One Way of Remembering

There are two ends of myself, continually in the midst of battle with one another. There is, on one end, the desire for posterity. For being the memory keepers for my boys, for being the memory keeper for myself. There is a desire to document these tricky beginnings of each other – all throughout the muddled middle of life. If I'm lucky, we’ll look back to witness decades of growth far beyond pencil scratches to the kitchen pantry door frame.

But then there is the other end of me: the one that wonders what good can possibly come from housing 7,625+ photos in my camera roll. The one who thinks I might be a smidge less stressed if we untethered our minds and hands from the self-given role of daily family historian. Surely the moment exists if not captured in pics? Surely I can keep it forever, stored in my heart and not in my hard drive.

How To Read This Blog

I want you to read this blog knowing two things:

These are examples, not expectations.
These are experiences, not posts.

I want you to read this blog in your voice, not mine. I want you to wrestle with what is written, to pin it down and hold it up to the light, see if it works for you, move on if it doesn’t. I want you to second-guess the ethical shoes I just bought you for school, and I want you to ask yourself if the pair of Adidas in your local thrift store are just as good (they are, if not better).

I want you to think about yourself – your complex, hopeful, curious self – and I want you to regard that self, protect that self, honor that self.

I want you to feel comfortable here in tenth grade. I want you to enjoy your time, and I want you to leave encouraged and rested and rejuvenated – ready to serve the ones you love in all of your daily complexities.

And then I want you to click “X” and let it be.

Sharing

A Few Ground Rules

For Reading This (or Any) Blog

“[F]or just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is. Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life. Stop waiting. This is it: there’s nothing else. It’s here, and you’d better decide to enjoy it or you’re going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever.”-Lev Grossman

Waimea

Waimea Canyon, Kauai

 

A Thousand Miles

On Leaving

On coming home to yourself

Vacation came, vacation went.

I’ve spent the past few days in the post-getaway rhythm of folding whites, restocking pantries, shaking sand from the shoes. This morning I unpacked my suitcase and returned an unread pile of books to my nightstand – a welcome reminder that even beloved hobbies pale in comparison to watching fully-grown boys feed fish food to the Koi.

The truth is this: our family hasn’t been a family of four in a short while. We’ve been a family of three and one, or two and two, the familiar parent equation that lends itself well to balancing children with fulfilling work, but leaves little left for much else.

We needed time. Togetherness. Attention, wholly and undivided, if only for a week or so.

Togetherness we were granted, to the tune of 6 hours in a plane. There was hotel bed jumping and sand crab hunting and – fulfilling my every dream imaginable – a rousing Monday night Laua. (Spent $35 on a dinner, which Max didn't attend, all on account of fish bowls and a margarita.)

We lazed around in the mornings. Played pool volleyball at night. We lugged coolers to the shore and ate sandy bologna with salty hands. Endless Chess matches. Rode surf boards and paddle boards and body boards up and down waves, rivers, to and from the restaurant a block away with the best mud pie I’ve witnessed yet.

It was all so necessary, this last July inhale, and I found myself dizzied with gratitude more often than not.

Now that I’m home, I find myself feeling a singular shift in a familiar direction. It began tonight with a failure to fall asleep at 6pm, unable to adapt to my old schedule. It began with tossing and turning, throwing hard dreams around a soft pillow. Rising around midnight to chip away at a project bigger than myself, heading back to bed to sneak in a few hours of rest before the alarm wakes with the sun.

It began with the understanding that a small part of me was waking alongside of them.

I have always known myself to be slow in adjusting to life post-children around. The empty nest that many mothers describe as a 3-week haze takes upwards of 2 years to burn away for me, and then some.

But I feel it today, a small lifting. The clearing of the sky, the making of a way.

I don’t know if it was the ocean air, or that Morgen picked up a hundred phrases between Kauai and Salt Lake, or that Max has been so quietly clearing his own sky for so many months and I'm swelling with pride alongside of him. I don’t know if it was Markus' warm hand reaching past the middle console for my own, keeping it there through half Hawaii.

But here it is, fully and finally.

The lifting.

Sometimes, it takes a thousand miles to find what you’d never lost.

Summer Camp

For Grown Ups

This year has been a season of deep renewal for me, and also for my family. We’ve trekked through mountains of dirt at sunrise, caught sunshine with our hands, slipped on wet rocks, kissed bloody toes, carried each other home. I left social media behind for the better part of it, choosing fuzzy memories over sharpened photos. Perhaps a friend last month said it best: It’s so good to see you! I’d forgotten you existed. 

Stay Where You Are

Last Month

A young couple purchased our home off the internet on "Homie"

Tonight as we were moving out my boys asked me this:

Q: What was your favorite memory in our home?

A: Right now - When I was no longer afraid of losing it. When I was no longer worried about what would be our last night in it, about “losing my home,” about ruining everything I’d worked 26 years for. When those questions stopped being scary, I knew I was ready to risk it all. I knew I’d enjoy happily floundering around in failure more than smiling my way through success doing something I didn’t love.

When I stopped thinking about what the home looked like, and started to think about how I felt in it.

—

I don’t know what sort of crossroads you’re walking toward. I don’t know if it’s a relationship, a lifestyle, a diet, a career move, a parenting decision.

Maybe you just want to start singing opera. Maybe you just want to quit singing opera.

Whatever.

How do you feel in the decision?

p.s. If you feel great in the decision, congratulations! Stay right where you are.

Time To Fly

Changing your life isn’t about having faith in your ability to fly,

to rise above

to conquer your dreams.

It’s about having faith that the fall won’t kill you.

It’s realizing that a failure elsewhere is better than a success here.

TOGETHER

Straighten Your Spine

Stand Tall

Make It Work

You'll risk screwing up, sure. 

This is where a mother pitches the paperwork for her PhD application.

Don't. 

--- 

You’ll risk ruining it all – the skills you’ve acquired, the small notoriety you’ve been given, the general comforts of knowing what the heck you’re doing, of feeling comfortable, of feeling good, of feeling right.

Editing the script, the job, your life is a risk. It might never look the same.

But then again, it might never look the same.

Make It Work

I started a new career path today. 

Huntsman Cancer Institute

I stopped blogging. I went on hiatus from the blogger.com show. I started reading more, about whatever the heck I wanted to read about: parenting, minimalism, truth, beauty, hope.

Stay in your lane, some said.
Stick to labor and delivery, others said.

Be grateful for the job, they screamed. So what if it doesn’t give you enough income with constantly called off shifts? Straighten your spine. Stand tall. Make it work.

How To

redefine yourself

He grew tired

He started complaining about small things. He started feeling like he was stuck, like he’d be doing this forever, like this amazing/incredible gift of a life no longer suited him, like his life had shrunk down a bit, or he’d wanted it to shrink down a bit, and this operation, this whole big wide dress of a gig was too big. He was swimming in fabric.

I told myself my feelings were normal, slightly entitled even. It’s called a leaving the nest, Brenda, not a joy. You don’t have to love it.

And I don’t have to love it, sure. Boys grow up to become men.

But what if I could shift it, just a little? Tailor the dress? Take it in an inch, maybe two?

Could it fit again? Was this salvageable? He had to move out to find out. And so he rented an apartment with Preslee and his friend Nathan and begun his new trimmed down life. 

Survey Your Surroundings

Focus

It is nearly impossible to navigate your path when you’re looking down, staring at the phone, scrolling through journeys on vastly different terrain. Do you see it? Your path is here. Focus. Pay attention. Greet the people you meet along the way. 

Lift Your Eyes

Look at the wide sky, offer thanks for your smallness.

Look Up

Survey your surroundings.

If you've been consulting your compass for long enough, your surroundings will look vastly different than they used to. 

Don't forget to peer at the path behind you. Don't forget to see how far you've come, see where you've tripped, see where you've detoured, see where you reoriented back onto your path. Peer at the panoramic...

Call it beautiful. 

Boundaries

We are a culture of more.

When we see a roadblock, the temptation is to throw more stuff at the problem ---

Distract, distract, distract. 

And yet, often times, the solution is to offer less. I felt buried by dish duty, but instead of adding more dishes, I simply offered less dishes: One plate/glass/utensil per day, per boy. If they wanted to eat their next meal, I'd simply say, please bring your dish cleaned and ready. Boundaries bring clarity, creativity and perspective. Insist on them. 

Put On Your Boots

Listen. 

I know what it's like to have a crippling mortgage. 

I know the stress of mounting medical bills. 

Of mouths to feed. Of requesting overtime hours under fluorescent lights. There is much of this in my blog and so I will simply cut to the chase: after much consideration of my financial crisis, I am fighting hard to carve out a life with little-to-no overhead. I budgeted only for needs, not wants. I've spent weekends and evenings building portfolios. I've eaten peanut butter sandwiches for dinner and called it lovely. I have decided to move to an area where I can sale my house on Homie and it will be possible to get the cash out, even probable, where I could live a flexible life that isn't dedicated or constrained by finances. I quit shopping for sport. I gave generously to each of my sons from the proceeds. I simplified in every area possible, and yes, there was a trade-off (there is always a trade-off). It was ever worth it. 

Allow Failure

We needed to live the fast life to understand why we needed to live a slower one. We needed to chase the wrong things, to learn the hard lessons the hard way. The falling nearly always comes before the learning, and sometimes, yes, even after the learning. It is an impossible step to skip.

Allow it. 

Learn from it. 

And re-learn from it again and again. 

Walk Ahead

Take one step, start small.

Experiment.

Ask yourself: What area of my life brings the most stress, currently? Get specific. 

What stumbling blocks are ahead? Move them, or move around them. Markus dreads picking up his clothes off the floor, so now he keeps a strict No Clothes In the Closet policy at home. Another thing he despises is mono, so he rewards himself with a gatorade a day for every day missed of school. 

Infuse tiny joys into your day in whatever way you can. You have far more power over this than you think.

Forget "but."

Sometimes I'm tempted to resist change because of the "but." 

But what will my family think? 

But what will my career look like?

But what if it's too hard? 

It is wise to survey the "but," to consider it a lesson in preparedness, to let it inform your plans. And then it is wise to proceed anyway.

Consider Your Compass

Life is immeasurable. 

With a path, that winds in the most unfathomable, incredible way.

Rather than setting a goal to encourage the arrival, consider setting a compass to encourage the journey. A compass guides graciously, rather than mandates mercilessly. It offers a gentle whisper that yes, you're headed in the right direction. It is ever-necessary in navigating your life with conviction and curiosity, rather than convention and conformity. Find your compass in something unchanging, something that you deem true and stable. (Markus' is here.)

NOTICE IT

The trick is to notice the feeling if you're not who you want to be, who is?

Live with the tension. 

Cozy up in the space in between: get comfortable with the discomfort. 

This is life, in all its glory. 

Do not numb it.

Do not wish it away hoping for days without hardship. Once you've noticed the chasm, you're well on your way to the good work; figuring out what it means to live a life that's ripe with limitations and riddled with lessons, but resounding in love. 

Connection

Slow Living is for connection

for having the space in our day to welcome an impromptu visit to the mall

for having the space in our mind to open the door to the car even though it's scary to let someone else drive.

It's thinking about the way we live, and asking ourselves why.

-

And, of course we can do all this in any season, at any moment. 

But, if you feel buried, here's a shovel. 

Do not victimize yourself. 

You aren't buried alive until you're buried alive. Call it what it is: resist your urge to exaggerate your current state of living. Chances are, if you're reading this, you are noticing a bit of a chasm between the life you lead and the life you want to lead. Here's a secret: we all have this feeling. We all have this gap. There is nothing broken in me that isn't broken in everyone else. I've been conditioned to want something different than what I have been given. But, I've also learned that I have two choices: (1) Chase someday, or (2) Accept today. I have chosen the latter. I am here. I am breathing. I am alive. I am well(ish). For now. And for now, that is enough.