31 Silver Linings – A Writing Challenge {Day 11}

Challenges are interesting things, in and of themselves.  It’s simple enough to commit yourself to whatever it may be;  harder still to stick with it. For some, their competitive nature rears its head – for the positive or the…not so much. For me, and I’m guessing many others, there is something else at play:  insecurity.Self-doubt and negative self-talk rear their ugly heads.  Fear of failure emerges.People-pleasing tendencies slip from the back to the forefront of mind.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last 18 months or so trying to get a handle on all negative things that this challenge has brought up within me and it’s interesting:  it seems I’ve made progress. While I’m committed to the challenge, I’m not focusing on reader stats. I’m not wracking my brain for ideas or trying to prepare posts in advance “just in case”.  I’m simply doing my best to write something each day. I’ve written for 11 days straight.  Some days longer; some days more eloquently. But I’ve done it and I plan to continue.

31 Silver Linings – A Writing Challenge {Day 10}

I don’t sleep well. This is a fact, long known. Wednesday night, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I ended up having less than four hours of sleep. I muddled through the work day yesterday and fought to stay awake until a reasonable hour (but of course getting a second wind in the process, because that’s how I roll.)

When I woke up today and finally extricated myself from my bed, stumbling to the kitchen to feed the anxious cats, I found that I had left the freezer door ajar. All. Night. Long.

Not quite the start to Friday I’d hoped for.

I ended up being later than usual to work as I took everything out to see what in the absolutely packed to the gills freezer now needed to be tossed. I spilled an open bag of now thawed fire-roasted corn all over the kitchen floor. I couldn’t lift the already tied trash bag out of the can, let alone carry it out of my apartment, up the steps, around the corner, over the hills and through the woods to the dumpster, so I had to reopen it and redistribute the wet and squishy trash into another bag.  I drove to work and realized I couldn’t park in the lot I usually do because I have to be out of it for an event earlier than I’ll be done now today.  I had decided to walk instead of taking the bus this morning because I need to do SOMETHING to move my butt these days and because it is supposed to be raining this afternoon. Just as I got too far to go back from an umbrella, it began to rain.

I just laughed. Because seriously? This morning was not the greatest.  But it’s Friday, it’s payday, I walked a mile (rain be darned), and since I was late anyway, my freezer debacle ultimately allowed me a little extra time to stop and get myself a chocolate-filled donut at Whole Foods on my way.

TGIF, y’all.

31 Silver Linings – A Writing Challenge {Day 9}

Growing up, I had no interest in gymnastics. While other girls my age were leaping and tumbling and doing who-all-knows-what-the-heck, I preferred to keep both feet firmly planted on the ground. Activities involving physical coordination were simply not my forte…and still aren’t, if I’m honest. I don’t know if it’s because I shot up to unreasonable height so early (I was 5’8″ by the time I was 12 years old), the back brace that followed for several years, the subsequent rod in my spine, genetics, or what…but I couldn’t ride a bike without falling off, let alone putting one foot in front of the other on a beam that was under 4″ wide, 4′ off the ground.Yet I longed for the gracefulness I saw in my peers who had the gift of balance. Light on their feet, they seemed to glide across the beam, leaping, turning, even cartwheeling effortlessly (or so it seemed.)

As we got older and my friends outgrew their dreams of becoming Olympic gymnasts, I found my heart’s desire for balance remained, albeit in a different form.  I was busy, busy, busy all the time:  first, with trying to balance having a real, grown up, professional job in the city and real, grown up bills with the demands of family and friends and a tumultuous relationship; then, juggling an increasingly demanding job with a lot of business travel while paying real, grown up bills, managing the demands of successfully maintaining positive relationships with family and friends (and their growing families and growing demands on their time and lives), and serving in a millions ways to Sunday (see what I did there?) at church.  I read books about balance and margin.  I discussed balance and margin with friends who were feeling the same way as I was but didn’t know what to do or how to change.  I led “Frazzled Female” Bible studies (seriously;  there are two and they are good stuff.) And yet balance continued to elude me.

It quite literally took moving away and starting over for me to even begin to figure it out.  My job was in many ways less demanding, with certainly less travel. I didn’t know anyone so I had no social activities to juggle. I visited 12 churches before I found the one for me and once there, I realized it was more important for me to reflect and soak it in for a while than to jump into serving.  I had left busyness behind…and I hated it.  I felt like that awkward, lanky, prepubescent girl trying to navigate the balance beam all over again.  I wanted to rely on the shoulder of my gym teacher to keep me on task – or rather, my busyness to keep my mind and heart from dealing with what was most needed and most important.  But here, now, I didn’t have a choice.  Each day, I walked back & forth.  I started to feel less and less awkward.  I added a hop or a turn here and there, just to see how it felt.  I’m not quite ready for the cartwheel but I’m more confident each day that I can stay on the beam.

31 Silver Linings – A Writing Challenge {Day 7}

Yesterday was hard.  It brought me some disappointing news at the end of an already long day that sent me right into a big ugly cry and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.  The “old me” would have wallowed in it for days.  I’d have spent hours back & forth trying to see where it went wrong, what I did wrong, what I SHOULD have said or done differently.  Yeah, I’d have pulled it together enough so the outside world wouldn’t see that, as a dear friend once put it, my “fragile eggshell was cracking” but inside, I’d be struggling.

It’s hard to break free from your default but I’ve been trying.  I feel like it’s even more important in the season I’m in now to tell my stories and ask for help because my people are far away and, shockingly, they aren’t psychics or mind readers. And they can’t help unless I’m real with them.  And so I reached out to a handful of folks and shared my disappointment.  It didn’t go away, by any means, but the mere act of sharing it helped ease the burden.  And by the time I got offline to go to bed, I’d laughed more than I’d cried.  Quite a bit more, in fact…and that is huge.

31 Silver Linings – A Writing Challenge {Day 6}

For many years, I served in my church as a youth leader.

I’d come to it in a quite unlikely way, much as I’d ended up in church at all (but that is a story for another time.)  It really started as a prayer that if God wasn’t going to give me my own children at that point in my life, that he make me important in the lives of others’ kids in some fashion.  I helped out with my friends’ children, earning an honorary aunt title;  I served in children’s ministry periodically.  But it was the older kids – teens, high schoolers moreso, to whom I was drawn.

Our church didn’t have a youth ministry at the time but my friend, the associate pastor, was determined to rectify that – and quickly, as his girls were aging out of children’s ministry and needed something.  I remember when he first convened a group of those interested in helping launch it.  He spoke of his vision and then asked each one of us how we might fit in, how our gifts might be used.  Immediately, I told him I was only interested in being behind the scenes.  My skills were for organization and planning, calendar-keeping and flier-making, not teaching or game-playing or what-have-you.  His immediate response was basically, “Yeah, that’s fine – we need that too, but you’ll be working with the kids.”

Say what now?

Though I can’t recall specifically, I am pretty sure he and I went back and forth on that quite a bit.  The others serving were parents and teachers, I argued.  I wasn’t either.  My gifts, I was certain, were in administration, organization, and planning. He just nodded and smiled and told me to show up at his house on a designated Sunday afternoon.  And so I did, pretty much scared witless. I was certain the kids wouldn’t like me, that they’d wonder why the heck I even was there…I figured I would see what it was all about and then remind him again that my strengths were really in behind-the-scenes work.  All the while, a tiny piece of me hoped my friend might be right and it would all work out.  Deep down, I felt like there were things they could learn from me – a single, professional, later-in-life Christian gal – that they might not learn anywhere else.

Nearly fifteen years later, I count many of the “kids” I’ve met as dear friends, even family. Because of them, I’ve done hard things; I’ve shown up scared time and time again and made it through.  I’ve ridden in a (tethered) hot air balloon.  I’ve stood before hundreds of people in multiple church services to talk about our mission trips (and didn’t throw up or pass out.)  I’ve listened to their struggles and shared pieces of mine.  I’ve laughed, cried, and grieved with them. I’ve sat in the audience, in the stands, in ER waiting rooms, and beside hospital beds. I’ve been privileged to walk through some really tough things with them and been blessed to share in the celebratory happiness of graduations, engagements, weddings, and new babies. I can still remember my apprehension of that first night…but I would not trade those butterflies for anything in the world.

31 Silver Linings – A Writing Challenge {Day 5}

Today is the second anniversary of my move.  I looked back to last year’s blog entry and found that, frankly, not much has changed.  But I think in many ways, I have.  While I know some of the changes are for the good, the rest likely remain to be seen.

I’ve cried immeasurable tears over the past two years.  I have come to understand that homesickness, missing your people, missing all that is safe and familiar, can be a physical ache.  I’ve not been able to reconcile, in all this time, how to be away from those I love when they need me…or when I need them – and I don’t know that I can or ever will.  My bed, broken in the move, missing a piece, remains broken.  It’s become almost a metaphor, really.

When I thought about what to write about in the #write31days challenge, it seemed right that I focus on silver linings.  I’ve always been the type to hold onto hope but the last two years have been a true exercise in reframing and refocusing, on finding the silver linings scattered throughout.  And so for the last few days, as the anniversary approached, I thought hard about which I could share:

I’ve learned how to be alone.  That, for me, has been incredibly difficult and I’ve struggled so much with loneliness here.  But I’ve come to understand the value of downtime, of solitude, of the unhurried seasons of life.

I’ve become less impulsive – more reflective, more thoughtful – especially when it comes to big decisions or things about which I don’t feel at peace.  I’ve always trusted my intuition but I’ve come to respect it as well.

I’ve learned more definitively who in my life I can most rely on, who will stand by me no matter what, and who will always, always, always answer when I call.

And no matter what, it is still beautiful here.

31 Silver Linings – A Writing Challenge {Day 4}

I got up early this morning to go see a sweet girl play soccer.

Last night, as the rain fell, I harbored a slight, albeit wrong, hope that the fields would be too wet to play today and I’d have the luxury of returning to my bed.  I held onto this hope as the clock passed midnight, one, one-thirty, and I still lie awake.  But when my alarm sounded, no email had come and out of bed I rose.

I had high hopes of making myself a hearty breakfast but those dreams were replaced by sitting quietly with a chai latte, wondering if it was actually possible I was considering going out in public without washing my hair for the second day in a row.  It was more certainly possible, as my slow-pokedness precluded any other option.  I quickly got dressed, checked my email once more, and headed to the car.  For some reason, I left my phone on the passenger’s seat instead of in my purse and partway to the fields, I saw an email from this precious girl’s  mom pop up:  “Fields closed.”

She was wildly apologetic and, by this time, I was more bummed to not get to see her play today than having gotten up early for nothing.  I decided to head over to my credit union to see if they could help me with something and wrote a quick note back to let her know I had gotten the email and I’d be there next week instead.

The credit union wasn’t open yet and I waited a few minutes in my car as others arrived with the same plans.  A line formed at the door so I joined in, approaching my task with a bit of apprehension – I had not had very much luck in my dealings with the credit union in the past and I did not have much hope for today’s mission.  But I had to at least try.  Though I had had the best intentions, I had never actually managed to get my rent check into the mail this week as I should have, realizing yesterday that I also had no stamps, yada yada.  My mission today was to see if the credit union would allow a person-to-person transfer without my landlord being present (which they had previously told me over the phone was necessary) and without access to her account number (because why in the world would you give a tenant your account number?!?)

Second in line, I approached the teller who summoned me.  I knew immediately that this was not your ordinary lady.  Her blouse was flashing.  Not flashy, but quite literally lighting up in several spots.  She also had a little solar-powered dancing daisy, the same that my best friend had gotten me recently.  She greeted me pleasantly, all the while helping two interns who had just arrived for their day.  I explained briefly and, if I’m honest, somewhat half-heartedly, my hope and intention.  She didn’t pause for a moment and said immediately that she thought we could find a way to work it all out.  Within moments, the transfer was about to go through.

“Oh lawd, honey, they taking all your money!” she said kindly.  I laughed and agreed.  But what she said next was the most perfect thing, “But at least you’ve got a roof over your head!”

So true and so right;  just the reminder I needed today…and all because of an early wake up call and canceled plans.

31 Silver Linings – A Daily Writing Challenge {Day 3}

The workload in my field generally ebbs and flows with the seasons.  This year, however, it has been non-stop.  I’ve had one project that I devoted a great deal of time and energy toward that I recently completed.  It was one of those where you breathe a sigh of relief for having made it, bumps, bruises, scrapes and all, and hope you can find time to sleep for days. Unfortunately, I had another complicated project arise right on its heels that delayed my deeply desired hibernation…and sustained my already heightened stress for another week.

In the midst of this, summer began it’s slow departure;  cloudy, damp, sometimes rainy days began to come more frequently. And with the coming of Fall, I found last year, comes the arrival of the creepy crawlies to my domicile.

I am not a fan of creepy crawlies.

I am even less of a fan when I am stressed to the max in other areas of my life.  Who knew that stress, lack of sleep, and a lack of dedicated time to deal with said creepy crawlies could lead to anxiety…and a grown woman sleeping with the hall light on?

It’s been a difficult couple of weeks, friends.  I feel like a complete and utter wuss for admitting this but I can tell you that it is truly a phobia I’m dealing with and one I’ve had for as long as I can remember…and it’s exacerbated  by an even creepier crawly here than I was ever familiar with before:  the spider cricket.  As they say, #icant #icanteven.

As my anxiety reached a fever pitch last week (and I was sleeping less and less), I was reminded:  this is something I can do something about.  I am not at the mercy of my fear.  And so I took some concrete steps to deal with the issue, first on my own and then with the assistance of my landlord.  I’m not entirely confident that the outcome is going to be exactly as I’d like but at least I know that I took action to change the situation and hopefully help myself get some much-needed and long-overdue rest..

31 Silver Linings – A Writing Challenge {Day 2}

The first time I cried at work, I was horrified.  It wasn’t my first job but it was my first with real responsibility and I took it very seriously.  I don’t recall the circumstances but it has been a pattern that when I am angry or really frustrated, rather than scream or yell, tears burst forth despite my best attempts to keep it together.

On that day in particular, I was trying to explain my side of a frustrating situation to my CEO.  My words felt inadequate and halting;  as I tried to remain calm and professional, the tears began to well.  Though I attempted to choke them back, I failed miserably.  I hung my head and sputtered a faint apology and was stunned by my CEO’s response:  he told me it was all right to cry and asked me if I thought he had ever cried at work.  I shook my head, certain that that was beyond the realm of possibility. Gently, he explained that he had indeed and that, while I was sitting there thinking it a sign of weakness, it was really a sign that you cared deeply about the situation – which in his estimation was not a bad thing.

I don’t recall the outcome of our discussion or whether the issue was resolve in my favor, but I haven’t forgotten the lesson.