Taking the heart road.

Sometimes Braden (now age 4.5) asks me how to say things in Spanish. I go to this website and we enter words and then we learn now to say them together. He especially enjoys the feature where you can actually listen to a pronunciation of the word. Unfortunately, however, he gets really frustrated when we encounter a Spanish word with an “r” in it, and he can’t say it exactly the same way. I’ve tried to help him learn how to roll his r’s, but he hasn’t been successful yet.

Today he asked how to say “tree” in Spanish. The answer is “arbol.” He became very frustrated about the sound of his r’s again. I began encouraging him to keep trying, but he just kept telling me, “NO, because I CAN’T do it.” This prompted me to launch into a long discussion with him about how you have to keep trying when you can’t do something the first time, rather than giving up, if you really want to learn it. I even gave him examples from my childhood.

(I totally went through torturous and seemingly endless trials in front of the bathroom mirror to learn how to roll my tongue. I was going to be damned if my brother could do that and I could not, and refused to believe the BS idea everyone was feeding me that it’s a genetic trait and you can’t do it unless you inherit that. IN YO FACE, FALSE POP SCIENCE.)

Braden indicated he didn’t agree with my sage advice about trying and learning. So I told him that he can take a slightly easier path and trust my advice, or he can be stubborn and take the hard road through life. He considered this for a few moments, and replied, “I think that instead, I am going to take the heart road, Mommy.”

Me: “What?”
Braden: “I’m going to take the heart road instead.”
Me: “Oh? What is that road like?”
Braden: “It has lots of heart patterns on it. Red ones and pink ones too, and I like them. And lots of heart rocks. And heart shaped trees.”
Me: “How does that make you feel?”
Braden: “It makes me feel so happy.”
Me: “And where does this road lead?”
Braden: “It leads to everywhere you want to go. And there are stars racing in the sky.”

My friends, the heart road is paved with red and pink heart patterns, strewn with heart rocks, and lined with heart shaped trees. It will make you feel happy, stars will race in the sky overhead as you travel, and it leads to “everywhere you want to go.”

I guess being happy on “the heart road” is better than being miserable while struggling to learn rolling your r’s in the long run, huh? This kid kind of totally disarms me every damn day. And he really has no idea how brilliant these things he says really are.

I’m still a firm believer in trying for the things you desire, but I’m glad to have someone in my life who reminds me it’s not always a bad idea to voluntarily take the heart road.

The one where I talk about how I get VD. No, wait, not like that…

I get it.

I get the pain that you feel when you don’t have a special love.

I get the way it seems you’re being left out when so many are celebrating.

I get it.

I get the disgust over commercialized love and tricking the masses into feeling good about handing over money for silliness.

I get it.

I get that we shouldn’t need a day assigned to loving on the people who mean the most to us, because we should be doing that anyway.

I get it.

I get all of that, and more.

And still?

I don’t mind it. I’m not a Valentine’s Day Hater.

I don’t mind one more chance, reminder, reason, excuse or moment set aside to celebrate, support, love, admire, lift up, and cherish those who make me smile, float, spin, swell, beam, and love.

{i love you!}

My husband, son, mother, father, sister, brother, extended family members, best friends, neighbors, and all of my in-person and online buddies of all kinds… I am sending love and joy to you all today.

I get it.

And I hope you have a wonderful day, no matter how you feel about it.

Happy Valentines Day.

“Where life exists, love exists.”

~source unknown

Me is {more than} enough.

I wrote this post over 4 months ago. It is the culmination of a tangled, emotional struggling and growth, something of a metamorphosis, that I’ve undergone in the past few years. When I wrote it, I was standing on the edge of a precipice looking into a great divide, and I was ready to step off, not knowing if I was going to fly or fall. For awhile, I didn’t care which. As it turns out, I found I was carrying a bridge to the next peak in my own back pocket, and in unfurling it, what “fell” was this post, out of my heart and soul, onto the digital page. Something in me cranked, turned, and locked into place. I was absolutely sure I was going to publish the piece; I often publish my ugly stuff, my emotional wailings, and then… I didn’t. 

At the Blissdom Conference, Brené Brown was the Opening Keynote Speaker. I sat there in awe as she started talking about shame, about vulnerability and fear, and hot tears pricked the corners of my eyes. My mouth fell open when I heard her saying things I had written in this post. I had written that I was enough, that I accepted myself, and then I didn’t publish. Somewhere in there, I was telling myself “I am enough… but not quite enough to publish to the world that I am enough.” Kind of ironic, no?

Brené reminded me that when I allow myself to be vulnerable and truly open with the world, I am the happiest me that can exist. Yes, it can be frightening, but there is no more real way to live. And so I pull this out of drafts, I hit publish, and I affirm that I mean what it says. I hope it speaks to someone. It’s a truth from my heart.

~

I am {learning to be} comfortable with who I am. I know I am a being in process, unrefined, unsure, and, in many ways, different from others, different than you.

I accept me for who I am.

This has not always been the truth. Far from it, in fact.

For most of my life I have badly wanted to be accepted by others and worried that I would not be liked because I am not who or what others expect/desire me to be. My family taught me it is okay to be different. Society screamed at me {in whispers, with looks, in rumors, on television, in magazines, and at lunch break during school} that it was a lie! Different is bad, the world at large wanted me to be sure.

During grade school, my hair was dorky, my clothes weren’t “cool enough”, my ears poked out too far, and I was a nerd for genuinely liking to read and learn. I lived in the South, and most of my peers went to church and believed in God – I didn’t. I liked popular music, but also classical and old rock, preferred dorky to preppy, and laughed with a hitch. (#snort)

Most of the time I was okay with all of that.

Except for the times when I wasn’t. You know the times; the moments when others, intentionally or not, make you doubt yourself for your differences. Those moments shaped me in an ugly way. Those were the moments when I wished I was anything but me, anywhere but inside my own skin. I learned to put on a tough act, pretend I didn’t care. But I did, I cared so much it hurt.

I don’t think any of us are inherently comfortable with being put down, cast aside. I sure am not. It’s a painful thing. If you can accept that pain and move on, you’re golden.

I’ve begun to learn to accept Pain as the Dark Valley lying far below the Peak of Joy.

I’d never understand how high that summit was if I hadn’t climbed there from the foothills.

The disparity lends meaning to each extreme. I wish for it to make us focus on the blessings of our joys more greatly. Unfortunately, many of us (myself included, during a great many times in my life) dwell in that pain instead, and refuse to let it go, even when we’re at the peak.  Somehow, we take it with us, wrapped like a shroud.

That’s a negativity that can color as much of your life as you give it room to roam over.

So, for much of my life I have said and done things here and there, again and again, to try to gain acceptance from others. This is not to say that I haven’t also been true to myself in many ways and embraced many of my differences but there has always been an undercurrent of intense need that has made me strive to be what others want from me.

What a foolish waste of time. What an endless recipe for misery.

The acceptance that follows from such a practice is false. It may feel good briefly, or on the surface, but it is acceptance under pretense and deception.

It is an illusion.

As an adult, and increasingly in the past several years, I have grown tired of trying to please others to gain approval, to appear to be someone I am not in order to receive {perceived} acceptance and {false} fellowship.

I am not interested in relationships built around the idea that I should change, am not what I should be, think/feel/believe the wrong things, need help to be better, am broken, or need to be or do more *whatever* to be good enough.

And while I’d like to say I don’t need others, I will fully admit that I do. This is also something new for me; this is part of shedding the “tough act.” I DO need friends. I DO need support. I DO need people who care about me.

However: I do not need you to solve my problems. I do not need you to guide me. I need you to care about me, have an interest in my well-being, want to laugh with me, and be willing to listen when I need or want to talk. I need you to accept me for who I am, what I am comfortable with, and what I am not. I need for you to like me for who I am, or leave me alone.

I need you to like me, to even love me, for who I am right now, in this very moment.

And I will do the same for you.

If we are different, I am happy to find our similarities and celebrate them. I am happy to accept our differences and move forward. It *is* okay to be different, that really is true. What I have come to feel very deeply is that when you can accept someone, despite their differences, without trying to change them, that is true acceptance.
That is the basis for real friendship, humanity, and love.

[I am also okay with not needing to be friends with everyone. Tolerance and acceptance are the most important when there are differences that drive us apart.]

When I was a little girl, I loved Popeye, and I delighted in him saying, in his scruffy, twisty voice, “Iyam what Iyam, and that’s all that Iyam!” And I guess that’s what I’m saying. I am what I am, and that’s all that I am. And it’s enough.

I am Me.

I am {learning, growing, adjusting to being} comfortable with who I am. I know I am a being in process, unrefined, unsure, and, in many ways, different than others, different than you. I accept me for who I am.

I accept you for who you are, too.

Community. Beautiful. #reverb10

Two prompts rolled into one post today. It’s like the Reeses Cup of Reverb Posts. How can you resist?

Day 7 Prompt – Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Prompt Author: Cali Harris)

Day 8 Prompt – Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (Prompt Author: Karen Walrond)

Community.

I’ve found it in my neighborhood – for the first time in my life I have neighbors who I’d also call best friends.  They have enhanced my sanity in countless ways over the past many months, and, man, am I grateful for them. (They also ply me with wine, and man, do I love them for that.)

photo courtesy of Kristi Pryor

I’ve found it in my town.  Friends who see your flaws and issues and don’t care, but go the extra mile to help you get around them are pretty damn priceless. (Especially the ones who make thinly veiled crotch jokes with you.)

And I’ve found it where I’ve found it for the last several years: online. On blog, Twitter, and Facebook, and with Skype, I have found, forged, and maintained friendships that will last a lifetime. Many of these are with people I’d never have met, much less had lengthy emotional conversations and in-depth philosophical discussions with, if it hadn’t been for this Information Super Highway.

The Internet saves my life a little bit every day (laugh if you will, I am not joking even a little) by connecting me with people who form a support network that gives me advice, makes me laugh, sometimes makes me cry (jerks) and lifts me up when it seems impossible to be anywhere but down.

Different?

I’ve spent my whole life focusing on the ways I’m different. My parents taught me that it was okay to be different. The world argued.

As an adult I know the truth: we’re all different from someone (which is okay, fabulous even), but nobody is different from everyone. And that is one of the very reasons we can find community here.

Because the things that make us different and the things that make us the same are all beautiful, in their place. They keep us connected while at the same time interesting and valuable to one another. We are able to share different perspectives, experiences, and strengths, while simultaneously finding kindred souls who share our heartsong.

One of the greatest lessons of my life has been this: the most beauty blooms when we don’t focus on either the similarities or the differences, but on being there for one another, supporting, building and growing together. Dare I say it, Loving together. Then we truly thrive.

Community. Beautiful.

Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. Use the end of your year as an opportunity to reflect on what’s happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead.

Let go. #reverb10

Day 5 Prompt – Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Prompt Author: Alice Bradley)

Not too terribly recently (but not so long ago) something pierced my heart, and in fearful defense, I locked her away in a heavy cage.

I held on to anger.

I let fear and doubt grow strong and high, in thorny bush and tangling brambles.  I saw the deadly brush thriving, and turned my eye, rather than cutting it down, as I should.  It grew thicker and tighter around the cage of my heart until almost no light could break through.  The more time passed, the less I even noticed it.

Her wounds too painful to see, even through the dense and thorny vines, I did not visit.  With no warmth from another allowed through the thick canopy I had allowed to flourish, she grew colder, ever colder.  No longer feasting on love (she deserved), comfort (she desired), the heart inside me grew weak, famished.  She beat dimly for a great time; my body kept grinding mechanically through the motions of necessary life.

So hungry was she that, when something found its way through the tangling cover to her living tomb, she questioned it not, but absorbed it fully, wanting to consume, to be warmed.  A fine and lovely trickery, this black ink was, but not the warmth she needed.  And where had I been?  It was my job to protect her, and I allowed her to be exposed to this clever poison.

Only when forcibly lead through the darkness by another was I able to realize how absent I had been, what I had relinquished so easily.  He gave me the strength I needed to bring down those brambles and vines, though the process was painful, and many thorns drew blood from us both.

I am excellent at building cages, walls.  I am a great grower of the thorny vine.  I hold tight to anger. I harbor fear.

I’ve struggled with being truly loved.  I’ve allowed circumstances to make me doubt it possible.  That is changing in me.

I have slowly, this year, let go of the fear of being loved.

And it is warm in this light.

Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. Use the end of your year as an opportunity to reflect on what’s happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead.

so wise, the moon

In a lonely backyard under a full moon
weeks of untamed grasses
tickle the bottoms of bare feet

wind chimes usually soft and melodious
sing out furiously, keeping time with the
stinging breath of a riling wind

while goosebumps break the skin
unprotected by sleeves of any kind tonight
a chin tilts skyward; hair whips madly

clouds up above that might otherwise linger
on a warmer, more lazy night
rush by overheard now

hurry hurry hurry
the wind is chasing at them
biting their heels, anxiously

lips part in a lack of self awareness
arms hang at sides, uselessly
eyes widen, taking it in, lost in the clouds

they seem to cover the sky
but for spaces of black ink in patches
large and small, leaked from some large well

and puffy thick here, thin and wan there
they flow, flit, fly by
racing past the moon

the orb burns bright and wide and round
and doesn’t flinch as each band of cloud
stretches and gallops before it

the glowing eye, stoic and almost aware
instead creates an explosion of color, a rainbow
bursting from nowhere, everywhere, right there on each cloud

lips purse and eyes narrow
then the mouth bends in a crooked smile
gears spin in my mind as my right brow arches

oh to be like the moon -
to brightly color and then chase away
all the fluff that dares to come between you and me.

And then he was 4.

braden,

once upon a time on Valentines day I got a wonderful present

confirmation that you existed

the world has looked different every day since then

sometimes more fierce, sometimes softer, in spite of itself

because of you

the days have flown faster than I ever knew they could

and despite what I say about wanting you to slow down

i am also eager to see who you will be tomorrow

and the day after that

and the days and months and years after that

i know that before long

in fact
it will seem
like the blink
of an eye

i will have my answer

so many of these flying days will stack up against one another

that you will be a man

a man!

but for now I still get to be your hand holder and your scare chaser

your cheek kisser and your hair smoother

the one who you wake up in the morning and who puts you to sleep at night

and I get to sit by you at the table and watch you

as you flex your muscles while eating a carrot

your eyes lighting up with imagination and magic as you say

i will eat my vegables and then i will grow to be a strong, big daddy!

and then i will be a growned up!

right, mommy?

yes, baby
one day

but not yet today.

Happy Birthday, my beloved!
The world may sometimes seem fierce

but it will never be quite as fierce as you.

Love, Mommy

A sick day took him.

He didn’t need to take a sick day.  After all, he had nowhere to be, but with me. He had no way to call in sick, unless you count him coming up to me on Thursday afternoon, hands held out dramatically, with a glorious, thick streamer of snot hanging from his nose, saying, “Um. Mommy? I have a snot.”

Thursday night was full of the stuff nightmares are made of: he puked up part of his dinner because he was gagging on mucous, came to bed with me after his second screaming awakening made it clear I’d be running to his room all night long otherwise, kicked me repeatedly for the next 8 hours, woke at least once an hour screaming and crying, telling me it hurt and yelling “NO NO NO”, accused me of making his throat hurt (ouch, dude), refused to drink anything, and rounded it all out by peeing in the bed in the morning and then telling me to get up and make his breakfast.

I was so tired.  And so very grumpy.  Then, while I was peeling his wet underpants off of him, I suddenly smiled. I thought about how I had patted his back over and over again all night long. It reminded me so much of long nights when he was this little kid baby:

That was March ’08. I can’t believe it was that long ago. It seems like just yesterday.

But yesterday was forever ago. And it will never be again.

I looked at him, shivering before me after I got him out of the wet clothing. He looked back at me solemnly, and then reached his arms around my neck, climbing into my lap. He held on tight, snuggling his head into the curve of my neck, and we just rocked for a little while, together.

I mostly think that colds are from the very Devil himself; they are miserable, horrible things that torture us and make us feel as though a close cousin of death has crawled inside our faces and set up camp.  And when our kids are sick, it is the worst.  It is so awful to watch them suffer.

But sometimes I experience these tiny moments when I wonder if they are some kind of weird gifts to parents – obviously not in the times of worry and pain, but during those moments when our kids slow down and just want to be held again, loved again, rocked in our arms, or when they just nap in our laps again. These are gifts, even though given in sickness, and it is these little capsules of memories gone suddenly burst open, and a chance to teleport to another moment in time again, for just awhile, that make me smile even as he sniffles.

A sick day took him.

I was there where it delivered him, all day long.

Braden: “Mommy, I need to be fixed.”
Me: “You need to be fixed? Why, are you broken?”
Braden: “Yes, Mommy. I’m broken with sick.”

I am his designated fixer, and he is the spark of magic in my life.  I’m reminded, again, that whatever age he is right now, it’s my favorite one.