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Happy 23rd Birthday, Abby!

Oct 7, 2021 | Mothers and Daughters

I’m sure I say something similar every year, but how is it possible that you are 23 today? How is it possible that I have had the privilege of having you in my life, being your mom, loving you – all this time? It’s miraculous, really: there’s no other way to describe it.

You are miraculous; really.

This last year, like so many before, has walked (and sometimes pushed) you into more growth, more deepening into who you are, more perspective and choice and courage and wisdom. You are a privilege to witness.

A whole year without living at home, even partially. A whole year in a completely different city and state from me (which is, I’ll admit, too far away). A whole year of Covid – masks and vaccines and quarantine and still coming down with it – surviving, muddling through, even thriving. Another whole year of school – with all its ups and downs. A whole year of working – jobs that have quickly recognized your talent, your leadership, your heart. And a whole year of figuring out who you are – as a young woman who sees and names the injustice, the chaos, and the heartbreak of this world…and who has felt the reality of these things for herself.

Yes, really: miracle and privilege to witness every moment of these past twelve months (plus a million more beside), to see all of who you have become and all of who you are yet to become.

The more I witness, the more I remember, the more I see:

I see you on the sidewalk ahead of me, age 3 or 4, curly blond hair, turning back to look at me with your infectious smile. I see you burying your head in my chest when the wolves showed up in Beauty and the Beast. I see you hunched over the kitchen counter doing homework and resisting little food but chicken nuggets and microwaved tortillas with butter, cinnamon, and sugar. I see you practicing your speech for 5th grade student body president – and your face when you told me you’d won. I see you in choir after choir – witnessing your commitment, hearing your gift, feeling nearly overwhelmed with pride. I see you unexpectedly playing Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray – that one night when Jessica lost her voice and you stepped into her role despite your fears (as I wept nearly uncontrollably through the entire performance with more love than I knew I could hold). I see you shaking Mr. Ikeda’s hand, receiving your diploma, then merging into the meley of friends and photos and caps and gowns. I see you when I dropped you off at college, (both of us) afraid and brave at the same time. I see you with Jasper – far more than a dog; more, a piece of you. I see you buying your first car, loading it up, and heading back to Montana – Jasper’s head out the window. I see you deliberating over excruciating and significant decisions while holding fiercely to your value and worth.

And I see you now – the sum total of all these moments plus a million more beside.

I remain amazed by you: your strength, your honesty, your capacity, your determination, your deep desires, your endless hope, your open heart.

I wonder what I will yet see, what more I will tell and write of on birthdays to come. I wonder about how many ways (plus a million more beside) will you change the world. I wonder how it is that I have been blessed beyond measure to be your mom. I wonder how my heart is to hold any more of the miracle that is you. And I wonder, almost every day, how that same heart is to survive the extravagant ache that continues to pulse as I wander in between the memory of that little girl glancing back at me on the sidewalk, making sure I was close, and the woman who now runs straight toward every bit of the life that is hers.

Despite all that is unknown, this remains certain and true: I love you in more ways than I can count (plus a million more beside). Happy 23rd Birthday, sweet girl.

Choosing others’ comfort OR choosing self

May 31, 2021 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Sovereignty, Women's Voice & Power

I have a library of personal stories in which I let others’ needs demands overrule my own. I’m not proud of them, certainly not happy about them, and aware that without them I would have never learned the lessons they taught: boundaries, self-care, self-esteem, sovereignty, and more. Of them all, the hardest one has been learning to use my voice; not speaking in and of itself, but speaking my truth without editing, censoring, holding back, or apologizing.

“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.” ~ Audre Lorde

She’s right, of course. But knowing this doesn’t make it easier. It’s scary to anticipate the fallout, the misunderstanding, even subsequent isolation and still speak, still write, still tell the truth, still articulate an opinion, still stand our ground.

What’s far easier, at least in the short run, is compromising. Saying just enough, but not upsetting anyone. Hinting at what we mean and then getting angry (usually with ourselves) when we’re not intuitively understood. And worst of all, saying what others want to hear or doing what others want, even and especially at our own expense.

When I look back at my many experiences and stories of such, what frustrates me most is how many times I felt like I had no choice; that I had to bite my tongue or censure my thoughts or tamp down my desires. I could not see a way to honor myself without someone else paying a price (or so I thought). And all of this without any recognition of the tremendous price I was paying over and over again.

It’s a false dichotomy – and an untenable one: either keeping others comfortable or honoring our very self.

We should never have to deliberate between compromising ourself, no matter how slightly, or paying a price for holding fast to what we know, believe, and feel. And yet we do – over and over and over again.

Ready for the good news in all of this?

When we inventory and acknowledge the times in which we’ve compromised, not spoken up, not told or lived our truth, not chosen ourself, these become the impetus to do nothing of the sort ever again! Our hardest experiences – past and present – are what enable us to change course; to reimagine and rewrite our story, then live into the one we desire and deserve. Our awareness is what enables choice – and change.

Do the risks, costs, or fears go away? Absolutely not. In some ways, they probably increase. But so does our strength and certainty and courage and sovereignty.

Yes, in retrospect, I might wish that I’d chosen myself sooner, that I’d trusted my voice earlier, that I’d nipped any form of compromise in the bud and in the moment. But I’m profoundly grateful for the gift of perspective – to witness my own growth and transformation; to feel the surge of strength, even joy, that comes when I do choose myself; to extend myself grace when that has not been the case – and may yet be again.

So, my invitation to you?

List out the stories you wish were not yours – the ones in which you compromised or stayed silent or said what others wanted to hear or sold yourself short or, or, or… Let yourself feel all the feels associated with each. And then stand back and look at you now – who you have become, what you have accomplished, how you have grown, what you now know and understand and believe about yourself that once felt like mist and shadow. That’s a story worth telling and living. That’s your story – complex and dramatic and challenging and amazing. And the awareness and appreciation of that story? That’s the reimagining and retelling and redeeming of stories that I’m talking about all the time. It changes everything.

*****

A tiny PS: One of the reasons I keep telling the story of Eve – and countless others – is because the common telling perpetuates the (wildly untrue) message that when women choose themselves, disaster befalls. It’s no wonder we compromise and comply and keep our truest desires to ourselves! This is why her story (and countless others ) must be reimagined and retold and redeemed. Ours, as well. And when they are? Yep: it changes everything. Mmmm. Let’s do that, yes?

Non-existent, but no less real (February 29)

Mar 1, 2021 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Women's Wisdom

My father died a year ago today.

No, that’s not quite right.

He died on February 29, 2020. That day doesn’t exist this year – or next, or the year after that.

The fact that the date itself is not on my calendar, doesn’t prevent me from remembering, reflecting, and honoring him. Still, it’s a strange phenomena: to have such a significant marker arrive and almost pass me by, to not be something I can land on, see in front of me, capture, or hold.

Perhaps because this is so, I am even more aware of him, his life, his death, and his ongoing influence on and presence in my life. Maybe it’s something being intangible that makes it all the more real, more true.

And this makes me wonder about something else equally (and perhaps even more) intangible…and real…and true.

As we develop, mature, grow, and transform, we move from reliance on the voices and seeming-wisdom of those around and outside us to an awareness of and trust in the voice and actual-wisdom we hold within. We learn to listen to our intuition. We are willing and able to hear our deepest heart. We know-that-we-know-that-we-know.

But like February 29, there is little to validate such – at least externally. It requires that we hold onto something WE know, but that others can’t easily see, name, or acknowledge. It requires that WE be the ones to remember, reflect, and honor who we truly are. It requires that WE mark, name, and denote all the brilliance and beauty we hold within. And all of this without measure, without out-loud celebration, without any date on the calendar.

As I think about my dad, I know he’d understand what I’m talking about. Our best conversations were always philosophical in nature. Unanswerable and intangible questions that we wrestled to the ground. Endless unknowing that we attempted to lasso and hold – even for a moment – before it slipped out of our grasp. Books we’d read, things we’d pondered and perseverated on, stories we’d lived or heard that captured something nebulous, mysterious, glimmering, and true. Always heady. Always stimulating. Sometimes frustrating. And endlessly reliable: his thinking, his pushing the boundaries, his deep desire for knowing, understanding, and being, and his requirement that I do and be the same.

So, on this non-day – February 29 or March 1 – I’m holding on to three irrefutable but un-markable truths:

This day, the day my father left our presence, exists and is real – whether seen and named on my calendar, or not. It’s deserving of a date. He is. And, as my mom acknowledged in his memorial service, it was just like him to die on a leap year so that we’d only have to remember him every four years. Mmm hmm.
My wisdom, my knowing, my heart is as reliable (and even more so) than the wisdom that can be named, written down, memorialized, taught in institutions, praised in public forums, or canonized in sacred tomes.
This is true about your wisdom, your knowing, your heart, as well.

You, me, all of us have vast and infinite opportunity to believe and trust in ourselves – our wisdom, our knowing, our heart. It doesn’t matter that it can’t be proven, that it’s different from the status quo, that it defies cultural norms, that it upsets the apple cart, that there’s no date on the calendar.

And if you’re struggling to believe this, to trust this, to be this, you can be certain that my dad is holding every bit of it on your behalf. Me, too. I am my father’s daughter, after all.

Happy 24th Birthday, Emma Joy!

Oct 31, 2020 | Mothers and Daughters

Happy 24th Birthday, Emma Joy.Though I’ve written these missives every year for a very long time, this one feels different. It’s weightier. More significant. More poignant.

This is, of course, because tomorrow you and I will get in a rented SUV and begin our 3000+ mile journey that takes you to your new and amazing life. I am excited for you. I am beyond-proud of you. I am in awe of your strength and courage. And I am struggling to find the words to express how much I will miss you.

It’s a strange thing: wanting your child to make her own decisions, forge her own path, have the capacity and desire to move across the country for a new job, new friends, a new life. But it’s a knife’s edge. Just on the other side is the part of me that desperately wants to keep you close, safe, protected. I can’t have both. And in truth, I don’t want both – no matter how hard it is to let you go. I want you to be you, to go out and live the huge and loud and colorful and wild and brave and amazing life that is yours…that has always been yours.

I’ve watched as you’ve struggled with the binding restrictions of culture, religion, expectations, academics, family, gender, voice, and power. But unlike so many, you have broken those chains – defied them, every one – and stepped into yourself, your heart, your knowing, your story, your strength. In truth, you’ve been doing this for years now. Tomorrow marks but one more – one more link to loosen and let go of. It’s a beautiful thing to witness. You are.

No surprise: I’m in tears. And I’m reminded of the ones I shed when you were born; finally in my arms after years of waiting, nearly all hope extinguished. Tears of joy. The rush of love. The power of your presence. Today’s tears are different, to be sure – leaving my arms after years of being close, now every hope realized. But still the joy, the rush of love, the power of your presence…whether near or far.

Happy 23rd Birthday, Abby!

Choosing others’ comfort OR choosing self

Non-existent, but no less real (February 29)

Happy 24th Birthday, Emma Joy!

Happy 22nd Birthday, Abby!