Sometimes life is just hard. But you know what isn’t that hard for me? Love. I mean, I know that is supposed to be the most complicated, messy part of life, but it just isn’t for me. I love hard and I love easily. I forgive hard and I forgive easily. The hard part is when love doesn’t manifest the way I want it to. When somehow I am supposed to be a responsible adult and put boundaries in my life that help me love myself as much as I love the people around me, and somehow figure out a balance of what is most important or what is good for who, and all kinds of mature emotional stuff that is just so GRAY and not black-and-white.

This Christmas was a challenge for me. I mean, it was full of love and family, and Beau and I were blessed to fly FOR FREE (holla!!) up to South Dakota and spend several days with my parents and grandparents and siblings and niece and nephew. I got to hear my dad preach at his church’s Christmas Eve service for the first time in so many years. And he preached the most beautiful message about how Christ is the Prince of Peace, and I choked back tears most of his message, as he talked about Jesus reaching out His hand to Peter to pull him out of the stormy water when Peter faltered. It was perfect. I don’t take time with my family for granted. I stayed up til 2am with my brother and sister and bro-in-law and Beau playing games and laughing hysterically. I listened to my Grandpa tell my Grandma, after almost 60 years of marriage, that she was the most beautiful part of his life (you can imagine how us Wheeler sisters reacted to that….I mean…we are very stoic, unemotional human beings. HA!) It was an amazing holiday. Please don’t think that I didn’t soak up the awesomeness of being with the Wheeler/DeCook fam – because if you know them, you know how special they are.

But Faithy wasn’t there. And I had done everything possible to emotionally prepare for it. In fact, when people in my EliteInnerCircle had encouraged me to try to work out custody so she could fly up with Beau and me, I drew a hard line and took a firm stance on how I felt about it. I won’t get into it on here. But she was in Illinois and I was in South Dakota and I had 2 months to prepare for it.

I woke up early on Christmas Eve morning to work on my freelance work, and nobody was awake yet. I got my laptop running and realized my mom was out of K-Cups for her Keurig so I had to make regular coffee. And I know it ain’t rocket science, but I have NEVER been able to figure out how to translate the instructions for how much coffee grounds to put it in vs. the amount of water in a regular coffee pot. I mean, the numbered lines on the coffee pot…are those CUPS or OUNCES or WHAT?!??! The stupid instructions say like 1 Tablespoon of coffee per 6 fluid ounces of water, BUT HOW DO I MEASURE THE WATER?! With a measuring cup or can I use the coffee pot markings or what? I am aware how ridiculous I sound. Anyway, that was racing through my mind as I attempted to make coffee. I grabbed a mug and sat down and glanced at the mug before I tried to swig the nasty coffee-mud….and I saw that I had grabbed my mom’s “Faith” mug that my best friend Ashley had given her when Faith was born.

AND THAT THING HAPPENED WHERE I CAN’T EVEN MAKE THE LUMPY THROAT GO AWAY. There I was, Christmas Eve morning, Ugly Crying at my parents’ kitchen table. Alone like a giant loser. I was angry at myself for not fighting harder to bring her with me to South Dakota, sad that she couldn’t be there to see her cousins, partially fighting vanity knowing that I would be all dressed up for church that night and not get to take a cute family Christmas picture with her in it, and just stressed out that the tissue box was nowhere to be seen when I am trying to be a grown up lately and actually blow my nose instead of wiping it on my sleeve.

And then my own little Christmas miracle happened. I heard a door open quietly, and all of a sudden, Beau was stumbling into the kitchen, walking over to me. Okay, I get it, you don’t see how this is a Christmas miracle. But he came into our trip with a night of 3 hours of sleep after 90 million hours of work, and hadn’t gotten much sleep since we arrived, and it was 7:30 IN THE MORNING and nobody else was awake and I just KNEW he was gonna sleep til at least 9am…but he DIDN’T.

He came over for a hug and then he saw my perfectly beautiful, flawless, movie-star HIDEOUS MORNING CRY FACE. I mean, part of being married to a Wheeler girl is recognizing the CRY FACE. I am sure my Dad and brother-in-law have it down pat too. But Beau looked at me and instantly assessed the damage.

“I just…I just…I just miss Faith,” was all I could crackle out before I did the Even Uglier Attempt To Choke Back Tears Cry.

And you know…I needed him so bad(ly) right that minute. He found the tissue box that had been laying INCOGNITO right in plain sight on the kitchen table and sat me on the couch and let me cry until I was done being a giant baby. He didn’t try and rationalize anything or remind me how much fun I was having or try to fix it.

Then my mom woke up and walked out and saw me curled up in the fetal position next to Beau on the couch and I quickly blubbered out , “I miss Faith and I made really bad coffee and that’s all.”

She saw I was using the Faith mug and got all weepy too, and then told me she was sure the coffee was fine. But she didn’t drink it and she made new coffee.

I was so excited to get home to see Faithy, and it was wonderful and perfect when I picked her up. And I woke up SUPER EARLY on the next morning to decorate our hall area and make it special for Faith. Guys, you know what? It wasn’t that fantastic of a morning. My kid is being shipped from house to house for the holidays, and she is a little bit sassy and struggling more than I have seen her struggle EVER. There was a moment when she cried and then I cried – and not the “I love you so much, I am gonna happy cry” – we both cried out of frustration. And B sat next to me on the couch and told me how much he loved my decorations and how proud he was of me for the Christmas morning experience I had made. And then he just stopped talking and held my hand.

Life is hard. For all of us. But when I take a look around, God CARES ABOUT THE LITTLE THINGS. He inspired my Dad to preach about the Prince of Peace when my heart was battling the stress of divorce, He dragged B’s exhausted butt out of bed to help me find the HIDDEN tissues, He continuously picks up all of my broken pieces and puts them together and somehow manages to make me look like some kind of (Picasso-ish) masterpiece to the people in my life, and they LOVE me.

Guys, LOVE ISN’T THE HARD PART. It’s learning how to handle the consequences of love without going crazy – that’s the hard part! Being vulnerable with people means you open yourselves up to the chances of being hurt, and then you try and figure out how to put other people’s needs before your own, but still protect your heart, but still put Christ first, and WHO KNOWS HOW TO BALANCE ALL OF THAT?

Whether it is marriage, divorce, parenthood, friendships, family relationships, or whatever… we all have our Ugly Cry moments where loving someone or missing someone makes us all sorts of wonky. But as this year winds down and fresh starts on the horizon for all of us, I hope I can remember to hang on to the love, even when it hurts. Ugly Cries just reflect a heart that REALLY CARES. Don’t lose that part when you try to become a Better You in 2015. Find a way to be a Better Lover – not just of others, but of yourself. Set boundaries. Just don’t sacrifice the sensitivity of a heart that feels things. Because there will be a hand to grab yours to help you get through the Ugly Cry moment, without stripping away the vulnerability completely.

Find a hand to hold in 2015. Better yet…BE the hand to hold! (Cue: "Lean on Me" music).

My Faithy...

This past weekend, B and Faithy and Vader and I piled into our spacious Volkswagen TDI and trekked on down to Dallas to visit my grandparents and Aunt Brenda & Uncle Marty for the weekend. B had been working crazy hours for a while and, well, I always miss Faith, so I was super jazzed about this family road trip. I bought Official Road Trip Snackage (the most important part of any road trip) and we were on our way – 20 hours of driving in 4 days. No biggie.

I can count on one hand the number of times that Faith has met her great-grandparents. The sucky part of sharing custody is that for the time being, I live in a place hundreds of miles away from all of my family, so Faithy just has limited access to all of them. If you live in close proximity to your family, call them right this second and schedule dinner with them. You have no idea how lucky you are. Anyhoo, Faith really doesn’t know her great-grandparents or my aunt & uncle very well, so I was a bit hesitant on how the whole weekend would play out.

How silly of me. I forgot that she’s Faithy.

She’s Faithy, so her heart is as big as my mountain of worry, and her smile is as infectious as spring weather in Minnesota. (I don’t actually know how Minnesotans feel in spring, but I am guessing the Radiant Joy emanating from the half-thawed residents is pretty contagious.) The world is her oyster. Her view of everything is Opportunity and Glitter and Sunshine all rolled up into a giant ball of Happy, tainted only occasionally by a dash of Chaos. But her princess-colored spectacles are void of entitlement, and simply allow her to see her life as one of luxury. And I mean luxury in the best way.

“Mom, do you know that I am SO LUCKY because I have the BIGGEST family??”

Not sure that every kid would see it that way, but she thinks she is LUCKY to have four sets of grandparents – two sets biological and two sets by love. She has a mama and a Beau, and a daddy and a Sarah. She has lots of cousins and lots of aunts and uncles  and a whole PLETHORA of “adopted” aunts and uncles (friends who love on her like she’s their own flesh and blood), and the kid is just ecstatic.

After we got to Texas, she spent the weekend climbing up into any available lap she could find, giggling with Aunt Brenda like they were old sorority sisters, playing Daniel Tiger on the iPad with Grandpa John, cooking with Grandma Marcy and showing pictures to the neighbor’s toddler. No fear. Just uninhibited love for the people around her.

Sunday morning as I was getting her dressed for church, I told her we were going to a church we had never been to before, cringing internally because it seems like all I ever do is introduce changes to her tiny little mind. But her eyes lit up and she said, “OH!! So I can go to a new class and meet new friends?”

Like, seriously? She sees opportunity every place she goes.

I took her to a brand new preschool today, and as she walked in, one of the teachers exclaimed, “FAITH!” and ran up to give her a hug. I was confused and then the teacher told me, “She used to come to Club Fitness day care when I was a supervisor there. How could I forget her??” It has been 8 months since I took Faith with me to that gym. But the way Faith embraces her surroundings and loves on the people she interacts with has a lasting impact.

What if I lived my life that way? Not bogged down by fear of the unknown, not consumed by competing loyalties, not afraid to embrace change….

I have spent so much time stressed about how my decisions have impacted my daughter and how she will pay the consequences for my past. But the truth is, she belongs to God, and He has given me a gift in her. She is HIS daughter before she is mine, and that much is clear. She radiates hope and joy where I often prefer to analyze and fear. She gives hugs to strangers on airplanes while I pretend to

listen to my headphones in order to persuade others to leave me alone. She carpe’s the diem when many times I let the diem carpe me.

I have done nothing to deserve this kiddo. But that’s just how He works, isn’t it? James 1:17.

So thankful. So inspired. 

BigLifeChanges (but not a baby!)

Disclaimer: I am not pregnant. That is not my Big Life Change News.

Yesterday I remembered that I had 2 missed calls from my grandparents. I knew I needed to call them back but first I took some mental inventory and wondered if they had been listenin’ in on the Wheeler Family Grapevine Line and if someone had told them my Big Life Change News. I called my mom and she was like, “No, of course I didn’t tell them,” and I was like “Well, did DAD??” Turns out, he did. And I freaked out because at initial hearing of my Big Life Change News, a concerned grandparent might be, well, concerned. And I didn’t want my grandparents to be concerned about me because for the past half a decade, my whole family has spent lots of time being concerned about me. So I started in on my lecture to my Wise Dad about why he shouldn’t have spilled the beans. But then for the next 25 minutes, he and my Mama poured words of life into me. I mean, some serious encouragement was happenin’ on the phone, and all of a sudden, my bucket was being filled up.

My life is an open book. It always has been, but this blog has really poured out lots of the gory details of my Reality (all prettied up with a dash of jokes and some creative verbiage).  I feel like transparency is helpful to some and uncomfortable for others, but I have just been cursed with this desire to tell My Story because I know it parallels so many Other People’s Stories. I write because it’s how I get all my chaotic emotions out and words just make me make sense of it all. So here is the latest chapter of My Story.

A little less than 2 weeks ago, I pulled into our driveway after I got home from work and I texted B (who was inside) and said, “I’m home. I need you to turn off your Analytical Beau side and just be Supportive Husband Beau for a few minutes.” He opened the door and I walked in with a box of framed photos of Faith, a few notebooks and a half-eaten box of stale granola. I set the box down and looked at him and just as I was getting lumpy throat, he hugged me and put his hands on my shoulders and said, “I love you. Get a beer, let’s talk.”

No person wants to come home with a dreaded box of office stuff and tell their spouse (or parent or sibling or roommate or any human being in the world) that they were no longer employed full-time. But I had to tell B that not fun news. I knew his brain would immediately skip to our budget and my mortgage-sized student loan debt and my disgusting car payment and all those things he has taught me to care about. But I needed his heart, not his brain for a hot minute.

I love March of Dimes and all that it does for families. My volunteers there were the bee’s knees and I worked my booty off there. But sometimes things just aren’t the right fit, and in the past year and a half, HOME has become my happy place and as with any nonprofit/fundraising job, my career required lots of my heart and time during nights and weekends. It is a fine line that a nonprofit worker walks, balancing home and work and trying to make it all work, and by golly, I was just plain tired. That’s all I really want to say about the reasons for my departure, because just like I protect the intimate details of my divorce, I choose to protect the details of this situation. But the organization itself is fantastic and I met some of the most inspirational people there.

Almost right away (well, after I cracked a beer open…real talk), B and I prayed that night and the first thing out of his mouth was, “God, we thank You for this incredible opportunity…” and I almost choked on my own saliva/beer/lumpy throat because I couldn’t believe that’s how he was seeing this situation. An opportunity!?

God is legit the most IncredibleProvider ever. I have been doing freelance work for multiple companies for the past few years and all of a sudden, the work has been piling up. In the past 2 weeks, I have made as much as I was making at March of Dimes. Minus the 2 hours of commuting every day….and the BEST part…I got to stay home with my tiny angel.

Last week, she was home with me and I can’t even explain the joy in her eyes every morning when I reminded her that she was gonna stay home with Mama that day. I thought it would be nearly impossible trying to get my freelance work done with her there, but the kid is self-sufficient and, well, happy. (Age 3 almost killed me, but this 4-year-old-kid stuff is AWESOME!) I went back to work full time when she was 7 weeks old, and with the exception of a very dark few months 2 years ago, I have continued to work full time while she goes to day care. I am getting to spend some ridiculously awesome QT with her now and I mean, I always knew she was funny, but I only got glimpses of that funny in social-media-sized-moments. Like, I saw her 2 hours after work and maybe 2 hours before work, and that’s like the equivalent of a 140-character Tweet in the grand scheme of life. That little girl is hilarious and a Life Lover and shes’s fiercely dedicated to her mama, which works out well for me because I’m kinda fond of her too.

People, I just don’t even know what my professional future looks like….and the scary thing is, I am kinda okay with that right now. The 111,000+ miles on my 2011 Kia Sorento scream of the dedication I have put into my career for the past several years and the way Faithy’s eyes light up when she hears me say that we are staying home together that day…that makes me proud of the hard work I have done but also bummed that I have missed out on some stuff. I am pursuing some job opportunities right now, but I feel a peace like I haven’t felt in years. It’s almost Thanksgiving and I’m crazy overwhelmed that whether it is for the next few weeks or the next few months or for the rest of my life, I get to take a step back and just soak up all of the deliciousness of my life and just have time to be thankful for it. Don’t get me wrong, I am still working hard to be B’s partner in this money-making deal, but I am crazy blessed with the opportunity to enjoy being Faithy’s partner in this parenting deal too.

And I can’t even get a grip because B has been my Biggest Fan through all of this and it’s not even that he has turned off his Analytical Beau side – he has just funneled his black-and-white logic into analyzing how to make this transition possible for me. And my family has rallied around me and been EXCITED for me, while I had been terrified that I would just be labeled the screw up again (my labeling, not theirs, haha).

I used to define myself by my career and education and ambition. And now, while I still want those things, I have found that I can just be defined by ME and how God sees me and how the people who love me see me. And it’s like the greatest relief ever. Because careers let us down and jobs come and go and people are smarter and can work harder, etc. etc. But the things that actually matter….that’s what I choose to focus on.  

I am breathing again. And it feels good.

Rejection

Rejection. 

I remember when I first started my career, I would tell the interviewers, “I thrive on criticism! I am a learner! In fact, I took that StrengthFinders test and ‘Learner’ was one of my top strengths. You can only learn when you are criticized. Seeing your weaknesses helps you grow. WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU STRONGER!” 

Then I actually entered the workforce. Criticism – it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. 

It hurts. 

Whether it is a friend who is delicately telling you that you are the Worst Keeper In Toucher, or a sibling hinting  you should take better care of Mama, or a boss who tells you that you could stand to work a littler harder….

Yeah. You get it. It’s like a knife that cuts at your heart. Unless you are a cold-hearted snake who truly does not give a rats about what anyone else in the world thinks of you. 

That’s not me. 

I love people. So much. To the point where I cry when fake people on TV give Oscar-worthy performances about their pretend dire life circumstances.

When people don’t  love me back, it disorients me. I get it, that sounds so overly melodramatic. It’s a flaw of mine, but also a strength. Now when I am in interviews, I tell them: “I know, this is the part where I am supposed to say I love criticism and I am a perfectionist and that those are my weaknesses. But they aren’t. I grow from criticism but I don’t love it and I am not a perfectionist – but I am passionate. I dedicate myself to things that I truly care about. And that helps me and hurts me.”

Recently, someone looked me in the eyes and told me that despite all I was doing, the sacrifices I was making, how hard I was working….it was not good enough.

The emotional, weepy side of me wanted to crawl into a hole and drown my sorrows in wine and coax my daughter into telling me, “You is smart. You Is kind. You is important.” Every single morning. But the thing is…I already believe those things about myself. Minus the important part. I am actually not very important.

But knowing that about myself somehow doesn’t always inspire Rocky-themed music or any energetic runs up Philadelphia Museum of Art stairs. 

I’ve been through some stuff the past 5 years. Stuff that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. And it didn’t kill me. And just like Kanye…and Kelly Clarkson… said…it made me stronger. Other things made me stronger too. The sheer grace of God who saw past my disastrous decisions. A husband who loves me with a fierce, protective yet gentle determination. A group of friends who grabbed both my cheeks and looked me in my bloodshot eyeballs and told me, “PULL IT TOGETHER, YOU GOT THIS.”

The past 3 years have been a series of putting one foot in front of the other. I used to do so blindly, but now I have a less-skewed perspective. I know who I am, I know what I am capable of, and I know what I can’t control. 

Two years ago, my initial response to someone telling me, “thanks, but no thanks, move along please” would have been to grab a bottle of wine and drown my sorrows and make lists of how to improve myself and become more of the person that said Disapprover would approve of. 

But now I know me…and I kinda like me. I mean, clearly, I write too many Facebook statuses and I am an over-sharer of my personal life and I eat too much macaroni and not enough paleo food, and I sometimes cuss like a sailor and let my kid watch too much Daniel Tiger, and I have mortgage-sized student loan debt and I truthfully did not scrub my cabinets clean before I put dishes in them when we moved into this house. 

HOWEVER….I am smart. And actually pretty nice. And a decent mom, and I care about people’s feelings and I work hard at maintaining friendships across thousands of miles, and I really like helping people and I have had a very successful career. I pushed through a few major life obstacles and handled myself with grace (which is a huge win, considering my Irish temper). Yep, I like me, and I give God the glory on that one because it took me a long time to get to this point. 

Forgive me for the length of this entry, but I thought it was worth sharing the article I read recently:

“Women can also benefit from interpreting feedback as providing information about the preferences and point of view of the person giving the feedback, rather than information about themselves. In other words, a negative reaction from five investors doesn’t tell a woman anything about the quality of her business idea or her aptitude for entrepreneurship; it just tells her something about what those investors are looking for.

And if those five investors love her pitch? That also doesn’t tell her about her merit as an entrepreneur; it tells her about what they are looking for in an investment. In other words, feedback is useful because it provides insight about the people we want to reach, influence and engage. With that reframing, women can filter which feedback they need to incorporate to achieve their aims, without the taxing emotional highs and lows.

When a woman is being held back by fear of a particular criticism or paralyzed by a harsh criticism received in the past, she can also turn inward and ask herself, “Does that criticism in some way mirror what I believe about myself? When and why did that negative self-concept arise? Does it reflect the truth?” If a woman feels petrified of being told she’s not smart enough, for example, she may hold that doubt about herself. If she feels horribly wounded by criticism about her appearance, she most likely carries feelings of shame about her body. As she sees the roots of her beliefs and replaces them with a more accurate view of herself, she can free herself from the personal impact of the criticism.”

How incredible! That paired with the promises of Psalm 139, I can close my eyes at night, confident that who I was created to be is not necessarily a harmonious fit for every situation in life, but I am equipped to handle every situation because I AM smart and capable and, most importantly, not alone. How much easier is it to handle criticism with grace when we know success is not dependent on being the perfect fit for every situation? I have learned enough from my life experiences to know that obstacles DO provide us with the opportunity to grow.

Faith is going through ANOTHER annoying  (I mean….lovable…precious…impressionable…) stage where she consistently makes statements like: “I can’t reach that shelf” or “My foot hurts.” Being the super-sensitive mom that I am, my response is typically, “Well that sucks.” B has gently taken the lead on this (bless that man) and is teaching Faith to not make blanket statements that serve no purpose to the general public but instead either request specific help or at least think critically about how to speak in a way that is productive and contributes to a solution. For example, “Mom, can you help me bring that chair over here so I can reach my toothpaste on the top shelf?” or “I think I have a rock in my shoe – can we stop walking so I can take it out and my foot wont hurt anymore?”

Whining about my feelings being hurt by someone or something that is simply not a good fit for my ideas or contributions is nothing more than a lack of critical thinking on my part. All I can do is figure out who I am and what I have to offer and find a solution. And sometimes that solution is simply knowing myself and trusting that God did not make a mistake when He gave me the unique skills and experiences and passions and giftings that He did.  

(And sometimes I do just need to go out for a "run" and come back and tell B, "I only ran for 2.3 minutes and then I got tired so I walked, and when I was walking I had too much time to think about all the criticism I just got, so I will be pumped up about God's grace and His plan for me later tonight, but right now I am going to cry for 95 seconds and then I will drink a glass, and then I will feel much better.")

Everything in moderation, people. 

tap on a shoulder...

I went to church without B last Sunday. His schedule is all kinds of wonky because he is on night shift right now and so Faithy and I went alone. I dropped her off at her class and snuck up into the balcony seating with my coffee and Bible. I hadn't been to church in 3 weeks because of work-related stuff and my heart was cravin' the good stuff. I was hoping for a real fire-and-brimstone kinda sermon to get me all pumped up for my week.

It's funny how when you go to church hoping to cross it off your "feel good" list for the week and get real "filled up" with sump'n real "soul-filling" to make yourself feel better, how God has totally different plans in mind.

I sat in the 2nd row of the balcony with the really high seat backs, in a row by myself and I secretly felt glad because then if I wanted to casually check my Facebook or text messages during the sermon, nobody would see me or judge me. Because 1 hour and 15 minutes without checking in on what my friends were doing just might do me in. Hashtag martyr.

I wasn't even paying attention to the people around me when I tossed my purse on the pew and stood up to give God a good 15 minutes of my "undivided" attention during worship when I happened to glance at the people in the row in front of me. It was a young mom with her (I'm guessing) 3 year old son. She had a good 14 napkins laid out across the pew to protect it from the crumbly glazed donut her son was feasting on. Instantly, I wondered if she was going to keep him in the service the whole time, 'cuz I know 3 year olds and I know they ain't got time for no 35 minute sermon.

I tried real hard to keep my eyes closed during worship because that's what good Christians do, DUH, and as I was tryin' to raise up my hands during one of my favorite songs, I slowly lowered them down because I wanted to see what that little boy was doing. And I giggled a little to myself because he was straight dancing a little jig right there in the pew. My eyes wandered over to his mom and mid-giggle, my throat got all lumpy and choked up because I noticed that her wedding ring was on her right hand instead of her left. I mean, I'm no doctor, but I immediately felt like that ring was on the wrong hand for a reason. And it was a pretty ring. Girls don't wear pretty rings on the wrong hand just because. Us divorced people, we become experts on ring-finger-analyzing.

And I broke.

My heart was Back-to-the-Future like whoa, and I was instantly transported back to 2 years ago when I sat alone in church, newly separated, hundreds of miles away from my family, and where I sometimes would sit by myself staring at the preacher, not hearing a word he said, but somehow feeling comforted by his sermon, or maybe just comforted because I was surrounded by people who loved Jesus. I suppose really strong Christians would have been grasping Words Of Truth from every sermon, but there were Sundays when I would just sit there and replay arguments in my head or mentally take inventory of the bills I had to pay or

what groceries I could actually afford to buy that week.

Even though I had been a Christian my entire life, that season of my life was crazy lonely and scary and awful. Sundays were "drop off" days and my mom began to refer to the days I picked Faith up as "Happy Sundays"...and the days I dropped her off, well...she knew that she needed to answer the phone immediately those days so I could get my meltdown out of the way. I cried the hardest those days because FAMILIES ARE SUPPOSED TO GO TO CHURCH TOGETHER and the whole rest of the world was CHURCHING and I was CRYING and Sunday church was my own safe haven and personal hell blended into one.

But I kept going.

I went to church every freakin' Sunday and it was like God was smiling at me for coming back every week and also aching for me because, just like we do, He hurts when His children hurt.

I watched that mom as she took notes during the sermon and I wondered if she was writing down what Pastor Shane was telling us to write down, or if she was jotting down personal notes to keep her sane. I wondered if she was imagining church with someone next to her or if she was so overwhelmed with love for her Little that she was content that little man was all she would need. I don't know!! And I just wanted to know! Because I have done both and it surely wasn't COINCIDENCE that God made me watch her like a creep during the whole service.

When church was over, I stopped trying to figure out her life story and I looked at her son again and realized I hadn't heard a peep from him for the whole 35 minute sermon. I wanted to tap her on the shoulder and say, "I know this is weird for me to say, but I just wanted to let you know that your son is incredibly well-behaved and you should be proud. Carry on, Mama. You're doin' good." But that darn lumpy in my throat was getting larger by the second and I bit my tongue real hard to keep those tears from spilling over and I walked out of church without talking to her. Like a darn fool. I got in my car and I cried like an idiot because I had the chance to be a sister to her but I didn't.

And then I thanked Jesus. Because during that alone-ful season of my life, when I thought things would never get better, I clung to the faith that my mama and dad raised me with, and I hung on by a thread. I didn't think that light at the end of the tunnel would ever be visible. But it finally was. And I found a guy who loves me and cherishes me and loves my daughter and I am head over heels crazy in love with that man. But that's not even the awesome part of it. It's that Jesus somehow carried me through that storm and now I am on the other side of it. There will be more storms, but when I look at my track record, I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that for some reason unbeknownst to me, He is on my team and won't let me down. Like the Cubs do every single year. :)

And I was reminded that now it's up to me to share that hope with others. Truthfully, I don't know what I would have done if someone had tapped me on the shoulder during church 2 years ago and said, "Carry on, Mama. You're doin' good." But I betcha I woulda cried. I might have been defensive or felt guilty for the chaos I created for my daughter or maybe I

would have said, "OH MY GOSH, I DON'T KNOW YOU, BUT DO YOU WANT TO GO HAVE A DRINK AT 11AM ON A SUNDAY?! YES, LIKE RIGHT THIS MINUTE." And then she would have signed me up for a Christian AA program and that would be a whole new story. But I would have loved to hear another woman speaking peace into my life.

Don't be the darn fool who cries in her car after church because she regrets not tapping on a shoulder. Even in the darkest times, people need people. Don't ignore the still small voice telling you to be a light to someone's dark.

And when you're in the dark...the light will come.

we belong to each other

I cried tonight. Shocker. I know. I have decided that crying is DELICIOUS and CATHARTIC and NECESSARY. And I am capitalizing those words because as I type them, my eyebrows go up and I press the letters on the keyboard harder and I feel very EXPRESSIVE. Like a real writer. Or a real feeler. Either of those works for me. But I can go from zero to Lucy-Ricardo-wailing in 2.5 seconds. It’s a gift.

I am frantically trying to figure out holiday schedules for Faith, and as it turns out, divorce puts a giant wrench in the plans of Holiday Celebrating. It also complicates things that B’s and my family live hundreds and thousands of miles away (but not hundreds OF thousands, because I am not sure the world is that big. Then again, I accidentally thought the Civil War was in 1960, so I cannot be trusted with details or numbers in general). I digress. But my heart can barely fathom the thought of ANOTHER Christmas awayfrom my tiny angel. Funny thing is, her dad wants to be with her on Christmas too. And why wouldn’t he? Have you seeeeen our tiny angel? She’s like heaven and sunshine and sass and charisma and macaroni and cheese all smushed into a 39-pound tiny frame. Her giggle is to die for and her smack talk is unparalleled (albeit, the smack talk lands her booty in the corner for timeout, but seriously, it’s legit. She gon’ have some street cred one day).

I begged her dad for some extra time with her and tried to coordinate how to get her to California in October to meet B’s fam for the first time, and how to get her to Texas in November to see my grandparents and my sister’s fam (just typing that nearly punctured my soul since I have not yet accepted the fact that my sissy lives so far away now), and how to get her to South Dakota in December to spend Christmas with my fam….

AND OH MY GOSH, MY BRAIN CANNOT HANDLE THIS KIND OF STUFF. I have been planning events for a living for several years and I worked in clinical research for the oncology department at a super prestigious university and I have a Master’s Degree, and despite my pathetic delusion that the Braverman’s are my real family, I am actually fairly intelligent. But I cannot make my heart and my brain work together on figuring out a plan for being okay with my daughter not being with me every holiday and weekend and weeknight. GET A GRIP, SHANNON.

Oh…but then. Then I got a giant Reality Check Face Slap. Because I got an email from one of my volunteers who is a “mission mom” for March of Dimes. And my “problems” didn’t seem so problematic anymore.

I work for March of Dimes. I’m a fundraiser, but I am crazy lucky in the sense that I get to work with families who have been impacted by March of Dimes’ mission. Truthfully, there is not ANYBODY who HASN’T been impacted by March of Dimes’ mission. If you were ever a baby, you were impacted by the mission. But the volunteers I work with have experienced it in a way that I can’t even fathom. Families who had babies at 23 weeks gestation….I mean, seriously. That is just barely over halfway through a full-term pregnancy. And these women delivered tiny, 1-pound babies who spent days upon weeks upon months in the NICU, praying and hoping desperately that that tiny baby would live one more day. I can’t even imagine.

These moms tell me stories of how doctors told them their babies did not have a chance of survival. But those little babies fought hard, and some made those doctors eat crow. BOOM. But then there was the one mom who broke down in Panera and said, “Today would have been my daughter’s 2^nd birthday. She only lived 4 days, though.” And then there was the mom who told me, “I became friends with the women in the NICU with me. And then one day, as I sat rocking my tiny baby in our room, I could hear the scream of that new friend down the hall, as she found out that her own baby didn’t make it. How can I ever forget those screams? How will she ever get over that?”

And then all of a sudden, I realize so many things.

1)      Every day is a gift. I mean, SERIOUSLY. Christmas can be celebrated in October or February or whenever the heck we feel like celebrating it. How dare I spend my time crying over shared custody when holidays are nothing but a day on a calendar and my sweet girl is with me to cuddle, kiss and tease so many days of the year. Not everyone has that chance.

2)      I am not the World’s Best Event Planner. (Don’t tell my boss that). In fact, sometimes I despise event planning.  And sometimes I am actually quite terrible at it. But being in a position like this allows me to SHARE LIFE with people who have been to hell and back and who are not taking a single day of life for granted. IF nothing else, I can be their advocate and march my butt into corporations and (very diplomatically and professionally) beg for money to help fund research that will prevent other families from experiencing what they have. I keep trying to run away from nonprofit because truthfully, I want to not be nonprofit in my bank account. (#realtalk) But how do you run away from a need to march alongside those who have so much courage to face the unbearable?

I guess I said I realize “so many” things but I am too tired to think about the “many” part of it.

The bottom line is that I keep coming back to what my favoritest blogger always says: WE BELONG TO EACH OTHER. At every step of the journey. How can we not invest in others? We need each other. To be advocates, to answer heartbreaking emails and texts at 2am, to fight for funding for research that will save lives, to lift up the Mary Spiros’s and Keri Nelson’s of the world, who suffered loss and dedicated their lives to fighting back against cancer, and the Robyn Pfershy’s and Mandy Robinson’s and Julie Steffens’ of the world who believed in their tiny babies when doctors were skeptical, and to high-five the Jennifer Jens’ of the world who kicked cancer’s ass, and to the people who LOST EVERYTHING but still dedicate their lives to BELONGING TO EACH OTHER. In all of my years in nonprofit, I can’t even tell you how many people I have met who say, “I lost who I loved, and that is why I give…” I dare you to tell me what is more selfless than that attitude.

Reality check, people. We’re all we’ve got. Extend a hand. Or a dollar. Or your heart.

Confessions of a Joint-Custody Mama

Warning: This post is above-average Raw.

I don't talk about my ex publicly. I think it is juvenile and completely detrimental to my daughter's well-being to say anything negative about her dad, and I hold to that.

However, I will say that I love his fiancée. She is sweet and caring and loves Jesus and has two little girls around Faithy's age. I am thankful that Faith has another woman in her life (every other week) who I know will take care of her tiny heart.

But let's be clear. It is downright exhausting trying to sort through my emotions when it comes to Faith having two homes.

I know the facts. People tell me them all the time.

1) It will get easier, but never be easy.
2) I will always be Faith's mommy, nobody can replace me (and I know she would never try)
3) Soooo many kids live in divorced families these days, it's the new normal.
4) All I can do is focus on spending as much quality time as possible with her.
5) She knows I love her.

Yes, I know all of those things. Let me tell you what keeps me awake at night.

1) I don't know how to French braid. OH LORD, her future step-mama is a PRO at fancy hair-do's, I seriously have lost this non-existent BATTLE OF THE BRAIDS and Faith will one day look at me with an evil glint in her eye when I tell her she can't wear eyeliner at age 11 and she will snap, "YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO FRENCH BRAID MY HAIR, WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT LIFE?!" And I will curl into the fetal position and stay there until Faith goes to prom and her stepmama does her hair in a fancy up-do.

2) She will never have a full blood-related sibling. I think I used the wrong terminology there and it kinda sounds vampire-ish but you know what I mean. But like, seriously. My sister is my RIGHT LUNG (or my left, I don't know which ones is more important, but she's that). We have a lifetime of memories together, good and bad. I even wrote poems about our awkward love-hate best frenemy-ship my junior year in high school (which is actually weird, now that I think about it.) And my brother is like my Super Life Coach (after Siri) and I remember when he puked up red Slurpee on our family vacation and when he burned his face when he was 1. And Faith will never have that full-sibling gig, and to top it off, she now has two almost-step-sisters at her dad's house. But she flies solo at mine. So I crunch numbers in my mind (never a good idea, I was always a Calculator Needer) and I think "Oh LORD, I need to get pregnant right now so Faith has a sibling here soon" but then I realize I don't WANT to be pregnant right now, and truth be told, Faith will never "grow up with" a sibling close to her age at my house because she's already FOUR and pregnancy is 40 weeks/9 or 10 months depending on who you ask. (Ha!) Clearly, the logical answer is that she will be just fine no matter what, but try telling that to my maternal-anxiety-ridden mind at 2am.


3) I hate everything about Pinterest because it just reminds me how much I totes suck at anything crafty. But then I go on there just to find creative ideas that will make Faith THINK I am Crafty and Fun Mom. Like this turkey pancake deal for Thanksgiving. Truth be told, I found that on Pinterest, sent it to my grandma, and left it up to her and my mom and dad to execute. And then I took a picture and posted it on Facebook so one day when Faith is old enough to know I am a total Craft Dud, she will see that pic and think "MY MOM RULES"  and I will not lose the non-existent Creativity Clash between me and her dad's household.



4) One time she went to Culvers looking like this. I mean, CLEARLY, she had just come from Splash Pad and it was a million degrees outside and Culvers does NOT have a "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service" sign. So there. But it's all fun and games until I take a picture of her and the Ugly Reality sets in that I AM THAT MOM who allowed her child to wear a bikini and soccer shorts (USA! USA!) to Culvers and then VOGUE-STRIKE-A-POSE in the rocks outside the establishment. Granted, the side ponytail added a Classic Touch as it was obviously a shout out to a legendary generation of yore (80's child right here!) I actually don't think I used "yore" in the right context there, but that truthfully is the least of my concerns. See Exhibit A. And by Exhibit A I mean the picture to the left.

You can go ahead and tell me how much my baby girl loves me and how when she is older, she will appreciate the things I did for her and how French braids and turkey pancakes don't matter. But the reality is that she is 4 years old right now and those things matter and while I love her future step-mama and thank Jesus that He has given Faithy such a wonderful step-mama and step-sissys, sometimes I want to throw a giant tantrum and yell "NO FAIR!!!" that I have to share my tiny angel with anyone. Just because I want what is best for my girl (which is obviously a happy home 100% of the time, not just when she is with me), doesn't mean I always like it. I can push my jealousy to the side about the relationship Faithy has with those sweet girls, but there is still an action required on my part to PUSH the jealousy and HAND it over to God. And sometimes I like to secretly revel in the fact that there is no denying this child belongs to ME, as clearly indicated in the picture below. Hashtag she get it from her mama.

 

There are hard consequences for hard decisions like divorce and I'm okay with that. But I won't pretend like hard consequences are all "no pain no gain" or "character building" or "I see God moving in this" attitude-inducing. Sometimes they are just plain tough and it's okay to admit that. Before God, I can truthfully say that every decision I make is with Faithy in mind (sometimes to a fault) and I am fiercely dedicated to giving her the best of me and the best in life. I am proud of the way I have handled these transitions, but to say that I can do so without feeling some Negative Vibes on occasion is a bunch of hogwash (again, not quite sure what "hogwash" actually is, but STOP QUESTIONING MY SEMANTICS.)

Weepily Ever After

I am packing up my Tiny Old Apartment and I can feel it – lumpy throat.

This is where I rebuilt my life.

I am sitting on a couch that came from Suzanne’s mom’s friend’s basement that the 3 of us carried up stairs, loaded into a truck and carried into my apartment. I am surrounded by an eclectic collection of frames and inspirational quote wall art given to me by friends in the area and friends far away. There are kitchen items that came to me brand new from my parent’s church family that my mama drove down from South Dakota.

Laying on the couch with a glass of wine, I am staring at the hallway where I would hear tiny feet pitter-pattering before I would see an innocent face peering around the corner, asking to come lay on the couch and watch American Idol with me. A bedroom full of stuffed animals that we lined up in our tiny living room while she put on “rock shows” blasting Taylor Swift on my pathetic laptop speakers. An oscillating fan that I put on high speed at night to drown out the creepy noises the trees made outside. The homemade “mural” I made out of construction paper for our bathroom wall that declares our worth in the eyes of God. A cheap bookcase-turned-TV-stand that I bought a few weeks after I moved in with Mandie and promptly had a meltdown in the Target parking lot immediately afterwards, while Mandie helped me figure out how to put one foot in front of the other just to make it home…and then how to put the dang bookcase together. A stack of credit card statements and student loan notices that kept me awake countless nights as I laid in bed, texting my mom in tears, wondering how in the world I would ever be able to make those out-of-area phone numbers stop calling my phone every day, telling me how much money I owed them.

I killed spiders on my own here. I paid the rent and the utilities and the cable and the internet…all.on.my.own. I came home from working all day at a job 50 minutes away, kicked off my heels in the middle of the living room, somehow managed to bathe, feed and put a tiny human to bed, and then finally sit down to start working for my 2^nd job. I DID IT ON MY OWN.

I missed my mom and my sister, and I cried when legal stuff with my divorce got messy, and I got depressed on Sunday mornings when I had to drop my tiny angel off for a week with her dad, and I drank a lot of coffee and wine, and I cursed the upstairs neighbor who stomps when she walks and shakes my entire ceiling.

This tiny, old apartment is where I rebuilt ME. I remember listening to a Newsboys song that says “Jesus commands my destiny” and I clung to that promise with every fiber of my being.

Now I am getting ready to ride off into the sunset. Seriously. B came into my life and truthfully transformed my idea of what love and happiness looks like.

I knew I was going to love him that first night that we met. Because sometimes people listen to you and sometimes they really HEAR you. And my heart was still crying a lot back then, and it’s like he knew that it was crying, but he didn’t try to make it stop crying. He just let it cry, and let me heal on my own. He was there to be the hand to pull me up when I was too tired to move, and to be the voice of reason when I was confused by my own chaos. But I liked to do things ON MY OWN, because I needed to feel capable of being good enough for Faith and good enough for me. I needed to feel smart and competent, so he let me have my own voice. Sometimes people don’t need their own voices, but I do. And since he is a soul-understander, he encouraged me to just love my own soul.

Sometimes I like to put Shakira’s “Loca” on repeat in my car because of the line “And I’m crazy but you like it!” I am convinced that B does not quite understand my logic 86% of the time, but I am just so PASSIONATE about everything, so I laugh a lot and cry a lot and talk a lot and create chaos a lot…but I think he LIKES it! Plus, I think that when I imagine myself as Shakira, that he thinks I actually look like her, which really is a win-win.

We are renting a house together. We move into it really soon. The reality is, my lease of my Beloved Tiny Old Apartment is up this week, so I had to move because I need to live in a better school district for Faith. And I need to move into a place big enough for me and Faith and B and Vader (his Rottweiler…aka his child) because we are going to be Husband and Wife soon, and husbands and wives live together (so I’m told). But I can’t afford a big enough place all on my own. So that is the truth about our situation.

I am convicted about living together before we get married. In no way am I judging anyone else’s journey or decisions. But for me, as a Christian and as a mom, I just think it’s important that we be Husband and Wife before we begin our lives in one home.

So. In May, we are driving up to South Dakota to see my parents and Pastor Jeff is gonna marry us. This ain’t no shotgun wedding. There is no baby on the way. We are just trying to honor God with our decisions and start our journey together as a family with Him at the center. That means we sacrifice a wedding ceremony with all of our friends and family, and all the fun stuff that goes along with that.

But when I look back at the journey I have been on for the past several years, I see that God has been incredibly faithful to me. Every time I have made “sacrifices” to honor Him, His blessings are sevenfold. (I don’t really know how much sevenfold is, but it seems like a very holy term, so I am using it. Because I am very holy.)

Me and B’s relationship has been very unconventional and we have had unique challenges and circumstances. And so I actually really LOVE that we are creating one more special chapter in our story. I mean, I am fairly certain that we are totally going to start a trend with SOUTH DAKOTA DESTINATION WEDDINGS. It’s obviously what the cool kids do.

Packing up this Tiny Old Apartment makes me super emotional (shocking, I know) because it was my safe place during such a heart-ripping-open, life-altering season. But it made me ready to take on the future with this Prince Charming fella with confidence and gratitude. I once told B (in tears, of course…because that’s what I do. I cry.) that I really didn’t know if I would ever be able to love him more than I love Faith. Sounds awful, but it’s true. But the thing is, I don’t have to love him MORE, I can just love him DIFFERENTLY, and those differences are what will allow us to one day become a unashamedly-flawed-but-perfect blended family.

I’m gonna cry a little more and drink another glass of wine and watch some TV (since Prince Charming convinced me that my life will actually be truly fulfilling when I eliminate the $65 cable bill from my life) and wait for my Fairy Godmother to come pack the rest of my boxes for me. Because let’s be clear, if there is a Prince Charming and I am the girl he loves, I am obviously Cinderella. Minus the great cleaning habits and I don’t wake up singing with the birds and mice. And my sister isn’t a hag. But other than that, yeah, I am totes Cinderella, and I am gonna love this happily ever after.

let's stop with the "what NOT to say" 's

I am tired of these “things you should never say to <insert category of society>”articles.  Working moms. Stay at home moms. Divorced dads. Parents of children with special needs. Single people. Overweight people. Veterans. Or any other group of people.

Like, seriously. These articles about what we should be careful about NOT saying to other people, because we “don’t truly understand what they are going through” or because we don’t want to “offend” them is exhausting. And yet these articles go VIRAL.

What if our focus was just “Be kind to one another”? What if we stopped caring so much about what NOT to say and instead focused on what we SHOULD say?

And maybe it’s okay to say “I seriously have no clue what you are going through, but I love you a heck of a lot, so if you want to cry right now, I swear I won’t judge you. And if you just want to laugh and pretend like our problems are not real right now, that’s totally cool with me, too.”

When did it get to the point where there is such a sense of entitlement that if people don’t know EXACTLY what it’s like to be you in your SPECIFIC life circumstance, that we can’t just be a loving community regardless? We do ourselves a disservice when we create these dividing walls among us.

Truthfully, very few of my friends are single parents. There was definitely a time in my life when I felt like I had to prove to people – my inner circle, my most beloved kindreds – that my life was harder than theirs and that they certainly did not understand how heroic I was for enduring it.

There is a label for that: DRAMA QUEEN.

Because the reality is, everyone’s life is challenging in unique ways. Why are we competing? Why are we tiptoeing around each other’s realities and trying so hard to not offend each other by staying surface level instead of radically loving someone just where they are at?

My guy works nights and I share custody of my tiny diva, so I am home alone at night. It’s been a LONG, DREARY, ALONE-FUL week for me. But I have friends who never get breaks from life or from kids or from work and would give their left foot for a night or two of solitude. When B called me tonight for our nightly phone date, I was down in the dumps and mopey. BECAUSE I AM AN EXTROVERT AND PEOPLE ENERGIZE ME AND THE ONLY PEOPLE I EVEN SPOKE WORDS ALOUD TO TODAY WERE MY MOTHER ON THE TELEPHONE (and that was great, Mom, love you!) AND THE LEASING AGENT WHO SHOWED ME AN APARTMENT AND THE PEOPLE ON TV DIDN’T TALK BACK TO ME WHEN I TRIED TO ENGAGE IN CONVERSATION TONIGHT. (JERKS.)

So yeah, there’s that. We will save my incoherence of TV personalities being fictional characters for another day.

But I felt TEARS welling up in my pathetic eyeballs tonight because I am just lonely, and I didn’t want to admit that to anyone because there are 1) way worse problems in the world and 2) most of my friends would kill to have my “free time.” Yet, that dose of reality didn’t improve the mood in my tiny apartment. Because my petty, whiny, “I miss my friends” pity party is tied to the much bigger issue that I am unmarried and without my child this week, which I could tie back to all my divorce drama and blah, blah, blah.

My point is…my story is my story. And your story is your story. And the differences in our story are what make us a beautiful, diverse, mixed up group of people. So how about I just say it’s okay that your story is your story, and you do the same?

How about if we just focus on showing kindness to each other and not making assumptions about each other’s lives, and instead, just pass the love around? We are all different. Let’s overwhelm each other with grace and joy and all the good things in life instead of worrying that we might bring up a touchy subject. Because maybe those touchy subjects are painful, but maybe that person needs to talk about them, or needs a different perspective, but they’re just waiting for someone to talk about it cushioned by love and un-judginess.

Let’s just be intentional. Let’s just be good to each other.