The Big Leap
September 7, 2018
Right now, I am in a season of transition.
Transitions are not new creatures to visit my life. I’ve had a good number of them before and I expect to have them consistently join me as companions in the years to come. I’m also not the type of person who does everything possible to avoid transition and change. I realize that some people are made to do that; I’m not one of them. I often love and welcome change- even hard ones. I have grown to accept it… even if it’s difficult and ugly or joyful and wonderful. Maybe its maturity (finally!) or perhaps it cynicism or maybe just a healthy dose of both, but I kind of feel that transitions come regardless of what I do or don’t do, and there’s no point in me trying to avoid them.
So right now, I find myself thrust into transition. And I’m surprised at the depths of emotions I feel about this particular change. As I have been reflecting on my current situation, I realize that part of what is making this change more difficult is that it came rather quickly– yet not unexpectedly… which is a strange combination to sort out in my mind.
This particular change which I am navigating calls out a deeper reflection than ever before, because I’m not just stepping into a new version of the same thing I’ve always been or done. Instead, this transition has me stepping into a completely new experience that is not a different “model” of the same job.
Let me try to explain: Read the rest of this entry »
In Between Life Sizes
August 29, 2018
It’s hard to resurrect a writing “career” when your other career and roles get in the way. And a cold. Yes, one of those nice late summer/early fall colds. Those are super special.
Anyway, my absence here hasn’t been negligence. It’s been coughing, and full-time jobbing, and parenting, and wife-ing that has delayed me writing. Plus, even for someone who enjoy writing, the work itself can take some time. Especially with the INFJ battles that go on in my head when trying to start a new entry, be creative, and yet also keep an eye on the goals and end result. That gets a little noisy (if there are any pure, unadulterated INFJs reading this, you totally get what I’m saying).
Anyway, the goal was to write at least once a week. I clearly knocked it out of the park failed to meet that goal already. Plus side: It’s all uphill from here??
But just because I haven’t been back to the writing routine doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about the things that I feel, see, hear, and experience. And one thing that has been on my mind since I wrote this post revolves around a message or two I received about being “in between life sizes.” One message asked me more about its meaning, another expressed his resonance with the concept, and yet another wanted to know more… just because. And I get it. I mean, how does one not fit into their own life? It makes no sense. The life we have is the life we have, right?
Warning- this may seem like a religious post. It’s not actually. It’s just my story, so you non-religious readers bear with me. Also thanks for being here- perhaps one day we can chat about how I really feel about religion these days.
Years ago, I was told by a trusted advisor that at some point in our lives we reach a space where most of us find ourselves looking back over our years with a need to justify the decisions we made. It’s sort of an existential thing. We mature, realize that life is bigger than we thought it was, realize that life is fragile and there are more years behind us than we ever thought could happen, and suddenly we face a reckoning of sorts. It’s not regret. Maybe for some people it is, but not for me. It’s just more of a reflection. And for me, at this stage in my life, it’s more about trying to make sense of- or at least make friends with- the course my life has taken.
I will try to explain… Read the rest of this entry »
When Doubt Comes
August 15, 2018
When doubt stops by to visit
Her skeleton hands clutching my brain
Digging and pressing slowly and tightly
When she stands too close, her face jutted up to mine
Her wispy tendrils of coarse white hair limping down her chest
Her skin a slightly lighter grey than her clothes
And her wrinkled ash-like lips shut in a tight disintegrating line
Her mesmerizing eyes staring intently into me
While her icy breath hanging like clouds in my face pushing her stale air into my lungs
And I am frozen in fear or awe or both
When she makes the claim that I am less than,
Too useless,
Stupid, fat, ugly, and worthless
When she argues the case that I am beyond saving,
Beyond love,
Beyond possibility,
Speaking with the shriek of a ghost or a woman scorned
Loud and bold
Saying I am unable and unworthy and incapable and invisible
And I grow convinced that she is right
When doubt stops by to visit
Her spindly arms reaching to hold me close
-A poisonous embrace where I am tempted to rest-
Please tell me different
Speak other words
But I beg you
In ways I can’t even speak-
When you tell me different
Do not whisper
Do not speak low
Because I can’t hear you if you speak quiet
Instead yell, shout, take my cheeks in your hands and speak
Bold and bright and open
And tell me the truth,
tell me the possibilities,
tell me the colors of dreams I can’t yet see
But yell it
Don’t whisper it
Please.
Why I Left
August 10, 2018
I haven’t written in a minute. A lotta minutes.
And yet every month, or maybe more than once a month, someone in my current circles- either in real life or social media- says “When will you write your book?” “When will you write again on your blog?” “I always loved reading what you write.”
I tell you this not because I need more ego strokes… forget it, let’s just be honest, I totally do. And so do you. Everyone stop and stroke some egos for a minute… that’s right… all good? Ok then, on we go.
To be completely real, however, I left writing for multiple reasons. Some of them are not clear enough to have words; they only exist in feelings right now. But I have managed to find a handful of words for some of the reasons- both good and bad- why I quit a couple years ago. Allow me to divulge:
Read the rest of this entry »
A Letter to My Son on Your 5th Birthday
January 30, 2016
I haven’t been keeping up with this blog, but I figured my son’s birthday was a good excuse to post. Every year since my son was born, I have written him a letter on his birthday. One day I will give them to him, and I hope they will mean as much to him as they do to me. My son turns 5 on Sunday. 5 years old. It’s hard to believe.
***
Dear Son,
2009 and 2010… those were the main months and years of my Dark Night of the Soul time. I won’t easily forget the confusion, pain, sadness, and anger of that time. It has become a defining season- one of great loss that yielded great gain, one of great suffering that yielding new meaning. Not that any gain would be worth doing it again, but over a long time, meaning emerged. The scars remain, and I like to think I’ve used that time to allow my soul to expand, grow a couple sizes maybe, but that season, that time will always be the Dark Night. The very long Dark Night. The darkest season of my quickly aging life thus far.
But 2015. Last year, however, was perhaps the loneliest year I have ever faced. Not the darkest, but the loneliest. The most barren. The most desolate. Your 4th year of life was defined by exhausting schedules of therapies and medications, doctors and I am pretty sure half the seconds of every single 24 hour day were punctuated by my silent prayers- my sometimes screaming, sometimes hopeful silent prayers.
I’ve logged many hours seeing my internal self on her face in the dirt before Jesus. Or pounding on the door of what feels like an unjust authority. Or screaming with Joseph at the prison bricks. And sometimes my actual face has hit the carpet or the grass or the shower floor weeping out the desperate groans of a mama who each day becomes a warrior for her child and many night crumples into bed daring to hope once again that the morning will break open with mercy and healing for you. Read the rest of this entry »
ordinary sacred 