And Then The Car Died

I've been careful to veil our current employment situation as a family on this blog because it's not specifically my story to tell, though under-employment is very difficult for a family dynamic and I am definitely affected by our current situation. As a normal person, I've largely filtered our "season" (God, I hope it ends soon) of part-time, multiple-job employment through my personal experience of it. As I was reviewing my husband's resume adjustments today per his request, I got another peek into what he's going through in this process. We're both going through a lot but it's largely different for a lot of reasons. Seeing through his lens of challenges today, I was reminded of just the level of confidence projection required during the process of job hunting. It's too much. And the longer you go without full-time work, the more exhausted and discouraged you are (the notion that poor people are lazy is laughable, unless they really just aren't willing to work. It's so much harder to work several crappy jobs without stability). 
No matter how suited you are for a specific job, just to get in the door, you're jumping through invisible hoops that leave you guessing. You don't know if the job posted is really available or if it's posted per some requirement though they already have someone in mind for the position and this posting is really just for looks. You don't know how many applicants they have. You often don't know even the salary being offered. You don't know what their hiring process is, how many interviews you will go through or if you will get called at all. All you know is, you need a job. Many of the jobs you are applying for are well within your wheelhouse of experience and capability and yet, no job. Sometimes no response, even. Some of these jobs are well below your capacity and still, no job. 
It's a very strange dance you do with personal potential, financial obligations, dreams, strangers unspoken expectations and time, so much time. We would all do well when eliminating people from their jobs to acknowledge that it can take the better part of a very difficult year to replace a job. It may be worse paying. We have consistently made less money per job he's taken since we got married. This is the world we're living in. I know people don't want to talk about politics, but I also think sometimes people aren't aware of what things are really like "out there" if they haven't been in this position for awhile. Once Tim started working, even part-time without receiving his first check, we lost our unemployment money. And that money is only half of your original income, so it's not even paying your bills at that point. 
I don't write these things to complain. We're ok for today and sometimes that has to be enough. We've made some deliberate choices about our lifestyle, what we're willing to give up and what we're not (unless truly forced). We desperately want to make a difference in our community through work and that leads us frequently to low-paying jobs. That is something we're comfortable with. So again, this isn't about "poor me" as much as it is about the low points of an extended job search and how hard it is to wait for something to change. Tim's car died this weekend. Ironic how I was all braggy about our old cars in my last post :) Unfortunately, a lot of our options for him to pick up cash once the school year is over involves having a vehicle. We're weighing our options and unfortunately, that long rope we started with is getting shorter. Sometimes you really need to see that light at the end of the tunnel. Believe me, I'm squinting. I'm looking for it. I really hope it's there.

When Facebook Makes Me Cry

It all started when I made the mistake of posting something political on my Facebook page. I've been known to talk about human rights quite a bit but my political posts have been veiled until now. Politics don't bring out the best in humanity and I have a hard time not getting sucked into it. My emotions get strong. My feelings get hurt. Let's face it: I get mean. I become flabbergasted by both the ignorance and the total lack of compassion that this brings out in people. People whom I know I disagree with fundamentally, but to whom I hope to extend an olive branch and listen to with an open mind.
I was already having a bad day. Penny was having one of those almost 3 year old mornings where she thought it was hilarious to do everything the opposite way from which I was asking her. It was exacerbated by the fact that we were in public the whole morning. I have a particularly hard time not feeling flustered when I feel like people are watching how I react to my child when she's being "persnickety." I felt emotionally exhausted. I felt overwhelmed by my child's inability to go with the flow. I felt isolated because every parent around us was interacting with their child in a way that looked a lot more simple and easy than what I was dealing with all morning. 
Then I logged onto my page and saw the "conversation" that unfolded, and continued to unfold throughout the day. Articles being thrown at me (to which I threw articles back...like I said, I was having a bad day). My work ethic called into question. Then my privilege. Then my greed. I start to get sucked in. The words are rising in my throat. I'm tempted to talk about the 18 year old car I've been driving for 15 years or how my husband I have can live on less than $40,000 a year as a family of 4 because we're so careful with money. I want to talk about our 2 bachelor's degrees that aren't putting us to work. I want to explain how we choose to live small because that's one of our essential values. I almost blurt out about how low our mortgage payment is because we played it very conservative when we got into the market 11 years ago and have never been tempted to "upgrade" from our "starter house." I start to get angry as I think about my husband getting up at 5:30 every morning working 2 jobs and how we still can't provide for ourselves without the government programs we're gratefully using because he's been looking for full-time work for 7 months and counting with no success. I want to talk about my small business that keeps my child out of daycare (fewer expenses!) giving us a 3rd income while doing what we believe is best for our child (this is not a judgment, this is actually what we believe about our specific child). I understand what it means to create something from nothing, to generate income from thin air. I understand the amount of motivation and drive it takes to work alone with a 2 year old in tow. I really, really do. 
I want to scream out that this is about us, yes, but the video I posted was about justice for all, access to quality education for all families, races, and socio-economic levels. How could this message of hope get twisted into laziness, self-interest and greed? I want to weep. In fact, I have. 
I've written about taming this beast, this rising voice of self-defense. This is not a new process for me. I have a strong sense of justice and it can make me a bit of a beast. I choose to call it advocacy :) But maybe I haven't given a full voice to the demons, the moment the words of shame come pouring in, the pain and horror that unkind words do when they come into your home on a bad day. I get it; politics are tough. And maybe this is my cue to bow out. Shit's gettin' ugly, people. 
I know I will require an extra dose of self-care after today's events. And my skin isn't very thick.
But I don't want to silence my voice (though I may need to do some unfriending). I know there's a benefit in putting a face to an ideology (granted, I thought my face would receive more respect than it was given today, but the world isn't as kind as I believe. I already knew that) and I'm not ashamed of my beliefs. I believe people need access to health care. I believe that all the poor kids should be fed and educated and have secure housing. I believe books should be in every home. I believe people should be able to fulfill their potential whether they were born in the country club or the ghetto. I believe people want to work and to find something worthwhile and fulfilling to do with their lives. I believe people who do good work, like teach our children, should also be able to have a comfortable retirement. And God help us, I believe people of all races and religions should be free and embraced in this country, not rounded up like a bunch of fucking terrorists. 
I believe in kindness. I do. If I'm not the best economist, ok. I'm cool with that. Let's let the economists put their beautiful brains to work. But what I do know is I will not be silenced. I will not bow down in worship to the almighty hate. I won't do it. So hate my government program-loving heart if you must. But know that I love my beliefs and those who hold them with integrity and with my own integrity fully intact. You don't have to agree with it. But you damn well better respect it. And I will do my best to respect our differences and above all, to temper my passion with kindness. And now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go log off Facebook for some much needed R & R.

When Daddy Takes the Reins

It's such a strange thing to get married. I remember when Tim and I were in our premarital counseling and one of the books we were reading said that behavior before marriage is no indication of behavior after marriage. What, WHAT? That was reassuring! I was a bit of a basket-case throughout our engagement. I knew marriage was forever and that I couldn't and shouldn't try to change my spouse so I was trying to keep my eyes wide open about who this man was and if I could commit to love everything about him, with unconditional acceptance. As you can imagine, Tim was cool as a cucumber. Completely confident. So confident in fact that as he was proposing, he handed me a Bible with his last name engraved on it next to my first name. I was going to be his wife. It sounds kinda douchy when I put it like that, but it didn't come across that way. He was just 100% sure of me, of us, of forever. It was weird and sweet and probably a big part of what gave me the confidence to walk down the aisle that day.
If pre-marital behavior is no indication of post-marital behavior, you can imagine how much of a risk it is to become a parent with your spouse. Getting married is about the two of you, a cementing of a relationship that you've already been building for awhile. Becoming parents is a real and total crapshoot. You really have no idea what kind of parent you'll be, regardless of how much babysitting you've done. There's just no way to really be prepared. It's such a huge transition for both people and changes so much of who you are. And depending on the child you have and the circumstances you're in, you continually get shaped as you parent your child who is in a constant state of transition as well. 
I was confident Tim would be a good dad. He was always great with kids when we were around them. He was a youth minister, so he obviously had great rapport with teens. I was sheltered as a kid and he grew up in a much more diverse neighborhood. So what I lacked in street smarts, he had in spades. I thought we'd be a good team, as I had more experience with young kids and he was so good with older kids. 
He and I have so many shared interests and talents but we have completely different personalities. We've found that if we're out of balance, our kids aren't getting the full advantage that we bring when we share the load of parenting well. If I'm leaning in too hard, our kids don't get pushed. If he's leaning in too hard, our kids don't receive enough coddling. It's a balance and I feel our kids are pretty lucky to have us, if I do say so myself.
One of the things both of our children hated as toddlers (which is where Penny's at right now) is having their hair washed. As the stay-at-home parent, many of our regular parenting responsibilities fall to me, but once Tim is home, it's all-hands-on-deck. It's always been that way. Some of my friends are basically single parents with a husband roommate. Her responsibilities don't shift into co-parenting when daddy gets home. It's almost like it doesn't matter if he's there or not. It's baffling to us and I don't understand how that works. People are always praising Tim for being an engaged father and/or telling me how lucky I am. While those things are true, I always thought it was harmful to the child and the father (or the non-primary parent) when one parent shoulders the full parental responsibility unnecessarily (I say unnecessarily in this case because of course, many single parents don't have a choice in this matter and are awesome warriors for their kids in having to essentially fulfill two peoples' worth of work). So for us, it's not so much that "we're so lucky" (though I know we are) but more of a "this is what is best for our children."
Because of this dynamic, Tim has washed his fair share of screaming toddlers. And as I've illustrated, Penny has some things going on in her development that can make these kinds of things particularly difficult. My strategy is to avoid bathing them as much as possible and then when it's necessary, bathe them in 30 seconds flat and get them the heck out of there. Tim's approach is different. The other night while Penny was howling for me, Tim very patiently bathed her for about 15 minutes. He soothed her. He never lost his cool. He engaged her in play. Any time she would start to get worked up, he'd catch her before she got too far down the emotional path of full tantrum. He tried to give her an experience that wasn't traumatic and re-enforcing her hatred of getting her hair washed. In his mind, if she starts to rack up positive hair-washing experiences, eventually she'll grow out of her fear. Pretty genius, right?
I sat in the hallway where she couldn't see me but where he knew I was present, supporting him in his process and available if needed. While my heart wanted to push him out of the way and pull her out of there, this was one of those moments (there are many) where I need to back the fuck off and let him be a dad. And it is to the full benefit of my child, let me tell you. It was just so incredibly precious to hear them sharing this experience. While I was sweating bullets, he remained present in the storm with her. 
He's the parent that stays the course when things get hard. I want to cut our losses and take it to the professionals or stop altogether and Tim is the one who can tune out the chaos and do what's best for our children in that moment. Sometimes that looks like continually fishing that splinter out while Macy howls in fear. Sometimes that's washing Penny's hair while speaking soothingly to her and taking his time. He's the one who gives Penny many opportunities to take a bite of her dinner, when I would have given up after 3 tries. Granted, sometimes you have to cut your losses and that's where the balance of he and I come in. I'm much more likely to let my children lead. But sometimes they need a parent to lead them. And that's where daddy comes in, showing our kids that scary things can be faced and can be overcome with our help. And I could not be more proud and grateful to have been able to carry this man's children and to share this tremendous responsibility with him. 

Is My Child Ok and Other Such Fears

I feel like I have a list of things that I need to process. They relate to many areas of my life and they all drain me emotionally as my life and/or my deliberate avoidance hits the snooze button on sitting in these feelings. One of the things on my proverbial list of things that require a journal entry and possibly some tears is my continual evolution as a mother. In particular, we're at the tail end of a long process of developmental screening for my 2 year old, Penny. As a caretaker, particularly because I've had the strange fortune of essentially raising my two daughters one at a time (Macy started kindergarten 3 weeks after Penny was born, so I'm getting 5 years of one-on-one time of life preparation with each of them before they launch into full-time school), I am good at adapting to my children. This means that I can accommodate their preferences and personalities and mold our daily patterns around what suits them best and for the most part, I'm happy if they're happy. (This is also what makes me a fabulous world traveler, if we're bragging here). My daughters are really different so it was interesting for me to approach parenting Penny in a new way. It's also been 5 years and she's a second kid, so I've changed a ton as a person as well as a mother.
Penny is a really unique kid. She can be so stinking charming. And she can be incredibly intolerant of anything she does not consent to or like. She wasn't an early talker and was frustrated often by that as well as by life in general for awhile there. Things have opened up for her as she's gotten more comfortable socially and better able communicate with words (she was always communicating but the screams didn't go over as well as her words do now:) That being said, I know how to be a buffer for her in stressful social situations, when she's tired or hungry and when her toddler-esque language requires translating. Macy did not require such a buffer (as much) and was more independent socially. It's amazing what you get used to as a parent as you adjust to your child and whatever life requires of you to be what they need. Just ask a post-partum mother who's up nursing every 2 hours for months on end. It sucks. But you can get used to it. It's wild, really, what becomes normal. And then the phase ends and you back and think "how the hell did I do that?" You just did.
As was out in the world with my charming grouch, I began to see which aspects of Penny's development were "normal" and which aspects might be more atypical. I'm perfectly fine to be raising a non-conformist and don't feel the need to use her behavior to make me look good. Sure, sometimes it's emotionally tiring to deal with moments where your child is behaving in a way that doesn't give you positive attention from strangers, but I don't let that dictate my parenting. I just let that give me permission to increase my self-care on those days (and by "self-care" I mean "chocolate intake"). And so I began the process of developmental screenings. Because ultimately, the mommy buffer must stand down at some point and in the meantime, I'd like professional guidance on how to buffer best. And boy, it's a lot of screening! They check fine motor, gross motor, adaptive, speech, social/emotional and sensory skills. This required me to sit on my couch and watch strangers test my child. So many moments I wanted to jump in and explain, rephrase, or just stop the testing. It is so incredibly vulnerable to have your child's abilities be ascertained and placed on a bell curve. How reductionistic to see this magical person be graphed based on the average of her peers! I felt like I was being tested, that if she couldn't answer a question it was because I hadn't asked it, that her potential to be typical rested in my ability to draw her potential out. (This is a really fun experience for a caretaking perfectionist, by the way. I highly recommend cancelling your next vacation and calling up the early intervention people. You won't be sorry!) And while I knew these things weren't true, that she would be her no matter what hoops I jump though, it was very emotional for me to sit back and allow her to be assessed so thoroughly and by such capable professionals. You can't pull one over on these people! 
And as you can imagine, having the sit down after all the tallying has been done and being presented with reams of information about your child is difficult. How can anyone tell me anything about my child that I don't already know? Who are you to explain my child to me? (The professionals through this process have been incredibly gracious and kind. These are just the big feelings the process unearthed.) And what do they have to tell me? What is possible and maybe impossible for my child's future based on the information within these reams of paper? If I burn them up, is the information still true? I'm not going to get into the details of Penny's results because this blog is about me (also why I haven't written much about my husband's job loss and season of part-time employment) but it all came down to this moment. At the end of her initial assessment, the two professionals asked me, "Ultimately, what are your goals through this process? What do you want to see for Penny?" And I said, "You know what? There are behaviors about living with Penny that have been difficult to parent. There are things we'd like to work on. But really, what I want for my child is to reach her full potential as a person, whatever that is. I believe that she will show me that. And I just want the tools to help her be that person. I want to know if my expectations of her are fair. I want to know when and how to accommodate her and I want to know when and how far to push her. Because the world will not accommodate her once she's on her own. I want to build her up and then I want to send her out as prepared for whatever lies ahead as best as I possibly can. And she will take that and do with it what she will. I want to know how to support her and to be whatever she needs however she needs it." And if that isn't motherhood, I don't know what is. 

The Whirlwind of Newborns

One of my best friends became a mother this week. She used to be one of "our teens" when we were in youth ministry. Her childhood home is just a few blocks from ours and she often came over after school to hang out with me. We'd listen to Jack Johnson (hello 2005!) and play cards for hours. We weren't an obvious pair. She was quiet and wore "boy clothes" in those years and I had highlights and was as chatty as ever. But our ying/yang vibe always worked and I find that many of my closest friends are similar in temperament to my dear Tim. 
She hasn't been one of "our kids" in a long time, pretty seamlessly transitioning into one of my peers. We still love to play cards though it's much harder since I brought kids into the mix 8 years ago. I was at her wedding and helped throw her baby shower. And I had the honor of being one of her darling son's first visitors. And as I was driving to the hospital to meet him, I was taken back to my own post-partum experiences. Reflecting on how I've been influenced by the experiences of motherhood and then specifically by the personhood of each of my daughters, I wrote this:

Motherhood obliterates you
Then stitches you back together
You're still you, technically
But everything is in a slightly different place

This little creature has destroyed you
and made you infinitely better
You've never been so vulnerable,
this extension of you out in this 
big, scary world.

How can you control it all,
keep them safe, help them grow?
You've never been so big, so bold
Fierce to the death, you speak
when you would have stayed silent
Fight when you would have conformed

On behalf of this bewitching creature
you wouldn't hesitate to go to war
So small, so mighty, these few pounds
of dependent humanity
change every cell in your body.

In love, entranced, you orbit
around them, every sigh, every sneeze
is breath-taking.
Even their shit is cute.
Babies turn hard asses to mush
and pushovers into warriors.

These magical creatures are mesmerizing
They keep you up, soak you in vomit
Those first few months take you to your knees
They shatter you, they heal you,
They take you to the brink of insanity.

Yet in that fog, there is pure,
unadulterated bliss
Every time you breathe in 
that spicy scalp or feel their 
tiny chest rise and fall against yours
Those tiny toes, their skin that folds
Their sweet, persistent suckle.

The most enchanting drug in the world?
Newborns.

Can a Care-Taker Learn to Take Care of Herself?

I've just had an epiphany, and it's not something I'm particularly pleased to admit. I consider myself an advocate for others. This spirit of advocacy is innate and I believe, God-given. If you want to hear me rant, ask me about the significance of movements like #blacklivesmatter or my newly-discovered yet completely-true white privilege. Ask me how I feel about homelessness, sex-trafficking and children growing up in this country without access to books. Don't even get me started on the FDA or Monsanto. It's so easy for me to see the need to champion the rights of others. As a black and white thinker, it makes sense that I want to right the wrongs of our unfair world and to give everyone an equal shot at their dreams. But here's the problem: I have a really hard time with self-advocacy, hence the epiphany. Looking back today, I've realized that the times I've faced uncomfortable conflict head on, it's because I believed it would benefit someone else, whether it was the person I was confronting, or on whose behalf I was advocating. 
As a caretaker, I've worked hard to let go of the need to do hard things because I am somehow responsible for other peoples decisions. If I confronted someone in the past with great difficulty, I did it because I wanted to protect the next guy from their behavior. But I'm not in charge of their behavior and I do not need to carry responsibility for their future potential infractions just because their current acts have hurt me. (Though I can see how abuse victims following this path are probably making a very understandable mistake). So now that I'm not facing difficult confrontation on behalf of someone else, I'm finding myself hiding from necessary conflict and wallowing in shame as a result. I'm really hurting, guys. And yet, I feel dumb about my big feelings and don't want to have the difficult conversations required to rectify the situation. How incredibly difficult it is to say, "Your behavior, while most likely unintentional, hurt my feelings in a big way and with humility, I ask for your apology because my feelings matter." Agghh!
And yet, I've learned these past few years how incredibly important self-care is. That I deserve love and care as much as anyone else in my family, church and community. That there is no need to apologize for being human, needing space and having needs that require money, time and solitude to meet. And while it's simple enough to drink a cup of tea or serve yourself breakfast first, how hard is it to validate your very real feelings in a difficult situation? (Frankly, I'm being cavalier about the tea and breakfast first, but that was actually really difficult in the beginning). How hard is it to let people love you when you're purposefully exposing "weakness" (big feelings aren't weakness but my shame voice begs to differ) that you just can't seem to rationally contain? This, my friends, is the ultimate self-care act and this care-taker is wrestling, for sure. 

The Night I Cried Doing Downward Dog (No, That's Not a Euphamism)

It's funny sometimes, practicing yoga. It requires you to breathe, to tune in, to sit in the tension you carry and then to release it. It's particularly funny to practice yoga as a caretaking perfectionist in crisis during a holiday week. Tonight I dragged myself to class, with my family limping around without me (everyone's sick but me), barely able to get in the door for being so stiff and terribly undercared for. 
I lie down on the mat my beloved teacher set out for me (because I was late). Just curling my legs into my chest, I feel them coming. The music is playing. The lights are dim. Tears. I am so fucking tired. Everyone needs a piece of me. There's not much left tonight. And so the tears come. In this one clumsy, stiff hour, I have so many wounds to bind up. The anxiety of trying to feel better in the one hour I've got juxtaposes with the amazement that I have a whole hour to myself to stretch every muscle that is locked down in tension. Penny is not asking to be held. Dinner has already been made. I am alone with others. My favorite way to recharge.
Going through all the positions, some feel wonderful, others really difficult, the tears slip out, one by one. Hiding under the sheath that is my undone hair, little by little the tears give way to release. Bone-deep, soothing release. Release leads to rest. The rest I long for. The rest I desperately need. The rest I cannot always allow myself in this time of crisis (Tim is still looking for work). 
I came home and read my little Cheryl Strayed book of quotes Brave Enough. One of the nuggets of truth that jumped out at me was this, "The particularity of our problems can be made bearable only through the recognition of our universal humanity. We suffer uniquely, but we survive the same way."
Sometimes it's surprisingly hard to be a person. I have so many beautiful people in my life. I've experienced so much grace and mercy when we weren't sure how something would work and it just has. But sometimes you just want to hide in a room alone for a month. Tonight, I had one hour. An hour I moved through with tears. But I came away having done what I needed to do. Exercise, yes. But really, I needed to cry. Don't be afraid to sit in your tears. Perhaps it's the only way to walk back out into the cold and into the fray. And ultimately, to survive.