Rest vs. Responsibility

I just had an amazing moment with my husband as we were discussing how to tackle a parenting dilemma. I don’t say “problem” because it wasn’t a problem. It was a stumper. It was something I was puzzled about because my own self care is quite lacking and although I now have a tidy budget line to use as I would deem for my emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being or even just for enjoyment, it is there. If I choose to use it for enjoyment, then I will not have the vitamins, massage, or comforting tea to get through the roughest parts of fibromyalgia pain during the winter….but I digress.

The dilemma: our daughter is an only child and she’s been sick. It’s been a challenging first year introduction to public school with her frequent illnesses. Some are due to some food allergies we had thought she outgrew. Some are possibly due to anxiety as kindergarten has been especially challenging to her socially. Some are due to simply being sick because, well, kids at her age often don’t think about touching their face, blowing their nose, washing their hands… Anyways, she’s been sick. It’s been more than 24 hours since she was leaning over the toilet bowl. She’s been a comfy couch potato because we found out the hard way that jumping down from a higher-than-usual captain’s bed does not leave enough time to get sick without making a mess. Thankfully, although I struggle with that sort of thing, it wasn’t that bad once I reminded myself of a “life’s bleachable moments” commercial while I tried to see the humor in it. She’s been snug in new pjs, clean blankets, and a new stuffed animal friend since last night. It’s crawling to after lunch time and she announces after nearly 36 hours that she is bored. Huzzah! Some nibbles, a break of the fever, and a food journal (caregivers with food allergy kiddo’s can prob resonate here) creeping back to normal and a loss of interest in the TV (God forbid I use this electronic babysitter to get some necessary tasks done of my own….) She’s feeling better marked in that one statement, “I’m bored…I want to play.”

Not being one to have a handle on my insomnia, overeating, and regular hygiene routine (usually due to disrupted sleep and feeling like it’s “too late” to get a shower in before the day shuffles forward) and also being unsure as to what my actual needs are: I turned to my husband after having a failed explanation as to why it was time to get dressed and prepared for the day. I mean, I’m a strong believer that what people see in behavior is far more impactful than words, especially with kindergarten aged kids. I admitted I was lost because I am now learning all this stuff, too (as well as balancing it with adult responsibilities and relationships) and that I needed his input. He is what I imagine to be “the” healthy role model of self-care. He carefully tracks what he eats to avoid overeating, he chooses healthier options of what he would like to have, sometimes he treats himself, he knows when he needs to “shake a leg” and get out for a walk, and he goes to bed at a reasonable hour (unless he is trying to be there for me in my moments of ruminating over my past or a complicated adult relationship conflict). He also is very good at making sure he works out and spends time alone working out his spirituality. He’s a true introvert, incredibly empathic, kind-hearted, and generous with is time and resources to those in need. He also has healthy boundaries as an introvert and knows when it’s time to call it a night or end a social encounter. Grant it, there are less social encounters than when we were hosting a young-adults’ group back when we were newlyweds, but the social circles we run in center around our little one. And I wouldn’t have it any other way unless he had a desire to be more involved or wanted to go out with the guys for a drink or to shoot some pool, or maybe even go target practicing in some remote sand pit or shooting range, but he’s content where he is and so I’ve left an open invite anytime he might feel like doing something like that to man the helm at home while he has some fun away from family. Truth is, he’s very much a family man and I’ve enjoyed seeing him enjoying our daughter. Introvert or not, he’s still the bee’s knees in my book as I unfold my trauma and discover that I’m actually not an introvert at all.

Anyways, I kinda gushed there for a moment. I love that I’m still very much in love with my husband- something I didn’t think would ever happen for someone like me. I can feel my inner counselor rolling their eyes at that statement, so we’ll just put a pin in it and unpack that later. Back to the dilemma and my kiddo feeling better and mommy struggling to communicate why we don’t usually stay in comfy pajamas all day…

His feedback as the kiddo pouted in their room for a moment was it was time to get some bathing in anyways. We’ve silently assigned bath/shower days for every 2-3 days unless it’s obviously needed sooner due to mud, paint…childhood… and bathing her every single day seemed excessive given her sensitive skin will dry out too easily. She would be presented with getting dressed now or getting dressed after being bathed. After noticing that some of the pouting was due to seeing mom having late starts and skipping showers every other day (where realistically my oily skin/scalp should be nearly daily or a whole makeover of hygiene products- another “put a pin in it” topic) and forgetting to eat meals while “putting out fires” by researching new dilemmas that came up over the week and how to feed a child with certain allergies and food aversions and let’s be honest- how to crochet a flower or pipe a frosted design or wow! that’s neat they made that dollhouse kit look so real! Anyways, drink water, eat healthy food, keep your body clean… lather, rinse, repeat. Part of her pouting was due to she was in her brand new pjs I just got her last night on a run to the local dollar store because we didn’t have tomato soup which is oddly what she was craving after nearly 24 hours with just sugar free Gatorade. They were her favorite color, her size, and matched the stuffy I also found which also all fit under the $20 budget I had from finding a random $20 bill in some paperwork I’ve been sorted in preparation of tax season. So, she wanted to match, was very comfortable in something new, didn’t see the issue because sometimes Mommy has late starts, and wanted to see the “why” before acting. This is where thankfully co-parenting helped release the pressure to have it all together already. The approach was it’s often a life-long job to find that healthy balance of rest and responsibility. It takes work and listening to our bodies and making sure we are healthy before starting our day. Without a healthy start, how can we have a healthy day? I mean, she’s only six so not all that was said and it was narrowed down to, “You need to bathe so will you do that before or after you get dressed. If you choose to bathe after you get dressed that means before you end your day you will need to take a shower or have a bath…” in more or less words.

It’s important to note here that I’ve grown especially appreciative of the nature in which my husband has never assumed the role of parenting me with my lack of hygiene, new “filing” system of piles of projects and paperwork about the house, and he has never made a negative comment towards my weight or lack of makeup or how I’m incredibly self-conscious of my thinning brows, lashes, and hairline. Thankfully I’m finding my way around many of those issues I’ve seen myself picking up since she was born. Caring for a small person is precisely what I needed to realize many of my habits were out of expectation of how I was raised and not really my style. It’s not until you’re hit with an emergency or only being able to perform at 20% during the day that you realize how much of that is really ingrained in you as a child through chores and strict private school standards. I mean, I have found success in life before. I cannot remember a job where I wasn’t somehow praised for my performance, but I have a difficult relationship with success. It means I’m open to more criticism by my peers where it’s far too easy to make enemies instead of friends when being hypervigilant in my perfectionism manifests in irritability and fear of failure. On one hand, being in a strict environment means I had the opportunity to expand my education, enjoy the pursuit of always learning as an adult, and be fascinated by the science behind how something works instead of just enjoying a walk and seeing a line of ants and not knowing they’re following the scent of a scout that went before them possibly days before. It’s also offered me access to better paying jobs, which let’s be honest isn’t always the case in a recession and lack of hands-on job experience, and I’ve been able to use my emotional intelligence to connect with others who are recovering from abusive relationships. I’ve been there, I get it.

But the other hand sucks. I’ve been there. But what is there? As I build the framework of what my childhood experience was, will I get to know my inner child? In what ways is my ego lacking or over-inflamed? How can I, as a highly sensitive person, connect the body-mind dots and continue to release this prison of fibromyalgia and an equal fear of failure and success? From what I have watched from other entrepreneurs and public speakers is that I have the grit for success, I’m willing to work hard for it, but I lack not confidence but possibly talent. Then when it comes to talent, some visual arts things come easy to me, so why am I not doing more of that and playing to my strengths for an income? Do I have to attach my talents to income? Or is that an assumption I’m running into because of the schooling I have and the indoctrination that those “who have much, much is expected” ? Some of what my faith dictates of course plays a role, but how much of that is the former cult experience speaking and how much of it is true responsibility? And isn’t my most important role as wife and mother? When did it become essential for me to earn an income to have a purpose here under the sun? And isn’t talent something someone can just enjoy for themselves? I mean, who says I have to share it with the world for money? I enjoy art immensely and I love switching interests often. I work great with piles of paperwork here and there and then I also feel awesome when the house is completely picked up with no visual trace of the projects stacking away in my mind and in my notes or printout clippings of ideas.

I was told one time that I was a visual genius. I’ve taken a test and I am surely not a genius. I’m average with a low SAT score. I’m just the girl next door who learned there was nothing I could say or do to please my parents. Somewhere between moving from the East Coast to the West Coast, I discovered freedom like no other. I was healthy. Every time I see photos of me and my husband from 2015-2016 I remember the freedom and joy and just how light we looked. Our skin glistening from the extra sun and our shoulders loosened by a smaller burden. That’s the lightness in which our little one took form in. That’s the world I hope to recover for her. How do I get back to that?

Foreboding Joy

I love that this came up on my social media reels. I’ve taken to the random watching of videos that streamline into my usual checks of community news, any new trends, and updates from friends and family. Now, it’s conveniently mixed in with little droplets of wisdom from seasoned parents, teachers, therapists, etc. of short clips of parenting, anxiety/depression “hacks” (quick, ingenious ways to solve a problem), and sewing or cake quips and tricks and sped up 30-second-to-2-minute tutorials. My “saved” folder is getting larger because sharing each one doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be easy to access later and thankfully I just learned how to access my watch history. Although a bit cumbersome to view, the history also allows me to relive those “aha” moments. There’s even a creator whom I follow who does skits of what a trauma impact looks like in a new, healthy relationship. Since hypervigilance is something I’m feeling needs much improvement in my life, I’ve rather enjoyed these every day scenarios they have created of them putting away towels and then their significant other asks why they’re folding them that way. They stop, react in panic, and fawn by saying they can change and do it anyway they want. Their significant other simply asks kindly where that came from because they don’t really mind one way or the other how the towels are folded. They just prefer them clean and dry. The skit transitions to the ex demanding the towels to be done “just so” because “any idiot knows how to do it right” and the like. Then the person snaps out of it and realizes that this person is not their significant other. Their significant other isn’t demanding and is gentle, kind, and genuinely curious and a bit confused by the panic their question induced, but their patience pays off as they both take a deep breath and realize things are far better in the present than the past.

I don’t believe I ever acknowledged the role of trauma in my life before what seems much more recently. If it came up, it was always something like, “Oh yeah, and that happened but I dealt with it already,” as if it was just a date on the calendar. However, as I started to really lean into this body-mind connection while seeking treatment for fibromyalgia then adding in psychiatric/talk therapy (noise issues in my neighborhood were causing literal pain in my body, irritability, and sleep issues and we had to scramble to find a way to relocate mid-pandemic). So, yeah, that happened. Living in a bad neighborhood with violence (I shuddered when I found plenty of broken glass bottles, places the homeless slept and possibly did drugs so I was always looking out for needles, graffiti, a vandalized car outside our apartment that I had saved with my argument for breaking a lease along with police reports and news articles of gang activity and a few murders only doors down. I threw it out because now we are 3 years beyond needing it), anyways…living in a bad neighborhood with violence, abusive language, and living with what felt like a target on my back for reporting some neighbors for noise…to say the least, my past bubbled up again.

This definitely is a very tricky thing to write about. Part of those reels and the reason why I was even in the activity history pouring over once more every reel I had watched was because one reel discussed how a traumatized brain actually sustains damage that interferes with memory. I always knew abuse happened because once diagnosed with PTSD back in maybe 2004-2005, I’ve been aware that certain things will trigger a flashback. This type of response is quite fascinating to me. With the flashbacks I had with my first boyfriend after my trauma (I was sexually assaulted by an ex), I’m all-too aware of the sudden chills with sweat and my body remembering those sensations with a freeze response. I would feel foreboding anxiety. It was a pure fear, but I couldn’t necessarily see the actual memory. It’s quite complex when one pieces it together that way, actually. In movies isn’t a flashback a clear memory much like those skits in a social media reel? But for me, it never was. It was as if my body had the memory even if my mind did not. I didn’t really go very far with that boyfriend as our relationship only lasted maybe 6-8 months, but it puzzled me in my therapy sessions that I could only remember this one assault incident where it seemed my body remembered far more than that. Was it the manipulative nature of my abuser? He had talked me into quite more than I was comfortable using the Bible incorrectly as a way that showed he had power over me because a man was to rule a woman. When I got out of that relationship, found it necessary to take my college career away from the state I had been abused in, and started to date again, I just clearly remember the confusion. What did the Bible actually say about that? We weren’t married, so why did I allow him to treat me like that? And did I really believe that’s what was correct?

The rest of my college career was hallmarked by working out who I was as a scholar. I found out that I had dyslexia, short term memory damage, and possible ADHD (that was finally ruled out senior year) after I did a whole battery of tests at the academic center because I was concerned that my nearly all A’s had turned into C’s and I couldn’t seem to remember content as clearly as before. I got help by getting written permission to access others’ class notes and I was given a space in the academic center to quietly take a test while being monitored. I was given time and a half to complete tests because it was discovered that I had a very slow reading rate and I had quite a bit anxiety surrounding getting the words correct. I was eventually able to overcome the anxieties and thankfully finished my college degree with a high enough GPA to carry into grad school. It wasn’t easy, though! If I wasn’t on the phone with my new long-distance boyfriend, I was reading ahead in classes, listening to my books on tape as much as was available at the time, and using each student’s notes to piece together what was being said in class. Alongside all this, the flashbacks thankfully stopped, but maybe it was because we never went around base two in that relationship? I also engaged in therapy more to rule out the ADHD as a former trauma response due to hypervigilance that commonly happens to those who have been through narcissistic abuse. Think of a doe always darting their eyes and ears back and forth in a field. Are predators near? Will I be attacked? Is it safe here? Am I safe? What if I say the wrong thing? Do the wrong thing? What if I completely fail? What would ___ think of me then? I can hear them now, “You need to work harder. You’re not paying attention. This is a give-me class. You have the answers right in front of you. There’s no excuse for this. You must be stupid! If you weren’t stupid you would know this! All you have to do is memorize what the teacher gave you!” That last one didn’t even come from that relationship. The overlap of times I was in trouble as a kid sometimes confusingly get tangled up as if I were that doe in a field hoping there are no arrows pointed at my heart and that no mountain lions exist just beyond the wood.

Recounting all this to me is essentially the crux of the healing I hope for. If I am to lean into that trauma, acknowledge that the body remembers (see The Body Keeps Score, just the title alone tells all and it’s still on my reading list), and pursue releasing these events, then maybe, just maybe, that will free up some time for joy? Or relaxation? Perhaps we are all somehow part of all the characters in the movie Encanto? Some days, even just moments, I feel like Isabella; where others I feel like Louisa. There definitely is a lot of pressure behind keeping everything together while also feeling like I have to be perfect all the time.

Perfectionism. I was taunted as “Miss Perfect” in school. I don’t think I realized until just now that it was always by the same person. She would also call me “Teacher’s Pet” or “Over-Achiever.” In retrospect, I wonder if that’s why I tried so hard to befriend her- some sort of odd trauma bounding. If I had one caregiver in particular always calling me a little B* or witch when I was irritable… I actually was quite irritable especially towards my siblings who frequently called me dumb or slow or stupid. They’d gang up on me frequently and since they both were more quick-witted with the name calling or come backs and insults, it just made things far worse. In fact, I think everyone in my immediate family participated in some sort of name calling. One caregiver was constantly, “You must be an idiot or dumb because/if ____” then the other would call me a B* for snapping harshly at being teased. How is it that teasing wasn’t corrected instead?

So, it makes perfect sense that I constantly feel like a pendulum swinging between being really stupid/helpless to being too smart. Fact is, I’m quite proud of being a talented artist that got into the Maine College of Art in 8th grade for their early study program. I was also in the East-West art show where one of my pieces was lost. I think I had 2-3 pieces in that show. I have a whole folder of science fair and art and academic awards including that fancy scam one of being in the Who’s Who of High School Students then later Who’s Who of Female Entrepreneurs (is that even a thing anymore or were they just looking for money to be listed in such directories?) I know my parents would take us out to eat if we got good report cards, but I never did feel like they were really proud of me even if they said it. I must have been that every time I would achieve something there would be a lack of surprise and more of an expectation. If I ever just went about my time like a normal kid then I wouldn’t be good enough because at my baseline I’m only a B-C student. But in hyperdrive, I’m an A student and B’s are unacceptable. I’m not sure why my parents were surprised and disappointed by my 680 SAT score. They focused more on the “above average” IQ scores which were not used in actual screenings in the real world. What’s wrong with being average? I love being good at art, don’t get me wrong. It’s a beautiful thing to envision something then make it come to life. It’s amazing to be able to write like this, too, but I could do without all the pressure. I mean, what if I got to enjoy school instead of dreading it? What if I got to relax and got to know the kids in my class instead of asking them to just shut up? I get now that that irritability was a trauma response. I was terrified of bringing home a “bad” grade. I had already been held back a grade yet I was held to the same standard as my older sibling who actually is a genius. They now work as a 2-3 college degree holding civil engineer bringing in a 6-figure salary or something. I went crying into the academic office for help only to find that college was difficult because my reading speed and comprehension didn’t expand beyond the 10th grade AND that I’m dyslexic. No wonder why I couldn’t pick up reading until I was almost seven!

Helpless. That’s often the feeling I get when I am the most anxious. I remember feeling it when I thought everyone in a new group of friends didn’t like me. I remember feeling it when my daughter was born. I remember feeling it when being alone a few times. The hardest thing about it is I don’t really remember the circumstances around feeling that way. I know it’s happened at work plenty of times, but how and when and how long did it last? I only remember one time being on the phone with one of my former bosses who suggested I might have anxiety because she seems to have to “talk me off a cliff” a few times a week. I don’t remember any of those conversations but I’m well aware that they happened. The one where she suggested my GI issues could be anxiety, too, and I only remember because I was already out for a walk to calm my nerves. Was a customer mad at me? Was I spending too much time ruminating over an email or solve some issue? Was I worried I couldn’t keep my numbers up or that my boss didn’t like my performance? Was I terrified that maybe my brother was right- that I am indeed unable to “make it out in the real world” which he’d meanly say to my sibling and I about our lack of some skill set that still seems dubious to me.

I’ve gone to the hospital plenty of times with abdominal pain utterly terrified my insides would burst or my chest pain is a heart attack or I had some hidden deadly disease eating me alive. Several tests and yes, even years, have brought me all over the spectrum of health care experiences, both good and bad, as things got ruled out. Whatever it was I was ailing with, there was definitely no pending doom lurking over my shoulder. There were a few notable finds, albeit incidental, if you would. I didn’t miscarry multiple times due to my blood disorder, but I did figure out what kind of blood disorder it was after it was unnamed for several years. I didn’t figure out the vertigo or sudden passing out, but it was later discovered by a pharmacist then later confirmed by an ENT specialist that combining two different medications can cause interactions as well as holding my breath too long. I had no idea hyperventilation can look like a deep, heavy sigh and unconsciously holding my breath. Nor did I know combining that with getting up too soon with a few of my medicines that the room will literally spin only for me to see stars. When I see those stars, I can barely break my fall with my hands, which might be why they still frequently bother me. It was important to know all that! I haven’t passed out ever since! And I found out if a medicine is making me spin that I can shake my head just so and it’ll stop…or I can have some spiked fruit punch. That last one helped at a wedding. Sitting down for a moment when I feel woozy also helps, but it never really goes away completely. I have found that being incredibly excited, happy, or hyper will turn it off, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it is a body-mind connection. Hyperventilation is hardly anything like what I see on TV.

I still take big, deep breaths frequently throughout the day. They definitely help but I also am only aware of maybe the ones I take when I’m preparing a meal and I’m trying to have everything ready at the same time to serve it all at once. That kind of stress is a little fun and also hair-pulling at the same time. What I recently became aware of was just how irritable I have become ever since my daughter was born. I mean, what in the world? I love that little girl so much but I’m afraid to play with her. I’m afraid of hurting her yet I snap back that I’m too tired and already gave her a boundary because mommy doesn’t feel well? I’ve been trying to pay more attention to my attitude towards her. She’s now at the age where she notices that kind of attitude and might even start modeling it in her own behavior. I mean, honestly, I should have noticed ages ago that I’m just distant and snappy with her. I do things with her but not without my phone and I immediately feel like I have to answer every single message or notification that comes through. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve been giving myself a timer on certain apps so I put it down. I mean, how hard is it to just pay attention to her and enjoy her? It’s getting easier but I would like to do far better. I’ve been treating her like I treat myself and I don’t like how I treat myself, so I changed the inner dialogue instead. She’s my husband’s daughter. I treat her now like a princess because she comes from the one person I love most in this world. The hardest part of being more intentional in enjoying her is realizing just how panicked I was that someone would be angry or feel hurt or left out because I wasn’t paying attention to my phone instead. It has more to do with how I think they’ll react than how they actually will or are more likely to react. So we craft together a lot and we read together (great time to snuggle!) and we play with her stuffed animals together. I now have a book of activities for her to do with me. Some of them are even experiments. And I’m relieved that it’s becoming easier. And when I had an unexpected order on the way to ballet class, I took her to a thrift store while my husband got the oil changed. While in the toy section looking for a few props for photos for my next project, she of course kept finding some really neat things. It’s only weeks past Christmas and I was still touched by her excitement and I did have the money. If anything, I probably should have asked my husband first, but when her best friend came over that afternoon it was quite fun to listen to their giggles as they played with a popup, hot pink camper-tent thing. We had found it for only $4 and it was the exact one she would go, “OH! LOOK!” every time we were in the store. I’m thankful she’s always been the “OH! LOOK!” kind of kid instead of one with the “gimmes.”

She’s endlessly been playing with that thing since we got home along with some new toy food, a play stove that doubles as a stool (folds open to stove top that lights up), and some pop-it’s we both found over the weekend. Her original toy kitchen has been outside by her clubhouse and she’s been far too cold to want to play with it. Her favorite game is restaurant. She’s converted her camper to a bus, a food truck, then a true camper to go camping in. Out of everything I picked out for Christmas, I’m thankful to see that she’s really enjoying these even more. I have noticed every game where I’m completely engaged in with her that she tends to want to do that even more.

It was right around waking up to noticing her growing up far too fast that I also counted how many summers we had left with her in grade school. My husband had pointed out that it’s been three months since we visited Yosemite. It was somewhere on that trip that her bellyaches were more than just butterflies. Fast forward to now, we narrowed it down to a soy, dairy, and a possible gluten allergy. As her bellyaches faded, so did some of my aches and pains. Although I still have insomnia, especially during that lovely one week out of the month, I have found my depression lifting, too. My irritability is calming and becoming far less frequent and I’m far less likely to snap back an annoyed answer. I’m more patient and able to give a simple answer. I’m more able to see my daughter just being six instead of as an interruption to solving another “problem” of a notification. Is there a word for this phenomenon? Of being pissed that your phone just won’t shut up? That even if it’s left for 45 minutes that there will be a pile again to sift through? But eating gluten, dairy, and soy free for at least these past three weeks (elimination diets take time) has shown me that maybe 50% of my issues are gluten, 25% dairy, and 25% trauma. That leaves 0% at my best guess that’s because of nerve damage due to shingles. That that darn infection didn’t cause my fibromyalgia. Trauma did. And gluten magnified the issue exponentially. And I’ve been lactose intolerant since I was a teenager. I’ve just never intentionally taken it out of my diet quite like this besides when I went vegan.

What I want to conquer in 2023 is this: how do I work out the childhood trauma I have from perfectionistic parents, having a depressed and highly critical parent, the other parent having PTSD from Vietnam, and two siblings who wouldn’t leave me alone when I showed a weakness anywhere? Then there’s the name-calling of everyone around me. Then there’s the teachers and pastors who ignored my cries for help. Then the strange church atmosphere I grew up in that I’m now convinced was some odd cultish thing. Then the rape and not knowing why I still hyperventilate after sex. I’ve been married for 12 years and sex is something I’ve been avoiding lately. It’s incredibly deep and vulnerable. I’ve even begun avoiding my husband’s deep conversations because sometimes it’s just easier to turn it all off than to keep sorting through the big mess. I even see conflict in Girl Scouts through my lens of trauma. And it. sucks. I used to run or do something to work out. I had my ankles checked and still no word back on a specialist to take a look and possibly drain the cysts on them from injuring them at the same time when I fell down a steep flight of stairs in 2020. That same year I sprained my knee and dislocated my shoulder twice, too. This growing older thing sucks, too. I need to work out, though. How else am I going to get through this?

I haven’t read it yet, but this article comes from a reel I just couldn’t find no matter how hard I looked for it in my activity history. It’s called 4 Ways to Stop Foreboding Joy: When Joy Feels Scary . I didn’t know it was actually a thing. I’ve been spinning around the sun for 6 years now wondering why I’ve struggled to connect and bond with my daughter. She is clothed, fed, warm, safe, and every good thing we can do for her we have. Yet I still struggle. I thought I’d be a natural mom. I thought not only would I feed her natural foods and learn apothecary to treat her boo-boos and maybe wear all organic cotton and never use food coloring, but I thought I’d be a natural at nurturing her. I had cared for so many kids and babies before her between church and friends’ kids and nieces and nephews. I love snuggling babies and got really good at rocking out little gas bubbles and changing a diaper with one hand while pulling the wipes far enough out of their reach. But somewhere around potty training, I just got more and more clueless. It was pretty much where the chapters of the “What to Expect” books stop, and nearly everything in those books didn’t apply to our little one anyways. Breast feeding was a joke, pumping even worse. The pediatrician had these amazing handouts that gave me everything I needed and thankfully those were a lifeline for me. But what now?

I’m in that state of staring down the last twelve summers with her being in grade school. I have no idea what I’m doing. Thankfully, as terrifying as that notion is, I’m assured I’m not the only one from what I’m finding online and in several books I’ve tried to pick up on the topic of parenting. None of them have spoken out to me yet. She’s so unique and gentle and kind and loving. How do I shepherd that? So far nothing at Target or on Amazon really fills that lingering question and the Bible is a bit lacking on the topic specifically. So, I’m trying to approach it this way: love and kindness and patience. Gentler answers and more delighting in what she delights in. If she wants me to wear purple while playing a game, I protest hardly at all if at all. If I’m not sore or sick, I’ll play outside with her. If I can fit in her bed because her stuffed animals are no longer in the way, I’ll climb in. It’ll take time, but the biggest fear I have is hurting her. It was the biggest fear I had the first time I held her. I thought I was going to drop her. But by keeping my distance and not awkwardly trying to nurture a bond between us it has the potential to become her biggest trauma. I don’t want her to ever feel as I do from stumbling through life with no words of wisdom or real connection to my strict parents besides blood and history. Also, I keep worrying I’m going to lose her like I lost my other babies. It would hurt so, so much worse to lose her now. I’d rather die than lose her. That’s the part that’s in my heart that fears joy.

So, I listen to a lot of podcasts that bring me peace. My favorite lately is this one. It reminds me of who I really am and how God sees me, not how I or anyone else sees me. I struggle to see the person my husband sees or my daughter or mother-in-law sees because I grew up hearing many awful things. In church, I felt like God didn’t even like me because of all the ways I could be dirty or wrong or broken and that was before I was even old enough to commit any real big sins. I was always good at school, so how could I have and yet everyone around me hates me. I’m so glad I ditched that internal dialogue of my teenaged years, but what I haven’t been able to shake is the impact it’s had on me. And now that I’m happily married and have a beautiful daughter and I’m forming normal, healthy relationships both in business, at a much healthier church, and in the community, how come I can’t shake that voice yet? I’ve listened to this podcast maybe 20 times now. I need it to rewrite all the bull-oni. And then can I “maybe free up some room for joy or relaxation?”

I sew, craft, bake, cook, clean, and play plenty now, but I’m still tempering my heart. God, please give me the courage to keep going in this healing journey. It would be easier to keep indulging in pastries or find a different drug than sugar. But easy street hasn’t made anyone happy yet. I want to really be that happy person everyone in my childhood church used to pretend to be. Yet genuine. God, You say You gave me new life and made me a new creation, so please take away my pain and my fear and help me be loveable again and give me the courage to love anyways even if it’ll mean the greatest heartache of my journey ever. She needs me and I’m just not sure I’m showing up yet in the ways she needs me.