Happiness or Joy?

It’s hard to believe that I’m awake at this hour. Only moving into day three of a new resolve to transform my life. It’s odd thinking that way, honestly, because how exactly does one go from being completely immersed in self-pity and depression and self-indulgence get here: another rebirth. How many rebirths are necessary for true happiness? Weird thinking of how many times I’ve made attempts at being happy, but it isn’t about the attempts but about the end goal: happiness. Happiness in itself is indeed fleeting and temporary. Joy, on the other hand, I’ve heard from the pulpit many times is unending and everlasting. So many preach on it yet, so few actually embrace and experience it.

My latest fascination that has nothing to do with homemaking or business (I run a unique bakery business from my home) has been the celebrity gossip. I was always deterred away from such things as a child with my parents citing “gossip” and “lust” (I found a few boy band members and popular actors attractive) as things to abhor and shun in their strict view of Christianity. Now I find it comforting to find an outrageous story, partially true or completely fiction, to be a break from my own reality. That is why we enjoy stories, isn’t it? To be drawn away and awed by something outside the usual? I was binge watching Jane the Virgin and finding her character one I could easily identify with: she was religious and trying to always do the right thing no matter what the chaos of life (albeit telenovela style) threw at her. That is how I see myself, someone who always wants to be loving and fair and accepting of others while still holding to the right values.

Right values. Interesting use of words. What is it, then, that I consider right? And why exactly do I define my relationship with God as religion instead of relationship like many Christians do, especially the ones that I grew up with. Let’s be frank here: it is religion. The emphasis many Christians that I’ve known over the years place on the word relationship is intended to demonstrate how they have a spiritual experience with Jesus, God, or even the Holy Spirit much like they would with an actual live person. The belief in the Trinity of God being the Father (God), Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit means often this relationship is described as simply one or all of those names. They talk to God as if talking to a friend, which I think can be a beautiful thing, but for me it is irreverent and assumptive that we can fully be friends with God because of Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection. For me, I don’t believe I’ll ever be worthy, as human as I am and God being, well, GOD. I believe in preserving the Godhead relationship with respect and reverence and holiness. My experience with God is the same. When I enter a church, I want to feel the reverence and holiness of that moment and awe in Who God is and how He has created all things. That, my friends, is religion, not necessarily relationship. I may have a relationship with God through my religion and I may talk to God through that relationship via prayer but it is still religion.

Perhaps this is why I resonate with Jane the Virgin, this fictional Netflix character. She is religious, too, and doesn’t bring Jesus into everything. In fact, I think she hardly mentions Jesus, but then that might be smart of Netflix seeing as the historical figure of Jesus, Whom I believe was/is God’s Son, would be a political, &c. faux pau. For me, though, Jesus is the most significant influence in my life. Even as I sit here, two plus years in therapy, deconstructing my life in order to flush out all trauma and heal all old wounds. I’ve gone to prayer tents, therapists, those known to have spiritual gifts of prophecy (that’s a fun one to get into), and even had a prayer session called a sozo where I was guided by a trained believer through prayer releasing spiritual bonds and asking for healing. My sozo was interesting and revealing, but I didn’t necessarily feel healed by it. I remember pieces of it where the prayer leader went through different relationships such as my parents, my siblings, my romantic partners, and prayed for healing of past trauma or wrongs I was still wounded by. The prayer for release from spiritual bonds was interesting as many Christians believe that once someone has penetrative sex with a partner that they forever have a spiritual bond to them. Now that my sexual knowledge has grown extensively (such a topic in an abstinence/purity culture is off limits even for educational purposes), I am realizing that sex with my husband (because any other sex would be infidelity and a mortal sin, including masturbation and pornography)…as I was saying: I am realizing sex with my husband can be an enjoyable experience but that certain knowledge and experience definitely has to come into play (no pun intended) before the climax is even possible as a woman. Penetration is only a small part of the entire experience. Anyways, the sozo prayer took possibly two hours with a box of tissues and two prayer leaders- one leading and the other praying with their hand on your back because of some verse saying something about “laying on of hands” or the like so there’s this superstitious belief that it’ll make the prayer work like magic better. That’s what I’m finding, honestly, that much of Christian belief is based off of superstition and very little in the modern-day churches I’ve gone to is actually based on Scripture and historical facts…at least when it comes to worship songs and prayer practices.

That is, in part, why I find at least a little more comfort in the churches who follow Scripture more closely and intentionally and openly, yet they also openly recognize the many ways they could still get it wrong. Even the authors I listen to for Christian commentary openly admit that they’re just doing the best they can. For me, I just want to be like Jesus- the Jesus of the Bible and the historical Jesus. I remember a course I took in college fondly at a state university. It was called “The Historical Jesus” and it explored all the historical documents that existed around His lifetime and after like the Book of Mormon. Although traditionally Christianity calls Mormonism a cult at its worst and a misled following at best, it was interesting to read through it. Mormons, honestly, have a much better understanding of what is in the Christian Bible more than many of the Christians I know do. They even have a whole apologetics class that focuses on facts given in the final cut of the Bible. And honestly, the breakdown of how books of the Bible were even selected (called the Canon) is pretty amazing. I read the ones that aren’t in the “Protestant Bible” (any Holy Bible found in a bookstore) but only the Catholic Bible like The Gospel of Mary. It was enlightening to read more than just the New Testament in my own copy of the Bible. That class helped shape a better understanding of Who Jesus was and Who He is to me. It was impossible to separate historical fact from faith in my final paper where we were tasked to answer, “Who was Jesus?” while citing every single source and we were required to have many sources outside the Bible. I wish I still had a copy. I couldn’t even recollect those sources or even what I wrote, but the task was so daunting that I only received a “C” where in every other class I was always, always receiving Dean’s List marks.

So in this journey to better myself and heal myself, I have found a husband whom I wasn’t expecting at all, lost a few babies, have had a very mysterious bout of illness that has had me up and down and all around, and I’ve become a mother. I’ve gone through several careers hoping that perhaps stress was the reason to my illnesses only to discover that even as a stay-at-home-mom that I am far too bored doing “so little” to contribute to the community and household. I felt so burnt out in California and once we arrived in Colorado, I had the relief of a few moms to talk to in our shared apartment front yard, but they shared such different values and then whole tension of the neighborhood fell on me when my half-white, half-Hispanic friend kicked an African American boy out of the yard for breaking one of my young daughter’s toys. The kids of the neighborhood said it was me, and being all white and 2020, I was blamed and called a racist. Oddly enough, I wasn’t even in the yard when it happened. I was upstairs in my apartment helping my daughter use the potty. It got so bad that we had to quickly move.

Chaos. That’s how I remember the first apartment here in Colorado. I so badly wanted to make a positive mark on the community that I baked birthday cakes and held small birthday parties for the kids. I painted faces and brought down games. All of it my daughter got to take part in, too, but sadly the label was louder than the actions and when the noise issues started and complaints had to be made to the property managers and police since I wasn’t being listened to, it just got worse and worse. My requests for respect of quiet enjoyment became fuel to their acceptance of racist rumors, so here we are in the quiet countryside, thankfully, where the only noise complaint I have is the state highway nearby.

Nowhere we have lived has been ideal. Each apartment or house rental, and even this one home we have a mortgage on, has had its shortcomings, yet each one besides El Cajon and Colorado Springs has been enjoyable. I sure did enjoy the pool in the apartment complex at El Cajon where we met an actor trying to make it big in the spotlight. Colorado Springs had its beautiful surroundings outside our neighborhood. Everything felt so close by in those apartments, but the quiet suburban or rural areas were definitely ideal for me.

And now that it’s 8:30am, I decided I must stop writing for a while, at least in this blog. I have a list of work I hope to accomplish today while having some alone time. It’s been lovely to reflect again and allow my mind to wander a bit. Funny how I thought healing before now would be linear. Now, it being 12 years later since recommitting my life to Christ, I’m accepting that experience is proving healing is never linear. Only in science where a bruised branch heals, for example, is healing ever linear. And even then, healing can prove to be elusive and unpredictable, but now that I have accepted it is not linear, I feel like I can finally make great progress. Goodbye to the days where I thought writing in a notebook should be listed in order or typing prose would follow an assigned timeline. We are profoundly spiritual creatures, after all. Spiritual creatures do not fit inside an outline.

Breakthrough?

I hesitate to call this a breakthrough because what if it isn’t? What if this is a moment in time that needs to be repeated time and time again? Yet what if that moment repeated time and time again is exactly what my heart and soul needs to begin on a path to health and happiness? So I must write about it and save it so I can read it time and time again and remember and FEEL everything I am now feeling.

I did it. I hit the ultimate rock bottom. Frustrated, bloated, and genuinely angry with myself- those are the emotions swirling around after an evening of binge eating. It was any other day but it was one that my energy was low, my pain was high, and yet another ailment was waving at me every few minutes: an ear infection this time. The pity party went something like this: “I’ll never get a break…even in the best weather I’ll feel bad [in pain/fibromyalgia]…why is it so cloudy out, I’m miserable…I’m useless, I can’t even use simple self control…my husband doesn’t enjoy being married to a fat pig…I’m disgusting…I’m huge…I’m worthless…I hate myself…when will my heart just stop…?”

As if actually HEARING how I was talking to myself wasn’t enough, trying to write about it and leave my husband a note as a cry for help just wouldn’t come. The crumbs of the cake I had finished were already evident on the couch and carpet. The trash can barely concealing the evidence, but I made a feeble attempt anyways. I knew he would see it even if I buried it a little. He was always better at remembering the trash to the point where I barely ever took it out when it was full. What came next was also part of the breakthrough- a real life disaster was all over my Facebook feed every time I opened the app: 17 children and one teacher dead in another school shooting and this time it was in Texas and the body count is still rising as the injured fight for their lives in nearby hospitals. Suddenly my awful relationship with body, heart, soul, and food seemed so small. Now I was worrying about my little girl starting school in a less than four months. Will she be safe? I won’t ever know the answer to that as some gunmen have found their way around security. Then the same whispers I’ve felt before reminded me that she has to leave the nest or she will never fly. The risk of her safety will always be in the balance and there is little I can do except radically hold onto the solace of believing God will take care of her when I cannot.

Oh, God. Hi. It’s been a long time. I read about You a lot, You know. Oh, of course You know. You kinda know everything. I’d like to talk anyways. I don’t have too many people to talk to these days. Parenting can often be lonely like that. When there is time to talk, our kids are in the background needing a “don’t do that” or something else draws the attention away from the conversation every few sentences. Phone calls are impossible, but I know it won’t be like this forever. Someday our children will be mature enough to respect the space of an adult conversation in person or on the phone, but for now the unintentional isolation is strange. We need each other and yet we cannot truly be there for one another. Time, distance, fatigue… parenting definitely isn’t for the faint of heart.

I thought I would be more resilient, You know. I thought I would be playful and kind and ever so patient. But, You know, I’m hardly that. If You are trying to grow my soul into something better then You definitely picked the right child. I didn’t think I would ever be challenged like this…I actually thought with how badly I wanted a child and all the experience I brought to the table that parenting would be…well, EASY. It’s just the opposite. It is harder than marriage. In marriage, at least in mine, there’s a mature adult in it with you. Here, maturity and social and communication skills are completely missing. Children need a safe and healthy environment to develop and grow all that. And in there lies the challenge: my five plus years being married before our child means my expectations totally don’t match where my child is actually at. And I react. I try not to, but I do.

Back in 2010, I made a very clear and confident, albeit radical, decision to intentionally love my husband no matter what. After he was clearly the man I wanted to be with and after it was clear that he knew how to love in a healthy manner, I went all in. After news of the shooting had me up until 4am, I awoke at 8am exhausted to the core of my being. I hadn’t been exhausted like that since she was a newborn and I was checking into the hospital for postpartum care. Her sweet little body curled up with mine on the couch while I struggled through a cup of coffee. Her hair still smelled sweet from the bath the night before. She was so beautifully perfect with her messy hair, blue screen glasses, and ruffled pajamas. My sweet child. That’s when it hit me fully. It was only maybe ten minutes since I was curled up against my husband, unable to cry, but able to say, “I hate myself. I hate this and being unable to get up in the morning or go to sleep at night. I hate this.” He soothed me by rubbing my back and coaxing me out of bed with his kisses. How does he still love me so purely? I stepped on the scale on my way stumbling out of the room. Had that cake tipped it in the wrong direction? It did. I had never seen that number before. An all-time high: 250.6 lbs. Gross. And I felt ultimately gross from my achy joints to my curved back spasms. My head pounded with the need for caffeine and water.

As she curled up against me and I opened the Facebook app after every email was caught up, I felt it: that wave of grief of the unimaginable happening- sending a child to school only for them to never come back home. My heart cannot fully go there as I remember losing Jevan and when his heart just stopped. The grief nearly swallowed me whole. I had never cried like that before. It was a hungry cry that could not be soothed and cried out loud with a near scream. Anguish and hollow hunger. It was months of this, like a sobering shadow following me always. And although that scale showed me something awful and I knew I let myself fall apart in a completely new way than losing our sweet Jevan, I came back from that somehow. I had called out, cried out, hungrily to my God several times to take away the pain and He instead gently held me like my husband coaxed me out of bed with his kisses. We simply just must live. The world around me didn’t stay still like I thought it would due to my grief. These poor parents, selected by random by what I can only now describe as evil, will have to find their way as well, even if that means allowing themselves to sit in the dark sobbing for so long as I did.

I cannot begin to imagine losing my baby now. She has a beautiful life surrounded by the things she loves from pink to purple to dolls and Paw Patrol. She’s lived. My Jevan didn’t get to beyond my womb. There are five plus years of love and snuggles with my little one, so I cannot imagine to know their grief. I am only privy to what rock bottom darkness feels like due to extremity of unexpected loss. Your very breath leaves your body at the moment of the news. Words echo for years until they fade as time marches forward regardless of the heaviness of your heart.

Her hair smelled so sweet and fresh. Her soft body curled up against mine. That’s the moment my foolishness hit me. I had been given all the tools to fight back and reclaim my life, so why wasn’t I? My husband was typing away on his work computer. His clothing hugged his body perfectly. I felt that warm rise in my heart and body. I still long for his touch after all these years. His blue jeans and bare feet still intoxicate me as his muscular shoulders angle perfectly through his T-shirt. I let in a deep breath and sigh. That’s when it all changed. I turned off the phone and decidedly, radically, to change. I took my daily meds, added an extra antianxiety, went back to bed to regain my strength. My daughter enjoyed her cartoons on YouTube while my husband typed his work day away.

A few hours later, I woke up, and took a cup of coffee into the shower with me. I gulped it down, hopped in, and got to work transforming my body from sluggish to at least clean. The pain still plagued me. I know it always will, but I had enough of letting it rule my thoughts. Sure, sugar blocks it briefly, but I had enough of the cost. Laundry was next, then dishes, then sweeping…within 30 minutes our tiny house was clean. Was that all it really takes? Funny how that works- tasks that are put off for what feels like forever only taking a few moments of intentionality? Clutter was next- piles of my business’s paperwork…

Fifteen minutes later, after daydreaming of all the “I will’s” I was going to write each day to kick start it like, “I will take a shower…I will brush my teeth…I will go to bed at the same time as my husband…I will wake up at the same time as my daughter…” Another ten minutes later those resolves transform to simply taking action. The fridge is now clean and things are resuming to normal once more.

My daughter and I had a very fun afternoon of lunch together and baking together. My husband took her for a walk and I called my mom and we talked for nearly an hour. My daughter came home, we played with playdough a little while I finished the baking. Then came dinner and my husband finished some of the cleaning and the rest of the dishes. When was the last time the carpet was vacuumed? AND the laundry done at the same time? And for the first time in forever, everyone was in bed before 9:30pm

So here I am this morning finding I have more than enough time to crush those goals now. I have a list of them for my business and even more paperwork to figure out. I know I’m capable now. My weight is down to 248.0 this morning. Amazing how not binging will transform the scale in just one day. I feel far less bloated and I decided if I get stuck then I WILL write out the “I wills.” For now, I’m content to be in a clean house, a now manageable to do list, a few cups of coffee in my system, medicine already working, showered, brushed teeth, and water consumption started. I’ve had a normal, healthy breakfast. A mid-morning snack is next soon when the TV is turned off and those little giggles instead fill the room. I have a fun activity board on Pinterest for her to pick something from. She has a room to clean. Lunch will be filling and healthy, and so will dinner.

I have what it takes to be healthy. Time to simply live it and put all I know into practice.

Never Have I Ever

Have you ever played “Never have I ever…”? While attempting to find this blog once more to write, I suddenly had the inspiration to use that as my title. Odd, isn’t it? But perhaps it really isn’t because “never have I ever” written anything without fear and guilt holding me back in some shape or form. My latest obsession on Netflix lately has been “Jane the Virgin” and there are many ways that Jane has to overcome her Catholic guilt to fully express herself in her sexuality and attraction to former playboy Rafael. So many themes resonate with me as I struggle forward through the weeds of what stems my anger, frustration, and anxiety. The frustration and anger are much simpler emotions to handle. Anxiety, on the other hand, is quite an elusive beast to understand and overcome.

I just finished closing out the clean up from the biggest event of the year. It’s amazing how the anticipation created a perfect storm of nerves and excitement. I’m still baffled by feeling several emotions at a time that when it happens, especially in cases where I’m doing an event, I tend to have tunnel vision of getting the job done. The emotions to process are incredibly heady. I often feel overwhelmed by the internal storm of wanting to please others and dreading any reasons to feel as though I am too good or fall too short. How can I tote that line anyways? The need to always “stay in my own lane” is all-consuming. Yet, it’s not who I am and I long to be someone who just is comfortable with whatever talents I’ve been given. I love to design something beautiful, but when it comes to recognition, although most of it feels good, I cannot let myself stay or shine in the limelight.

This was the topic of conversation in my last session. Defining the hurdles that have held me back and perpetuated my anxiety and depression has taken years of investigation in talk therapy. I was astounded by the revelation of the primary sources: bullies and parental expectations. I was held back a grade, so my parents expected much more from me than I felt was possible even with several hours of study and attempts. I’m even afraid now to draft an outline for my business and I still hold nearly every note inside my head. Maybe I can break free from the expectation that even my notes look good, perfect even. I was required to turn in notes and outlines for a grade in high school. I remember the red ink and critiques. All these areas and opportunities for growth were what helped define my need to be excellent; however, it is a two-edge sword as it also fed into never wanting my mother to look at a paper I wrote ever again and knowing I’ll never do or be enough for her. Yet, in recent events, she has written on my Facebook that she is incredibly proud on more than one occasion: so is this even still true?

Back to getting those notes out: why am I so very attached for a notebook to be perfectly organized? Aren’t notes meant to be scribbled about and isn’t there a reason why the term “brainstorm” is meant to resemble an actual chaotic weather phenomenon? So wouldn’t it be realistic for my notes to be simply that: chaotic and unpredictable and unorganized? Notes should be a means to an end and not the end, so why were those moments of seeing red ink seen as negative reinforcement of my fears of never being good enough? Wouldn’t it be reasonable to instead believe that the teacher was intending to offer their wisdom and input into our beginning thoughts of building a final paper or project? By the actual practice of being a teacher once, hadn’t I intended the same in anything that I marked up on a student’s work? I had intended growth and not the echos of disappointment and failure.

I’ve heard the phrase before yet I’m not sure how it goes: for every negative there needs to be several more positives for the negative to be debunked. Perhaps that is where I am at the moment in rewriting my own current experiences. Can I effectively transform the shaded glasses, as opposed to rose-colored glasses, into something much more realistic and neutral? Can I effectively begin to see myself as the world seems to without the fear of being “too good” or “not good enough”? Bullies, boyfriends, well-intended teachers and parents… those defining people in my formative years don’t even exist anymore. We have all grown. We have all transformed into adults with more life experience and wisdom. Those people don’t exist anymore. Those people don’t exist anymore.

My experience now must be different. I hear my mother say she is proud. My sibling as well. And many others will drop in and comment about how beautiful my business is. I am enough. I am talented. I am resilient. I am strong. I am enough. I am not too much. I am not a disappointment. I am enough. I am talented.

*sigh* I am trying. Striving… and trying to change this storm into a calm flow like the Lazy River at Water World. I find joy in my art. I am lost in the beauty of a flower piped perfectly in a beautiful shade picked by the customer. I find a thrill in getting it right after a few tries. I find excitement in tasting a 5-star recipe online for the first time knowing it’ll bring joy to the receiver. It’ll all work out. I know deep down it will. I know deep down that I have what it takes to create a brand that I built entirely from scratch. I know I have what it takes to create an experience I can model time and time again for others. I know I can help others create wonderful memories by facilitating sight, taste, and smell into their events. I’m ready but I’m not. So, I chip away at the ideal inventory and imagine what my goals truly are. I want to get this right, so I take my time with every detail. Is it perfectionism? Perhaps, but it’s also wisdom in knowing what worked before and what didn’t through experiences in the past. I can choose to see the marks on my high school outlines as bleeding wounds or I can choose to see them as stepping stones to something more beautiful. I can be challenged without my worth being questioned. I can be encouraged to grow without feeling cut down. Because: I am enough.