The Truth Behind the Pictures

This week I shared a couple of super cute pictures of my daughter on social media. Which isn't noteworthy in and of itself, because every living, breathing creature in the Milky Way Galaxy does that. I think there are strange extraterrestrial beings living on the sixth moon of Jupiter who have Instagram feeds.

But I'm starting to digress.

The pictures this week are noteworthy because my beautiful, photogenic little princess also had double ear infections and a mean case of pink eye. Which means that this week consisted of more than a few tears, tantrums, and instances of me having to force feed her vials of Amoxicillin.

And as I was in the throes of a mommy meltdown last night after way too many long days cooped up inside the house with said princess, I was suddenly struck by the irony of my own actions.

I recently watched a video about the correlation between Facebook use and depression. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, particularly the significance of social comparison in the equation. It's something I think we're all aware of. We go on Facebook, we compare our reality to our friends' "reality," and wake up three and a half hours later with a raging headache, a cramping hand, and an unquenchable need to binge on tortilla chips and Game of Thrones. For the next five days.

Maybe it's not Facebook's fault. Maybe it's our own. But it still sucks the big one.

And last night it occurred to me how very in cahoots I am with my own dysfunction.

The truth is that real life is not always very pretty. It's certainly not as pretty as an Aviary-edited, Lark-filtered version of the original. At least it doesn't appear to be at first glance.

I suppose I'm writing all of this because I want to out myself. I want to call my own bullshit and tell the truth behind my pictures. This week I've been doing a lot of pretending, and I want you, dear reader, to know that.

The truth is that sometimes being a mom exacts a heavy toll. It's one I pay willingly and with great joy. And yet every caretaker knows that, at times, you are often required to give far beyond the reserves of an empty storehouse. It wouldn't make for a pretty photo, but it's the truth.

Sometimes life is hard, even when it's good. And sometimes it can feel like you've lost your way, even when you're exactly where you're meant to be.

The truth is that, no matter how doctored up a photo might be, nothing can compare to the brilliant technicolor madness of real life. My pictures might have been cute, but nothing can convey the scent of my daughter's hair or the heat of her head resting against my chest. Nothing can capture my heart-breaking love for her as I watch her breathe and cut her toast and pray for all the days of her youth.

These are things that the computer misses, in all of its infinite wisdom. And we might miss them too, if we fail to look with wisdom and discernment.

So just in case I've been overly contributing to the monster-machine of social comparison this week, I just want to say that I am a real-life, tempestuous human being with a beautiful, untidy mess of a life.

There is a real life behind our photos. It is imperfect, but it is real. And that's something I hope none of us will ever forget.

Cheers!

Healing From A Tough Year

I had a crazy revelation the other day, and the revelation was this- if things had turned out differently in 2016, I'd be two weeks away from having a brand new baby.

I haven't thought about my miscarriage in a while. Life has been moving so fast lately that there doesn't seem to be much space for retrospection. And the honest truth is that I've come to an unexpected place of peace about the whole thing.

But this realization hit me like a punch in the gut. It's given me pause to consider, and has left me in an unexpected deluge of grief.

2016 was a tough year. I don't want to minimize or overlook all the good that came along with it, because the good was there in abundance. Yet I'm still left with a pointed need to take stock and grieve.

I don't know why bad things happen, just like I don't know why good people get cancer and refugee babies wash up on the shore like broken seashells. We live in a strange world, and some years are strange and challenging and marked by grief.

If there's anything I know about grief, it's that she moves with indiscriminate freedom. Like a whimsical decorator, she flits from here to there, adjusting a photo here, fluffing a throw pillow there, beating the area rugs, and then adorning a new corner in layers of knickknacks and lace. Her touch lingers and her aroma seeps into the corners of the hallways, leaving behind what seems like an indiscernible path of chaos.

But when she's done, the residual effect is a room more well lived in. It's a space of casual elegance and grace, one that knows itself well and that welcomes guests in with warmth and unexpected beauty.

I'm trying to give her room to move, and I'm practicing the humble discipline of choosing hope despite the lingering traces of darkness. It takes work, and here are a few things I'm learning along the way, in case you too are engaging in this deep soul work of healing and hope.

  1. Wear the pretty sweater. In times of grief, it's easy to grab the ugliest old sweatshirt and wallow in unrelenting self-pity. But one day I looked in my closet and saw this one sweater that I reserve for "outside." It's a pretty, oversized, cable-knit number, and when I slipped it on, it felt like a warm hug. In this small act, I felt the tension releasing from my body.
  2. Make your throne and lie in it. If you must be sick- if you must be sad and tired and grieving- then choose your space with care. Prepare the sunny spot by the window, lie out the best blankets and softest pillows, and give yourself the dignity of a beautiful place to rest your head. 
  3. Break out the bodice rippers. I say this rather tongue-in-cheek, but the meaning is sincere. I love a good romance novel, but these days it's a frivolous indulgence for which I have difficulty justifying the time. Yet grief is often hard enough without the added pressure of self-improvement or other serious endeavors. So delve into your guilty pleasures. Allow yourself to get lost in fanciful, imaginative places. Let the mystery and awe of otherworldliness soothe your soul and bring you back to life.
  4. Let the river flow. Once you have clothed yourself in kindness and given yourself a safe and beautiful space to rest, by all means, let the tears come unabated. Tear down the dams, clear the roads, and give in to the release. Emotion needs flow, and flow it must have. So for just a little while, give yourself permission to let go.

I believe that good things are ahead, and that greatness lies just around the bend. And I want to send this hope and healing to you today.

But before we get there, let's give ourselves time to wrap things up, to feel the big feels, cry the big cries, and say the necessary goodbyes. It's going to hurt, but it's also going to feel a lot better on the other side.

Grief is a wayward mistress, but she knows her way around. She'll tidy things up and leave something fresh and new in her wake. She'll also leave the door open on her way out, and she may even offer her hand to help you step outside into the beauty of a brand new day.

Cheers to you and yours, and Happy Holidays.

Signposts of Joy

Last night I found myself crying. Like a lot. I’m not exactly sure why, but it might have had something to do with all the darling pregnant mamas and newborn babies in the park yesterday.

As I cried and then tried not to cry, at one point, I sat down on my daughter's bed with her. She looked up at me, put her hand on my shoulder, and said, “Mama, I know how you feel.”

Which made me cry even more, touched as I was by the sweet tenderness of her gesture.

Of course, she doesn’t know how I feel, but the meaning was there. She saw my pain, and reached across the void to make it better.

Just so, so sweet.

Growing up in a very dysfunctional home, parenting is a bit of an emotional minefield for me. Not the least of which because I have ridiculously high expectations of myself.

I don’t want to cry. I want to be happy and strong- all the time. I don’t want to be sad and wounded. I want to be positive and resilient- all the time.

And little kids often remind us of our own innocence, how we come out of the womb whole and kind and pure, untainted by the marks of what’s to come.

I once heard a quote that went something like this- you spend the first half of your life hiding the real you, and then you spend the second half getting the real you back. And sometimes that feels true.

The real me, that sweet, tender innocence, feels buried under the weight of a way of being that doesn’t fit for me anymore. I’m a grown-up, and the scary people of my childhood no longer pose a threat. But the hyper-arousal and vigilance persist.

Sometimes those scary people seem like wraiths, somewhere out there pacing the perimeter of my life. Waiting for an opening, to come in and feed on the health and positivity I’ve created.

This summer I planted a bunch of sunflowers in my garden. And not your average, run-of-the-mill flowers, but the giants. I got the biggest ones I could find, and watered those suckers like crazy.

I planted them along the perimeter of our little yard, so that they grew like sentinels. Providing a barrier of sunshine. Holding the line. Guarding the gate. With all the fierceness and beauty they could muster.

I loved those flowers. They attracted birds and squirrels and bees, and tilted their large, open faces towards the sun with all the openness of children.

They’re gone now. They didn’t last long. Their bright, shiny heads became so heavy that they drooped from the weight and faded away. And then they became giant dead trees that had to be chopped down and torn out of the ground.

Their roots came out in mammoth clumps, taking nearly the whole bed with them. Almost as if they still couldn’t let go. They were still trying to protect me.

I miss them, because they acted as a talisman on my journey. They were these giant signposts of joy, saying, "Greatness, just around the corner. Signs of life, just around the bend."

They meant something beautiful, because often in life there are great expanses of road in between, with no markers, and no signs. No indication of direction, one way or another.

In the garden, life changes with the seasons. And each bountiful creature is replaced with another in its time.

This week, we planted tomatoes. And I still don’t know what to put in place of the sunflowers.

But here’s the thing. There are no accidental blooms here. I planted those flowers. I tilled the dirt and sowed the seeds and watered the ground until they popped open and burst into life. I didn’t create the life, but I did have to create the conditions for it to thrive.

And I think sometimes that’s all the assurance we get, on the long stretches of road in between. No signpost. No markers. Just the belief and hope of tilling the earth. Tending the soil. Watering the seeds.

And waiting. For the next blazing talisman to appear.

Crow's Feet and the Gift of Life

I recently heard that an old acquaintance of mine passed away. She was a few years younger than me, the younger sister of a friend whom I haven’t seen in a while. I didn’t know her well or see her often, but I loved every minute of it when I did.

She was always a lot of fun, and she was also crazy beautiful. Not in your average, girl-next-door kind of way, but in the Disney princess kind of way. She had this fantastic mane of flowing red hair and emerald green eyes that would make Ariel herself swoon with jealousy.

Every time I saw her, I was convinced that she was the prettiest person I’d ever seen. It was only later that I learned hints of a darker side, of struggles and demons hiding beneath her lovely surface.

When I learned of her death, it hit me like a ton of bricks. How could someone so lively and full of life just not exist? And how could someone so beautiful never know it?

My husband recently took a few pictures of me for this blog. When I looked them over, what I saw gave me a bit of a jolt.

I like to think of myself as an attractive person, and in my head I think I’ll always be a vibrant 27 year-old. But when I saw the pictures, the signs of age were there, unmistakable. Nothing crazy, just the crinkle of crow’s feet around my eyes, and smile marks around my mouth- and I swear they weren’t there the day before.

I’m 36, so I know I’m not gonna be pushing a walker any time soon. But the truth is, I do feel it in my body, a certain coming of age that can’t be ignored.

Being a (rather vain) girl, it’s a tough transition, because the only language and cultural lens I have about age tends to be negative. Age is something to resist, ignore, and defy. It’s something to camouflage and hide, a source of sadness and shame.

Sometimes I feel like a desert-dweller encountering snow for the first time, and having no words to describe it. If I had words, would it be so scary? If I had words, would I have a better way to cope?

Because here’s the thing. Age is a privilege. And in the wake of someone’s passing- a death so painfully tragic it takes my breath away- nothing is clearer than this. To be here, on this day, breathing these molecules of air and standing on these particles of earth- it’s a gift.

Not everyone makes it this far. And I’m old enough to know that’s the truth.

So here’s what I know for sure. I’m blessed. To rise each morning and look in the mirror. To experience the physical sensations of a physical body, one that supports me with all the love and loyalty of an old friend.

I don’t want to spend my living moments with that friend chastising and abusing her like a mangy, unwanted stray dog. I want to cherish her. For her gifts and tenacity. For her strength, and yes, even her beauty. She’s given me every good and precious gift, and she’ll do it as long as she is able.

I don’t know how well I’ll be able to circumvent the social conditioning wired into my brain. But I’m determined to give it a try, in tender dedication to the dear ones who didn’t make it this far. And to this faithful body, who has seen me through this far. I’m still alive, thank God. Crow’s feet and all.