One of the most amazing things about doing something hard with a bunch of other people is that you become a troop. A fraternity of sorts. You see this with men who fought together in the military, or people who suffered through crisis, or women who have struggled together in any form. Times of great stress can form a strong bond that isn’t easily broken.

Motherhood is this strain.  It is the tree half unrooted, pulling toward the gravity of the earth but still yearning to reach the sky.  We want to shield our children, and yet we have to equip them for the days alone.  We have to pray for our children so that the spirit fills them in times of great trouble and is armor around them.  Oh, the bitter dark nights that are ahead.  We beg of you to pass.  Not this year.  Not this child.  Not now.  We pray this on our knees, for the hurt to be delayed until they are older. Until they are wiser.  Until we have more time to teach them.  For the world to wait before gutting them square in the chest.

But the world waits for no man.  The tears fall, the evil comes.  We must be ever vigilant.

My kids attend a fairly small private school, and I know many of the mothers.  I know some struggles they’ve had with their children, but with others I’m blissfully unaware.  Some I just wave at in carpool and comment on their new haircut.  And I see some who are rooted in popularity and the game of comparisons, which manifests itself in their offspring.  I see this, and I feel this, and my heart aches at all this.  The masking of life.  The covering up of insecurities.

Life is a wheel that just rounds itself time and again, the same weaknesses and the same fears and the same pain from thousands of years ago until today.  Different styles, different clothes, different names.  But the same.  I wish I could break this cycle of comparisons, for us all to be stripped down.  But I know there is a buffalo to hunt, and food to be eaten, and the fastest and strongest survive.

So let’s survive this together, differently.  What is it about your child that makes them unique?  What weakness do you see that needs correction?  What do you want to foster and encourage in them? Write it down.  Tell your circle.  And ask about their children, so you can all be watchful to help foster the talents that each child was born with.  Pray for them as well as yours.  We have to be passionate advocates for our child’s inner soul that is crying out to be heard.  And we can support and lift up other mothers who are doing the same thing for their own.

My dear mothers, we are in this fight together.  The fight to keep our children safe and pure in spirit, for their heart to not be hardened, wise enough to make smart decisions, and the integrity to stand up for justice and mercy.  We have to band together, arm in arm, and say “I stand with you in this fight.”  Mothers of sons who may someday want to date my daughter, please teach your sons about consent and respect and how precious we should treat our women.  Mothers of my daughter’s friends, please teach your daughters to be good and loyal friends.  Mothers, teach your children not to fear stepping into a male-dominated field.  And for boys to respect the playing field around them and treat all as equals. Because you children are all precious and loved in our eyes, and in the eyes of your heavenly father.  We stand together and support you, whatever that pathway looks like.

We are releasing our children in a different world. The Land of Adulthood is at their fingertips, with a swipe and a touch, images they might not be prepared to see.   Stereotypes they might not be prepared to fit.  Hate they might not be equipped to handle.

We should sit together, hands interlocked.   We know each soul.  We hear each voice.  We are working together to help raise these daughters and these sons up to be strong and courageous, persuasive and not manipulative.  And when we see things go sideways, we love through it.  We encourage instead of shame. We support instead of chastise. We have a troop at our disposal, to come to each other’s aid.  To fight behind the scenes.  To create an environment of acceptance.  To work so hard in a way our children may never see, to create pathways for them to walk, rooms where they can rest, life that is a balm to the hurt around them.

Don’t give up. Not for one second.  Don’t even think of giving up.  Instead, put on your battle gear, mommas.  Arm yourself with knowledge and power and other women around you.  Raising adults is hard, and yet we are capable of it.

Troops, dust off that apathy.  Join hands.  We have work to do.

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(threew’s).flickr.com/photos/trocaire/35455645164/in/photolist-W26s3Y-4tYExp-7KZZzv-2cWNX-8Aeu8H-aSwtRk-6Kjy8d-7KZHpK-m1dWXA-8XcbS3-7GeU4V-73qLQ6-7KQhzK-FF7B47-quQp7-eimg1q-9DoYF3-6vWgnX-bym8hL-e9d7st-22vdPgo-9SBkzK-FjrkAq-21GXVA7-7dxLYk-64NrH5-8mrVnD-aX2MxX-qowYgB-4tYEHT-4u3GLA-7S2UN2-7HimkQ-8fRj8v-9vJrA4-nJuD8V-RiBCVk-TpnwWJ-iWkNdC-WoENyg-7Heg8M-bTdr1p-g6eUJs-cbQzeE-7KAqxT-6YzmM-7wQ7Vo-bo4wyM-WFZjqY-7KFHhQ

MONDAY

Hey kids! I realize last week I said “oh, man I dodged that bullet” when I had the time down wrong on the parent/teacher conference, but that was a harmless expression.  Now we are talking about actual bullets that come from real weapons.  I realize half your friends are angry teenagers wearing black carrying backpacks, but learn to have a more discerning eye.

TUESDAY

Hello lovelies! Let’s go to the park after school today! Not the actual park outside (#allergies) but the one inside a fast-foot restaurant where I can watch you at every moment (#pedophiles). Go have fun at school and be sure to enjoy every moment and smell the flowers (but not too closely because of the pollen).

WEDNESDAY

Hey Sweetcakes! A super-resistant flu strand is going around (thanks to the overuse of antibiotics) so this time I’d like for you to power wash your hands with bleach-vinegar wash three times and you’re going to be drinking  a concoction daily of apple cider vinegar mixed with elderberry flower before and after dinner.  Don’t complain about the fact that it tastes like you’re drinking pool cleaner.  Consider it a blessing I’m #alloverit with your health.  And you are forbidden to eat the stupid Sun chips your friend Mike is giving you at lunch.  Just because they include “sun” in the name doesn’t mean they are whole grain or come from the earth or are blessed by nature or won’t give you diarrhea.  Those little buggers are just Doritos with a souped-up title.

THURSDAY

What-up kidlets!  What a great day!  I thought today after school we’d head downtown to look at all the women who are gripped by poverty and have a raging heroin problem.  See how their hair is falling out and they look dazed and confused? That’s all the drugs.  Please don’t start vaping and using those things that look like flash drives even though the vapor smells like cotton candy.  I know in the movies drugs look fun and breathing in green apple vapor seems okay, but it’s a gateway to heroin, bad teeth and a life in prison.  You have nice shiny hair.  Don’t ruin it.

FRIDAY

Howdy, my favorite children! You managed to not get shot, killed by a bomb, and I see you aren’t doing heroin!  Way to go!  Let’s go grab a sweet treat at the bakery.  Let’s also talk about how the wheat germ has been hijacked in America and how they pull all the inner guts out of the original grain so that we don’t eat a solid amount of fiber and how our diet is causing a massive obesity epidemic and causing a ton of people to have celiac.  Yikes-a-mundo! Let’s maybe get a gluten-free muffin or perhaps some hummus and carrot sticks?  Vegan soy ice cream is a solid alternative due to your food sensitivities and eczema.  YAY!  I love spending my afternoons with you guys doing fun normal things parents and children do!

SATURDAY

What’s up, kiddos?  I know we watch a ton of movies that glorify violence and murder (hey, whatever!) but let’s not do the one thing that brings extreme enjoyment to humanity (sex? Ack! I can barely speak the word!).  Seriously. You’re too young and protection is difficult for adults to talk about.  Condoms are creepy! How can we talk about safety in the bedroom at your age?  You’re barely out of diapers! Plus, you’ll fall in love with some young punk in high school and trust me, he isn’t going to give you what you really need in life running a used-car lot.  We encourage you to do other things for fun, but NOT heroin or eating doughnuts or playing with guns and I’ve already expressed my distain for sun chips.  What about Monopoly?

SUNDAY

You know what?  I’m not sure I care.  Just play on your electronics all day in the dark of your bedroom if you want to.  You’ll get tired of it eventually.  Everyone hates one another.  Trump is President.  Felicia just got half a million bucks from her ex-husband as a settlement and is in Hawaii while I still work at this crummy bank.  I think we should all go out and eat greasy burgers and binge on Netflix and curl up together.  Can I just tickle you like the old days?  If I have to eat another carrot cake cupcake made with whole wheat flour I’m gonna hurl.  They are not even cupcakes at all, amIright?  I am done trying to protect you.  You’re twelve years old.  You’ll figure it out.  Your father and I are going for a long stroll downtown and we are going to drink champagne for no other reason than we aren’t divorced and we still like to laugh at each other’s jokes.  I mean it’s Sunday afternoon. You’re alive.  We own a home. There’s frozen pizza in the freezer and a phone if you need to call 9-11. There are cookies on the counter.  Feel free to pig out.  Take a nap.  We love you.  But we are done with the helicoptering.  Frankly, it’s too exhausting.  You’ll be just fine.  Right?  What is that I hear?  All you want is Sun Chips and no more vinegar smoothies?  Fine.  At least you aren’t doing heroin.

There are times in life that are suffocating.  When something hits you like a brick in the gut and all the wind is forced out your throat.  For a moment, or maybe days or weeks, you wonder.  Will I breathe again?  Will I even be able to move again?  Your husband had an affair.  Your child is found to have a drug problem.  Your father had a heart attack.  You have cancer.  Things that you did not expect and come from nowhere just come barreling into you– unwelcomed and damned pieces of truth – that cause you to just take rapid breaths in quick succession and walk around the living room in concentric circles not making any damn sense.    And you want to scream at someone, rip something up, throw something against the wall until it shatters.  Anger is the only tool at your disposal because you simply have no other emotion that matches the intensity of this thing.

I have been in this place.  A place of awakening where a veil around you that is torn, a bubble popped, a world that you worked so hard to create for yourself that is peaceful and calm is somehow ripped apart and is scattered like little shards about your feet.  A darkness streams in like something from a Harry Potter film, a wind that you cannot see, a cold that you cannot hide from.  And you wrap your hands around your arms and sit with the brick in your gut in the freezing rain and think “this is not what I had planned.  This not the world that I wanted.  This is not the life that I expected.”

I’m on the other side of that wall with my hand placed on the mortar, speaking to you.

It’s hard to figure out a pathway through sometimes.  You have to sit inside the darkness of that truth, flipping over in some hard bed or pacing the floor and thinking about how you can possibly move forward.  What is the future of this.  What is the next step from here.  How can I survive yet another thing.

In times like these, I pray.  Not an eloquent prayer of love, or some lofty-sounding plea, but a desire to simply be held.  Held like a child, how an infant needs swaddling or a baby wants to be curled up sleeping next of his mother’s bare and bonding skin.  I simply pray that I’ll make it until the morning, that the light that is invisible to me will someday be seen, that I will be able to sleep through the night and get up the next day, alive and breathing.

After all, we don’t have the luxury of breaking down.  Children depend on us, work is waiting on us, clients are calling us.  We have to get up and let the hot water practically burn our skin in the shower and we put on our suits and smiles and mascara.  We nail that speech or that project or that work to be done.  And then we fall over again after, in the hotel room of our life, just collapsing from the weight we have to carry.

But can you see it, my friends inside of this box?  The gift this carries with it that you do not realize?   The ability to carry on in such times is a powerful thing.  The power we have to compartmentalize and move forward and do the hard work that needs to be done even though our inner child is hurt and wounded is hard. This itself is a form of perseverance, and what it says in the book of James about building up endurance through hardship is true.  To know that we are hurt, but to get up and move, and to trust that God will work out all evil for his ultimate good.  To trust that God has our best interests at heart despite all the darkness, and that ultimately light will enter in – this is true power.

The other day I was filled with dread, to the point where my heart rate rose and I had to pull over to the side of the road.  An image of a friend’s daughter filled my heart. She is a former drug addict and is fresh in her recovery, and it plagued me.  I sent her daughter a message, and prayed for her safety.  I didn’t know what was happening but I felt an urge to send her some telepathic message, to intervene for her.  I prayed that God would give her strength to say to whatever evil she was facing to stand down.  And words came upon my heart so strongly.  Stand down, bad influences.  Stand down, apathy.  Stand down, little voice in her mind that said she’s a worthless ugly loser of a girl and that she wasn’t worth sobriety.  Stand the fuck down.  It continued to hold me though the grocery store, and in the aisles between the peanut butter and the paper towels.  I assumed people would think I was on bluetooth as I muttered STAND DOWN through the aisles. Over and over and over.  Maybe I was speaking to her.  Maybe I was just speaking to myself.  After about five minutes, the feeling passed.  I stopped praying and went back to buying cans of sparkling water and pondering why there’s so much flavored coffee.

But it made me think how so many people are aching.  And at times, it is I who aches. I’m no hero.  But I can say with certainty that I know, and I understand, what this feeling of helplessness feels like.  So many times in my life I have wondered how I could possibly move on.

But I did.  And I will continue to do so.  Because I believe that dark nights of the soul are part of us.  They forge us.  They burn a hole in us that will eventually heal, and we show people our scars so that they will gather strength from our suffering. And we find a way through this night to a morning where we put on our shoes and lace them up tight.  Because life can’t break us.  It can’t ruin us.  It can only push us down for a time.  We are able to get back up and keep on keeping on.  We won’t let it win, this ugly darkness.  It won’t win over us because we keep on saying, over and over into the dark night, into the wind that chills and freezes and makes our teeth chatter, to evil so dark that it scares us to our very bones,

Stand down. You are not welcome here.

photo

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(threew’s).flickr.com/photos/paulsimpson1976/5086239029/in/photolist-8KsiEn-9H62cp-6eGkqn-6eLtto-gnR22E-cKkhK9-b8XxBx-bFapve-aduEYK-aZBUye-q2K9FT-8Fg7wM-cjf8xs-q3xkgK-aN7qyF-8iJtru-ryRP4Z-as9qGx-ZXLx8n-7L4M9m-Y1em43-8BeNoN-caR8tq-7Lphqd-Xjknsz-4dCmx4-r2hi5y-bAqeP9-UBQEpo-c5gmPw-gcRrMd-9W2TUo-5i11AS-61pcSS-dCAqrH-5hygTA-cjhDRh-azCpmj-XmtJFu-5xP7Hs-azCpm9-5v4D74-tmWCR-9jX3Pw-7JaQvb-5htVfK-kGjpq3-5i4DBD-6DPVqE-au2jhs

Loosen up that corset, Gertrude

Ladies and Gentleman,

Thank you for being members in our prestigious club.  We pride ourselves in having the richest, most distinguished, most polished residents that enjoy golfing, sneering, gossiping, day drinking, tennis, and apparently eating a lot of beans.  We love you.  But, we had a little issue last year at the charity gala we’d like to bring to your attention. Don’t be alarmed.  We received all your letters about how we over-salted the potatoes.  We won’t make that mistake again!

But there was an issue that bubbled up that needs to be brought to your attention. It appears that a small minority of you felt it was appropriate to release certain gasses that may have put others in imminent harm.  Both the Darling and Stevenson families had to leave early due to breathing difficulties from such a large load of methanol released into the air. Dr. Darling is our biggest patron and has an issue with smells.  He is now asking for us to use lavender dryer sheets for the golf towels, and of course we have to oblige. Please don’t make us pander.

Such gasses, which we will simply refer to as “dissonance” to our otherwise harmonious air, likely exited the cavities of several of our patron’s bodies, causing a volatile odor in the ballroom. The wait staff said it was hard to refill tea glasses and take up dirty plates from tables due to the sulfur-like odor they described as smelling like “a skunk who ate a bad batch of lobster topped with a feces crumble.”

The scent varies from person to person depending on his or her biochemistry, bacteria in the colon, whether or not a person has class, or is named Larry.  According to a local flatologist, such gas contains nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, your self esteem, oxygen, and some methane.  Many of these compounds are highly flammable, and our fire chief insists upon the strict adherence to our fire code.  We can’t have any possible fire hazards with this many sternos burning on our buffet tables.

Now listen here. We realize that gumbo was a poor first course last year.  We will also strive to never again serve steamed cabbage and will stick to more basic foods that won’t cause your rear end to light up like a blow torch.  But you must do your part.  If you feel something rumbling and gathering up steam, please eat some cheese, squeeze all the body openings or cavities that might have some relation to this potential toxicity, and don’t move until the urge passes.  Even if there is a fire drill.  Especially if there is a fire drill.  By moving, you will add to the problem.

In sum, please control yourself in this year’s gala.  The planning committee worked very hard on this year’s theme, which is “A starry night.”  That is representative of a clear night so that you can see the stars and they don’t want it to turn into a cloudy misty night that smells like rotten eggs. If you must let one rip, please go out on the golf course and wait until the wind is blowing in an eastwardly direction toward the town house of Michael Stevens, who failed to pay his annual dues but is the only tennis pro in the county who will work for free.

We thank you for your patience and we are looking forward to an evening that reeks only of expensive perfume and money.

Yours most truly,

The Riverdale Country Club

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photo:

(threew’s).flickr.com/photos/thelostgallery/16858296605/in/photolist-rFHbfi-8hKQyg-iHjmY9-rQ7t1i-7VuvFD-bab9HV-jHQL7e-ebVMaq-bsDvzq-7gaLB5-dT4DjZ-2Rku1-3KFpgQ-jHJoe8-pMTJQy-9HsZXk-q9aRxA-qeTEon-q92znq-9iY121-6kpjZb-9N39yh-7g6QX8-7VkcBZ-7g6Q1F-9sh4Aj-7g6QG4-5Rx3yG-7g6RDB-afdHGa-8n1JJ6-7hHn2v-nwkTwA-9nZN1K-a5BDSW-2Rktq-qFZ5CK-D6zQGq-D855Y8-7Vkcik-dTa8eu-pTNChB-dT4vgt-Bbw72j-obwDAC-D6zQXq-ELWWQ5-ASnNDT-pTGtVs-qbg8UF

NPR:  Today we have with us the head of environmental policy under President Trump, Larry Stewart.

Larry: That’s me!

NPR:  Yes, we know it’s you.  We invited you.  We see you here in the studio. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to speak with us about climate change.

Larry:  I’m not sure what you’re talking about.

NPR:  With regard to climate change?  Do you not understand what that phrase means or are you just confused as to what’s going on generally?  It’s Studio 11B.  You’re at NPR.  Your name is Larry.   You used to be the lead singer of Restless Heart, a country band, but now you apparently run the nation’s top environmental agency.

Larry: Look, I’ll make this brief. The President has informed us to open up land and fields to oil companies for drilling.  It’s that simple. We are opening up our hearts and minds and welcoming in the money. Don’t try to stop me, the boy’s on a roll.

NPR:  This is a drastic shift in policy translating into a bill in Congress or is it just the whim of – wait what?  Who’s trying to stop who?  What boy?

Larry:  Just trying to make American great again.

NPR: Look. I realize this is tough but let’s try to focus on the fact that references to climate change appear to be scrubbed from government websites.  Can you comment on this?

Larry (laughing): Nobody scrubbed anything about this thing you reference that we should not talk about.

NPR: We know that minds may differ, Larry, but can we not all agree there is at least the existence of an environment on our planet?  That we have in the past had some studies in regard to this issue? Can you comment on this at all, Larry?

Larry:  I find that you are using my name quite a bit in your questions.  I’m not sure if this is meant to throw me off.  But I’m a hard-hitter and believe that big dreams can exist in a small town and I’m not sure why everything has to be right or wrong.

NPR:  Those are Restless Heart lyrics, Larry. Why are you quoting us music lyrics when we asked you why the government is eliminating any reference to climate change?

Larry: That rock won’t roll.

NPR: Is that some reference to our earth?  As in the earth is a rock and it won’t roll?  Because it does roll in the sense that it’s spinning.  You do know about this, right Larry? That the earth spins?

Larry: It’s a freedom that we all wanna know.  It’s an obsession to some, to keep the world in your rearview mirror while you try to run down the sun.

NPR: THAT IS ANOTHER SONG LYRIC.  We have google, Larry.  Did the President just pluck you from Kentucky and put you in the government overseeing all of our environmental policy when you know zero about the environment?

Larry:  I don’t like your tone.  We are defunding you.

NPR:  I apologize.  I let the sheer absurdity of the situation at hand get the better of me.  But the EPA doesn’t have any authority or jurisdiction over funding for public radio.  Why would you even say that?

Larry: We owned this town.

NPR:  WHY DO YOU CONTINUE TO QUOTE COUNTRY SONGS TO ME. YOUR GLORY DAYS ARE OVER.

Larry:  I run the EBA and I can do what I want. I’ll have you know I was a very big deal in 1986 and the mullet was a stylish haircut.

NPR:  It’s the Environmental Protection Agency, Larry. Not sure what the “B” is for.

Larry:  Say what’s in your heart.

NPR: Okay we’re done.

Recorded on January 11, 2018

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photo:

(threew’s).flickr.com/photos/oddwick/4331187208/in/photolist-7AJt4w-3Ejxgk-UDftv-qt5a94-4MQFL9-qXg9DR-8n6ums-61hPpF-9pjSgM-61Lrk6-wJqQbQ-8n3n5r-cCkWjJ-VE9uX7-8LYJzp-adG2Kz-8SRc8J-cAN8Dm-8n6uH5-6H8uKf-8n3mY6-8PrKT8-8FCuNd-6H4sfa-cK6FGL-qx6GK8-2vVkpu-LRAkD-DoaptK-6H8uZN-8n6u2w-UGFUKN-akjJ21-V65ytG-UGFVdm-fZxxwX-VkKggF-6JjF23-dBQSFW-6JjFWC-6JjGes-ovy2mX-dBKsvx-uom7h-5CmVi4-6JfAhZ-4WrXBJ-TZmQXA-azE1Tg-9Syz5f

Click HERE to go to Belladonna Comedy and read my new humor post on how to properly use a slow cooker.  This is a very funny humor website written exclusively by women and it has some really funny stuff on there.  Check it out! And keep on being slow!

An example of a cookie that no one should strive for. Who spends 20 minutes on one freaking cookie that looks like your grandmother’s quilt?

Seriously it’s insane.

Stop it.

Volunteer at a homeless shelter or something. Watch a movie.  Stare aimlessly into space dreaming up new ice cream flavors. Anything.

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Expectations.  I look at them.  I manage my life against them.  They are the bane of me.  The ruiner of things.  A destroyer of hope.  When we plan out our lives in accordance to some lofty expectations, we will not only likely be disappointed and regretful, it’s almost guaranteed to be so.  We will constantly look back and think what if and why me and the dreaded “but this is not the way I had it planned.”  Of course it’s not the way you had it planned.  Who plans disaster and divorce and cancer and death?  Who plans to make ugly sugar cookies or burn toast?

Maybe it starts in childhood.  If you have a good one, you want to repeat it.  If you have a bad one, you want to replace it.  You have a certain map in your mind that lays out the future of your life, and when it goes off course you can either learn to correct it or just sit and cry. Many times you course correct.  You think of yourself as brave and clever and keep going new directions.  Until one day you hit your limit of turns. So you sit and cry, for no other reason except you are so damn tired.  Changing things takes a lot of work, especially with a brain like mine that sees things in predictable chapters.

I was practically born in church. The comfort of hymns and carols and preachers saying things is strangely calming to me.  It brings back memories of my mother stroking my hair in the church pew.  It brings back nights of my youth running around the halls and playing games.  And it brings back the peace of Christ when all else failed. Some people don’t see this.  To them, God is the keeper of a far-away and elitist circle that has power and influence, and if you aren’t inside of it, you’re out of it. I suppose I am inside of this circle and can’t see it, how the collective people of believers may come across to those on the outside.  But when people close to me see my faith as foreign, it’s hard.

I was practically born a lawyer.  I knew from a young age I would plow forward to law school, form arguments, write things.  When I was in college people sometimes asked if I thought of music as a career and I’d say “oh no, not me.  I’m going to be a litigator and go to trial and #winthings and #beatpeople and #stealtheshow.”  Although I didn’t say it that way.  But power and winning is intoxicating.  Today, I’m a transactional lawyer and my goal now is not to win but to simply solve my client’s problems.  I’ve learned after all these years that stealing the show is simply living in the background sometimes, doing the right thing, consistently. A win for the client can be at your expense if necessary, and compromise really is the way life works.  If I could only see how the real world worked back then in law school, the way honor and ethics and being true to your word is the only win that matters.

And I was born a control freak.  As a child, I’d tell my sister what to do.  I’d tell my mother how I thought things should go. I actually told my piano teacher enough already with Beethoven and perhaps we could work on composition rather than just playing things other people composed.  That was the day my mother quit spending her hard-earned teacher salary on piano lessons. But the fact is, I do know the way to line a sugar cookie and flood the icing.  I do know how to write a brief to make it compelling and persuasive. I do know how to make a wonderful crock of split pea soup with ham.  And I know what is best for all the children of the world that belong to all people all of the time.  Or I don’t.  After living these years, I can say with certainty that my way isn’t the only valid way.  I can see how my controlling tendencies can be misunderstood and misinterpreted, and just flat-out wrong sometimes.  And for someone into #winning and #nailingit and #lawyering and #prettysugarcookies, it is hard to be wrong and to be flexible and to admit that I don’t have all the answers.  It’s not just hard, it’s exhausting.

So today I look at expectations and say to them, “I give in.”  I cannot keep up with you.  I don’t have the perfect situation and the perfect life and the perfect body and the perfect image of what I expected.  Because expectations mean that we feel we are in charge.  We are not.  We are one hundred percent without a shred of doubt not in charge of what happens around us in this crazy life. Thank heavens.  We’d probably screw it up even worse.

I have a very good life with so many wonderful things.  And so do you.  What I have learned is that out of the most barren fields, sprouts can grow. Out of the most unexpected of places, a child was born to save the world.  Out of the most confusing of pathways, Jesus came.  Out of a family that is different than I expected, a career that looks different now than it did back then, a life more adjustable than I ever imagined, and more life twists than a pretzel, here I am. Standing up.  Moving forward.  Living.

Sometimes you just have to let it all go, the image of things, and look at what’s in front of you.  Maybe it’s a huge turd or a diagnosis or crying that never seems to end.  Step over the turd.  Acknowledge that you have this sickness and get the best help you can.  Let go of the anger.  Tell people you are trying out for a new play and you are trying to get the crying scene down. You are #noquitter.  Embrace the turns, because it’s the only life you get.  If you don’t keep moving with the pathways, you run face-first into a tree.  And then, no one will be eating your beautiful sugar cookies because you’ll have oak-print on your face spitting acorns out of your mouth and can’t make it to the kitchen.

So cry until you’re done and then stop it already.  Get up, wipe your face, and stick a smile on it.  After all, ugly cookies are still cookies. They are from the heart.  Your kids gleefully dump sprinkles on them.  Nobody I know hates cookies.  Whether it’s grief or Lyme’s or cancer or divorce, you can do this.  One step, one left turn, one day at a time. Let go of your bullshit expectations.  To me, that’s really the definition of #nailingit. One cookie, one foot, one turn at a time.

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photo:

(three w’s).flickr.com/photos/oldworldcookies/5485884188/in/photolist-9mLAf9-qdkyuu-XAP5qr-and7zN-isAK7Y-C6U6hE-8urFji-iosL9K-6dgoJj-8ykqC3-7tW4BA-ZabPij-6uCeXv-ZbmT62-h9uiv3-ecTZZJ-im6LPt-91wDUU-pWAko2-ph3vsC-91ty6i-91wC5d-91txqD-LJsk9-91tvxD-91wGHU-dQohcc-7eaH44-q552a9-7kjUcY-UHn7qz-6vFCv2-9hwXaX-91vikv-bo6Mvt-aTqWbK-91yADw-91vrgk-91vhwi-91vsrp-8sXLz8-dJp23u-91vktt-7ZqK2-91yzwJ-dTYLiQ-ziGgz-91vqZx-91vrtX-5RQ7vg