Don't let this happen.

"Oh my God.  What if you wake up some day, and you're 65 or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or didn't go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid?  It's going to break your heart.  
Don't let this happen."  

-Anne Lamott

I was minding my business (well not really, as I was perusing Facebook), when I found this tonight.  In a moment's notice, I was thrust into my elderly age, looking back on my life, and considering  how it would feel to have not accomplished my heart's list of desires--my ultimate life aspirations; my purpose.

And it devastated me. 

So I got out of bed, headed to my desktop where I can actually type at a fluid rate, and sat down with a banana and some peanut butter to contemplate Anne's forewarning.  

I'm a woman of many aspirations.  I struggle with perfectionism.  I struggle with wanting to find the next best thing to challenge myself.  I am consistently overwhelmed by time and the lack of it in 24 hours, yet I rebel against a full calendar, and for the most part, I fly by the seat of my pants (with some slight organization and scheduling).  

And I see it doing me a disservice.

Here's the truth.  I've hardly been writing--beyond the necessary, at least.  I haven't even looked at those chapters that I wrote, in years. And what's that thing I was writing called--a proposal?  I stopped working on that about four years ago, and I'm positive I might cringe at everything I wrote during that time frame.  No, I'm positive I would want to huck it out the window.  But when I finally get up the nerve to plug in that external hard drive, I'll try and remind myself that even Anne Lamott writes shitty first drafts.   

Shitty and near non-existent, I still feel obligated to that piece of writing; the story--as it continues to evolve, the emotions that are tied to those years and the memories that wrecked me for a time, but gave me a reason to have a reason to fight for myself.  And I feel tied to it knowing I'm the only one who can give it life, and that the actual writing is the only way to uncover the pieces and offer them up, no longer as a lingering metaphor of my life, but a soliloquy of redemption. 

The heart of the matter is that there's a nudging inside that never quite lets up.  The force and the frequency may die down, but it never quite lets up, and I can't ignore it away. 

I may not have until I'm 65 or 75.

And the work is far less painful than the regret.  
I'll put my money that.

Image credit

Stories and Mourning: These Gifts God Gave

All the stories the rooms could tell...

It was wet, with rain tapping on the skylights for the better part of the weekend.  So wet, that when I noticed the fruit bowl was empty, I decided against walking into the front yard to pluck an apple from our tree, and opted to nap instead.  Rain drains deep, I guess.

Do you ever find yourself in conversations that you aren't sure you're supposed to be in?

Three scenarios took place over the weekend, and each time I felt like I had walked in on a private matter, uninvited.  Except I was invited; I was the receiver on the other end.  But unlike conversations with a beginning, middle and end, I felt like I was getting served a double portion of mystery, ache and struggle, with no conclusion.  Just a whole lot of subject matter to sift through and eventually file away into the compartments of what I've been told about life.

They were stories leaking such heartache, that cause you sit there torn up with emotion for a person who has no idea that you're even thinking of them, or their loss that was so deep, or the tears they fell that finally ran dry; the facet finally shutting off.

It was the news of the mentor, who means well, who may have given very bad advice.  Advice that caused a divide so deep, that it took a hefty stitch from another receiver to repair the tears.  The thought that one who means well, could give divisive advice in the name of Jesus?  Reconcile that on a moment's notice.  

It was the conversation with a new acquaintance that ran circles and circles and circles with long explanations for his life lived unconventional, housed in a VW bus, a week out from being shipped to The Islands.

"I'm living on the sand.  But I don't have a house, cause I'm still running.  But when I build a house, it's going to be on a rock," he said.

Confused by his need to tell me why the VW bus, the sand running, the here, there, everywhere, explained in story, unpacked with analogies, I finally offered,

"You don't need to explain yourself.  Just be."  He looked at me eyes slightly squinted, half smiling.

Though I did manage to say four our five more things in those two hours, I felt it my responsibility to be a receiver that night.  He had much to share, explanations to give and circles to run.  His whys were not for me, but for himself, so I listened on.

One of these days I suspect he'll get tired of running, and just be.  Maybe on the Islands, or maybe back in the Midwest.  Maybe his past love--the one whose visa ran out, will come after him again.  It's hard to catch a person if they're running.

As much as these stories petitioned an unsuspecting visit with mystery, ache and struggle, and as much as I wanted to forget how they made me feel on that long rainy car ride, or on the couch with two sleeping babes curled beside me, wisdom beckons me to scoop them up and take them with me.

It's as though God was telling me, take these stories.  No, here.  I know they're not yours, but have them. Be burdened by them for a minute.  Because they are real.  And of the people around you.  These stories are the people walking by and beside you each day.  I'm building compassion in you.  It's one of my greatest virtues.  To be able to give more, you must know more.

A year and a half or so ago, I had felt that my passion for my work in peer abuse prevention and spreading kindness, was running dry.  I'd been pushing away my dealings with prevention, because I wasn't quite sure that I had yet entirely faced my own story of abuse.  I fought with myself over what healing looked like and whether or not I could in fact be a voice or a vessel of hope.  But on a good day, during that time, I prayed to God with the Hillsong lyrics:

Heal my heart and make it clean / Open up my eyes to the things unseen / Show me how to love like You have loved me / Break my heart for what breaks Yours.

My timing must have been off.

I fell into despair, heart cracked for friends dealing with heartache and loss.  I learned fast that God is quick to answer a prayer that builds compassion.  God shows up when you sit at His table.

He showed me a mother mourning for a son who'd taken his life, and her dealings with on-going depression. He brought to my attention a father, who worked in the trenches of suicide and peer abuse prevention, who succumbed to the pain of his lost child, taking his own life.  He showed me over and over, heartache and mourning, heartache and mourning.

Until I was aching and mourning.  The sky clouded, happy hellos half-filled, a closing in, a double-take at the children, and the deep heaviness in the chest that greeted me in the morning, even as the sky beamed in blue hues.  And I didn't know what to do with it.

Isn't that what He feels for us each day, every hour, every minute as His children walk out life feeling alone, abandoned, rejected, humiliated.  His heart breaks for us while we mourn.  And He waits for us in the mourning.  He waits for the moment that we give ourselves over to His love, to set us free from the leaky facet, the divisiveness, and the race that begs to be ran--the race that He's already finished.

"Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn," says Romans 12.  It was never required of me to know what to do with a double-portion of mourning.  I was only asked to receive and mourn, and rejoice with those who rejoice.

So as the stories continue to be given, they don't fall on deaf ears.  Though the lives that they've affected stir in me an emotion to close off and not receive, I agree to receive them anyway.  Because to know is to understand and with understanding we can live with compassion.  The stories make up volumes of books that God has outlined for His children; a compilation of stories shared, to teach, uplift, pages to mourn over, to rejoice over. All leading back to Him.

So I gather the stories, the mystery, ache and struggle and place them in my pack, and continue.  I'll carry them with me, eventually tucking them into the books of compassion that God is writing in me. 

The light is on for you, friend,

The Knowing and the Showing Up

It's the eve of my 31st birthday, the crickets are humming and I've got one thing weighing heavy on my mind this warm, stuffy, September night.

This morning, after both the littles climbed onto their yellow school bus, I picked up a treasured friend and we made our way to corner coffee shop at the edge of Northwest Portland.  Even the car-ride time was put to good use, as two women with children know, uninterrupted time is sparse; we must tackle the minutes.

So it was, over deep-cupped cappuccinos and toasted focaccia, we dove in--somersaulting into conversation about passions, goals, God's timing and the like.

In this sort of conversation with this particular friend, there is a deep-rooted place that we walk together and where words collide into heaps of fire.  We get each other when we talk our craft--her's music, mine writing, and the purpose for these giftings.

"I'm thinking of doing 365 days of writing for my 31st year."  I announced.

"You've got to be careful about acts that are religious," she said.  "Because if you fall off the wagon, the enemy wants you to feel like you've failed and that you aren't any good."

I sat for a quick moment, considering fete and failure.

"It's like you and music." I said.  "If you practice daily, you become better and better.  Your inspiration grows, your creativity widens.  It's the same in writing.  Even if it's small, insignificant, just five minutes--it's about showing up."

"Yes!" She agreed.  "It is." 

Something happens when we commit to showing up.

God can work with those who show up.

The truth is, when I initially listed no.13 on my 32 Before 32 list as "Write 365 days of the year,"  I added the hyphen "did I just write that?" and then the list ended.  I remember feeling like my list had become so romanticized that logic had taken a nose-dive out the window.

I'm already praying for more hours in the day, and considering an hourly planner.  My bed is rarely made, the kids' room scares me, I haven't menu planned in months, and I grocery shop on need-for-meal basis. Thankfully, I'm still cooking.

But what's worse than the chicken scrap pile still on the counter, or the laundry that needs to be de-wrinkled, is the know in my spirit that I should be writing. It's the regular reminder that that story deep-down still hasn't been written and is waiting quietly for me to give it narration.  The burden is more so in the knowing what needs to be done and doing nothing about it, again and again.

So this year, I'm lending myself to 365 days of writing.  I'm counting on words, chapters, chewed fingernails, neck cramps, writer's block and shitty first drafts, as Ann Lamott would say.  There will be plenty of those.

But what I know for sure is, if I show up consistently, I'll get better at my craft.

And God can choose to use me if I show up.

 



pinterest