Something as simple as a scrambled egg...

I think, as adults, we all kind of realize at different points how quickly time is passing by. And it seems so cliche to comment on it, but we still do, because it never ceases to take us by surprise.

I was talking with some of my mommy friends the other night about how sometimes, looking back on my kids' baby years makes me slightly sad. It's a bittersweet feeling. I love everything about watching them grow and become who they are today, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss them being small. Those babies they were--they meant the world to me. And the kids they are now do as well. It's just such a indescribable feeling because I'm excited for the future and longing for the past at the same time. I wish I had the ability to scoop those babies up and kiss them one more time. I wish I had the ability to go back in time and savor the moments even more than I already did. I wish I could sit up another night with one of them and instead of thinking about how little sleep I was getting, be thinking about how little time I was going to have with them that small and making the most of it.
But I can't. I can only try to savor each moment now--but is that truly possible?

We hear "live in the moment" as moms, as adults, all the time. It's not simply a parenting thing. We're reminded every day about how quickly the time is passing by us, and how "these are the best days of our lives". We're told that these moments won't ever be relived, so we should embrace them or else we'll find ourselves looking back regretfully at how much we took for granted.
But here's the thing--it's not possible to love every single second of the day. It truly isn't. We are human and we're going to get upset, frustrated, and tired. It's not possible to sit with a sleeping baby in your arms, every night, completely exhausted and not think at all about how much you'd just love to go to sleep for 18 hours straight. It's not possible to never get overwhelmed or upset with the tantrums, with the yelling, with the constant questions.

As a whole, we appreciate the puzzle that is our lives. But that doesn't mean every single piece fills us with joy. And that's okay.

Nostalgia just works to prove to us that these troubling times will soon pass, as well. When we look back on those baby days, we don't remember the feeling of desperation during the sleepless nights and the feelings of complete helplessness during the meltdowns quite like we remember the sweet smell of their baby skin and the gorgeous cooing sound of their laughter. We're not wishing that we could exchange these times for those, we're reminding ourselves that there is no time like the present. We're proving to ourselves that the days are long and the years are so short, and that every moment is a piece of a much bigger, precious, invaluable picture.

So when we stop to think about the "little things" today, we realize that they aren't that little after all.
Just in the last few days, my four year old surprised me by doing a load of laundry all on his own. He asked if he could, I told him yes, and he proceeded to load the washer, place the detergent and fabric softener in, and start the washing cycle all on his own. He was incredibly proud and so was I.

Just a couple of days later, my 6 year old scrambled two eggs for himself and his brother. My husband supervised, of course. But, from start to finish, Goob cracked the eggs, scrambled them, and cooked them all on his own. I bet they were the best tasting eggs he's ever had because he knew that he'd made them with his own hands.

Those are the things that take me completely by surprise and stop me in my tracks. I think about how impossible it is to believe that my two little ones are so independent, so helpful, so grown up. And I realize that, although there are difficult times, when I look back on these days, those are the moments I will remember and bask in. The scrambled eggs and the loads of laundry are this season's baby laughs and unstable toddles. They are the precious moments of seeing them grow and change and shape into the people they are and who they will become.
And it's a gift to be able to realize, in this moment, how groundbreaking those experiences are. It's a gift that only the experiences so far could prepare me for.

I am always living in this moment. And I will do my best to appreciate all that these moments hold, whether it be good, bad, or ugly--it's real. While I hold the past dear to my heart, I will remember that the present is the past in the making and that these days are short and these moments are fleeting. I will go forth, giving myself permission to miss the past, to revel in the present, and to look forward to the future all at once. Because that--something that seems so impossible to feel all together--is what makes this experience so uniquely human.

The Ever-Changing Depth of Heartbreak

My husband and I were driving home last weekend from taking our boys to visit my mom. I honestly cannot remember what specific topic we were discussing at first, but I know it led to me then saying "You know, I'm always floored by how much different heartbreak becomes as you age. I feel like I was so naive as a teenager." To which he replied, "There are so many things I am still incredibly naive about."

It got me thinking. I recalled being a young girl--a little quirky, happy, friendly, kind of chubby. Awkward would be a good word to describe me. As most tween girls do, I had a crush (a few over the years) and I remember that beautiful, awful, heartsick feeling of knowing that a crush was all it would ever be.
Those feelings were real. I felt them often and I felt them deeply. I remember confiding in my best friend about this boy I liked well through high school. "He'd never go for me. I'm sure he'd pick any other girl in our class over me.", I'd say. I remember pouring out tears over my journal pages as I wrote about feelings that would probably stay between me, my best friend, and that little book. Trust me, I remember.

But looking back, I smile on those times a bit. I giggle at myself. I say to myself "If I had the confidence, I could have just told him I liked him and saved myself the years of trouble." I wonder if then, my heartbreak would have been over and I could have focused on more important things than boys.
The fact is, though, as an adult I've realized that heartbreak doesn't ever go away. It just changes.

I got married at 20 years old and I am now 27. Within weeks of being married, my husband left for boot camp. A little over a year after being married, we had our first son. Shortly after that, we faced our first deployment, then a second, a second baby, a third deployment.
I felt the heartbreak of being separated from my partner. I felt the pressure of being a "geographically single" mother. Heavy tears ran down my cheeks as I watched my toddler kiss pictures of my husband and ask for "more daddy".
Between our two sons, we lost a baby. I felt the emptiness of my heart overshadow the emptiness of my womb. I grieved the loss of a child that I knew nothing about. I packed away hopes and dreams and assumptions about that child's future.
I watched my husband come in and out of our lives, often feeling like a stranger for weeks after returning. By the time we got reacquainted, he'd be gone again. I'd ask myself "Is this normal? Will this ever end?" I felt completely lost.

During this seven years of official adulthood, I've seen people marry and divorce. I've watched as my friends experience years of infertility, countless miscarriages, and sending their babies off to Heaven after only hours on this Earth. I've seen friends fall upon hard financial circumstances and struggle to feed themselves and their children. I've seen my loved ones pass away. I've watched as my close family and friends struggle with health issues that leave them frail and discouraged. I've watched my friends put in countless hours searching for jobs, only to be told there are no openings. I've seen them struggle through school, only to be rewarded with thousands of dollars in debt. I've seen hopelessness. I've seen defeat.
I've seen heartbreak.

I once thought that heartbreak would end when I found someone to love me for life, when I had children, when I got degrees and jobs and felt accomplished. I thought adulthood equated serenity. Unfortunately, that isn't true.

I think back on the issues I faced as a teenage girl and think "If only that was it."  It's not to say that those days weren't difficult, and I know that some young people face much more difficulty in their lives than I ever have and probably ever will. The children who are bullied, the children who don't feel at home in their own bodies, the children who live in poverty, the children who live through abuse...I am not belittling their heart ache. I am not going to even assume that I could understand it or identify with it. Heartache is something they have seen all too much of, and unfortunately, adulthood will not bring a complete eradication of heartbreak.

So what, then? If heartbreak doesn't change, then what?
We change.
We realize that life is not easy, relationships take work, things go wrong and opportunities don't always knock down our doors. But we also realize that it's been years since we felt that first pang of heartache and we are still here. We are still going strong. We can still find beauty in life. We still smile. We still laugh. We're still happy people that only sometimes feel unhappy.

When I was 13 and experiencing unrequited love, it was the worst thing I could have felt at that time. And I got through it. I found my husband, we fell in love. We got married, had children, built a life together. We fell on hard times and we came out stronger. We spent months separated from each other and we remained faithful and committed. I experienced the loss of a baby and it was incredibly painful, but I ended up being blessed with my rainbow son and he brings me laughter every day. I watched my mother lose the man she loved, unexpectedly but she went on to find love again and become a wife again after being separated from my father for over 20 years. I watched my aunt be diagnosed with cancer, fight through chemo, and come out on the other side cancer free and empowered. I watched my brother battle a decade-long drug addiction, overcome it on his own and go on to meet his wife and be blessed with her two boys.
Look, heartbreak doesn't go away. It's always here with us. The depth of it changes over the years. We learn that things happen in adulthood that we didn't dream of happening when we were young and thought that we'd "have it all together" by the ages we are now.
But we also come to know that humans are resilient. We are much, much stronger than we ever give ourselves credit for. We grow and we choose to love each other. We choose to support each other because we know we need support. We face challenges with confidence because we are experienced victors. We can look fear, pain, and loss right in the eyes and say "You may knock me down, but you will not keep me down."
We begin to realize that these are the best of times; these are the worst of times and we make peace with that. Heartbreak is devastating. But there is nothing more powerful than overcoming it and realizing that there is nothing, nothing that you cannot make it through.

So no matter where you are in your life, I want you to understand two things:
1) Heartbreak is everlasting, ever-changing.
2) So are you.

And the word of the year is....

Content.

The new year is upon us. 2015--it's hard to believe. I've decided that this year, instead of making resolutions that I'm unlikely to follow through with, I'm going to give the year a theme and build on it. My theme for 2015 is to be content.

2014 was a very trying, exhausting, saddening year for me. I won't go into details but I will say I fought my own demons, faced trials in my marriage and family, and was met with some very big changes. I found myself feeling more hopeless and worthless than I had in a very long time. My anxiety and depression reached an all-time high and it seemed that trouble awaited around every corner. 2014 was just a culmination of so many years of things working their way into my life and my heart--negativity, frustration, disappointment.
I looked back on my life, namely on my adulthood, and realized that two emotions were prevalent: fear and guilt.
I have allowed these two emotions to control so much of my life and it's time that I regain control.

Despite the trials we faced this year, my little family came out of it with our heads above water and we're working to make ourselves even stronger than before.

I want this next year to be filled with love, laughter, and progress. I want this year to be filled with contentment.
Some people confuse contentment with complacency. That's not the case. You can be content with the goals you have set for yourself but achieving them still takes work. It's not always going to be a "sit back, relax, and take it all in" type of feeling. But, one thing that I know for sure--I want it to be a happy feeling.

I have so many things in my life to be happy about. So many. And yet, I've realized that I've not been experiencing all the happiness I can. I haven't allowed myself to. Some of that has been due to my anxiety and depression--which I'm working on--but some of it comes from insecurity and those two pesky emotions I talked about before: fear and guilt.

Fear of being rejected.
Fear of being abandoned.
Fear of not being worthy.
Fear of others' perceptions of me.
Guilt about not "adding up".
Guilt surrounding not being the best wife, the best mother, the best daughter, the best friend.
Guilt about wanting something for myself that others may not approve of.
Guilt about doing things differently; being myself.

I've spent many years of my life so worried about what other people think, what society says I should be doing, and what I might be messing up, that I've not allowed myself to truly enjoy the blessings I have in my life. And for that, I'm sorry. Because those of you who have been a blessing in my life deserve to be truly, fully appreciated.
How often do we let others dictate how we feel, what we do? How often do we follow through with something, knowing it will bring us no joy, simply because we feel constrained, obligated, or forced?
I'm not saying we should be totally selfish. We shouldn't ignore the needs of others. We shouldn't be so self-absorbed that we don't notice when someone could benefit from our time, our words, and our presence. But, we shouldn't be forced to tolerate negativity because we feel it's "just the way life goes."

I'm talking about allowing others opinions to influence your choice of career, how many kids you have, when you make big life decisions, who you marry, or what religion you practice. I'm talking about "going through the motions" every day because you feel you owe it to your family or your peers. I'm talking about beating yourself up with each mistake. I'm talking about setting unrealistic expectations for yourself and others and being torn apart when they aren't met. I'm talking about the constant feeling of competition--someone is always prettier, always a better mom, always smarter, always more advanced in their field, always richer. I'm talking about drudging through life doing everything you feel you have to do without stopping to think about what you want to do.

In 2015, I want to rid myself of all of that. If nothing more, I want to begin to make a more positive impact in my own life.

I just recently graduated college and you know the first thing I thought? "Well, now I have to go get a job in my field, I guess."
No true, genuine excitement. Now that it's here, and it's real, I wonder if this is even what I want to do with my life. I've always been smart. I had big dreams of double majors in psychology and poli sci. I wanted to run for Congress some day. I went straight into college, because that's what you do. But then, I got married and I had kids. And I realized life is much more than checking boxes off of some giant "must-do" list. My loved ones are my passion. Singing makes me happy. Writing fulfills me. And I honestly don't even really care for politics anymore. I realized that shortly into my college career, so I went with Psychology and then back to school for Substance Abuse Counseling. Substance abuse hits close to home for me and I love helping people so I could see this being something I enjoyed doing. But is it my passion? No. And now here I am...several years later. I've put what truly makes me happy on the back-burner to do something more tangible, something that will make me some money, a "real" career. I've got two college degrees, a whole lot of debt, and a commitment to something I'm not sure will ever make me feel fulfilled.
Why have I not tried to make anything of my writing? Fear. There it is again. Fear that I'd fail. Fear that I'd waste my time and then when I realized I couldn't make it, I'd have to scramble to find a "real career". Fear that people would look down on me. "Oh you're just a mom and an aspiring author?" I can just hear the contempt.

2015 is about being content. Content in my choices. Content in my abilities. Content in my discernment. Content in my love, in my relationships, in my own worth.
2015 is about not letting anything get in the way of my self-confidence. It's about being an awesome wife and an awesome mom and an awesome family member and friend---not based on certain accomplishments or comparisons but just because I am awesome. At least, my husband and kids and family and friends think so. And I'm going to stop trying to convince them otherwise.

2015 is not about fear, it's not about guilt, and it's not about proving something to everyone. There aren't resolutions to lose X pounds, to get a job paying X salary, to do X amount of new things. Sure, all those things would be wonderful. All those things can be goals. But if I set them, I want to be the dictator of what those mean for me. I'm freeing myself from doing things based solely on the idea of negative repercussions if I don't do them,

2015 is my year. I can feel it. I won't stand for it being anything other than mine. I have amazing people in my life, big dreams, talents, and a heart full of love. I won't squander those things anymore based on guilt and fear. I will be myself, I will own it. I will be content. 
And I invite you to do the same.

Happy New Year!