A Legacy of Moments

"It's no good trying to get rid of your own aloneness. You've got to stick to it all your life. 

Only at times, at times, the gap will be filled in. At times! But you have to wait for the times. 

Accept your own aloneness and stick to it, all your life. And then accept the times when the gap is filled in, when they come. But they've got to come. You can't force them." 
— D.H. Lawrence

I should be practicing my math problems tonight. I have a test soon, then another in abnormal psychology, then quizzes and papers in film, and the week after spring break lets loose a deluge of homework which I'm bobbing up and down in with the swirling water. But some nights are for writing. Like this one.

This afternoon, I went to my school and ordered my cap and gown. I wrote my name out on a whiteboard, then held it up as they made me speak into the recorder so it will be announced correctly. They asked me if I wanted to buy the extra yellow cords because I am graduating with honors.The girls behind the messy desk, probably eight or ten years my juniors, looked at me blankly, as if the three of us knew it was only community college, after all. And it is. And I bought those cords and told them I needed to. I needed to.

Because when relatively big things happen in my very small life, I have to grab hold of them with everything I have. When something joyful approaches, I want to take it by the hand for as long as it's there. I'm not wise, but I am smart enough to understand that some of my depression is caused by whatever chemical, hereditary, biological pieces inside me. The rest is caused by choices that I've made, and the consequences of making those choices.

So I grasp the good, when I'm handed a nice evening for a walk, or a silly joke emailed from my mom. When I have a moment to meet a friend at Starbucks, or an invite for pie with my dad. When I run my fingers over a pretty, new dress at the store, or have a chance to buy ten dollar cords for a graduation gown simply to tell the world I tried so very hard at this college student thing, I have to grasp it and run with it until I have no energy left to run.

Depression is not something that will let go of me. I've had too many years of the ebbs and flows to know any other way. But when there is a chance at a blessing, big or small, I hold it to my chest in thanksgiving. The biggest of these blessings are the arms of two little souls who call me mama.

Millie and Walter won't be there six weeks from now, when I hear my name called and move my tassel from one side to the other. The graduation ceremony is very late in the evening, and they will both be sleeping peacefully in their beds while I'm across town with my heels and sweaty palms. And yet, they are the ones who will be with me most of all. I tell myself that I have worked to get this silly associate degree for me, for my happiness- but really, it is for that hope of making them proud in some small way. The hope of spurring them on to do better things with their lives than I have done.

Sometimes, I have to remind myself that the loneliness will come and go. Sometimes, I can't write a blog post that will be able to explain why things hurt or why I'm sad. Yet I have a little girl and a little boy that God gave me, and I can grab on to their joy. I can encourage it, even, and do my best to cultivate it. Life as an adult is harder than any of us dreamed when we were children. But, oh, these children of mine have so much happiness, and in such simple things.

We'll chase those things together, with my left hand holding hers and my right hand holding his. We'll find the secret and the sweet and the silly together. My lonely will get chased away in those moments.

And when life slows as the decades pass, I'll have countless stories to remind myself of, and to tell them when they get weary, too. The legacy of these moments is where my heart hopes to store up treasures.

The Mystery

"Everything which is done in the present, affects the future by consequence, and the past by redemption." 

— Paulo Coelho

One of my favorite people I've never met is Ken Burns. For the proverbial list of guests you'd pick to sit around your dinner table, he is one of mine. Because I think he's found a secret: that the process of going back, being knee deep in history, is beautiful. Because hindsight gives clarity and sense to our lives, even the bad things. Because it's a good story. While the present just seems like a mess- one without any rhythm or poetry, at that- the events that we look back on give meaning to the chaos.

But I read an article in the Chicago Tribune three days ago, and haven't stopped thinking about it. It told the story of an 87 year old woman named Anna. She is a psychoanalyst who was visiting the September 11 memorial. More importantly, she is a Holocaust survivor who lived in three concentration camps, including Auschwitz. She was freed when the camp was liberated. Her father and grandmother did not survive. She watched a friend die as mice waited nearby for their next meal.

Anna was asked, at the end of the article, if her background made her see meaning in the events of September 11. "Meaning? What meaning?" was her response.

I believe in God. I always have. But there are some things that will never be good. It doesn't mean He can't make good things from broken ones; He often does, and those make the best stories. Yet, it doesn't made the bad fade. What happened to Anna was inexplicable and horrifying. What happens to victims of abuse is senseless. When someone gets cancer, or dies too young, or has their heart broken, it doesn't sit right with us, and it never will. Sometimes, I don't think it's possible to reconcile tears.

Two weeks ago was my anniversary. Sky and I have been married for five years. In those five years, there have been two babies, three jobs, and four apartments. There have been long absences due to the military, and they add up to over a year apart. There has also been a lot of hurt.

The truth about my home is that it is not a happy place. It has not been a happy place for most of the last five years. There is not a lot of screaming or slamming of doors, no midnight shouting matches or broken dishes. There is just empty silence where sweet words should be. Separate rooms when there should be a shared couch. An absence of hope when it should be full to the brim. There is not a shred of trust. The one place in this world that should be calming and kind has never felt that way. And it doesn't make sense to me.

From the very beginning of our marriage, Sky and I have fought an uphill battle, and we've gone sliding down to the bottom again and again. It's where we find ourselves now. Only this time, I don't have the strength to keep climbing anymore. I am hoping that things will change and our family can stay whole. I hope that more than anything in this world. I wish that it was just up to me, but it's not.

These next few weeks/months/etc. are really our last chance at this. I tell you this because I ask for your prayers. I don't understand what has happened or why. I will never be able to be the wife that says, "I'm glad it happened. We're better for it." I am not glad. I hope we will be better for it.

In the meantime, I've quit trying to comprehend the reasons why we're here, and fix my gaze on Millie and Walter. On being gentle with our hearts. On waking up and going to bed and waking up again. On knowing I'm not the only one with problems that keep me up at night. On whispering prayers that remind God I need Him desperately, and remind me that He knows.

And maybe someday, there will be beauty in between the pain. Maybe someday, I can tell this story, and sigh when I get to the happy ending. Until then, the pages turn day by day. I'm in the middle of the mystery.

Life in Janurary

"Sometimes, I look outside, and I think that a lot of other people have seen this snow before. 

Just like I think that a lot of other people have read those books before. And listened to those songs.

I wonder how they feel tonight." 

— Stephen Chbosky

The sun sank below the horizon hours ago. It's dark now, but the kind of dark that glows with newly falling snow. The stars are missing from the sky, as if they have sprinkled themselves into the vast white. It covers rooftops, molds into car shapes, and smooths over all hints of busyness from this day. There are those who shrink back from this kind of crystallized weather. But not me. Snow makes the real world disappear. It makes me forget.

I woke up earlier than usual this morning. I had heard what the weatherman predicted, and after breakfast was given and coats were found, Millie, Walter, and I made a trip to the grocery store. It's a lovely, chilly Midwest tradition, I think; when more than an inch of snow is in the forecast, it means we must shop for bread and milk. By the time the storm clouds break open and the tiny dots of white begin falling, there isn't a loaf or a gallon to be found on the shelves in Champaign-Urbana. We have plenty of plows to scatter the roads with salt and sand, but it's a tradition that stays with me still- grocery store, gas station so the tank will be full to the top, and home to a bowl of something warm. Then we press our noses to the windowpanes, straining our eyes to spot the first snowflake. If we turn our backs for a moment, we look back to see an unrecognizable scene of winter on our street.

When I opened this page, I meant to write to you about the snow. It does something to me, as most of the season changes do. I suppose what I really wanted to do is tell you how I am. What I'm doing.

In the past couple of weeks, I have spent time with more than one friend. This is remarkable when I'm such an introvert, and when I often feel I have no friends that I could do those kinds of things with. I spent one evening on a couch with a friend and her tiny baby boy. We sipped drinks and talked for hours about life. I stayed until after one in the morning, completely unaware of time. A few days later, I braved the bitter cold air to navigate brick streets and warm myself in a coffee shop, where I met another friend who I've known since we were both young. We used to write outlandish stories together and have lots of adventures. Her mother taught me to play the piano; I took lessons in their living room. The two of us had fancy desserts and caught up on the years we've missed. And though I love my time alone, that afternoon and that evening were some of the brightest times I have had in a very long time. I realize that community, with people who really understand me, is a beautiful thing, and I dearly hope to have more of  in the coming year.

Life now is a sometimes wonderful, sometimes maddening form of the same day, over and over again. It usually feels that most of my day is spent preparing meals, cleaning up meals, planning meals, and shopping for them. Walter is still as sweet as ever, but teething can throw that off some days. Millie is so full of life- I've never seen someone that alive before- and I usually have to beg her to slow down a bit in the morning until I've had a cup of coffee. I pick up the same toys and books every night. I wake up to the same demands of "nana!" (banana) for Walter and fifty questions from Millie. Most days, I find myself feeling so weary at one point or another, because motherhood does that. But I also see her curled up on my bed to read, wearing her long flannel nightgown and playing with her tiny curls, or have a grin and a kiss from him that covers my whole cheek in drool, and in those moments, I find myself near tears, because I know these days won't last.

Sky and I will be married 5 years on the 16th. I always think it's the 15th for some reason. I don't know what the day, or the year, will bring. I never do. But we are still trying.

For the last month or so, I've felt myself start to walk into the familiar dark forest of depression. It's nothing serious, and nothing unusual. I have been walking in and out of it for as long as I can remember. Sometimes, I can name a cause. Other times, it finds me on its own. This time may be a mix of both. I've learned that I can't cheer myself out of it. Instead, I try to minimize its appearance when the kids are awake, and I give myself permission to cry, or write, or do what I need to do to make it until the next day. My last post talked about perseverance a little, and depression requires it. I am doing what I can.

That is life now. The ins and outs of every day. The busy nothings that make up my life. The bits that seem unimportant and are really the only important parts. The sadness. The gritty, unpolished shards of hope. The quiet. The embraces of friends. The milk and bread. The snow.

A Quiet Resolve

"The highway signs say we're close,

But I don't read those things anymore.

I never trusted my own eyes."

-Stubborn Love by The Lumineers

A year in review?

I don't know.

I don't know what I'm closer to, or what I'm farther from.

My heart is so much happier, and so much more full of ache.

I am older and wiser, but I wish I could be younger and oh-so-naive again.

Maybe everything is changing, or maybe it's tortuously the same.

I know more of what I want, and less of how to get it.

I can't make sense of most of what I've seen this year. And maybe it doesn't matter, now that it's ending, and being replaced by a shiny 2015, with glitter and flashbulbs to assure me that this is the year. This time I'll figure it out. This time I'll know. The confetti will shower me in an avalanche of goals and resolutions that will outshine all the regrets and broken promises.

Sometimes, I feel like a boat in an ocean with no land in sight. Because I can control what I do. But there are seven billion other people in seven billion other boats, and I can't control any of them. And there are big storms that come out of nowhere, it seems. And boats are kind of lonely things anyway.

There are times when I blaze into a new year full of wild hope and bubbly excitement, as if I'd toasted the whole bottle of champagne to myself. There are others where I simply pray a silent prayer in the dark, waiting until everyone has gone to sleep and it's just me in the blankets, staring up at God in a kind of hesitant wonder. We have a long, but mostly wordless talk. And for the most part, I just tell Him that I don't know. I don't know. My best prayers are probably when I keep my mouth closed.

I've had thirty years of these midnights, of the calendar rolling to a new page. They no longer seem worthy of sequined dresses or noisemakers. Instead, they tend to arrive without any fanfare at all. The Christmas decorations look outdated and out of place already. The ball dropping in New York is too far away from a small town in central Illinois farmland.

And anyway, isn't that what the Midwest is known for- a quiet resolve? A steadfast determination? No matter the weather, the farmers have to sow and reap at some point. You do what has to be done. There is a beauty in that, even though it's mostly lost in the world today.

So 2015 will find me doing what has to be done, whatever that may be. I will love my children. I will finish school. I will cook our meals and make our trips to the library. I will sit in the hallway during her ballet class, and console him after his immunizations. I will laugh and I will cry. I will sing along with the radio. I will read lots of board books and mourn for time to read from my own shelf. I will try to make the holidays happy. I will buy hair dye in a box. I will revel and glory in fall's return. I will celebrate birthdays and marvel at new accomplishments. I will get a new pair of shoes, and pay taxes, and discover new recipes. I will still check on them at night. I will get teased for the amount of photos I take of anything and everything. I will stay up too late and wish for time to sleep in. I will write.

I will do the small things that constitute this life, a life that feels small, but one that God sees nonetheless. And even though I don't know, He does. For now, I go to bed and wake up again.

A Beautiful Paradox

"Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; 

that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home." 

— G.K. Chesterton

I cannot tell you the presents I received for Christmas when I was younger. Oh, there were a couple things, maybe- the contact lenses that meant I was free from a junior high life of glasses and braces. And there was a warm, pink plaid bathrobe. We had a tradition of unwrapping one gift on Christmas Eve and in a moment of serendipity, I picked that one. I remember going to bed wrapped up in that cozy robe, feeling so please with myself that I had picked the best one to open that night by the tree. But other than the odd tin of candy from my grandpa, or the aunt who liked to give me clothes two sizes too big, I can't name five things that were given to me.

The cookies, however, I remember. The sugar cookies that we loved to decorate for a chance to sneak drips of icing. The candy canes we'd hang on the tree with the oversized, old fashioned, multi-colored bulbs, and the mismatched ornaments, and the tinsel. The way our presents were often wrapped in comic strips from the newspaper. The knit stockings that were impossible to coax the candy out of, and the family that would visit that week. The way we would always read the Christmas story from Luke before we'd open a single thing.

This is the time of year that I love most. But this week is always full of mixed emotions for me. I see the photos of a tree stacked with presents so tall, I can barely see the tree at all. I see the gushings over a new designer bag, a fancy camera, or even a new car (do people actually think those commercials with the big red bow on the car are a great suggestion?). It reminds me that it's time to back away from social media for a week or so, until the materialistic rhapsodizing has calmed.

I don't know it it's because these people have no sweet memories of their childhood Christmases. Maybe they truly know no other way to be happy than to accumulate more possessions. Or maybe it's because they don't realize the great needs of those in their own city or their country, and how many people awake to a small, government owned apartment with no tree, no presents, and no breakfast. I suspect it could be those things, or maybe, it is that they do not remember the reason Christmas is here.

(photo courtesy of Dimock Images)

I hope Millie and Walter wake with joy that morning. I hope they appreciate a new book or a dress up doctor's coat. I hope they even have vague memories of believing in Santa Claus and dreaming of reindeer on the roof. But far, far beyond that, I hope they realize, especially as they grow, that Christmas is not about what we've tied up with yarn and topped with bows. I hope they realize that we have so much compared to many others in the world. I hope they have giving hearts that feel compelled to share and give, at this time of year and always.

And more than anything, I hope they grow in the knowledge that Christmas is about a simple night, with a birth in a barn, with a new family out in the cold. I hope they teach their children about the angels singing, and the wise men bringing their finest, and how a newborn grew to become a man who was nailed to a tree because he loved us more than life. I hope that they celebrate in a way that gives honor to that night. I hope they hear the words of those old Christmas carols and shed a tear or two in the beauty of it all.

Merry Christmas, friends. May your hearts be full of blessings.