Fifteen years later

Today is March 19^th. A day that always sticks in my mind.

I graduated from college on March 19^th.

Fifteen years ago.

Wait? What? How did that happen?

Honestly, I was a little shocked when I looked at the date today.

I can still remember the day. I walked out of the college of social sciences and in to the sun. The world felt really, really big. I felt really, really small. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do next but I do remember being very ready to be done with college.

But I didn’t just feel small. I felt like I was on the edge of something. The next few months would be my steps to what life would bring next.

Spoiler alert…it went almost NOTHING like I had planned!

Oh, I did a lot of the things I said I was going to do…but just as many didn’t happen. The biggest things that have happened in the last 15 years were not even in my wildest dreams (or nightmares, as the case may be, but mostly dreams). I did go to work in Washington, DC. I did do R&D for the government. I never did get that PhD I was heading for. I don’t live anywhere near Washington, DC now. I don’t spend my days using my college degree in the way I had intended.

BUT, I would like to think that the things I did end up doing were the ones that mattered and I know I am right where I am supposed to be (even if some days that isn’t nearly as glamorous as my original plan).

Of my plans when I left college, the ones that I have fulfilled the most are the ones regarding relationships rather than career. That feels good. What I ended up doing have been things that matter and here are a few of them…

1. I married a great guy.

2. We adopted an amazing son.

3. Through heartache, I learned a way to help others.

4. I owned a company that allowed my family to move forward in many ways.

5. I spend my days pouring my life into my four kids.

6. I am raising a child with unique abilities to be the best world changer he can be.

7. I have found a path to encourage and inspire other women in their roles as women, wives, and mothers.

Today is another sunny March 19^th. I took my almost 2-year-old daughter for a walk on the shores of Lake Washington today. Not where I planned to be, probably not who I planned to be with (the kids were all supposed to be in school by now in my plans 😊). I thought a lot about the journey and the destination. The journey has been good. The destination, unexpected, but still good…and I still have a lot of journey left to go.

In another 15 years I will be almost fifty-one. My daughter will be almost 17 years old. We may take a walk that day. She probably won’t cry about leaving the playground. I hope that on that day I stop to think about the journey. I hope I can say those years have been just as fulfilling for relationships as the last 15 years. I hope I can say I am still right where I am supposed to be.

Marriage advice from the Greatest Showman

However big, however small

Let me be part of it all

Share your dreams with me

You may be right, you may be wrong

But say that you'll bring me along

To the world you see

To the world I close my eyes to see

I close my eyes to see

Although we were late to the bandwagon, our family fully embraced all the music of The Greatest Showman once we saw the movie. The soundtrack looped here almost daily for months. Each of us has a favorite song, and mine is “A Million Dreams”. I love how it took the movie from kids to adults. I love the interaction between Barnum and his wife.

The more I watch the movie, I think it should be required viewing for pre-marriage counselling and for anyone who has been married awhile, too. Mostly because of the ideas shared in the song “A Million Dreams”. The main characters start life with little more than love and believing in each other’s dreams, and as we learn as the movie goes, that is worth more than anything.

The section of the song quoted above is sung by Barnum’s wife. I think it could be sung by just about any young wife. This is a young woman who believed so much in her husband’s dream she wanted to be a part of it all. The big. The small. She wants to be brought along.

There are some spoilers in this next part…as the movie progresses, Barnum starts to not talk to his wife about his dreams. He doesn’t share his dreams, which are pretty big at this point. When she finds out in a very hard way that her whole life was being pulled out from under her, because of her husband, she leaves very hurt. She says something that has stuck in my mind and played over and over. She has learned of their financial ruin and asks “Why didn’t you ask me before? I would have said yes. I never minded the risk but we always did it together.” And with that, she leaves.

It wasn’t the risk that hurt her, it was the fact that he lost sight of bringing her along. Of letting her be a part of it all. She left because she felt deeply the lost connection with her spouse. She later says, after he says he was wrong for losing all they had, “I never wanted anything but the man I fell in love with”.

All she wants is the connection with her husband. Every risk will be worth it if they are together in it. However big, however small, be connected to me. Trust my love enough to share it all with me.

I see so many marriages that are lacking connection right now. I see so many women who made that promise to support their husband but don’t even know what they are supporting anymore. Share your dreams with me is like an anthem call right now. Husbands are busy providing, and many are very good at it, but they keep their cards close to the chest about what it going on in their lives. These men are being the stoic boys they were raised to be. To keep their burdens to themselves. The problem is that their wives want connection. The wives want to be a part of it all, and when they can’t, they shut down, they may not physically leave, but they are leaving emotionally. The girls stop sharing their dreams with the boys. They turn to girlfriends for connection and support. The whole family biosphere beings to crumble. It certainly did for Barnum and his wife. The only way they got it back was to turn back to each other, both with empathy and a spirit willing to listen and communicate, to see that the most important thing they had really was their love and family.

This is all good in theory, but what are some practical ways to get back there? To regain that connection? I have found in the modern busy world I have to fight for time with my husband. Not fight him, but the schedules and kids and demands. We schedule time for dates to Starbucks, we put down our media (digital and print) after the kids’ bedtime and talk. I ask about his job. I listen empathetically. He asks about the kids and what is going on with their various challenges. He listens empathetically. Sometimes we brainstorm problems. Often it is just the listening the other needs. We talk about what we want to do next in life. Where we are going. Our dreams. But we can’t do anything of that if we don’t listen to each other and share our dreams.

My challenge to wives, especially ones with young kids, is to make that time to just listen to your man. Hear his dreams again. And men, tell the girl what is going on! She will be able to support you so much better if she knows. She is your wife. She is your greatest good. She loves you. Share your life with her. She wants to be a part of it all.

Giving up to make it through

The last few weeks have had circumstances that individually would have made life challenging. But these were not nicely lining up and waiting their turn, no, these circumstances were all punching at once. One friend asked how I was doing and I replied with “slowly losing the will to survive.” It was dramatic, of course, but I just could not get above the hits. Because I struggle with chronic depression, I am very careful about becoming overwhelmed. I have a lot of built in stops and self-care to manage my mental health. I couldn’t even access a good number of those given the circumstances.

One thing that I know about myself is that my first reaction to struggle is to try harder. This is almost a part of my DNA. I was raised by people with this attitude and I was raised in a culture of this attitude. Not only do I try harder on whatever is going on, if that isn’t possible, I try harder in other areas to hope to compensate in the area where I feel stuck. My most recent example of this was actually during the last week. I was literally stuck at home (too much snow to leave) with a sick baby and two other kids and I was sick myself. So what did I do? I finished painting Isaac’s room. No joke. I figured that even if everything else fell apart, I would have one thing accomplished. Truthfully, it did feel good and it helped me later in the week to have that done. So I won’t say I shouldn’t have done it, but it does sound funny to say I did that in the midst of all that was going on.

Sometimes when I am in these places, though, I end up creating extra work or anxiety just to feel like I am “doing something”. Last week, I tried a different approach to see if it would help with anxiety and mental health. I gave up.

I came up with the idea when I was thinking about the military term “embrace the suck”. The idea there is that you can’t change your circumstances, so embrace them and get through them, rather than fighting against it as you go. I couldn’t change the snow. I couldn’t change my child being sick. I couldn’t change myself being sick. I couldn’t change being “on” all the time. I couldn’t change my husband being out of town. And, really, there wasn’t much to do.

Normally in that time I would find something to do, and I did in the painting, but that didn’t take long. So I would turn to “well I can read and study for work I have coming up”. But this time I didn’t do that. I decided to give up on it all and read a novel. Just lose myself in a book as much as I could. Let the kids watch TV and sit next to them and read.

I started to think maybe I needed to give up to make it through. I had a mental picture of Devil’s Snare from Harry Potter….that struggling could actually make it worse. That I just needed to relax everything to get out of this space. I stopped reading non-fiction and finished 3 books last week. I didn’t make a real planned dinner for over a week. And this season of circumstances is still not over, but I do feel like I am making it. I can do this. Our routine will reemerge in the coming weeks. All the tasks will get done. My kids will eat regular dinners again. I will get my work and study done. But for now I am going to go read a book.

My Shift

Do you ever look back and see that there was a particular day, that was supposed to be an ordinary day, where everything shifted? Everything in your whole life swerved in that moment? Where you don’t remember thing events that were supposed to be big, but you remember everything about the moment when your life shifted? Even if at the moment, you didn’t know it was actually going to be the shift?

I am not talking about large scale things like weddings, births, trauma, deaths. But where something small started the ball rolling. You didn’t know at the time what the outcome was going to be, but it turned out to be huge and it was all in that moment.

I have one of those. It is my most vivid shift in my life. It happened on January 18^th, 2012. It was exciting at the moment but I really didn’t know it was the shift until it all came to past.

My job that day was taking me to Washington, DC. Which was not out of the ordinary and something I did every couple of months. It was so routine, it was almost boring. I read a Sherlock Holmes book on the plane (I only know this from a Facebook memory quote).

The rest of what I was there for is a blur. I don’t remember the content of the strategy meeting we were having that day. I can’t remember a word of the lunch meeting I had that I had fought hard to get with an older guy in my field who I was hoping would mentor me some and give me tips. It was a score to get that lunch appointment. It was going to boost my career. I remember none of it because none of that matters today.

What I do remember from that day was this….

I had a few minutes to kill at my hotel that morning after dropping off my suitcase and before I had to get to a meeting. There is a Starbucks in the lobby so I got coffee and a snack and decided to make a quick phone call. A few days earlier I had learned of an adoption attorney who was opening her adoptive families list to new clients. We wanted to be on as many lists as possible so I was calling her paralegal to inquire about the process of getting on that list.

What began as an inquire call quickly changed when I said we wanted to adopt an African American boy. She got excited. She said they really needed a family to show an expected mother and they didn’t have anyone that fit. In that moment, I learned about my son. We went through the logistics of getting on her lists. She went a little outside of protocol and sent me the redacted intake paperwork so I could learn more about the baby. He was due in a month. I had to cut the call short with a promise to speak later so I could get to work. But the shift had happened.

I don’t remember any of the rest of the work day. I was thinking about this baby boy and how, just maybe, he could be ours. I am going to add here that I remember it was super stressful to be so far away from Mark and unable to get him even on the phone right then. Mostly I just wondered if I should get excited or play it cool. We had just had one failed matched but it is so hard not to get your hopes up about these things. I wanted to be a mom. Could this be it?

The next day I would fly home and the day after that we would drive to Gainesville, FL to meet the attorney and officially be on the list so our profile could be shown. A week later, we would get the call saying we were picked to be the baby’s parents. Two and a half weeks later, we would hold our son in our arms…that day and forever.

He will be seven in a few weeks. He changed my whole world. He was my shift. It all started on an ordinary January day and my life has never been the same and I am thankful for that every.single.day.

Be anxious for nothing

Be anxious for nothing.

I am a naturally anxious person. It is just something I struggle with. I have a child with a diagnosed anxiety disorder…I don’t exactly wonder where he got it from.

It is nine days in to the new year and those have been some pretty anxious days. I want to say they have been anxious regarding things outside of my control but the problem with that is the control. What exactly is in my control? That might not be nearly as much as I want to believe, so maybe it is time to address the anxiety rather than the control.

This came up with my therapist this week. He said, to my face, I was an anxious person. Ouch, but fair, and not exactly a news flash. I just don’t like people saying it because that means my façade of control has slipped. He actually went one further. He said “she is anxious and probably copes with her anxiety by planning”. Hmm. It hit me that was a nice way to say “she likes to control stuff”. And I really, really do.

Much of my coping as a special needs mom is planning and controlling what I can. And to be fair to myself, there is a lot to plan and coordinate, but I may go overboard. Maybe. Ok, fine. I do.

And then something comes along that can’t be immediately planned and organized and I am a HOT MESS. Or maybe it isn’t mine to drive. I have to support instead. There may still be a role for a planner, but it might be slower than I want.

What then? My anxiety coping plan doesn’t exactly work well in those conditions.

It is dawning on me that I need to refocus and make some changes. I need to go back to the roots of the anxiety. I need to go back to “be anxious for nothing.” Not by planning but by applying more directly the next verses in the Bible….and, while I am at it, the one right before it, too.

After all, it is the very first Bible verse I can remember memorizing!

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4)

I think rejoicing is the first step in being prepared to “be anxious for nothing”.

Today I was reading Max Lucado’s book Anxious for Nothing and this is where he starts and this line knocked me back on the couch: “We are urged to ‘Rejoice in the Lord.’ This verse is a call, not to a feeling, but to a decision and a deeply rooted confidence that God exists, that he is in control, and that he is good.” Full stop. Am I living this? If I am coping with anxiety through control, am I living this? Probably not, much as I dislike even typing that. He goes on to write “anxiety increases as perceived control diminishes”, yet “we can’t take control because control is not ours to take”. Well, that shoots pretty straight at the matter. I get the feeling God nudged me to read this book today, in the middle of this week, at the start of this year where anxiety is trying to strangle me in just the first 9 days.

For the last many, 10ish I would guess, years I have tried to have a word of the year. Some worked better than others. I wasn’t exactly feeling the idea this year and I don’t like to push something “just because I have always done it” so 2019 didn’t have a word. Today I realized that it doesn’t need a word, it needs a whole phrase!

“Be anxious for nothing”

And then I need to work on changing what I do with anxiety, how I approach it, how I acknowledge the sovereignty of God at work in my family.

So, stay tuned because, of course, I can’t learn something new without writing about it!!!

My 2018 goal

I set out at the beginning of the year to write more. Late in 2017, I read about the idea of having just one goal and focusing on that rather than several goals that might all get mixed up. I decided to try it with writing. For the first time in my adult life my goal list had just one item. That was to write an average of 500 words per week and to have 26,000 words written by the end of 2018. These would be journal entries, blog posts, and speech notes. Every week the top item on my planner was “500 words”.

I started strong. When I really sit down to write, I can often go far past 500 words on a blog post. The Spring was solid and I was actually ahead. Then Summer came and I had 4 small people to keep busy. I started to slip. I wasn’t hitting 500 words every week. But it was my one goal so I wasn’t going to let a few weeks slip stop me for the year. I had ONE GOAL. I couldn’t fail at just one. I could fail at many, but to fail at one? That would just be sad.

I rallied in September and found a new writing time. I wasn’t too far behind. I could still do this thing. It would just take determination. And then the Fall holidays began and it was hard to find the time again. But still, I wanted to do this thing and I wasn’t that far behind.

That brought me to early December. I had to write 3000 words by the end of the year. I started to wonder if I could really do it. That would be more than 500 words a week at a busy time of year. I told my dad I didn’t know if I could make it and he asked where I was on my goal. I said “3000 words away, I might just fail”.

His reply changed my game.

He said “You already are at 85% or so of your goal. You may miss the word count, but that is hardly a fail.”

He was right. Since when would 85% be failing? And more importantly, I have written more this year than ever before because of this goal. My husband has encouraged my writing more this year than ever before because he knew my goal. I am closer to be a “real writer” than ever before. My goal has moved me forward as a person and a writer and that is what goals are supposed to do. So even if I missed the 26,000 words, I would not be failing my goal.

And that, as it turned out, made my want to write even more. I wrote during naptime. I took my kids to the Y playrooms and never made it to the exercise rooms, I would just write in the lobby. I might miss my goal. But I was not failing and I was a better person for trying. I was at peace with myself regarding my goal, which can be just as important as meeting the goal itself.

That brings me to today. I am super excited to report that I have done it! I have written 26,118 words in 2018. I am crying as I write this. It was a stretch goal. I could have quit with 4 little human excuses. But I didn’t. I kept going and I did it!!

And here’s to 30,000 words in 2019!

Thank God for Kids

“If it weren't for kids have you ever thought 

There wouldn't be no Santa Claus 

...thank God for kids”

I have always loved that song but it was hard to hear for a lot of years when we so wanted children we couldn’t seem to have. Then, 7 years ago, there was a Christmas filled with some hope as we were a waiting adoptive family. That year at the church Christmas Eve service I held up two candles…one for me and one for the baby I hoped God would give me in the next year. One day shy of two months after that service, I would hold my baby in my arms. God had heard our cries and given us the perfect baby he had picked for us. He gave us laughter again. He gave us Isaac.

The next Christmas, Isaac was 10 months old and holding his own candle at Christmas Eve. He was called out by Pastor Joel as “the child waving his candle more vigorously than others”! I cried again that year, but happy tears.

Little did we know that the very next year, we would experience “Baby’s First Christmas” again. We added Joel to our family that year with another sense of amazement at carrying a baby to a full term pregnancy.

In the following years we would add two additional children. One that on his first Christmas we were both thankful for him presence in our lives but very worried about why he seemed to not be able to see. The next year, Peter would be wearing glasses and just about to start using a mobility cane.

And that would also be the year we would do our final “Baby’s First Christmas”, but that one would include ribbons and bows and frilly ruffled dresses. Our Ellie girl had arrived that year.

This year, as I listened to the words “thank God for kids”, I am so incredibly thankful for my kids. I am thankful we got our children. I know that many arms are still empty. I am extra thankful we got all four of them and were able to close our family building chapter as we wished. I know that many arms are not as full as they wanted. I am excited for the next season of kids. I know not all parents get to watch their kids grow up. I am thankful.

Thank God for kids.

Merry Christmas