Day 35 – September 4, 2014

Ethan (my 11-year-old son) has joined the middle school band. As a tuba player. What that means for me, as a parent, is a sore back from helping him lift it into our vehicle, and always being just a little bit on edge – for each time he blows a note, from down in the basement, I think a dump truck is backing right into my bedroom. But he’s happy, and so far he’s working hard at it, so I can’t complain, really.

Having said that, it was a definite challenge to keep from complaining this morning. We ended up running a bit late for school. The band director keeps the door to his band room open during a particular window of time each morning so that kids can take their instruments directly in, rather than have to haul their – in some cases – massive horns all through the winding maze which is the middle school. Well, we missed that window this morning. Ethan – who is a strong, tall, good-sized kid, but in a moment like that, standing next to a huge tuba case, is just my baby in my eyes – muttered, “I wish I’d just played the flute,” as he picked up the case and began the long walk in. My heart couldn’t take it, and I offered to carry it as far as the flag pole for him. “Sorry,” he kept saying, over and over. It was fine, and I told him so. But I also knew there were lessons he needed to learn. Lessons I needed to teach.

When he first decided he wanted to play tuba, I discussed in detail how big and heavy it was going to be, and that he would be responsible for carrying it around. He decided to play it anyway. I’ve told him repeatedly not to bring the tuba home on Wednesday evenings, because he wouldn’t have time to practice. He has youth group at church. But last night he brought it home anyway. This morning, I told him he needed to hurry, because we needed to get to school early so he could drop off the tuba before class. He listed a million reasons why he didn’t need to get there early. It would be easy. It would be fine. So he took his sweet time and played with the dog anyway.

I left him at the flag pole and walked back to the van, and slowly drove past the front of the school. He hadn’t made much progress and my heart broke. Oh, just go back and park the van and carry the stupid thing in for him, my heart cried out. But my brain told me not to. As much as it hurt me emotionally to think of what a long, difficult walk he had in front of him, and as much as I didn’t want him to get a tardy – which, at the pace he was going, I’m sure he did – or have sore arms all day, I had to just turn away and drive on.

And as I drove, I prayed. Should I go back? Am I being too hard on him? He’s just a kid… 

But then I had a clear image in my mind. Is the way I was feeling, about Ethan having to carry the stupid tuba all by himself, the same way God feels about us sometimes? How often could He take away all of the hard work, and all of the suffering, and all of the exhaustion, and just carry our load for us? He could do that every single time if He chose to, but we wouldn’t really learn much from that, would we? He doesn’t abandon us, certainly. Never. But maybe He only carries our load as far as the flag pole. I guess the part I have never really thought about before today is how God feels during the part which comes after. How many people, when they go through struggles and trials, and the burden is heavy, imagine God to have turned away, or at the very least to be looking on the situation with indifference. “They’ll be fine. It’s good for them. Next!” And then He moves on to someone else’s problem. But that’s not the way it works.

But I don’t believe God wonders if He should reconsider. He knows the perfect plan and the perfect time, and He knows what we need to learn, and how we need to learn it. But that doesn’t mean He doesn’t drive around the block, continually checking on our progress, cheering us on, wishing we didn’t have to go through that. 

 

Day 20 – The Year of Blogging Faithfully

“That is the sound of rejection,” I muttered under my breath.

Today is the first day of school for the elementary schools in our town, and therefore the first day of school for Noah as he begins his 3rd grade year. This morning did not go as smoothly as yesterday, but I suppose that was to be expected. I did still manage to get out of bed the hour early for God Time, and I’m thankful for that. I can’t imagine how the morning would have gone otherwise!

It started well. You know, when it was just me and the dog, and my cup of coffee, and everyone else was still asleep. Across from our house, there is a nature preserve. It’s down in a valley a bit (Or is it a canyon? Or is it just down a hill? I don’t know!), and this morning there was a heavy fog covering it, at about eye level from my viewpoint in the dining room. We live in southwestern Colorado, and we just don’t have a lot of those foggy, dew-filled mornings – because we don’t have a lot of moisture or humidity at all. It was gorgeous and breathtaking – the photo doesn’t do it justice – and I felt God’s presence. After looking at that for a couple of minutes, I still had quite a bit of time for Bible study and prayer. I felt positive and uplifted, and optimistic about the day.

It didn’t all start to fall apart until about five minutes after Noah’s alarm clock should have gone off. I went into his room to check on him, and discovered he was still asleep. He had accidentally set his alarm for 6:50 p.m. Okay. No biggie. We’d only lost five minutes. What was of more concern were the tears in his eyes. “Did you sleep well?” I asked. He hadn’t, he said. Though he hadn’t really let on until that moment, he was nervous about starting school. His tummy was a little upset, and every mole hill quickly became a mountain. More minutes lost. We took a moment to pray, and his nerves seemed to subside. But we still had all of the chaos of two boys getting ready for school, a dad who, though much improved, still requires a little bit more time, and a mom desperate to not mess up her first day as the coordinator and facilitator of life’s new normal.

Well, Kelly made it to work, both boys made it to school, and I am alone. And it was somewhere between the elementary school and Kelly’s workplace that it was all put marvellously into perspective. Just so you know, this day promises to be a crazy one. The crazy morning was just the beginning. Kelly has a doctor’s appointment, I have a meeting, and the boys have early release on Wednesdays. Schedules are being juggled, and I have no point in my schedule where I get to be out of the vehicle for more than an hour or so at a time. And as I drove Kelly to work, having already dropped off Noah, with about thirty minutes to get Ethan to school, my phone made a noise – the notification tone which only sounds when I receive an e-mail in the account I only use for queries to literary agents. When we got to the radio station to drop Kelly off, I took a look at my phone. Yep. Rejection. And all I said, after confirming what I knew, was, “How would we manage to do all of this on days like this if I hadn’t quit my job?” As Kelly said, we’d have managed, but it would have been tough. And what if I had a literary agent right now, and a publisher? Or what if I even felt like I had to give my all to writing right now? Could it be done? Sure. I know that people do it all the time. But could I do it, and still feel the joy I feel in the morning, and still savor every moment with my kids, and still be who I need to be for them right now? Would I be as open to God’s leading? Would I even have time to listen?

The thing is, when I muttered, “That is the sound of rejection,” there was a smile on my face.

Day 19 – August 19, 2014

Whew! First day of middle school was a success! First day of 3rd grade is tomorrow. The only complaint I have: I’m exhausted. I feel as if I went through the entire day with Ethan today. I cried a bit when I dropped him off at school. That was a first for me. Kelly assured me he has felt that way every year, when both boys start school, but as I said yesterday, to me it’s always been just another day. Not today.

Noah and I spent the day together, enjoying his last day of summer break.

Okay, I have nothing to write. For the first time in The Year of Blogging Faithfully, I really have nothing to write. I’m not losing enthusiasm and dedication at day 19, and I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be back to my wordy self, but right now…I just want to be. 

I’m content, because the day went well. I’m exhausted, because I actually got up an hour early for “God Time.” I’ve never actually managed to do that before – not when an hour early is that early – but today I did, and it was well worth it. It started the day in the perfect way, and it really set the tone. I’m so grateful for that, and I’m determined to do it every day. Kelly’s knee is showing improvement, a close friend had a very good day in which I got to see God work, Noah and I had a terrific day together, I made a dinner which my children loved (a true rarity), and beyond that, I really have nothing to write about today.

Rather than write about it, today I just need to live it. 

Day 18 – August 18, 2014

I’ve never before been sad when the time rolls around for school to start. I’ve never been happy either, though. It’s never made any difference. This was the first summer – let’s be honest…the first period of time longer than a week-and-a-half or so of vacation – I spent with Ethan and Noah since they were almost four and barely one, respectively. I tried being a full-time mom once before. At that point, I had been working at the bank for about five years, having started there in August of 2001. Ethan was born in November of 2002, I took my maternity leave, and then went right back to work. And there I still was when Noah was born in February of 2006. I intended to get right back to it that time too, but he was breech and had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck twice. An emergency c-section led to the discovery of what they thought was a cyst on my ovary. I only had one ovary left by that time, having lost the first one to ovarian cancer when I was seventeen years old. Well, I had horrible pregnancies (wonderful babies, horrible pregnancies) so Kelly and I had already decided we weren’t going to push our luck past two kids anyway, so I told them to just go ahead and remove the ovary while they were in there performing the c-section. The next day we learned that the supposed cyst was actually a cancerous tumor. After visits with an oncologist, it was determined that I would take a little time to recover from the first surgery, and then we’d go to Denver for a hysterectomy – just to be safe. So that’s what we did, in April of 2006. During that surgery, the doctor opted to remove my appendix, because it looked “a little off.” Yep. It was a little off. Appendix cancer. (Never heard of it? Neither had I.) The oncologist informed me that with everything I had gone through, the appendix cancer would have actually been the one to kill me. The tumor was still developing inside the appendix when he removed it, essentially on a hunch. He made it very clear that if it hadn’t been detected during the hysterectomy, it most likely would have caused no symptoms until it was too late. He estimated that I would have been dead within two years.

At that point, I wanted to be with my babies. Life is short. Life is uncertain. And I had given birth to miracles – including a newborn miracle whose birth had literally saved my life. So in July of 2006, I left the bank to stay home. Almost immediately I took on a part-time job. And then another. Yes, we needed the money, but truthfully, I just needed to get out of the house. I knew then that I wasn’t meant to be a full-time mother. I was going crazy, and I told myself I was a better mother if I wasn’t with them all the time. By August of 2007, I was back at the bank full-time. I’d been wooed back with a management position, but truthfully, I probably would have taken anything. I felt like a failure as a mother, but I brushed those feelings aside. After all, I was helping to provide for my family. They would be fine in daycare. And don’t get me wrong – they were. We have been blessed with amazing caregivers who love those two boys deeply. And the truth is, at that time in their lives – at that time in my life – my children were probably better off in daycare. I wasn’t ready for it. I don’t think I was a bad mom, but I really was better at it if it was my evening and weekend job. I’m not proud of that, but it’s the truth.

Of course, if you’ve been reading The Year of Blogging Faithfully, you know the rest. I kept moving up the ladder, which meant more power, more money, more responsibility, more hours at work, more stress, less of a relationship with my boys, less time to remember that life is short and life is uncertain. But by April 30, 2014, God had begun the process of changing my heart.

School starts tomorrow for Ethan, Wednesday for Noah, and I am so sad that the summer is over. This summer, I truly got to know my children, perhaps for the very first time. And I discovered that they are remarkable human beings. Absolutely remarkable. Noah possesses a keen intuitiveness which will literally take your breath away at times. I never really realized that before. If you are sad, or worried, or even just a tad out of sorts, he knows. And his instinct is to comfort and assist. And when I look at Ethan, I no longer see the kid who I always said was oil to my water. We bonded this summer, and now I realize that when he gets irritable and cranky with me, it’s usually just because he’s thinking at a higher level than I am, and he doesn’t understand why I don’t understand him. He seems airheaded quite often – and he is – but it’s only because he doesn’t see the point in wasting time on the little things which fill the minds of most of us day in and day out.

As I wrote those last few lines, I kept seeing in my mind the scene in The Sound of Music when Maria and the children get back to the villa after a day of climbing trees in play clothes made from the old curtains in Maria’s bedroom. The Baroness is there to meet the children, and the Captain is upset with Maria and embarrassed by his children. And Maria takes the opportunity to implore the Captain to get to know his children. And Friedrich, he’s a boy but he wants to be a man, but there’s no one to show him how, and then of course Maria’s impassioned plea, Oh, please Captain, love them. Love them all! You know the rest…the Captain fires Maria, but then he hears singing. They all sing “The Sound of Music,” the Captain realizes he didn’t know his children after all, Maria is asked to stay, and not even the Nazis can stand in the way of all of the love and happiness which soon ensues.

Yeah. That. That’s how my heart feels.

Day 8 – August 8, 2014

It’s 10:04 p.m. and I am getting this Day 8 blog in just under the wire. Not because it hasn’t been a day of revelation and insight. Quite the opposite. Today was one of the most enjoyable, joyous days I’ve had in recent memory. Actually, it may be one of the most enjoyable days I have ever had. And the day was spent shopping for school clothes with my children, of all things.

We drove to Farmington, New Mexico, which is 70-something miles away, to get what is needed for the year. Ethan will be going into middle school and Noah will be in 3rd grade. So, here I was preparing myself for this day of torture, shopping for clothes and shoes with an 11-year-old boy and an 8-year-old boy, neither of whom have ever cared one lick about clothing, fashion, style, if their clothes match, or even if their clothes are clean. Ethan has never even cared if he is clean. Last summer we took him to Huntsville, Alabama for Space Camp, and he didn’t shower once the entire week he was there. And let me repeat: Alabama. Summer. He was disgusting. And he couldn’t have cared less. He also only changed his clothes twice the entire week. Yeah, so this is what I was bracing myself to deal with today.

I could not have been more surprised by how the day progressed. We are obviously shopping on a pretty tight budget, so we hit up stores like Ross, and TJ Maxx. (Who am I kidding? I proudly shop there on any budget!) It was at Ross that I sent Ethan off to check out a rack of shirts in the clearance section for his size, and I told him to pick out something he liked. I had no idea what to expect, but I knew it could have been anything. However, I never expected it to be what it was. He walked over to me and said, “Is this okay?” as he held up a button-up Dockers dress shirt, light pink with yellow on the inside cuffs and collar. So modern. So hip. So…not Ethan. It was a $100 shirt, marked down to next-t0-nothing, and I was elated. “Yeah, that’s fine. Good choice,” I said calmly, afraid to show too much emotion or I might somehow undo the magic of the moment.

From there, the day got more insane and wonderful. He purchased a leather Dickies wallet with his own money. He already has a wallet, but he felt it was time for a “grown-up wallet.” His other purchase of the day, with his own money, was a knapsack which he intends to use on his daily hikes in the nature preserve just across the street from our house. Yesterday, again with his own money – gift cards, actually – he purchased an odometer/speedometer for his bike. Up until recently, any and all money spent was used on video games. What is happening?!?

He picked out stylish clothes all day long. He has a fashion sense which I never would have anticipated. Never. And then we got home and he wanted to show us the outfit he had in mind for the first day of school. “Okay, sure,” I said to the kid who has never wanted to try on clothes for the sake of trying on clothes, ever. He grabbed what he wanted, and then a few minutes later came out in his pink Converse shirt under his pink Dockers button-up (which he calls his tuxedo, and is seriously his pride and joy), with his new Calvin Klein khakis (Which cost me $10.00. Boom!) and his new tennis shoes. The Converse shirt was tucked into the khakis, the button-up was untucked, the cuffs were rolled up to show the yellow… WHO IS THIS CHILD???? By this point, I was wondering if I was in the middle of some Freaky Friday thing, and he had somehow switched places with a GQ model.

And then, after a little time had passed and he had carefully put away his new treasures, he said, “I’m going to go take a shower.” And then he went in the bathroom and took a shower. The boy has never voluntarily taken a shower in his life. Should I call the police? Am I going to see a GQ model who resembles my son on a milk carton soon? I just can’t explain it.

But the day was surprising in other, even better ways as well. My children and I had an amazing time together. Absolutely amazing. They never grumbled, they tried on clothes, we laughed, we discussed spiritual matters, we sang along together to Frozen karaoke tracks (don’t tell them I told you that), and we loved every minute of our time together. While shopping for school clothes.

Freaky Friday, indeed. Freaky and wonderful.