Happy Memorial Day.

If I’m being honest, this weekend is often just a relaxing weekend with two Saturdays in it. Two days to sleep in. Four days of school instead of five.

But it should be a day of remembrance for those who have died in war. And it should mean more to me now than it did in, say, 1989 when not that much was happening between war and peace. It was all peace then. Now, soldiers in the middle east is all we know. Terrorism. Isis. Suicide bombers. It’s everyday news. What a shame.

Many, many people have died to defend our cause. My papa went to Germany in World War 2.  He wasn’t among the dead then. He came back. But on this weekend of remembrance, I’m going to repost some stuff about and from him.

That man knew how to love.

This photo shows an album page from my mom’s album. He is pictured with his army brothers. He’s the handsome fella in the middle. And below that picture is a scan of a letter he wrote home to my mom, who was a 1-year-old baby he truly didn’t want to leave behind.

The letter said this:

February 1945
To Daddy’s Darling:

This is the first letter I have ever tryed to write you and I am afraid that when you are old enough to read and write yourself that you will think Daddy is very poor at writing, but someday you will understand that he loves you and Mommy better than anything else in the world.

It was not my idea to be away so much since you were born. It’s that someone with more power than you and I has said I must go. This I have done and I am trying to do a good job so I can come back to you and mommy before too long. Until I see you I want you to be a sweet little girl and do what you mother says. She is a good mommy and will only tell you what’s best for you. I know you will do all this. I only wanted to caution you.

From one who loves you very much,
Daddy

And the following was a poem he wrote from a tent on the battlefield and then later mailed home to Florida.  Remember the men who fight for us. Remember the tents and trenches they sleep in. Remember the people they are missing. Remember the God we pray to. Remember.

Well, it’s been a week, I tell ya. A week. It’s passing in dog years, so I guess it feels more like 7 weeks. School is drawing to a close and the boys have been taking finals. I don’t have to explain what happens this time of year. We are all experiencing it in our own locale. Different schools. Different ages. Different kids. Same ole, same ole.

Some kids cause more heart attacks in parents than others. I worry about academics for one, but emotional stuff in another.

Sometimes these worries come out in your dreams. The other night I dreamed that I was standing in the family room holding a little cup of liquid allergy medicine. I walked it over to Mama’s Boy, who was draped over a chair watching TV and paying me no attention. I held the cup out to him and told him to take his allergy medicine. He very intentionally and ever so slowly looked over at me, almost like slo mo. He made eye contact and the expression on his face was one of defiance and disgust. It was the Stink Eye. He got up slowly from his chair, walked to the kitchen, retrieved a Sharpie, walked back to his chair, and slumped back down in it. Then, he took his Sharpie and drew a cartoon mouth onto the stomach area of his gray t-shirt, took the medicine from me and poured the medicine into the mouth he had drawn…all while watching me with the stink eye. At this point in the dream, I was like, “OK, boy. GAME ON.” So I took away his electronics for the weekend and he said, “Fine, I don’t care.” So I took them away for a week.

Then I woke up from the dream within the dream. But I was still sleeping. In the dream, I realized it was a dream and that B had not actually defied me or drawn a sharpie mouth for his medicine. I said to myself, I think I’ll punish him anyway. Can you punish a kid for something they didn’t really do if you think they probably would have done it? I decided yes.

And then I woke up again. For real.

My insurance will not cover the therapy needed for this one. So I’m just logging this under “Bad Dream” and moving on. It’s a new game I play. Good Dream Bad Dream? Is it good, invoking all things proper and right and fun and humorous? Or is it a wreck, invoking the horror in any given situation.

Today I’m going to play this game with two pieces of writing that are not my own. I’ll cast my own vote, but you don’t need my opinions. You can decide for yourself.

The first piece is a poem by Rider Strong. If you are older than 45, you probably aren’t going to know who that is. He’s the actor playing Shawn Hunter on Boy Meets World, which is a show I watched as a much younger person and have now been sucked back into by my teenie bopper wannabe girls. In today’s episode, Cory read a poem written by Shawn and with a little help from the “internet webs,” I discovered the actor had actually written the poem.

Top of the World

by Rider Strong

You don’t know it, but
Sometimes, I go to a hill that overlooks
the landscape’s mask of city lights
For a sip of momentary grace.
On this brink of everything I know, I can gain
An eyeful of the lost Atlantis in the human soul,
And a breath that fills my lungs with the air between two stars
If you were now to capture the image of this elation
In the framework of your mind,
Or find transcendence through these words,
Then at most you would know nothing
Of the beauty your existence throws to me.
For mine is a love no experience,
No measure, no words
Could ever degrade into reality by virtue of degree.

Good dream or Bad Dream? I think “Good dream” because I loved the thought of sipping momentary grace and filling my lungs with the air between two stars. I’m just corny enough to eat that for breakfast AND a snack.

My next submission is from today’s perusing of “Local News” on Craigslist for my town. I was hoping for some juicy tidbit about a seed spitting contest or something. But the first entry was for pets.

Pitbull puppys.just gave first shots .5 in 1 fists shots .8 weeks old. 8 left 3 males 5 females .rehoming fee

Before we vote on this one, we need to analyze it just a tad and make sure we know exactly what is happening with the pets that are being sold. Pitbull puppys. I’m not even going to address the spelling. I’m just not. Shame on his 3rd grade teacher. Sheesh. Technically, the pitbull puppies are the ones giving the shots. That’s interesting. I wonder about that. What do you suppose .5 in fists shots means? And how old is .8 weeks old? Mathematically, that equates to 80% weeks old. Doesn’t it? I shouldn’t attempt to work math into a post.

So, good dream or bad dream?

Well, it’s sort of SO bad that it comes back around to good again. An 80% weeks old puppys is pretty spectacular in its own way. Especially if they just gave their first shots.

So if your kids are still in school and your life is feeling kinda stressful, just go to a hill for a sip of momentary grace and know this: the stress will be over in 80% weeks.

#Junecomequickly

Two days ago, as I was pulling into the driveway with a couple of kids in tow, I received a text from my oldest son.

I need white posterboard.

I realize I just posted a tribute piece to him, the light of my life. The shiny red apple of my eye. My love. My first born.

I do love him dearly.

But I do not enjoy receiving texts like that one, because I know what it means. He doesn’t paint pictures on posterboard. He doesn’t use posterboard to create hobby dioramas. Needing posterboard could only mean one thing.

He had a project that was due.

I decided not to assume too much, though I was already at 5-alarm status.

For what, I asked back, feeling a bit stupid since I was now inside my garage and he was in the house.

A project, he answered.

It didn’t take taro cards to see that one coming. At this point, while I felt texting was safer for the both of us, I walked inside to finish the conversation. He looked up from his phone when he heard my steps.

“When’s it due?” I asked. Why do I ask stupid questions? I should harvest all those little 5-second periods of stupid-question-asking so that in the future, when another project is due immediately, I’ll have a stash of 5-second savings to cash in for the 2 hours I need right then. If only.

He raised his eyebrows and mustered an almost successful sheepish faces as he answered,

“Tomorrow?” as a question to me. Are you asking me if it’s tomorrow or are you asking me if I’m going to bodily harm you because it’s tomorrow? Again, there’s 5 more seconds.

Ah, Paul Revere. I mean, who knew I’d get to learn so much about him in one afternoon? I bet you think he rode around screaming, “The British are coming! The British are coming!” when actually he was riding around yelling, “The Regulars are on the move! The Regulars are on the move!” Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

If I were being fair, I’d admit that the project was mostly done when it got to the “needs posterboard” phase. But I don’t really have to be fair. Because it’s the end of May. I’m way over fairness.

He brought home his score yesterday. He got a 95.

“What’d you get docked for?” I asked. We expect 100s around here.

“We were supposed to include at least one book in our sources for the bibliography,” he answered.

I took a moment to soak that in.

“Huh,” I said. “Well.”  Still soaking. Probably shouldn’t have said the next part out loud. “I gotta tell you, skipping a trip to the library was worth way more than 5 points to me.  I’ll take it.”

June come quickly.

I am sitting at my tiny little, very adorable, writing desk wearing a t-shirt that says, “Writer’s Block: When your imaginary friends refuse to talk to you.” Basically, I’m sitting here pretending to be a writer when I haven’t written in ages and don’t feel like there is an original thought in my head. But I took a webinar about this very thing about 2 weeks ago and received some pretty good prodding. Michael Hyatt told me I needed to schedule my next 4 writing blocks so they wouldn’t get skipped. Schedule it in. Keep it like a doctor’s appointment. Sit down and write.

I didn’t do that.
This is unscheduled time.
That means it’s going to stink.

Another writer dude on Twitter told me that I needed to schedule in 20 minutes a day in some type of writing exercise. Blogging. Emailing. Writing prompts. Whatever. Sit down like it’s boot camp and do it. It doesn’t have to flow well. It just needs to be done.

I haven’t done that either.
I don’t think I like being ordered around, even when I know the other person is right.

But I am going to make an effort at regularity (of schedule, not of content). I guess the future will be its own testimony. I make no promises.

This is the time of year a person shouldn’t be recording their own life events anyway. There are too many concerts, sports banquets, end-of-year picnics, yearbook signings, etc. Events are packed in like bad leftovers and there is plenty of room for error. Plenty.

For instance.

The other night we had a friend who was in a lead role in a local children’s production of Wizard of Oz. This was an interesting presentation for so many reasons, not the least of which was the inappropriate pawing that was happening 3 feet from my head on the row behind me. I’d describe it for you in sordid detail, believe me, if only I’d seen it first hand. WHY OH WHY did no one poke me and point so that I could watch, too? Of course, I know why I wasn’t notified. I am not to be trusted with such things. They knew I would blow the lid off that one in a terribly memorable way. So I missed it, dangadoodle. But I hear it was something else. We are looking for a birth announcement in February or so.

The play itself was a balanced mix of kids whose parents paid for them to be in the play when they probably need to cut their losses and put that money elsewhere. Our friend was the brightest light on the stage, equaled only by that one tiny little flying monkey. That was a cute flying monkey.

When the play ended, and all the weekend busyness was successfully completed, we pulled out of our parking space and complimented the kids on behaving respectfully and normally while in public. It was at this moment that there was a shift in the universe. One of those critical crossroads that you come to and stand there and you know—though it might seem insignificant—this moment is going to be life altering.

That’s when the question came.

“Can we go to Dairy Queen?”

Todd immediately said no, followed by some sadly understated protests, followed by me waffling, which was the final piece in the puzzle.

“You want to go there?” He asked, a tad incredulously.

“Well…” I waffled. It’s almost a song when it comes out of my mouth. I waffle a lot. It’s what I’m known for. It’s a deplorable quality in a parent, in case you wonder how it’s working for me. Kids can pick up on even a nano-second of self-doubt and before you know it you are applying pressure from a dirty car napkin to your jugular because the kids WENT FOR IT. Now you have granola in your jugular.

“It’s right there,” I finished.

Because that’s a good reason to go to Dairy Queen. If you can see it, you should visit. It immediately felt like the wrong choice. I felt caught in public wearing tight yoga pants or a stained shirt from the 80s. I was uncomfortable with the choice. But it was one of those irreversible things. We were going. To Dairy Queen. At 8something on a Saturday night.

And we were driving through.

After sitting through the Drive Thru line for an unimpressively long time, we got to the speaker/microphone which is the same one they’ve had since 1967. No I mean it. Not one thing has updated in our Dairy Queen. Ever. Todd ordered a Banana Split BLIZZARD, an M&M blizzard, a medium chocolate shake, a chocolate cone dipped in chocolate, and a scoop of chocolate ice cream in a bowl with hot fudge. I mean, it’s not the easiest order. There are a lot of us. But it wasn’t open heart surgery either.

When we pulled around to the window, we had no reasonable hope that the order would be perfect. It never is. We are somewhat patient about these things. While we waited for the order to be filled, Todd and I bored the children by singing an entirely new rendition of “Ding, dong the witch is dead.” We set the key much too low, which makes for a whole lot of car fun, and changed the words to things like “Ding, dong the witch is dead. Just how dead? She’s really dead. That witch is super, duper dead.” Really dumb. We knew it. It was passing the time.

And then the fulfillment of the order began to round out as we watched.  As we sang our death tune, the DQ employee dropped the first dipped cone upside down into the chocolate sauce. I think the ice cream disintegrated, but she threw the cone away and started over. With vanilla ice cream. We couldn’t get her attention until she opened the window with the wrong flavor of ice cream. She apologized and threw that one away too. In the meantime, a child in the car began to worry about the nature of the m&ms in his or her blizzard. Would they be peanut? Would there be traces of peanut? We were fielding this barrage of questions when the window slid open again and we were handed a banana split.

We ordered a banana split BLIZZARD. She was sorry. She threw that one away. Started over.

That’s 3 desserts in the trash now because we just had to go to Dairy Queen.

The third chocolate-on-chocolate dipped cone came through the DQ window and into ours. It looked good. Beautifully done…but those things are top heavy in the tiny wispy cones they pile them in. So you can imagine what happened next. The cone landed upside-down on Todd’s work shirt. Bam. That cone was smashed. Hey, but it was chocolate on chocolate. They nailed it. She reached in and took the smashed cone off of Todd and started over with Attempt #4 at the dipped cone.

The end of the story had us pulled forward waiting for the rest of the order, no longer singing about dead witches, and all wishing we had turned left out of the play’s driveway instead of right. We could have already been in our jammies, celebrating youth theater while drinking clean water from Dixie cups. Instead we were disgruntled, stained, and holding our desserts with a shell-shocked look in our eyes.

It was a nasty fight over the bottle of Shout when we got home. But there was a mysterious Butterfinger blizzard to make up for it ( I bet the guy in the car behind us has a story to tell now, too) and my shake was pretty good.

Dear AG,

They say “time marches on,” but I disagree. It doesn’t march. It sprints. Even at my brittle age, I could keep up with a march. And while time sprints ahead, so do you.  You outgrew me a few months ago by just a hair. But when I stood next to you yesterday, it was far more than just a hair.

I began writing this letter at midnight last night, on the eve of your 15th birthday. I was awake when the clock turned to midnight and the calendar flipped to your day. It is your birthday. You are 15.

It’s no great surprise that I was unable to sleep last night as I wrote. Well, for one, you can’t really sleep and write at the same time. But it was more than that. I have finally realized that your birthday–every year–is probably my most emotional day. More than Mother’s Day. More than other milestone days. It’s your day that gets me. Because it was you that made me a mom. In one phone call. In one 2 hour drive to meet you. In one look into your eyes, you added the greatest joy I had ever known and also relieved the greatest heartache I had ever endured. You filled a long-established void like no one else could and in that moment, 1000 prayers were answered. It began with you.

Yesterday, I tried to convert some old videos of you as a baby/toddler so we could relive the monkey you were. I managed to convert a few, upload them-horrible quality and all-to YouTube, break a camera, and then finally give up on the awesome slideshow I had playing in my mind with Sister Hazel as the soundtrack. Though I ultimately failed at video conversion, I succeeded at celebrating you. I remember you. 

You are still you. Last night at twilight, I sat on the bumper of my garaged car, to my own peril, and watched you play B in basketball. As a sporting event, it was almost unrecognizable. I’m almost 100% certain that nobody scored. At all. Not once. But as a fun exchange between two goofy boys, it was perfect. And I shot some video, so I can remember even this when you are 30.

You have always been a joy and you are a joy now.

Happy Birthday, son.

Mom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwPgXRL-1UI&rel=0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfg04Tz2GH0&rel=0

 

I just read this great article about habits and resolutions. If you, like me, are hoping for some success in these areas, shoot for Valentine’s Day first. Apparently, that’s the point at which most people are done. This article talks about how to make it stick. 

Resolutions that Work

It’s still the first week of 2016. The very first week. Inside 7 days. Like, if I’d started driving to California on January 1st, I’d hardly be there by now from where I live.

It’s early.

And it’s already hard.

This is where many people give up. It’s likely where I have always given up.

But I have chosen this year–2016–to be the year I do not give up. Intentionally.

So I had to look at all of it and say, “How do I make this year different?” How will this year not be like the others. The answer is pretty simple, really. It’s the same reason that certain marriages survive when so many others don’t. It’s not because life for the survivors is better…or perfect…or easier. It’s because the survivors–the hangers-on–have chosen to keep their grip. You don’t give up, because you just don’t.

All the love I had for my resolutions two days ago is gone. I’m home from the honeymoon. My resolutions are still pretty and they still sound good. But they’re hard and I’m not feeling it. I wonder if I’m up to the task.

It wasn’t the smoothest of mornings. I woke up with enough mucous in my head to supply a family of 6 (thinking I might do this or at least tweet about it). My kids are coughing and were at each other before 7 a.m. about who got to sit in front of the fake logs (this is a real thing. I’m not making it up.). My neighbor–we’ll call him Denny, because that about fits how I feel about him this morning–has the city digging up my yard because of his sewer problem. And I didn’t get as much as a post-it note on my door warning me that by noon there’d be no more grass in my front yard. Awesome.

So I’m in a crummy mood and my pants are tight and a backhoe is in my yard. And this is the point at which a donuts day might be just the thing. Or a morning of Hallmark movies. When you are sick, or exhausted, or frustrated– a new year of trying might begin to seem hopeless. But it’s not hopeless. It’s just hard.

So what am I going to do now that the love grass is gone?

What do I do when my pants are tight, even though I’m making an effort that isn’t showing up (yet)? Well, I’m gonna put on pants, I can assure you. I haven’t been able to find an acceptable pantsless society, so I’m going to have to wear the tight pants.

The following list is for me. If it benefits anyone else, so be it. But I’m making the list for me.

How to make progress when you hit a wall:

(1) Acknowledge that what you’re doing is hard. If it was easy it wouldn’t be a New Year’s resolution, it would be this morning’s to-do list.

(2) Accept where you are today. Better habits are good. Change is good. But there’s danger in deciding you hate where you are–or who you are–now. The person I am today is the one making the decisions, writing the lists, building the accountability buddies, etc. That person got me where I am today. Don’t be mean to her.

(2) Be patient. Again, your resolutions are long-term and slow-going. If you get there too quickly, you won’t get to remain there.

(3) Pace yourself. Remember the tortoise and the hare. Though I’ve never seen a tortoise or a hare in the wild, and it’s possible they don’t even exist, there’s a reason this is a wildly popular folktale. The person sprinting like a mad hare toward the finish is probably going to poop out and go eat some cabbage by the side of the road. The person stepping and a slow, steady, consistent pace will finish, however slowly.

(4) Be consistent. Whatever you’ve mapped out for yourself to do, do it. Consistently. Don’t take a week off for donuts. Don’t worry about how much progress you did or didn’t make in an hour or an afternoon or a day. Just take consistent steps toward the goal.

(5) Don’t feel. Do. Who cares if your head is full of mucous and Denny dug up your last remaining patch of St. Augustine grass? Who cares if the scale doesn’t move or the pants rise up against you in the night with a serrated knife? Who cares if the love is gone? You made a resolution. You resolved. The definition of resolution (which incidentally, I cannot spell on the first time through. Ever.) is a firm decision to do or not to do something. So what’s on your to-do list today? Do as much as you can muster for the day that you’re having. Each day has its own challenges and parameters, but you can make progress, however small, every day. Do. The feeling will come.

As I was typing this list to myself, a call came in to my cell phone. It was a city number, and since there’s city people crawling all over the front yard today, I figured I should answer it. So I did. It was the Automated Library Lady with a message for me: “According to our records, you have 5 items that are very overdue. Please return your items to the nearest library branch as soon as possible.” Very overdue? I have never heard this before. Do they really use adverbs now? Was she intending to make me feel guilt or just to get my books back faster? I have chosen to forgive her for her judgmental tone and am adding one final thing to today’s list:

(6) Return very overdue library books.

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. They say this and they chuckle. I think you can only chuckle if you are fully confident that you are not standing on that road, paving that road yourself with your own good intentions. I stopped chuckling a long time ago. My intentions were almost always good. But they were almost never successful. I could wallpaper the Biltmore Estate with my resolutions lists. I don’t remember ever finishing any of them. Ever.

However. HOWEVER! I refuse to give up. I believe with my entire heart that people can always change. And while I believe there’s a place for cutting myself some slack and being content with who and what I am, I know who and what I want to be and don’t intend to quit. Not yet.

So I say that the road to success is paved with good intentions. The road to Heaven. The road to being Intentional.

My word of the year, for the whole year, is Intentional. Whatever I do this year, whether it’s spending a day in PJs while watching You’ve Got Mail or whether it’s finally entering a 10K and surviving it, I will do it on purpose.

I will save money intentionally. Get healthy intentionally. Parent better intentionally. Run the house more efficiently. Read the Bible cover-to-cover for the first time in my life. None of these things ever happen accidentally, after all.

It applies to everything. And it’s not that hard. It only requires a couple of major things: The first is that I redeem my time. I can’t let life schedule ME. I have to be holding the leash.  And it requires making consistent and daily deposits into all of these banks. It requires being 100% proactive. I can’t intentionally procrastinate and have this work out for me in the end.

I intend to do many things.

I do not intend to fail.

We shall see, now won’t we?

 

It is January 2 of a brand new year. Yesterday, as hopefully you know, was January 1st. New Year’s. A new year in every way. I didn’t realize until now how much I love the new year. It’s because I live in constant fear of my own mistakes and in constant regret when I make them. I am bad at letting things go. And the beautiful thing about a new year is that you get a free pass to crumple up that previous one with any exponential number of regrets and drop it in the nearest trash receptacle. And then you get to take out that fresh, white piece of paper and pretend that maybe this year…this year...it will be different. I will be different. I will do that thing. I will make the change. I’m sorry this turned into Man in the Mirror. That was subconscious, I assure you.

I saw the memes all over Facebook yesterday and each time there was a different country singer credited as the author. (Someone  has a good lawsuit waiting.) It said: “Today is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one.” There is something to this. I buy in 100%. Especially on January 1. Because as of yesterday, I hadn’t done a single thing poorly. Not one thing! I was 100% successful. My book was awesome. Riveting. Inspirational.

Wanting to celebrate my 90 minutes of mistake-free New Year’s Triumph (it was 9:30 a.m.), I took my new fitness tracker and went out on a walk.  Shortly into this walk, I encountered a runner wearing a race bib. This person wasn’t exactly running. Nor were the stragglers behind him. It became clear to me within moments of my first racer sighting that this was the end of the race. The very end. These guys had been at it for awhile. They had been BEAT UP by this race. And as I climbed the only hill in my flat central FL tinytown, I saw the last place runner coming toward me. I know she was last place because she was being followed by a police car with his lights on. So either she was being arrested for running too slow, or he was the cop signaling the end of the race.

This woman was struggling. She was barely in it. I visually took her in, as much as I could, in the few moments we intersected. I somewhat unintentionally locked eyes with her briefly as she continued her woggle (jog + walk + wobble) down that hill, and she managed a weak, sheepish, almost apologetic smile at me. It was a smile that said she was embarrassed. She was sorry she wasn’t faster, thinner, nimbler, edgier. She seemed sorry it was her in front of that cop car. She seemed sorry I saw her. Sorry we made eye contact. She’d been caught in last place. But I wasn’t sorry at all. Because right then it hit me: A last place finish is still a finish. She was slow, sure. She was struggling, clearly. But she was IN THAT RACE. She had a bib on. She wore the sweat like a trophy. She had the cop car behind her. She was going to finish that race. And she did.

Me? I didn’t even know about the race until I turned off my street to take my January 1 Victory Walk. I wasn’t in the race at all. Last place was ahead of me. This year, I want in on the race. I want in. I want to be official. So I’ve picked a word I’ve been thinking about for years but never turned into a profit. This year I want to be intentional. I will do life intentionally.

I am entering the race. On purpose. Intentionally. And if I finish last, I still finish. And in good company, I’m just guessing.

That’s the goal.

Happy New Year!

It is the season of Thanksgiving. In two short days, privileged Americans will gather around tables all over this nation and gorge on foods they spend days preparing. Some of them will do it with solemn traditions and rituals that have been in their family for ages. Some will do it without thinking very hard about what it all means. Almost everyone, whether they feast or not—whether they have family to feast with or not—will stop and think about what it means to be thankful.

Thankful adj

1: conscious of benefit received <for what we are about to receive make us truly thankful>

2: expressive of thanks <thankful service>

3: well pleased :  glad <was thankful that it didn’t rain>

— thank·ful·ness noun

I love the word “conscious” in the first definition. The benefit is received. But am I conscious of it?

Gretchen Rubin posted a quote a few days ago that burrowed itself into me and won’t leave. It said, “Those who are not grateful soon begin to complain of everything.”

Oh dear. Receiving the benefits. Conscious of nothing. Complaining of everything.

It is a hard thing to look in the face of and admit, but I think I’ve become this.  I’ve allowed some ugly stuff to creep in.

For me, in a situation like this, I like to do two things: (1) Figure out how I landed there and understand the journey, (2) Determine the quickest and most direct road OUT of there. I think the second facet will be easy. There are some easy roads out of negativity and toward gratitude. Spending more time In God’s word is a big one. Serving others. Serving the less fortunate. Meditating on POSITIVE things. Keeping a gratitude list. Focusing on the good in every situation. If your INPUT is good, so will your OUTPUT be. What I put into myself, will spill out.

But how I got here, and exactly when, bothers me. I honestly don’t know. I do think I’ve declined a great deal in the last 6 months, maybe starting in the summertime. And I think it relates somehow to the kids getting older and busier and more involved in activities. These things drain me, require my car and my excellent driving skills and my time, and take all of us away from  home and each other. They are temporary to some degree. Sports seasons end. Plays take place for audiences and rehearsals are over. But in another sense, they are not temporary. My family is moving into another phase of life with older, more active kids. I didn’t see it coming and I’m fighting this phase. I think a great deal of my own internal discord comes from my fighting the system instead of finding a way to thrive within it.

I read an article years ago about how to react if ever attacked by an alligator. Silly me, you may think. What a stupid waste of time to read articles about reacting to alligator attacks. Not really. I live on a river and I do stupid things. I think I have a reasonable chance of needing this advice at some point. If you are ever with me in a kayak, consider yourself covered. So I read the article. The point of it was that you can’t fight an alligator and win. He will win every time. The only way to deal with an attack is to roll with it. Literally. An alligator’s approach is to grab on and roll you over and under the water until you are dead by drowning. Then he stores you under a log and lets your meat rot and he’ll come back later and eat you. (You’re welcome. Now you know.) The best thing you can do in this situation is try to roll with the gator and come up to breathe and roll again. You try to keep rolling toward solid footing and give yourself time to be helped by someone else or get away.  But you can’t go contrary to the gator. You can’t fight against it. You have to roll with it.

I’ve been fighting a system that is stronger than I am. A gator. I’m fighting something unchangeable. And I can’t. I have to roll with it. Come up for air. Work myself into the systems so that I can still be effective. Roll with it.

I have focused on the things that were wrong and completely overlooked what’s still okay and intact. I’ve focused on all the time I don’t have, creating a paralysis that destroys the time I do have. I have required a circumstance that hasn’t existed and decided to sit down and wait for things to go my way. Anyone who was just on the recent camping trip in sweaty Florida will know what I mean. They went camping with this version of me. (A story may or may not follow in a later post, depending on how much self deprecation I feel I can handle.)

Ouch.

Sigh.

Well, now what? I don’t think it’s that hard to pull out of something like this. A big part of it is deciding to change. If you want to get somewhere, go there. Sometimes it really is that simple. A big part of it is realizing you have somewhere to go. I personally have to assess what can and cannot change and work within the system. I have a boy enrolling in high school to be a freshman next year. If I’m honest, right now is probably a whole lot less complicated and busy than next year will be. So it would serve me well to be thankful for now. I have 2 boys playing middle school soccer, one on JV and the other Varsity. That means 4 days a week, at least, of soccer. I have a 4^th grader involved in chorus and drama after school on Mondays and Thursdays. And I have a tiny one playing violin.

All of these things are good and all are things I have allowed and endorsed, albeit reluctantly. So it’s time to embrace where I am—where WE are—and make it work. But I don’t just want it to work. I don’t just want to eek by. I want to thrive. I want it to work well.

That starts with me.

With me being thankful.

I saw an internet meme on Facebook (just typing those words made me want to punch myself in the face) that said, “It isn’t happy people that are thankful. It is thankful people that are happy.”

If Facebook said it, it must be true.

Of course I don’t mean that. But I do believe this:

I Thessalonians 5:16-18 – Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Give thanks in all circumstances. In all circumstances.

I’ve been given the gifts. I have received the benefits. Now it’s time to say thank you. Baby steps?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.