As It Should

On Halloween this year, I saw an unforgettable photograph of a young girl trick-or-treating on streets clogged with Michael's wreckage. She walked towards the sunset, her bag over her shoulder, with broken shingles and chunks of brick on either side of the street and a row of blue tarped houses in front of her. And part of me thought: that's so great that she gets to go do something totally normal right now when everything else is so not normal. And another part of me thought: how can we even think about something like trick-or-treating with everything that's going on?

But the truth is that life doesn't stop when we are grieving. The children still have to be fed. The dog still needs to be walked. The baby still has to have a nap at a relatively regular time. This is true whether we are walking through a wide spread community grief (like a hurricane) or an intimate personal grief (like a miscarriage). At least when it's the former, we are not the only ones walking around in a daze wondering how this normalcy can exist when the fabric of our lives has just been shredded.

Part of us wants life to stop, as if that would validate our pain. We ask ourselves how someone else can be laughing, when we feel that all the joy has been stripped from the world, how someone else can be falling in love, when we're pretty sure that love has been lost forever because of what we have been through. We are too numb to be cynical, but that is, of course, the next place we will land once our grief begins to fade.

Except that life goes on...as it should. We realize that while we may be in a season of loss, there is still hope that it is not forever. While we are in a season of grief, there are still joys worth celebrating. While our hearts are broken, they still function, at least in part. We make the next meal. We take the next walk. We prioritize the next nap time. And we wake up the next morning and do it over again, and maybe--just maybe--it's not quite as hard as it was the day before.

We find ourselves taking in the muted fire of sunrise, awestruck at the beauty. We remember how much comfort there is when given a hug that squeezes us just the right amount. We are served a meal that suddenly tastes like life instead of sawdust.

And we may not stay in that moment for very long, that moment where we felt fully whole again, but it happened and it may happened again. If we wait for it. If we grieve honestly but keep hope in our hearts. If we keep waking up day after day and putting one foot in front of the other.

We want life to stop in the face of our loss, but we don't get what we want. Thankfully. Instead, we get a chance to learn that his mercies are new every morning. And his faithfulness is great. Even when it doesn't look that way. Even when it doesn't feel that way. And sometimes especially when it doesn't look or feel that way.

Priorities

I had coffee with a friend this week who told me about moving into her new rental after her old rental had a tree dropped through the middle of it, effectively destroying 80% of their household goods. She said her first day in the new rental she looked around her home, empty except for a set of bar stools and a hutch she had managed to salvage, and knew that the first thing she needed to buy was, not couches or a bed, but a coffee pot. Priorities.

In crisis situations, we discover what really matters to us. As the kids and I drove towards base our first day, they exclaimed that the Little Caesars appeared to have survived. I laughed with them, responding with, "Well, then, we'll be just fine, won't we?!" only to drive closer and realize that while the building was still there, what was left of it was definitely boarded up and empty. We laughed again and said, "And we'll still be fine! Even without five dollar pizza!"

Blythe...not capable of surviving without five dollar pizza.

When the Man and I went through the house after the hurricane, trying to decide what we should put in the storage unit versus what we would need at the RV, it was hard to know what should go where. The rice cooker stayed behind; the instant pot came (because I can make rice in that too). The waffle maker was stored; the griddle was a necessity. The shoe stand stayed; over the door hooks had to come. Every item was a decision. And most of them haven't been second guessed.

When we first started looking at trailers, the first one I looked at had a bunk house and a kitchen and room for a washer/dryer (all high on my list of priorities). It was small, but in my mind, it was entirely doable. I had seen nothing else and was willing to do just about anything to be back together again, even do all my cooking prep on the dinner table. The Man tried to assure me that there were bigger options--and he was right. He was thinking long term. I was thinking togetherness (and didn't realize that there were options that included togetherness and not being packed in like sardines).

I was really ruthless when picking what should come with us. And it's paid off. We actually still have a little extra storage space, for which I'm grateful. It makes me feel like there is room to breath. And I have even managed an entire drawer just for chocolate, because again: priorities. Chocolate = sanity, of which there is always short supply.

This kid prioritizes getting her way at all times.
It's almost like she's about to turn two...

I've seen my priorities manifested in so many different ways these last few weeks. When you have a washer/dryer that only takes small loads and takes six hours to finish a full load, you suddenly prioritize getting the next load in quickly (preferably before the load that just finished is full of wrinkles). When you only have a certain amount of hot water, doing assembly line speed showers seems the only way to go. When you have no dishwasher and little counter space, the dishes get washed immediately (sometimes while half the family is still eating), dried, and put away instead of making permanent homes in your sink and drying rack. When there is no grassy yard or structurally sound playground or even stairs to run up and down, you have your kids challenge their Tennessee cousins to see who can run a mile faster, and run the gravel loop of Fam Camp together, the one year old bouncing on your back in the Ergo while you try not to look like a complete idiot. You look like a complete idiot anyway--and it doesn't really matter any more.

But the truth is that you don't have to go through a crisis situation or live in a season of scarcity (or smallness) in order to discover your true priorities. You just have to pay attention. The problem is that most of us don't like to pay attention until we really have to. We prefer to keep going through the motions in our comfortable--or sometimes just busy--lives without really reflecting on whether or not the mundanities of our life reflect what we say truly matters to us. Many of us use this time of year to reflect on who we truly are and who we actually want to be. May I suggest that we use a little of our time to actually assess where our priorities lie? Not what we say our priorities are, but what they actually show themselves to be? Let's pay attention to where our time is going, where our money is spent, where our energy gets used up, what items are taking up space in our homes... And if things don't line up with what we really want our priorities to be, maybe we can shake things up a bit. Set that alarm a little earlier (maybe bribe yourself with an illuminated Bible and some quality colored pencils), schedule that babysitter for a date night, pull out those running shoes, take a nap with the toddler, dust off your library card, clean out that junk drawer...and maybe fill it up with chocolate instead.

Some of us also prioritize happy skunk socks..

Resolutions, Reality, and Resilience

It's that time of year where most of us are making some kind of resolution to exercise more, eat more healthily, pursue our personal goals instead of just talking about them, etc. I'm not resolving to exercise more, being completely content to keep running and leave all other kinds of exercise to the cool people (Crossfitters, I'm looking at you). Healthy eating is not on my radar (don't worry, carbs, I ain't quitting you!). And as to personal goals, well... it's hard to set personal goals when your entire way of life has just shifted. And I don't mean that in a bad way, just in a "still getting my feet under me in addition to my usual crazy of five kids so I don't think the next great American novel needs to be in the works at least until I figure out how to empty the poo tanks" kind of way.

The Man and I did sit down and rough out some general directions in which to head our family, but a lot of what I found myself talking about was my desire to pursue hope while we are here. We are one week shy of the hurricane's three month mark, and there has been progress made (probably far more than I even realize), but the devastation is still unimaginable. The kids and I have been driving around the area in awe at the power of the storm and how far we still have to go. And yet: we can see the piles of debris already collected, the mounds of wood chips from trees that have already been mulched, the many buildings and businesses that have already reopened for business. We can take note of the physical measure of how far we have gone.

My goal is to keep my eyes open. I want to see the truth of what happened, of course--and not just slap some happy on it--and I also want to see the progress that is being made--and rejoice in that--but I also want to see the beauty, right here, right now. I want to see the beauty and allow that to propel me towards hope. As we drove around base today, I kept seeing signs that at the top read "I am thankful for..." followed by a blank space and then simply the word "Resilient." Airmen had filled in the blanks. "Family and friends." "Good neighbors." "Hot showers." "Phone service." "A hot meal." "Fresh air." "A dry bed." This is what I am talking about. Looking for the beauty in our immediate circumstances allows us to continue in hope, which is the heart of resilience.

We look around and ask ourselves, "Is this our new reality?" And the only answer is, "Yes, it is." And we can follow that with discouragement and depression or with gratitude and joy. We get to be here. We get to beautify something broken. We get to say thank you in the face of tragedy. We get to look for the little joys (a water view, fewer things to clean, friends who have our backs). We get to step out of our comfort zones (although, I'm not going to lie, this RV is pretty cushy). We get to look for hope when things still seem hopeless. And that is enough of a New Year's resolution for me.

May we open our eyes to marvel at the good God gives, even when, on the surface, life can seem pretty bleak. This is our new reality, and the hope we have makes it beautiful.

Instead of a Brain Dump

The problem with being a slow processor is that when life happens at too great a pace, things pile up before I get the brain space to write about them. Then I feel overwhelmed and decide to never update the blog again. Or I consider doing a brain dump, which no one would actually enjoy reading, or just writing about something completely unrelated to everything that's happened, which feels untruthful. This is my attempt at a happy medium, I guess. Blogging on a regular basis might be the best happy medium, but actually accomplishing that appears to be beyond me these days.

The Man and I have spent the last couple months rearranging plans, digging through our post-hurricane moldy possessions, juggling separations and short visits, trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy and RV shopping. We were able to save far more than most, and the RV we have purchased (and just moved into) is far nicer than most of the homes in the neighborhood where I grew up...even if we will be cramming 7 humans and 3 pets into less than 400 square feet. I've learned a few things during the last few weeks. I hope you won't mind if I share a few of them with you.

• If a man voluntarily trades in a quiet hotel room to cram into an RV with you and your five kids (and three pets) so that you don't have to be separated for 9 months to a year, he really does love you. Stay married to that dude. Also, if he pauses in the middle of speed packing what's left of your moldy belongings to let you cry over the now moldy Indonesian chest your parents gave you on graduating high school--even while you're trying to be tough and keep packing--hold onto that moment. Doing hard things together is ten times better than doing easy things by yourself. Especially because together with the Man frequently means Indian food.
• If your parents voluntarily allow you and your five kids (and three pets) to move in with them for an open ended amount of time, you have it made in the parent department. If they also do hours of art and millions of games of Go Fish and Crazy Eights with your emotionally fragile kids, and lovingly tolerate the scribbles added to the cabinets and the new dents in the walls, just say thank you. Maybe say thank you more than one time and possibly pay for a house cleaner to come.
• Kids are resilient. That doesn't make what they are going through not hard. Being together is a strong motivator for resiliency though. Having a plan and an end date makes resiliency easier to come by.
• Close quarters mean fewer toys which means faster cleaning sessions. Win.
• RV designers underestimate how much a normal person would prefer a smaller bed which would provide the space to actually walk to the bathroom without tripping on a wall.
• Happy pets make easy travelers. Heading to Josh makes for happy pets. Now we know which one of us they really like.
• Living five minutes away from cousins/aunt/uncle is awesome. Sometimes when bad things happen (like hurricanes and family separations), we get to experience joy bringing opportunities (like getting to see some of my favorite people every day).
• It's okay to cry. It's also okay to laugh about the fact that you cry about everything.
• Just because our normal doesn't look like everyone else's normal doesn't mean that our normal isn't good.

I'm sure I'll be back with more later. Although considering the fact that there is evidently a YouTube family who do RV life with nine kids, I realize that my blog is not going to provide the novelty factor everyone else expects. But self care and all that. For now: I'm off to buy a litter scoop, mosquito spray, and butter...because priorities make self care easier to come by.

Seasonal Achievements

I wake up every morning and I think about all the stuff I can get done during the day if I just work smarter, time manage more effectively, and don't waste any time. Then by the end of the day, I can see just how little I've accomplished and just how exhausted I am, and I realize why I don't finish more of the items on my list. And the why might be connected to the five kids I finally managed to tuck in bed. But by the next morning, I'm sure that I'll be able to fit in just 20 minutes of flute practice or finish an actual blog (without having to stop two paragraphs in and then never completing the rest) or make actual headway on the book that I'm editing for a friend. Because surely I will handle things better today. Surely I will figure out a way to do All the Things!

But lately I've been thinking of a different time in my life. The summer before my senior year  of high school I discovered that I was short two years of PE. I signed up for a weight lifting class (which I used to take long walks off campus with my best friend instead of actually lifting weights) but that only covered half of the necessary credits. The powers-that-be agreed to a self directed summer program to count for the other credit. That summer my goal was to be able to run 5 miles in 40 minutes. By the end of the summer, I could run 5 miles in 40 minutes and 22 seconds, but I never managed to cut those 22 seconds off, and it drove me nuts. Fast forward fifteen years, and suddenly my body can knock out 5 miles in less than 40 minutes, and I don't even feel like I'm about to die at the end.

What I'm learning from this is that there are seasons (wow, it's like I've never had to learn this lesson before...). There are years when some goals are met and others are not. There is ebb and flow. But we are rarely in a season when everything works together seamlessly and our strengths are playing out on all fronts. Probably because then we would find ourselves drifting off on the wind, held aloft by our over-inflated heads...

This season has been a good one in many ways, if a hard one in many others. I can get frustrated about the personal goals that are not being met, or I can rejoice in the ones that (miraculously) are and in the other ways our family is learning and growing--even if those ways are not as tangible as published blog posts or a package in the mail to my friend with her (fully edited) book that I luckily evacuated with.

Yesterday instead of practicing flute, I helped my daughter work through a tantrum. Instead of blogging, I taught my sons how to look for hope in dark places. Instead of plowing through my work that I deem important, I got to serve dinner to my grandmother. Maybe tomorrow there will be editing or music or completed phone calls or new car tags. But for today, there is still so much.

The Man and I standing on the site where our new home will be parked.
Totally upgraded for a water view.

{Thank you for still taking the time to read when I post. I know it doesn't happen often these days. Thank you for continuing to pray for us as well. We have plans in the works to get our family back together by the middle of January. The Man is continuing to fight the good fight on our recovering base while the kids and I redefine home for a while at my parents'. Next step will involve a very large RV, not a whole lot of personal space, and boundless opportunities to learn patience and look for beauty.}

Patient Grief

In May, the Man accidentally scraped a chair over my toenail, leaving a blackish purple bruise that slowly crept closer and closer to the tip of my toe for weeks. Just a week earlier, Oswald had bitten a hole straight through the thumb nail of my right hand while trying to avoid getting his vaccinations updated. That thumb nail turned funny colors and parts of it flaked off as the hole ever so slowly moved upward. Just two weeks ago, I finally got to the point where both nails look normal again. All signs of damage have grown out. My thumb and toe no longer look completely disgusting. It took almost five months.

Five months for the outward signs of what was fairly minimal damage to disappear.

I am writing this to remind myself to have grace for myself during times of healing--and I guess also to remind you too. If something like a smashed toenail can take five months to repair itself, how long will it take to heal emotional damage done to something much more delicate and much more necessary to life, like a heart?

When we undergo emotional trauma, whether on a large scale or a small, we expect ourselves to get over it quickly. We try, even, to rush ourselves through the stages of grief. Quickly! Denial! Anger! Bargaining! Depression! Acceptance! And done! Or we think that we can grieve on a timeline. A year has gone by since we lost a loved one and we expect our hearts to be over it. Six weeks have gone by since we moved and we should be feeling settled again. We've had another child after the loss of a pregnancy, and we expect ourselves to be completely happy without any lingering sense of loss. But if you had asked me how long it would take for my toenail to get better (my toenail!), I would have said two months. Tops. It took five months. For a freaking toenail. (Don't ask me what I thought about my fingernail--I was pretty sure the whole nail was going to fall off and I was going to be having lots of super awkward hand shakes while meeting new people after our move.)

If you are in a season of grief, no matter how insignificant a grief it seems in this moment, please: be patient with yourself. And remember that there is One who is near to the broken hearted, who binds up our wounds (no matter how trivial they may seem to others), one who has offered to be the strength of our hearts and our portion forever (not just for a socially acceptable period of grieving). He saves those who are crushed in spirit, without rushing us to get over it, without demanding that we get it together, without pushing us to Be Happy (so help me). He asks only that we look up and see him, the one who took our pain and bore our suffering, who was pierced for our sins and crushed for our wickedness...and he offers us himself. He offers us peace. Peace that does not pretend away the grief but that takes the grief and understands that from this too He can bring good. He can bring healing, but only in his timing. And he kept the scars on his hands and feet for eternity.

May we be patient with ourselves. And may we look up.

Get After It

post-run coffee and inspiration

This morning, after my run, I sat down with one of the Man's motivational coffee mugs that informed me that I needed to "Get After It". I tried to convince the coffee cup that Getting Up in the morning and Getting Out for a run was enough Getting for one day. But no, the coffee cup informed me, my loyal readers needed me to step up my game and try for what has now become my once monthly blog posting. Said coffee cup also informed me that I should probably answer a couple dozen text messages I've been avoiding, finish the laundry, and homeschool my children (like a boss). Luckily for me, the aforementioned coffee cup was almost large enough to hold an entire French Press worth of coffee so at least it provided back up for its inspiration.

This kid needs no help motivating her way to crazy

Tiny showing the rest of us how to get it done
(also like a boss).

Here's the problem with motivational coffee mugs, though. They don't take into account actual real life circumstances. Like when you spend all day telling your kids to do the same things they have to do every day...and still have to repeat yourself five trillion times. Or when actually answering text messages just causes people to respond to your answers so that you then have to answer more text messages. Or when you're so tired that you have to take a cat nap in the trunk of the car between unloading groceries. Not that I've ever done that...

Bruiser's wild and wonderful imaginings.
Can't imagine what he would create if I gave him coffee...
Or a motivational mug...

It's in those moments that we chuck the motivational coffee mugs and give ourselves a little grace. Just make sure you drink the coffee first. Because then, after you have extended yourself some grace, you have the energy to try again to rise to the occasion. And take on the world. Or just, you know, Get After It. Side note: I'm no longer completely sure what that phrase means but it seems like something I should tell myself on repeat (in between repeating "Nothing should be in your mouth but food or your toothbrush" and "If you're done with that, put it away").

Littles was inspired to create pizzadillas last week.
Best stroke of genius ever.

Not sure what motivated me more to change this kid's diaper:
her absolutely adorable smile,
the fact that she brought me a diaper and the wipes unasked,
or the terrifying reek emanating from her hind quarters.

Today, though, I thought you'd like to help me create our own list of motivational coffee mugs, ones that are more grounded in real life and less in sounding cool. I'll get us started. Here are a few ideas that could help someone you know get through their day with more success:

• Just Say "No" To Socializing
• Read More Books. Ignore More People.
• Hide in the Bathroom
• Naps Are For Winners
• Coffee Gets Cold. To Do Lists Don't.

Feel free to add your own in the comments section. Remember: we want to inspire other people but not forget that they are actual human beings whose supply of chocolate and sanity may be running low. So go on now: get creative or just...get after it.

Another motivation mug message:
Kiss a Crabby Baby