To Sum It Up

I think I need a tagline.

Not a pithy explanation or an abbreviated About Me or a blogging mission statement -- but a real tagline. A marketing slogan so immediately clever and memorable you can "read my brand" from a billboard two exits away.

I've been thinking about it (because I do a lot of thinking when I'm avoiding doing any writing), and I've been thinking that what this little, struggling, oft-neglected blog needs is something tagline-ey under the header... you know, like I'm runnin' with the big dogs. (wink.)

And by that of course I mean, as if I'm one of those *real* blogs that we all love to read, that we make regular destinations, that we follow on Google Reader. (Hey, I've heard of such. Even if I don't participate in all that new-fangled, fancified blogginess.) I mean the kind of blog you felt so lucky to have stumbled onto, that first time you followed a link or clicked a button and pulled up writing that instantly reached you. The kind of blog that has personality, that catches you up in its point of view and leaves you thinking you have just met a real, accessible person. A blog after a woman's own heart.

That's what I'm goin' for here. A blog after MY own heart.

Only my heart has no writing discipline and likes to embrace the shortcut and so, instead of SHOWING you that, I'd much rather just TELL ya in about 7 words or less.

A tagline is the way. :D

See? I really have given this a lot of (procrastinating) thought. And I actually came up with one.

It happened after I noticed how far back my archives went. After I started thinking about the things I was writing way back then. And how they are similar to the things I'm still working out now. And I came up with something that says, in the nicest way possible, "I may not progress much over time, because I am pretty clearly a SLOW emotional and spiritual learner, destined to repeat lessons while struggling with a fierce combination of laziness and impatience -- but stick around if you can put up with that, 'cause I sure do try to love this journey, whenever I stop to notice where I am."

Or, tagline style: "Embracing the smallness of my humanity, since 2004."

Bigger-Hearted.

If I get this mommying gig right, it will break my heart. In the purest and noblest way, I will be wrecked. And remade. I will never be the same. For every little crack they leave on the tender casing of my soul, more of "me" will seem to seep out.

This very thought hurts, by the way. That doesn't mean I reject it or resist it (much). I'm TRYING, truly, to get it so right that I bear my brokenness like a prize. A 1st place, Best-in-Show blue ribbon permanently affixed to my lapel. So the other purely, nobly broken people can identify me. Can know I'm a safe place. I've felt it too, that mark will say. It undid me, too. I fall to pieces, still, all the time.

I want to own the marks of motherhood. I do. One day. But getting those marks hurts. Because, well, feeling enough love that one human heart can't hold it all in... it's a bursting, messy, painful business.

Getting to be a real rabbit is no small thing.

Of course, the more of me that seeps out, the more room for God to seep in. That's part of this gig, too. The on-the-job rewiring that's so much MORE INTENSE than any orientation you've ever sat through. So much longer than any continuing ed class.

...And so much better, too.

My heart will break at this. If I'm strong enough to keep seeing them, keep feeling what they feel, keep loving them like Jesus loves me. I will never be the same.

Thanks be to God.

Nature abhors a vacuum. And I can't stand a white wall.

A couple of weeks ago, as part of (some clearly misguided) spring cleaning, I switched up the art that's been hanging on my living room walls about 5 years. ...It had become so permanent there were yellowed spots where the three biggest shapes hung, just behind the couch.

After the yellow spots... and the nail holes... the thing that suddenly jumped out at me was, gee, I have really white walls. Really LONG, really white walls.

The crazy part of this effort -- crazy to the "normal" people, I mean -- is that there was nothing wrong with the art where it was. It looked pretty good, by most accounts. I was just beyond bored with it.

So I moved the "couch art" to the mantel and schemed a new collection of things behind the couch. ...That I was gonna get RIGHTON!

And now, almost three weeks later, I still have an impossibly long, pockmarked, yellowed white wall to fill. With no clear action plan for how to fill the void.

I don't know why I do these things, but I do. Do them. All the time. I make my own life HARDER instead of EASIER. I plan big then procrastinate long. It's a pretty deadly combination. And -- this gets even weirder -- even though I know I have these defeating tendencies, I persist in thinking positive thoughts about my self-inflicted change. I keep thinking I'm JUST ABOUT to have a breakthrough. In which I will make things all magically better than ever. Sure. Yes. Just as soon as the little birds and field mice respond to my Cinderella warbling and show up to help. I KNOW better than to start something I can't finish right away. I drive myself NUTS. But I also know I have to push car into the lane, sometimes, before it will start. Got a weird alternator, or something. And I really do HATE that white wall. So change is coming. Soon. Probably, hopefully.

Driving Home Thoughts

Sometimes I feel like loving them will be the death of me.

This is not true, I know. They are the life of me, really. The highest and purest life I've known. But death is definitely involved.

To mother my boys well, I must "die to myself" a thousand times over. The big deaths -- career compromise, geographic compromise, a crappy car from now till 2029 -- don't seem so hard for me as the little ones. Being "the bigger person?" The grown-up who doesn't meet anger with anger, who doesn't take offense easily or take hurtful words to heart, who shows PATIENCE through and through? Now that's difficult.

I think maybe I'm selfish enough that I don't like being this "good" -- and even when I try, I find I'm often not that good at it.

Today I was irritable with my exuberant, insuppressible Owen on the way to school. This kid is an energy bar wrapped in caffeine dipped in candy coating. Truly -- and objectively! -- he's a pretty adorable 3-year-old, with a big vocabulary, a ready, winning smile, bouncing red curls, huge blue eyes and the clenched-fist gait of a little linebacker. But his in-your-face adorableness also reads as bossy, willful, stubborn domination of everyone else's time. It's the yin-yang of Owen's particular humanness -- all the things that make him beautiful and unique also make him a challenge for others to live with. ;)

So today I succumbed to my own humanity and got grouchy. I was DONE with the demands and the commands and the non-stop stream of commentary from the back seat. When something small happened to upset Owen, I didn't want to be rational or to explain or make it better. I really just wanted to shout, "NO. The answer is NO. ENOUGH!"

I did say "NO" to his request pretty loud, but I closely followed with an alternate plan to make peace -- not from a place of overflowing love, but more because I didn't think I could stand any oncoming whining or crying.

And this is how I ended up sitting in the parking lot of Chick-Fil-A at 8:05, blowing on a mini chicken biscuit to cool it off before introducing a completely new junk food for Breakfast No. 2 and a Morning Reboot.

The chicken detour went pretty well. Well enough for me to realize my blood pressure had just spiked, then subsided over bickering with Owen. And that my kid's behavior was a lot better when my heart rhythm was normal.

Sounds all positive, touchy-feeley, "I-learned-a-valuable-lesson" -- I know! But I relate this morning's events more to say, "Sometimes this job really stinks -- ya know?!"

It's aggravating. And defeating. And painful to look at my own non-progress as a mom. Because I freely confess that I probably haven't learned anything about managing Owen's extra-needy periods I won't have to learn again next time.

...I just don't GET the small stuff very easily.

But, driving home, I realized I do "get" the big stuff.

I will never be Jesus for my kids. I can take captive every stray thought and think only on what is pure, noble and lovely and still I won't be Jesus.

I'm just a girl who screws things up and muddles her way back to equilibrium and who needs a Savior from herself, most every single day, and who occasionally, not always, can funnel enough Holy Spirit to shine some light.

I lose my temper. I am not patient enough. I often don't get it right the first time. But, when my kids need mercy, my soul deeply wants to pour me out for them.

I can never be what I am not. But I can use my best flashes and revelations, little sparks in the dark though they are, to point out something higher to Miles and Owen. In this way, it's OK that I am not a "perfect mom" (ha! ...as if that creature exists). My job is not to be perfect, just to point to it. When I am kind and selfless, when I do God's justice and love mercy, I help illuminate real love -- sacrificial love -- where it daily dwells. And it lives between and betwixt all of us, in every space and nook and cranny where common, flawed people exist in a state of common, flawed, happy, healthy "family."

Owen and I didn't have a smooth or perfect morning, but we had a mercy-filled one.