwell on? What does your inner critic sound like? Aren’t you ready to shout for joy?

Show and Tell

When I confessed my depression diagnosis last week on the blog, I know it surprised a lot of people – maybe not that I would share it, but that I was struggling at all with depression. If you know me, you know I love to laugh and take care of other people; it may have been a shock to think that you missed something or you should have done a better job taking care of me somehow. You may think I hid my symptoms well, but if you spend much time with me you know that I am pretty much an open book. So what did you miss in noticing that I was in need of therapy?

Nothing. Unless you were in my head or living in my house, you probably wouldn’t notice anything was off. I still loved to laugh and to help people and to do artsy fartsy (as my husband describes them) things. I still mostly functioned in my assorted roles in life. You couldn’t have known that everything made me cranky or just how high my stress level was. You couldn’t hear how terrible and critical my inner voice was. You couldn’t have known that lots of days I had to make myself get of bed or that the effort of just making it through the day was exhausting so much of the time. I could have told you, but after days and weeks and months it just feels like whining. And constant anger feels like a moral failing or a recurring sin problem.

I’m not much for wearing masks, but I’m also not one for constant oversharing and/or incessant whining, and I felt like most of the things I was struggling with were things I could improve by changing my habits and thinking more positively and being more consistent with my Bible study and prayer time. I didn’t even know that I needed more than just some habit changes and an outlet to process my feelings until the week I couldn’t form sentences in the therapist’s office when he asked how the week had gone. It’s actually a pretty funny story now.

I had a ridiculously terrible morning that involved dressing a cranky toddler (if you have never tried to put clothes on an angry octopus, you’re totally unprepared for parenthood…), limping through the morning routine with a knee immobilizing brace, dropping the cranky toddler off late at preschool which made me late for work which made me late for the toddler’s last week of school picnic from which I had to leave early to make it to the therapist’s office to which I cried most of the way because I felt like a horrible person. I attempted to pull it together enough not to sob while I walked in, and then responded to the question, “So, how has the week gone?” with a blubbering mass of attempted sentences. The therapist listened patiently and heard enough to gently offer, “You know, last week we talked about possibly trying some medication to help out for a while. I think maybe it’s time to try that option.” Granted, the week had been a mess that included tearing my ACL, putting our cat to sleep, and dealing with some tough life decisions, but I felt like I had capsized and would drown at any moment. Now that my head is back above water, replaying that conversation is a little hilarious; it plays back like a scene written for a sitcom, and it makes me laugh when I tell other people about it.

I read a few articles last week that I think fit my situation pretty well. One described their mild to moderate depression as “walking depression.” The other described “high functioning depression.” (I am arguably not “high functioning” in the way that you would describe a type A personality, but I manage to accomplish things beyond the daily grind every now and then.) Both articles described feeling depressive symptoms but not so severely that it kept them from functioning in a way that other people would see as normal. You couldn’t have known how hard it was for me to get out of bed that day because I did get out of bed, and I did get myself and the angry octopus child dressed and out the door. From that point on, I was just focused on getting through the rest of the day and wouldn’t have mentioned the extreme “uggghhh” I felt at the thought of starting the morning. And because I was still moving, I tried desperately to keep Newtonian physics on my side, so I tried to focus forward and avoid dwelling on how bad I felt. And because it is extremely impolite to yell a lot and kick people in the shins, I kept a decent lid on my irritability in the presence of other people and just screamed a lot in my car or simmered in silence. Given that controlling anger is a spiritual discipline, I largely assumed that I lacked the discipline to control it and prayed even harder for God to replace that emotion with gentleness and show me better coping skills. But I couldn’t pray it away. And even though it was something I occasionally mentioned to a few people I trusted to pray for me, it wasn’t something I thought of as an issue I needed to talk to anyone about until it felt out of control.

My stress level was like that, too. I finally put words to it in a therapy session: most days I am doing okay with stress, but it’s like I’m at capacity. If something unexpected happens or an extra project comes at me, I am easily overwhelmed. So facing down the future of reproduction in my life plus knee injury plus dying cat equals stress and irritability overload. I discussed each of the things that were causing me extra stress with family and friends, but probably nothing in those conversations made anyone think, “You know, I think Anne is really just depressed. Perhaps she needs medication.” You may have thought, “That’s a lot to deal with at once. She may be overreacting a little, but I’d be stressed in that situation, too.”

I called this post “Show and Tell” because you can’t always see depression in a loved one. You can only know what they show you and tell you. I never tried to hide any depression symptoms, but I didn’t really see some of them myself. I am also pretty good at talking to family and friends when I need help venting or need guidance, but I didn’t know I needed to tell anyone more than what I did. I realized that I had several issues that really needed an outside and professional review. Sometimes family can be too emotionally invested to help make a rational decision; this isn’t bad or wrong – it means they want the very best for you and want you to be happy. I am blessed to have that in my life, and now that my depression symptoms are largely under control, they are who I turn to first to help me cope when crazy happens. Now I need less professional therapy and more time invested in relationships that keep me glued together. Now I know what to show and tell if things feel out of control again.

From Psalm 116

Thoughts on Psalm 116:7, “Return to your rest, my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.”

Dear Soul,
We have been in chaos.
I have been at war with you,
And I have won by shouting you down,
By declaring my desires are more important than your needs.
 
O my soul, I have wounded you.
I have arrogantly declared myself a king
And placed a throne where it did not belong
In the center of your heart.
My soul, I usurped your rightful King.

I sacrificed peace for anger, joy for pride,
And love for resentment.
I let the world carry my thoughts
And steal my heart for a time,
But soul, dear broken soul, no more.

In spite of my sin,
The Lord has lifted my head;
He has shown me truth and love
And filled my weary mind with his words.
O soul, your King is grace.

Come, dear soul, and drink
From God’s life-giving stream,
And feast on his bread of life and honeycombed wisdom.
Return to your rest, O soul.
I’ve laid down my burdens; I’ll fight you no more.

Freeform Friday

As I move forward with the blog, I am working to define a little bit of focus.  I really enjoy poetry and painting and creative writing, but all of those things feel odd in view of what has been the focus of my blog writing.  So, to solve that “problem,” I am instituting Freeform Fridays to share some of the other things I write.  For a while that may just be poetry, but I will add in some of the micro fiction I’ve written for practice from prompts and hopefully some short stories and paintings or sketches.  As soon as I work up the nerve to expose some of those things to the light of an audience…  Also, if you have any suggestions for something you’d like to see more of or a direction you’d like to see explored, please leave me a comment.

A Reflection on Psalmists

We are all psalmists. We may not all pray in rhyming verse or elegant phrases, but anyone who speaks honestly with God is a psalmist. If you are speaking your heart song, whatever that may be at the moment, you are a poet in the highest sense of the word. I love reading in the book of Psalms every day because it reminds me to be honest with God. The introduction to Psalm 102 in the New Living Translation reads, “A prayer of one overwhelmed with trouble, pouring out problems before the Lord.”

How many times have I been there, pouring out my troubles to God? And the overwhelmed author of Psalm 102 lays it all out: “For my days disappear like smoke, and my bones burn like red-hot coals. My heart is sick, withered like grass, and I have lost my appetite.” Yes! (Except for the appetite part – I’m a stress eater, but I talk to God about that, too.) God, listen to me and how horrible I feel right now.   These are my problems, and I want you to do something about them now! Quite a few psalms go this way; David was very emphatic about what he wanted God to do about his enemies. It obviously doesn’t hurt to be very specific with God.

But psalms almost never end with just problem dumping and to-do lists for God. Even Psalm 102, which purports to be “a prayer of one overwhelmed with trouble, pouring out problems before the Lord,” doesn’t end with merely pouring out problems. Less than half-way through the dump session, the focus shifts from problems to perfection, “But you, O Lord, will sit on your throne forever. Your fame will endure to every generation,” and ends with, “But you are always the same; you will live forever. The children of your people will live in security. Their children’s children will thrive in your presence.”

Wait… What? What happened to all the troubles? You know they didn’t just vanish, but they certainly disappeared from view when compared to God. That’s the thing I miss sometimes in my moments of being real with God. I tell him my problems, and I tell him what I want him to do about them, but I don’t always stop and reflect on who God is. I don’t always look at look at his creation and marvel at his omnipotence. I don’t always stop and drink in his grace or swim in the depths of his mercy. I don’t always praise his permanence and immovability. My psalms are often incomplete.

My psalms are anemic and self-centered, and so they really aren’t songs of praise worthy of God; they aren’t psalms at all. I must praise God if I am ever to complete my songs. Some days this feels impossible. I have to admit that when I am cleaning up cat hairballs and the never-ending pile of dishes in the sink while a toddler screams at me because she is mad that it’s Tuesday, I am almost never thinking of how great God is. And when I am overwhelmed with stress from work and home and just trying to get through the day, I don’t usually shout about the amazing work of God around me. I am too focused on shouting down the craziness or shoving chocolate down my throat in a misguided attempt to cope.

But when I get it right, when I sing a whole song to God and really spend time meditating on him, my psalms start to sing praise and joy. The troubles aren’t gone, but they seem infinitely smaller compared to infinite glory and goodness. When I focus on God and his grace, I quit focusing on me, and I am more eager to serve and be kind to people around me. I can see past the pain and frustration at hand and look at the bigger picture and know that God is always and unchanging even when my circumstances are difficult. My psalms are complete in those moments. My soul can sing even when my eyes are full of tears.

Depression Hurts – A Diagnosis Can Help

After putting off going back to counseling for months (really, honestly, years), I finally went to see someone to talk about the depression I am living with and the extra anxiety I was feeling about some rather large life decisions that felt fraught with Impending Doom no matter what choice was made. I am excellent at putting off my feelings so that I can make it through the day (week, month…) of urgent tasks and then I can feel all of the feelings. This is a terrible idea, by the way. I may accomplish a few things on my list, but I am cranky and angry and want to eat every ounce of chocolate and cheese within a mile radius. This only serves to heighten the emotions of guilt and sadness and anger, which in turn only serves to squash any motivation I had left for the rest of my list, thus rendering it as useful as toilet paper and adding everything left on it to the dogpile of anxiety and guilt and sadness I was already trying to avoid.

This is a horrible way to live, yet it’s been my life at least several weeks each month. Then I’ll have a good week or two where I stay on my diet plan (not so much diet as just not eating metric tons of crap), keep the house from looking like a complete disaster, keep up at work, maintain patience with the toddler, and actually exercise. I feel like Superwoman. I forget how awful I felt the week before because I am coping so well with life. I even managed to keep the kitchen clean and clear the sink for a whole week and a half once. Until something happens – I miss a step in the schedule and start to feel overwhelmed; the tiny human is hangry and/or sleepy, and I am all done with patience for the day; someone I love announces a pregnancy or birth or Mother’s Day happens, and I am overwhelmed with all of the things that depression holds for me all over again. I am by default a “bootstrapper,” as in I largely believe I can fix myself by just working harder at it. For the most part, this has worked in spurts for me. I mostly function, but not always well and almost never the way I would like to.

The truth is, bootstrapping may be a good coping mechanism for mild and intermittent depression, but the cycle I am in is neither one of those things at the moment because it is interfering with my life. I finally felt enough out of control of my emotions that I knew I had to do something else if for no other reason than that my daughter deserves a mommy who won’t correct every move she makes or yell over stupid things, so I finally called to schedule a counseling appointment.

Having a professional help review those Impending Doom decisions was huge; it was the main reason I quit stalling, but it gave me a diagnosis for my endless cycle of angry/sad, eat, guilt, repeat. It means that what I’m feeling is bigger than what my bootstrapping can fix, which lets me acknowledge that it’s not just me being cranky or occasionally feeling blue; I have an actual illness that needs to be addressed and treated. My irritability level is a symptom of depression, which doesn’t let me off the hook for being a jerk, but does help me give myself some grace. It also lets me feel less guilty about putting exercise on my schedule and pushing other things out of the way to make it happen – it’s not just me being vain and wanting to lose weight, it’s a necessity for my mental health. I can feel a little less guilty that my lack of motivation isn’t just lack of discipline, and maybe it will get better.

If you are struggling with depression, please seek help – professional help if you can afford it. Any physician can prescribe an antidepressant, but you should tackle the root and not just the symptoms. If you are afraid to go see a therapist because you fear the unknown, here’s a rough idea of what to expect from talk therapy. You will likely have an hour appointment, and the first meeting will involve introductions and lots of questions about your background and your immediate concerns. Of course it is cliché, but you should expect to explore “How does that make you feel?” More than that, however, a good counselor will explore beyond that to help you manage your feelings and learn new behaviors to cope with the issues at hand. Be honest. You are dealing with a professional who has probably seen a lot of messes, and they are bound by client-patient confidentiality unless you pose an imminent threat of harm to yourself or another person. My counselor gave me “homework” topics to think about and answer at the next session. We also began with a plan for forty-five minutes of exercise at least four times a week to help mitigate my depression symptoms. Within a few weeks, it was obvious that I was more overwhelmed than exercise could handle, so we added an antidepressant medication. Most medications take several weeks to really show any measurable effect, so stick with it if this is your plan.

I finally feel more like myself. My first reaction to everything isn’t anger, and I feel a little more motivated to live my life instead of just survive it. For the first time in months, maybe even years, I don’t feel like all of my energy is being sucked into just getting through the day without kicking someone, and I’m not dragging myself through the week. I have energy left over to actually enjoy playing with Engelberta and working out and knocking things off my to-do list. Now that I’m not always in desperation mode, I’m going to have to relearn how things look from a much healthier perspective. It’s a good place to finally be.

An Awkward Phase

I find myself in a terribly awkward stage of motherhood. As an older first-time mom, I tend not to fit in any “regular” crowd.  Most of the parents with kids Engelberta’s age are younger and are still adding to their families.  A smaller group are maybe the same age (but still mostly younger) who also have older kids.  Most of my peers have kids that are teenagers even if they have younger children, too.  As a parent, I should have most in common with the younger parents, but they are on average at least a decade younger.  This tends to put me in the seasoned pro age group in spite of my lack of experience.  I am simultaneously old and new.  It’s weird.

Weirder still is hanging out as a parent in the preschool hallway surrounded by moms who have one or more little people and seeing that they have another on the way. The odds that I will join them are slim to none.  It’s painful.  It’s so hard to feel unbounded joy at being the mother of a living child (who happens to be amazing!) and depthless sorrow at knowing it will never happen again.  So I watch the endless parade of baby bellies walk by and try not to feel jealous because I really am happy for my friends.  But I am really sad for me.  And no matter how I work and pray to fight it, I feel petty and resentful.  I have a hard time spending time with this group of amazing moms because I have nothing in common with a twenty-something woman with two kids and one more on the way; it is a completely foreign way of life to me.  I don’t count myself among their number and tend to fall into teaching or leadership roles to avoid feeling inadequate.

I also feel awkward about how much we give Engelberta in the way of big birthday parties or toys. I don’t get into the “Mommy War” mess, but sometimes I feel like I accidentally contribute to the comparison games.  We have had big birthday parties every year for Engelberta, and someone always comments along the lines of, “Oh, now I have to step up my game,” or, “Of course you made a huge cake.”  I hate feeling like I should justify having a party.  Here’s the bottom line: as long as Engelberta wants to invite half the world to come and eat and have cake, we will keep doing it.  We have one shot at having parties because we will likely only have one child.  We are more settled financially than most young parents, so we can afford to make a big cake and serve lunch.  I am sure we have too many toys, but it’s hard not to buy things knowing that we will have one chance to experience this stage of development and play.  We do discipline Engelberta, and we teach her empathy and respect.  We are teaching her that things are just things, and you can’t have everything you want just because you want it, and people are infinitely important as creations of God.  And none of those are things I should feel like I have to say, except that I am not immune to the guilt common to the “Mommy Wars” or to comparing myself to other moms.

I have a whole lot of awkward and not a whole lot of confidence to overcome it. If you are one of my fellow mothers of a tiny human, please forgive me if I exhibit the emotional maturity of my toddler in the face of my awkwardities (as you forgive that mash-up of awkward and absurdities…).  I am trying really hard not to cry when I see your new baby bump and really hard not to explain why we invite a gazillion people to our house for cake and really hard to figure out where I fit in.  I feel like I’m back in middle school just trying not to be too weird all the time.  So bear with me; it’s just a phase.