This is family.
It is messy.
It is complicated.
It is authentic.
There are trying days.
There are moments of anger.
Mom and Dad no longer have the benefit of rolling over in bed, calling it a night and sorting it out when cooler heads prevail the next morning. The grace they give to one another now is not dictated by martial bonds but rather by the parental strings that tie them together for eternity.
It isn’t always easy.
It will never be perfect.
But it is family regardless.
This little girl had dreams a plenty.
She was going to be a diplomat;
a writer;
maybe the next Oprah Winfrey.
But mostly she just wanted to be someone’s Mom.
At 4 she would wander around her house with the couch pillow stuffed up her shirt pretending she was pregnant. She carried her baby doll with her everywhere and dreamed of a day when she would have a herd of kids running through her backyard.
34 years later she finds she never did get to become that diplomat or that talk show host.
But being that mom, well that dream came true.
Three beautiful babies that fill her world with such joy.
And as she turns the page and starts her 38th chapter she feels particularly blessed because those three little girls have given her the courage to be who she is today.
They are the long hoped for goal that yielded so much more than she could have ever imagined.
She knows that but for them she would not be that writer,
that athlete,
that executive.
So as she watches them make her breakfast and offer their homemade tokens of celebration for her birth, she acknowledges that their births are her greatest present.
Those nearly 11 years as their Momma are truly the reason she can celebrate today.
The happiest of birthday’s occur when you accept the privilege of having lived the last year and acknowledge the opportunity of the new year to come.
Today I am grateful for the life I get to live and excited to watch how the rest of it unfolds.
Today, I looked at this precious face, and I lost it.
“We have to go”,
“You need to get dressed”,
“You are going to make me late for a meeting”;
words spit out.
She wouldn’t stand for the rushing.
Me hurrying her out the door when she had just awoken from slumber.
So I let go and I lost my patience.
“You must hurry. I am going to leave here without you!”
Really? Did I just say that?
What greater fear of a 4-year-old then to be left behind; all alone.
Once safely ensconced in our car, hurling down the highway, I felt the sadness.
I had started the day with such good intent. My heart full after my run and devotionals.
But yet when my 4-year-old asked for the same, a peaceful start to the day on her terms, I left her empty handed and feeling a bit abandoned.
I apologized right then.
And her in all her preschool wisdom,
“It’s ok Momma. I messed up too. We’ll both try harder”.
Grace.
I’m a creature of habit, a lover of the routine.
Wake up, drink my tea, eat my Nugo bar, morning devotionals and then my miles on the treadmill.
On the weekends the girls are gone I log those miles on the long, winding, country roads around my house.
This past Sunday I woke up with my mind ready to run but my body telling a different story.
In reality much of the last 7 months have found my body and my mind speaking different languages. One running injury after another have plagued me. This month’s injury had me out for 7 days (well really only 5 but no one other than my doctor is counting).
My body was silently revolting against my routine.
Mind over matter eventually won out and my feet hit the pavement on Sunday.
But the rebellion had set in and felt a deep longing to change-up the routine.
So off I went heading north instead of south, deciding to run my usual 5 mile loop in the opposite direction.
Crazy I know.
1.5 miles in and I discovered there were hills on my regular route I didn’t know existed.
All those miles logged and I had not known that part of the course I was running was a gradual downhill? Now running the course backwards turned those previously easy strides into head down, leaning in, long and gradual uphill ascent.
Over the next miles I continued to feel astounded by what I had not known but was clearly always there.
Why didn’t I turn around more to acknowledge the hills (both up and down) I had been running?
How much of the last year had I been coasting and not realized it?
And there my friends is why I run.
Us runners, given enough miles to think it through, can turn any moment into a life lesson.
Once upon a time there was a little girl who didn’t view gender as a barrier.
She knew she was strong.
She new she was smart.
She knew that she was “luckier then boys because she got to wear dresses OR pants”.
And she knew that she could grow up and be anything she wanted to be;
then she went to Washington DC.
The little girl saw this picture in the office of congresswoman and she asked her Momma,
“Momma what is this picture of?”
The Momma answered,
“It’s the members of congress that were a part of the Congresswoman’s first term in office”.
The little girl looked perplexed,
“Why aren’t their more women Momma?”
You see, that little girl knew she was as smart as the boys in her class.
She knew her history, her math and could read super fast.
She also knew that to work in DC and make laws you had to be a person who was willing to do right by those you represent (her momma taught her that), and she for sure knew she could do that.
This little girl knew she had all those things and never doubted that she could go to DC and run the country.
But now, in this moment, she was doubting.
For the first time she was confronted with the statistics and she wondered aloud to her Momma-
“Maybe it isn’t so good to be a girl?”
And for a moment her momma doubted too.
She told the little girl that she needed to ask the Congresswoman what she thought.
Armed with the image in her head of all of those men in suits, that little girl marched up to the Congresswoman and asked her a question-
“Why aren’t there more women in Congress?”
And just as the words slipped out of the little girl’s mouth, the Congresswoman knew what she had to do.
She knew that little girl just needed to hear, that regardless of what she saw, she could be whatever she wanted.
So she made the little girl sit in her chair.
She told her that just because there weren’t more women in that picture now it didn’t mean she couldn’t be in that picture too.
She made the little girl promise that she would work hard.
She told her she would help her in any way she could.
She made her stand on a chair and point at the picture.
She wanted the little girl to see herself in that same picture two decades from now.
The smile that spread across that little girl’s face was all-encompassing.
Her momma couldn’t help but feel the importance of that moment.
And just like that the little girl went back to thinking she could be anything she wanted to be.
“Momma, she was my favorite.”
We’ve been gone making memories-
learning to paddleboard,
watching the sunrise and exploring the beach,
cuddling babies and holding hands with friends who are family,
fighting like cats and dogs but ending the day with cuddles and smiles,
We’ve grown up this trip.
And we feel incredibly grateful for the 13 days away.
We started this way.
In the middle there was all of this.
And we ended like this.
Dear Potential Suitor,
I live a big life.
A life that is full of hope, joy, laughter.
A life that most days finds me kneeling in prayer, dancing in the kitchen and crying over my cup of yogi tea.
If you enter my life you too will get to be a part of this mess of glorious chaos.
You will have the chance to encounter three of the most precious souls ever created. They won’t need you as their father (they have one they love and cherish dearly). What you will get is a chance to be their friend, their mentor, their partner in crime.
They will love you wholly and unconditionally as they do all of their Momma’s friends. And your heart will grow and stretch in ways you didn’t know it could from something not born out of your genetics. I promise you this, your life will be better lived having known them.
And from me, what can I offer you?
You will get a woman who owns the bruises and the battle scars of a life well lived.
A less judgmental and more forgiving woman then her younger self.
You will get a woman who knows her strengths, acknowledges her weakness’ and lives in the glory of God’s grace on a daily basis.
You will not get perfection.
In fact you will get a women who can be sullen and quiet.
A woman who craves moments alone and obsesses about when she can escape the noise and clutter, find an open road and just run.
I don’t say all of that to scare you away but rather to be completely open about the “good” and the “bad” you will encounter.
I can’t promise you a life of sunshine and rainbows.
I won’t even attempt to.
What I will promise is that together we will grow and stretch in ways that only those engaged in a thoughtful, intimate partnership can.
I don’t know the where and the why’s of how we will come together.
I don’t get a glimpse down the rabbit hole that names the time and the place where you will carve your name on my heart.
Just know that I am here, waiting and open to the possibility of a second chance.
With fondness and respect,
H
Couldn’t sleep.
Head turning, eyes darting.
My stomach ached and I realized the restlessness in my heart was caused by the hunger in my belly.
Stumbling down the stairs, I wondered how one could be so hungry at two in the morning. Retracing my steps, recounting what I had eaten that day. No clue as to why my body demanded the nourishment at that ungodly hour.
If only our souls could command the mind’s attention in the same manner.
If only it could sound an alarm whenever the need arose.
But instead we wait.
Telling others we need a vacation, a cup of coffee, a bottle of wine. We speak it in exasperated tones.
We wait until we are completely diminished before we raise our hand and beg for mercy. And by then the damage is done. The kind words left unspoken. The harried frenzy leveled upon our children.
Our souls had to have cried out long before those desperate moments.
C.S Lewis once said “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
Maybe then we should learn to listen to the voices of hunger that emerge from the soul. If we nourish it we may find that the body will follow.
Sometimes they come at night.
They creep in at the corners.
The girls are asleep and as I sit, I feel their presence.
Reminders of a time long since past.
The glance across that king bed and I can almost imagine him breathing next to me.
Memories so clear like water on a still lake.
I see the reflection of the people we were.
I see that girl I thought I was.
The ghosts then come and sit with me awhile.
They use to threaten me, taunt me with all I lost, now they simply sit like old friends.
They stay for a bit as I ponder long forgotten moments;
the chinese dinners in front of the TV in that small DC townhouse,
the nights trading quotes from the latest books we’d been reading when we had all the time in the world to read books,
and all of those evenings talking in hushed tones praying that those babies were finally down for the night.
And today when sleep overcomes me I can often feel a faint smile traced on my lips.
The days of longing for people past are now replaced with appreciation for all that was.
A Joyful Life 