Heartbreak in All Its Forms

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I wrote this in November 2014 and recently revisited it because the world can be a crazy, heartbreaking place, and sometimes we need a reminder that we can do it, whatever it may be.

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Dealing with heartbreak can be a huge obstacle.

When I speak about heartbreak, I’m pretty sure I’m not talking about what probably immediately comes to mind. Life hands us all kinds of surprises--some are wonderful and unexpected and others are devastating, challenging, maddening (and, yes, unexpected). Some are big deals, some are little deals that feel like big deals at the time, and others… Well, they just are, because that’s part of life.

Sometimes we’re heartbroken because we want to change things for the better, but it doesn’t seem to work out. Plans don’t fall into place; minds aren’t open to change; perhaps you’re not in a place to enact change. So what do you do? Every person is different…

Sometimes we’re heartbroken because of a loss. This can be the loss of a loved one, the loss of someone we didn’t necessarily know but was someone we looked up to and felt hope because of their existence. This can be the loss of an imagined outcome, the “if only” situations, the idea of something. All of these describe grief…

Sometimes we’re heartbroken because we’re frustrated. Maybe it’s a lack of control, maybe fear, maybe that we just can’t change circumstances.

Sometimes we’re heartbroken because we’ve closed ourselves off to something that we want (but apparently not enough to change from within to open up).

Sometimes we’re heartbroken by time. It either goes too quickly during a time we want to cherish, or moves too slowly during a time we’d rather forget. Sometimes we don’t know how quickly or slowly we want time to go because of the unknown: how will this illness progress; how will my child develop; how will I handle this big responsibility; what if I screw up; what does the future hold and how am I supposed to prepare for that?

I certainly don’t have the answers, but I’ve found sometimes the following things help:

• Find strength in others (and yourself), talk to a good friend.
• Look for hope.
• Believe in yourself.
• Take a break and a breath.
• Have a good cry.
• Go for a walk - engage those endorphins.
• Take time to feel whatever it is you need to feel - give yourself permission.
• Give yourself permission to move on, too.
• Step away from a situation if need be.
• Assess the situation - can you change it? No? Yes? Accept what you can do or change, and accept what you can't.
• Make it manageable - rather than be overwhelmed, break it down into more manageable pieces.
• Know that no two people react/feel/grieve the same, and that's ok. 
• Seek help beyond friends if you need to.

Remember you’re more capable than you think you are. You can handle heartbreak and challenges, and you don’t have to do it alone.

If your feelings are more than you can bear, please seek out professional help immediately. Resources can be found here: http://www.mentalhealth.gov/get-help/immediate-help/

Mortified (Or, How to Deal With People Who Suck)

It was the day after my 12th birthday party. I was riding high from a successful slumber party and the consumption of a giant, Costco-sized tub of Laffy Taffy candy that someone had given me as a birthday present. Needless to say, I was feeling good.

My two older sisters had a marching band competition that day, so we took a family trip to the stadium to watch the proceedings. My parents were volunteering with the band, which left me in the stands to watch over my two younger sisters. I was twelve now. I could totally handle the responsibility.

We had a great time, my sisters and I. We cheered, we huddled together for warmth, we talked about how hilarious it would be to switch seats and watch how freaked out our parents would get when they came back to get us... Somehow, we made 6-straight hours of sitting on a metal bench fun.

After every few bands performed, the Powers That Be would give themselves (and, by extension, us) a break to...I don't know, do whatever marching band competition judges do when they aren't watching marching bands. Us schlubs in the stands would get up, shake it out, get something to eat. Whatever. I was twelve and had just spent all my babysitting money on cheap plastic earrings from Claire's, so, being penniless, my sisters and I generally stayed put and fidgeted during these breaks.

About halfway through the day, a longer break than usual was introduced. A couple people in the family sitting in front of us got up to do whatever people do when they aren't sitting on a cold metal bench. Seizing the opportunity to stretch out for a bit, I put my feet up on the now empty bench in front of me, not really giving it another thought.

Until the family come back.

The little girl and her father hadn't even walked all the way up to their bench yet when all of a sudden the woman sitting next to where my shoes were resting turned and poured her entire big-gulp-sized cup of ice cold Coke on my feet.

What. The. [Beeeeeep].

I was mortified. I jerked my feet away and tried to avoid my sisters' very confused, staring eyes, as they watched me to find out how exactly they should be reacting. But how was I supposed to know how to react?! I wasn't the grown-up in this situation. I was a child! An apparently rather sheltered child who had never encountered a grown-up who would pour cold soda on someone's feet for no reason. 

Her (I am assuming) husband gave her a strange look and and asked her why she just did that. She just shrugged and said, "Her feet were in [insert the name of their daughter]'s seat."

WHAT THE CRAP, WOMAN. Who does that?!

The father and daughter apparently agreed that this was an acceptable reaction to the situation, because, with not a word to me, they proceeded to take their [now Coke-covered] seats and resumed whatever it was they were doing before all this happened. I sat, face flaming, staring straight ahead, and somehow made it through the rest of the competition in one piece. With ice cold Coke soaked feet. In October.

I am thirty years old now, but the eighteen years that have passed have yet to fully erase the feelings I felt that day. Even now, as I type out what happened, so many feelings are bubbling up. Mortification. Anger. Confusion. Sorrow

Although, having grown up a bit and realized just how crazy that lady was, anger seems to be the presiding feeling today.

Are y'all asking yourselves why I would revisit this moment from my long-gone past? Well I have been thinking about it a lot lately because it was the first time I encountered what I considered to be a mean person (like I said. Sheltered child). Unfortunately for me, it was not the last time, but you know what? We can't avoid it. We can't avoid them. Sometimes people just suck and they pour Coke on kids' feet and they don't care. 

So today, I am sharing this story with you all to put it to bed. I am accepting the fact that I am going to encounter many of Coke lady's friends throughout my life and there 'aint nothin' I can do about it. Except move on. So this is me moving on.

But just so we are clear- heaven help anyone who tries to pour Coke on my or, just you dare, my child's feet. My new zen acceptance of sucky people can only stretch so far.

Sometimes No Plan is a Good Plan

I only like good surprises. (Pretty obvious, right?) The problem with surprises, however, is that you don't know whether they're good surprises or bad surprises until you're through them. Let me explain.

I'm a planner. For a variety of reasons, I like knowing what to generally expect and when to expect it. I'm a fan of knowing the plan and, for the most part, sticking with it. (Logical instances where this comes in handy: knowing where/when I can eat with my special dietary needs; knowing where a bathroom is and when I might encounter the next one...helloooo long, desolate road trip routes; knowing where I'll lay my head at the end of the day; knowing that I'm saving/working toward something; having approximate knowledge of what the weather will be in order to dress accordingly; and more).

Here’s the deal: Life doesn't always cooperate with us planners. Sudden storms may pop up and, while they are difficult to drive through, ultimately the destination is worth the stress of getting there (and so is the stuff we learned/felt/saw along the way). Sometimes we planners need to trust those around us (who haven't necessarily always known the next step, and still somehow managed to be successful in life) that we'll be fine; we'll get there, and we'll have a few adventures along the way.

Author’s note: I'm still working on this...which means I still plan away, but do my best to roll with the punches.

You are only as old as the music you listen to, right?

One of the little 13-year-olds I work with at church asked me if I knew who Beyoncé was the other day.

Oh please, child! I've been listening to Beyoncé since before you were born.

I actually answered with something much more polite and leader-talking-to-youth appropriate, but that was what I wanted to say in the moment. Do I really seem that old to these teenagers? I really am not that old. I'm still in my twenties. Barely in my twenties, but it still counts. I am young, people! YOUNG!

Today, however, a Destiny's Child song came up in my morning mix of music and many, many memories of listening to them in high school started popping into my head. Curious, I did the math of how long ago those high school days were and I came to a sad, sad realization: I literally have been listening to Beyoncé since before that poor girl at church was born.

Guys. I might be getting old.

This year is speeding towards my 30th birthday faster than I might like, but the fact is that there isn't a single thing I can do to change it. The best I can hope for is to start counting my birthdays the same way that my mother does: this year won't be my 30th birthday, it is the first anniversary of my 29th birthday.

Luckily, old or not old is all a matter of perspective. I might seem old to a group of 12 and 13 year-olds, but I am sure that to someone else I still seem like a spring chicken. Hey, if anything, if we want to feel young, all we need to do is go find a group of people who have never heard of Beyoncé, right?

Either that, or find strength in numbers. If any of you are feeling old, come on over to my place. My husband works late, so we can all sit around and listen to Destiny's Child together...

My priorities, your priorities.

Not too long ago, I read a friend's lament on Facebook that she did not have more time in her life to read. Ever the advocate for anyone and everyone to get as much reading in their lives as possible, I was all ready to jump in with my suggestions of several things she could give up every so often so as to have more time to read. You know, non-essential things like making the bed or getting dressed or doing the dishes...

There I was, fingers poised over my keyboard, when all of a sudden a thought struck me- this woman is most likely already very aware that if she left the dinner dishes in the sink one night she could get a good hour of reading in before bed. For whatever reason, however, she chooses not to do that. For her, it isn't worth it. I regularly let dishes languish in my sink in favor of a book, but that's just me.

I am not entirely sure why this was such a revelation to me, but it was: I read as much as I do because it is fairly high on my priority list. People who don't read as much as they would like do so because there are other things that rank higher on their priority list. And that's okay! Put another way, my friend gets her dishes done each evening and enjoys the peace and beauty of a clean kitchen because it ranks up there at the top of her priority list. I, on the other hand, do not get to my dishes every night and yes, that fact bugs me, but not enough to change my ways. And that is also okay!

Life is full of things that we simply do not have the time or energy to do or sometimes even care about. It is sad, but true. Thus was born the concept of priorities. We must pick and choose what we can get done in a day and we must pick and choose what we will most care about. Some things must fall by the wayside and we have to be okay with that.

Perhaps more importantly, however- we must also be okay with the things that our friends and loved ones let fall by the wayside...even if that thing is reading.

The Beauty of Yes, the Beauty of No, and the Beauty of Knowing Yourself

We've all fallen into the trap of saying yes too often. Maybe it was volunteering for an event or project; maybe it was giving up the only free couple of hours you've had in weeks to help a friend move; maybe it was thinking you could get that book club book read before next month's meeting only to realize that your eyelids have a strange magnetic pull downward every time you crack open the pages and you find yourself an hour later with the only visible progress you can track being the line of drool that crept down your face and onto the pages as you wake up with morning breath… Overcommitment. It gets the best of us sometimes. Sometimes saying yes can be a wonderful growing process and incredibly rewarding. Nothing teaches you just what you're capable of like jumping into it, whatever it may be. Sometimes, however, it can be a trap, and that's when you learn what you want to be capable of.

Okay, really, it's about knowing yourself and knowing your priorities. 

I'm not saying I don't stay late at work, and I'm not saying I don't take on new projects or responsibilities, and I really do love helping my friends if they're moving or need a spare freezer meal, a dog sitter (I'm SO in!), or just need a friend to walk and talk with.  What I am saying is: now I'm starting to better prioritize my time and I work hard to remember that I need to be healthy and happy in order to do anything well. As a bonus, I've found this helps me more fully enjoy those things I do take on. 

Here's a little secret: sometimes I actually enjoy saying no. 

• I enjoy saying no when I know whoever I would have been working with is less invested in doing a quality job than I would be even though it's their idea or project. 
• I enjoy saying no when I know it won't be something I like doing (but I do things I don’t like doing when I know it will help someone I care about or when I know it will help me grow as a person). 
• I enjoy saying no when I know those I would be working with are disorganized or flakey (it's just not worth it). 
• And I enjoy saying no when I know that if I had said yes I wouldn't have time to do laundry that week and would be stuck wearing the underwear that I always keep at the back of the drawer (you know, the really uncomfortable ones...or worse, the ones with holes...yeah, I went there) and that wonky bra with the uncomfortable underwire.

How have you gotten over your need to always say yes? What have you found to be more rewarding since you started prioritizing wellness (quality) over hecticness (quantity)? 

Being Good Enough

A couple of months ago, I was having one of those nights that I'm pretty sure most new mothers have at least once every couple of weeks. (Actually, I'm not sure how long this period lasts, but I'm pretty sure right now I can still lump it officially in with normal baby blues.) I was sobbing to my husband about how I was failing at everything and not doing enough, and I hated that I could never get everything done, and who knows when the last time I managed to vacuum was, and now that the baby is crawling she'll probably find something I didn't vacuum up off the floor and choke on it, but she's just so clingy right now and she hates the noise of the vacuum, and so on and so forth.

And after I'd collected myself a little, my kind husband said, "Meg. Think about what you did today. You got up and nursed the baby. You ate breakfast. We played with the baby. You worked on your lesson for church tomorrow. You nursed the baby again. You took half an hour off to read a book while the baby napped. We went to babysit your brother's kids. You came back, put the baby to bed, finished working on your lesson, and cleaned up the kitchen. Just when were you going to do something else?"

He then went on to tell me that if I was feeling overwhelmed and he wasn't, clearly we needed to reexamine our division of labor. (For the record, my husband is a rock star. He cooks dinner at least as often as I do, is great about taking care of the baby, changes his share of diapers when he isn't at work, and is really good about picking up after himself and doing the dishes without me nagging him about it. I wasn't feeling overwhelmed because he is a bum - just because we're still figuring our lives out.) We talked about adjustments we could make to help me feel more in control of my life, but also talked about how ultimately, I might also need to adjust my expectations about what success entails at this point in my life.

Because honestly, I'm still pretty new at this whole, "My life revolves around a tiny person now" thing. I don't know why I assumed that less than a year in I should have the whole thing figured out. When my daughter is learning something new, I never get frustrated at her because she doesn't do it perfectly at first. I clapped for her the first time she rolled over, even though it took another two months before she could do it on purpose every time. I watched with delight as she tried to sit up and would fold in half and tip over while she tried to grab her feet. I relished her ridiculously ungraceful army crawl with her legs flying in the air for no apparent reason. And then one day, she suddenly had all of these skills mastered.

Except it wasn't sudden, because it took weeks of less-successful practice before she figured out that skill. And now she'll move on to learning to walk and talk and pee in a toilet and a myriad of other skills that she will take some time to master, and I will celebrate her progress along the way - not just when she's totally grown up and has her act together.

So why don't I celebrate my own growth the same way? I may not get the vacuuming done very regularly right now, but I am very good at making my baby laugh. I've figured out how to make baby food; nursing is something that has become completely second nature; I read my baby's cues and know when she is tired, hungry, overstimulated, or just lonesome for Mommy. I've gotten very good at a lot of things that I didn't have a single clue about twelve months ago. And right now, that's more than good enough.

Naming My Anxiety

I'm going to get rather personal for a minute and, in all honesty, I'm quite nervous about it.

Have you ever struggled with a feeling or experience you couldn't really define or name?  Have you ever gone through something, thinking you were crazy or over-emotional or maybe just pms-ing?  I have gone through some less-than-ideal situations over the last five years.  I tried my best to keep it together and roll with the punches (so-to-speak), but sometimes your best doesn't quite cut it and that is more than okay. Figuring just that one thing out took way too long.

Nothing that has happened to me was overly traumatic or devastating.  A lay-off, being out of work for a few years, finally finding a job and suffering through while the situation became more and more unhealthy, watching my Grandmother through her last days with us.  These are things that people deal with every day all over the world, these things and worse.  There's another lesson that has taken me too long to figure out (and still takes constant reminding), my problems were big for me.  They were huge and they were stressful and they caused pain and doubt and fear for years, and that, too, is more than okay. 

Toward the end of my stressful job, I began to be abnormally emotional.  I cried at the drop of a hat.  I had been looking for a new job for 8 months with no hope of finding one.  Work was painful.  I came home crying during lunch breaks just to let off enough steam to make it through the rest of the day.  I was constantly worried I would lose my job, or have to leave to save my sanity, and that would leave me jobless yet again.  I couldn't become an even bigger burden to my family, who supported me through everything.  I was exhausted mentally, physically, and spiritually. I would take bathroom breaks and just sit on the floor, in the dark, and cry uncontrollably until I could breathe again.  Finally, my mom told me to quit my job and move home to help her take care of my Grandmother.  I felt a literal weight lifted from my shoulders. For a moment, I breathed easier.  And I still cried.  A small pebble hit my windshield one day and I burst into tears, thinking of the money it would cost if I had to replace the whole thing.

Then, one day I was driving and listening to Steve Martin's audio book, Born Standing Up.  He describes having a panic attack and it was like a light bulb turned on inside my head.  Again, a weight was lifted.  He described a version of what I experienced and he gave it a name.  And maybe that's the most important thing that has come of this, understanding what a name can do.  I have since heard other people describe panic attacks and the things that bring them on.  Now I have a name and I have several accounts confirming that it's a real thing.  I'm not just sad or worried or stressed or overwhelmed or too sensitive.  All of those things seemed too small.  Depression seemed too big.  Occasional anxiety and panic attacks are super sucky, but manageable.  It's something I could suddenly wrap my mind around and try to understand.

Once I moved in with my parents, I tried to overcome some of these issues.  I realized that social situations were the problem, and now, as they are returning full force, I realize that unpredictability and lack of control are what cause the anxiety and, in turn, the panic attacks.  For a while, I just pushed through, taking very slow baby steps, as I tried to make new friends and make a new space that felt comfortable and safe.  I faced setbacks with the death of my Grandmother and I am facing them again now.  The difference now is that I know what is happening, I can recognize the onset of an attack and I can maybe try to stop it or work through it before it becomes a real problem.  But most importantly, I have friends and family around me who care what is happening and listen to me when I feel crazy for no reason and make me do things that are hard because they know I can do them.

I know I'm not alone in dealing with this.  And honestly, I've told very few people, because (as much as I know this is not true) it still feels weak and shameful.   I'm sharing this publicly now because I also know that the more support and knowledge we have, the easier it can be to work through.  I know what I feel is sometimes more than what others feel.  I know that sometimes my thoughts are just plain wrong and far too self-critical.  I know that what I feel and go through pales in comparison to what some other people deal with.  But maybe acknowledging all of this can help someone else give their struggles a name.  Or maybe it can just help me unload just a tiny bit more weight off my shoulders.  One way or another, maybe this can do some good.

Some Mother's Day Loveliness

A couple of things for your Mother's Day Weekend:

Paige suggested posting this nice Mother's Day video. It's quite warm and fuzzy, and you should share it with your mother and give her a big hug. Mothers do so much for us, and I know that I still go to mine for just about everything.




I also wanted to share this article I re-read this week, called A Mother's Bill of Rights, or Mommy is a Person. I feel like Mother's Day is a rough time for mothers in the thick of it, because there is a lot of putting mothers on a pedestal, and a lot of stories about angelic mothers, and a lot of pictures of mothers who clearly got to spend more than five minutes on their hair today. And hey, I'm not saying they don't deserve to be on a pedestal, but when you feel like you are personally failing because your baby won't nap and won't hold still for diaper changes and there is poop smeared everywhere and you just want to curl up in a ball and cry for a minute, it's nice to remember that besides being a Mother, every mother is a person, and a person is allowed to have bad days, allowed to feel frustrated, allowed to just really want to take a shower, and allowed to buy a Little Caesar's pizza for dinner sometimes.

Happy Mother's Day. :)

Growing Up

Last week I had a big birthday. I turned (mumble)-ty. I can't say I've been looking forward to this birthday, necessarily, but I have been doing my best to proactively come to terms with the end of my youth (I'm not at all overdramatic)--Sometimes I even managed to forget that I wasn't yet my new age. I'm not really sure why this birthday seemed so ominous, but it did, for several months. And then serendipity placed this video in my RSS reader and I happened to come across it during my lunch hour on my birthday. Gaining another year isn't so bad, especially if I think of all of the cool things to come (and it's certainly better than the alternative, as my Grandpa used to say).

Celebrate That.

Hello lovely readers! We've been on a hiatus, and I'm not announcing a grand return or anything, but I've been thinking about a post for a little while, and this seems like the most appropriate place to post it, so here it is!

A few months ago, I became a mother of the most adorable, happy, delightful little girl imaginable. I cannot say enough about how much I love her and motherhood and the relationship we are developing. It is incredible.

About a month ago, Miri posted this on facebook:

I loved it so much, because it spoke to so many of the things I've thought about since becoming a mother.

Everyone tells you that you always know all of the answers until you actually have a child. You look at other parents and you know exactly what they're doing wrong, and you know exactly how you would do it better. When you become a parent, you suddenly realize that no matter how much you've read about parenting, observed parenting, made firm vows that you will never do that as a parent, you can never have all of the answers - especially for someone else's child. I believe there are two reasons for this:

1) Of course, the first reason is that every child is different, because every child is born his or her own person with a unique personality.You can't even parent every one of your children the same way, so how on earth would you parent other people's children the same way?

2) The second reason is something that I didn't realize until I actually became a mother (although I suppose it should have been obvious) and that is that every mother is different and needs to do things differently. I have read a lot of parenting books, articles, blogs, and so forth, and the main conclusion I have come to is that there are lots of right ways to raise a child, and not all of them would work for me. And that's completely okay. I can be a good mother without doing things the same way as another mother, and we can both be doing a great job raising our babies.

My sister-in-law had a baby 11 days before I did. We compare notes constantly because we are both poking around in the dark and figuring out what works for us - and we have made a lot of very different decisions based on our very different daughters and our own very different personalities. Here are some of the ways our experience has been different so far:

• She had a relatively difficult pregnancy and delivery, including a long period of bed rest and an emergency C-section. I had a lot of nausea at the beginning, but I was able to be active through the end of my pregnancy and had a fairly quick delivery. Neither of us did things exactly the way we'd planned. We were both fine.
• She really wanted to breastfeed and had done a TON of research on it and then her milk didn't come in, so she had to supplement and eventually switch to formula completely. I wanted to breastfeed but didn't know that much about it, and then my baby was better at it than I was and is still breastfed at 7 months. (Another friend of mine wanted to breastfeed and then decided after about a month that it just wasn't working for her, so she gave it up and her baby happily switched to formula and slept better on it. This was also completely fine. My cousin is a helicopter pilot and just switched her baby to formula after two months of successful breastfeeding because there is no way for her to pump at her job. She was sad about it and is still working to find the right formula for her baby, but it will also work out. So many possibilities, so many mothers and babies.)
• She bought a co-sleeper and had her baby in her room with her until she turned about 6 months old. I put my baby in her own room from the day we got home from the hospital because otherwise I was panicked every time she sniffed and I would never have gotten any sleep. Both of our babies have been great night sleepers so far. We have decided this is due to their fathers' genes.
• Her baby fell asleep playing, swinging, and everywhere else. I had to work to get my baby to nap by the time she was 2 months old and had to do some sleep training at 4 months because I was afraid she would never nap again, but would be a cranky-pants after 11 o'clock am every day for the next year.
• She decided to start baby-led weaning at 4 months, because her baby was pretty much dying to feed herself and was desperate to try her parents' food. I waited until 6 months because my baby was content with breast milk until then, but went the more traditional route with purees (although I do occasionally let her much on a piece of broccoli or let her try what I'm eating.) I made the purees myself  instead of buying bottles because it was more economical for me, and because I thought it was fun. If it hadn't worked for me, I may have made some different decisions. Both babies loved their introductions to solid foods. Both mothers loved making food for them and introducing them to new tastes.
• At the moment, I have no plans to go back to work until my baby is older unless circumstances change. I love my chosen profession, but at the moment I am really enjoying being home with my baby, and that's what is working best for our family right now. She recently went back to work part time because her family needed it. Her baby does great with a nanny or her daddy three days a week.

These are just a few of the myriad differences between our parenting experiences - in just the past 7 months. And yet, over the course of those past few months I have felt so very close to her, because although in some ways our experiences and choices are different, we are going through the same beautiful thing at the same time. We are both learning to love a tiny person in a way that is different from any other kind of love we have ever experienced. Both of our lives have changed in ways we could not have predicted. Some days we feel like crying because we don't know how to cope with a new development, we feel lonely or hormonal, or we just wish that we could take a week off. Some days we feel like cheering because our babies are so sweet, are learning so much, and are filling our lives with so much joy. 

I feel so grateful for the bond I have developed with her. We talk, text or IM nearly every day, even though we live in different states. We share our triumphs and tragedies. We marvel at how different our babies are. We comfort each other. And that, ultimately, is what the shared experience of motherhood should be about. It's not a contest, it's not a test. We can learn so much from each other, and we can learn so much more if we leave judgment out of our interactions with each other. We do things differently because we are different and our babies are different, but we love our babies exactly the same. Let's celebrate that. 

What the World Needs Now...

I read a lovely little story the other day. It's in Hillary Rodham Clinton's biography, Living History, and she quotes her husband giving the eulogy at her father's funeral.


"In 1974 when I made my first political race," he said, "I ran in a congressional district where there were a lot of Republicans from the Middle West. And my future father-in-law came down in a Cadillac with an Illinois license plate; never told a living soul I was in love with his daughter, just went up to people and said, 'I know that you're a Republican and so am I. I think Democrats are just one step short of communism, but this kid's all right.' "


This warmed my heart, and I don't think it happened because of anything special about Bill Clinton; I believe it was something special about Hugh Rodham. His daughter described him as a staunch Republican who "started out in life inheriting every prejudice imaginable in his working-class, Protestant family--against Democrats, Catholics, Jews, and blacks--and anyone else considered outside the tribe."


The truth is that most of our negative ideas about people who are different from us aren't really true, and deep down, I think most of us already know that. But it takes incredible maturity and humility to be able to overcome long-standing, deep-seated prejudices; to realize that what you believe, maybe even what your parents and grandparents believed, just isn't true; to understand that a person can be a truly good person and still have beliefs, traditions, and a culture that are completely opposite of yours. 


Human beings are infinitely complex creatures, and yet for some reason we like to try and simplify each other. The fact is that you can't know someone based on their religious affiliation, their political convictions, their hobbies, their race, their job, where they live, or the emails they forward. These are all external factors, motivated by something deeper (or sometimes just circumstantial), and we can't know what that motivation is without getting to know a lot more about the person.


I wonder if there any differences that couldn't be overcome if we could learn to treat everyone like a member of our family whom we have to love, even if we disagree with them. As a very lovely man said, "Love is the only force that can erase the differences between people or bridge the chasms of bitterness." It takes a lot of strength to become this kind of person--but imagine what the world would be like if we all tried.

Be Welcoming

Well friends, after a long absence, I'm back, and writing to you from the southern tip of Texas.


I wasn't very excited to move down here. My new husband is working for the Teach for America Corps, and he was assigned to the Rio Grande Valley mere days before we started dating. It's not really where I would have picked, although I suppose with 70 degree weather in January and a half hour to the beach, it isn't all bad. (However, I'm still not a big fan of Mexican food. I'm sorry.)


The day after we got here, we went to church, and several people came and introduced themselves. We even got a dinner invite from this amazing family (which was great, because the only food we had in the house was some spaghetti that came with a wedding gift, and all of our cooking supplies were still in boxes).


I'm always taken aback by how welcoming some people can be. I have a hard time reaching out to people because I feel shy, but so many wonderful people just scooped us up into their circle immediately, and I felt about a thousand times better about being here, despite the number of tarantula stories we got over dinner. No matter how many concerts make it down here or how far we have to go for sushi, there are wonderful, kind people around me and they have willingly allowed me into their homes and opened their hearts to me without knowing me at all. How can I complain about that?


So this week, there was another new family. I made a point to introduce myself after the meetings. "I was new last week," I said with a big smile. "Welcome. You're going to love it."

Lesson Learned, Emily: Love the Curl

Contest entry #6 by Emily McBride. Don't forget, tomorrow is the last day to submit an essay.

When I was just starting Kindergarten, my hair fell in long, light-brown ringlets. People would ask my mom how much time she spent curling my hair every morning, to which she replied with a smile, “It’s natural.”

As I grew taller, my hair grew thicker and heavier, leaving me with unruly and uneven curls. I didn’t like my hair anymore and my flat iron became my new best friend. But this wasn’t an easy straightening job. My hair was thick and long and extra curly in the back. Every morning I would drag myself out of bed an entire hour early—just to straighten my hair.

I faithfully straightened my hair every day, and if I woke up late or didn’t feel well, I would just put it in a ponytail. I didn’t know how to control my curls, and I didn’t want to control my curls—I just wanted them to go away. Straight hair was in. I was so jealous of my friends that had naturally straight hair, who could just get out of the shower, part their hair down the middle, and let it dry in the sun.

At some point toward the end of high school, I got sick of straightening my hair. And I also became more sure of myself. I experimented with my brother’s hair gel and my blowdryer one day in the bathroom. I came out triumphant, with sticky, but nevertheless, curly, hair. I started wearing my hair curly to school on the days where I just didn’t feel like I getting up so early. And as time went on, I grew more adept at working with my curls. As I figured out which mousse held best and discovered that blowdrying my hair upside down worked wonders, my straightener began to serve me less and less.

Now, I sometimes go months without straightening my hair—and not because I’m lazy. I have a fancy flat iron now, one that cuts the straightening time in half. But I’ve embraced my curly hair and have come to love it. Short or long—I like my hair best when it’s curly.

So, what’s the point of my hair history? Am I saying that curly hair is better than straight hair? Or am I saying that it’s not worth it to spend time getting ready in the morning? No, not at all. What I’m trying to say is that part of becoming lovely is accepting and being grateful for who you are and working with what you have. Not only does it help you feel better about yourself—but it’s often more convenient, too :)

Lesson Learned: Miri Lets Go

A few years ago I went through a period of missing many of my college friends, and being really frustrated with the fluid state of relationships that occurs in Provo. I'd had some really good, really close guy friends, who had then gotten married and vanished from my life. Even though we'd never had any romantic involvement, they'd cut off all contact with me--and some other mutual friends--when they got engaged, as though they felt that they couldn't be friends with me anymore. 


This didn't make me feel very good. For one thing, I began to feel as though my friendship with these guys had just been a placeholder relationship, that they were using me to fill a space in between girlfriends. For another, I just really missed their company. Most of these relationships were actually very short as relationships go--about the length of a semester, on average--but because they involved a lot of loooong conversations, often until early hours of the morning, we'd gotten to know each other really well, and they'd come to be pretty important to me. 


I had a hard time with this for a while. I wrote some whiny blog posts and complained to my girlfriends, lamenting my situation, denouncing the awkwardness of BYU's male/female dynamics and blaming it for my predicament. (I have a slight tendency toward the dramatic in situations like these... I feel things very strongly.)


And then one day I stumbled across a quote that really struck me, and I wrote the following:

"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet." --Emily Dickinson

I read this quote on my friend Alanna's Facebook profile, and suddenly I felt very silly for being so upset. Most things about life are temporary. That's just something we all have to deal with. So when things change in our lives, when people move on, we should be grateful for the time that we had with them, the things we learned, the memories that we'll always have... instead of being depressed that we can't go back to the way things were. If we could always go back to the way things were, we probably would, because people tend to cling to the familiar. But then we'd miss out on so much of what's waiting for us down the road; and when you look at it in retrospect, you can see that the things that you didn't know were waiting for you are usually just as sweet as the things you had to leave behind to get there.

So this is my lesson learned: That we are meant to experience life, not capture it.

People come into our lives, and then some of them leave. Sometimes we don't know why. But the nature of life is change, and no one can avoid it. Instead of being regretful about the loss of something we love, instead of letting that whole chapter become tainted with negative feelings, we should cherish our memories and be grateful for having had the experience.

The Thing With Feathers

I like the idea of hope. As I think about all the different definitions I've heard of this word, all the conflicting ideas about it, I feel like sometimes we miss the point of it.

“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."

--Vaclav Havel, last President of Czechoslovakia and first President of the Czech Republic; poet, playwright, dissident, and human rights champion.

I think this is the best definition I've ever seen, aside from one thing: To me, hope and optimism are the same thing.

I think the problem with people's idea of optimism is perspective. Being an optimist doesn't necessarily mean that you believe everything will go the way you want it to right now; like Havel says, I think it means you believe, you have hope, that in the long run, everything will be right. If this means you suffer short-term failures, that's okay--you can't always see the path beyond where you are now, so if something doesn't go the way you wanted it to, it's just because your information wasn't complete.


Hope means accepting what comes, and learning that no matter what, you never know everything. It requires a faith in something bigger than you: A conviction that even if you can't see it now, things will make sense in the end.

It's a Brand New Day

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love the Questions

"You are so young, so before all is beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can . . . to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
(translated by M.D. Herter Norton)

Guest Post: The Cookie Killer

Melissa has submitted a post before and it was one of our more popular posts...so we are always happy to welcome her back. Melissa lives in Las Vegas with her husband and baby daughter and is a recent graduate of UNLV.

I have a confession. A dark, humiliating secret which I have, until now, been too ashamed to admit. Before I divulge the ugly truth I want to make it perfectly clear that I am an incredibly lovely person, and I have hope that I will not be judged based upon what I lack but rather on what I do not.

I cannot bake cookies.

Now this may seem at first glance a simple and trivial quirk but let me tell you--it is neither simple nor trivial. There is something about me that defies the science of baking even the simplest chocolate chip cookie. Has it always been this way? Perhaps… I don’t think I ever attempted outside my mother’s presence until I got married.

It started as a gesture of love for my new husband. I began mixing the ingredients one by one, following the directions explicitly. I dropped the dough by the teaspoon onto the cookie sheets and baked them according to the label. When the timer went off I went to retrieve the cookies with my husband following eagerly. I opened the oven--and to my horror, each cookie was a flat disk melted to the bottom of the pan. Amidst the laughter from my husband, I burst into tears. What could I have done wrong? I tried again with the same batch of dough. Same result. It would be months until my second attempt.

That time, I tried again following even more explicit directions. The result never varied. I thought, it must be my mother’s recipe! I tried a new recipe. Same result. I tried varying the ingredients, the temperature. I looked on blogs and other websites… same result. I tried seven different batches, different types of cookies, different instructions. Each time I plopped the cookies in the oven they became flat, inedible disks.

When we moved to our new home I felt hope. I had a new oven, I had a renewed commitment to conquering the cookies, and more than that (and here is the key) I was now a mother! Every mom can bake cookies, right? So armed with confidence and a jar of pre-mixed cookie ingredients from our neighbors, I began baking some cookies. Can you guess what happened next?

Clearly it was not meant to be. I am a cookie killer. Sadly, cookies are a comfort food of which my family will be deprived. It is silly, really. The tears no longer come, only a sigh of disappointment and a resolve never to try again (although for some reason I still have not given up).

So what does this have to do with the quest to become lovely? I think at some level we are all destroyers of something we wish we could master. Unfortunately, we do not all have the ability to do everything we want. There are people who would desperately love to contribute something to society that would be embraced as wonderful or beautiful. Some people would love to have a talent for singing, others would love to play the piano or create beautiful art, and others just want to make a dang batch of cookies for their family.

The key to being successful is to embrace the things that we are talented at, even if we don't think they're important. I may never be recognized for my ability to keep an organized, pristine home. There isn’t a category in a talent show for folding laundry, changing a diaper one-handed, or scrubbing toilets. As a teacher I wasn’t honored in any ceremonies or banquets, and as a wife and mother I’ve never been given a standing ovation. Now I can also accept that I will never be praised by a neighbor for a delicious batch of cookies. I’m okay with that. We need to celebrate the things we can do, and accept the things we cannot. I think the reason we were all given different talents and abilities is so that we can recognize our dependence on each other as a whole. Rather than being bitter for the things we cannot do, we need to be happy for the success of our friends, and share our skills and talents (no matter how trivial we perceive them to be) with others.

That being said… I would love some cookies.

Saturday Snapshots

Thanks, Postsecret. I don't know the person who sent this in, but I'm happy for her.