Tag Archives: comparison

June 17, 2013 · 9:00 am

a story about superlatives.

A few weeks ago, I got invited to join a Facebook group for my 10-year high school reunion because, evidently, I’m a lot older than I feel or would care to admit at this point in time.

It’s so fun to interact with these people again. No matter where we eventually ended up, we all have this crazy past experience in common — a collection of four years in which we all tried to grow up too fast but also be young and stupid at the same time, yielding countless memories of euphoric highs and heavy lows.

Naturally, senior year was my favorite. By the middle of the fall semester I’d already been accepted to all the colleges I’d applied to, so I tried my best to enjoy my final days in high school as much as I could.

(Read: I slacked off and, uh, let my hair down, if you will.)

One of the most fun parts about senior year was, of course, the Senior Superlatives for the yearbook. I’ll never forget the day we were filling out our ballots. The room was all abuzz about Who are you voting for Biggest Flirt? Best Hair? Most Likely to Succeed?

Then, of course, Best Looking.

“Oh, I don’t know who to pick,” I told one of my guy friends.

“I’m picking you,” he said.

“No you’re not!”

“Yes I am. Watch me.”

Sure enough, he wrote my name in on his ballot for Best Looking. My name. Mine! For Best Looking!

For an insecure girl battling an eating disorder, that was the best news ever!

Now, to be fair, he probably only did that because a) in a class of more than 500 people it’s hard to think of one person and I happened to be sitting right in front of him at the time or b) because he wanted to be nice or c) he wanted to get into my pants and I had no idea.

Still, I was very flattered. So flattered, in fact, that I couldn’t wait to tell my boyfriend.

My boyfriend at the time was a year older than me, already knee-deep in his freshman year of college in another state, and, as I would later discover thanks to the at-the-time-very-newfangled internet, absolutely cheating on me.

“I got voted for Best Looking!” I almost screamed into the phone.

“Oh?” He said.

“Yeah! Isn’t that wild?”

Then, without missing a beat, with the flattest voice, he replied, ”Your class president should win that category.”

If I’d had a mouth full of water, I would have done the most epic spit take.

“I’m sorry?”

“Not to be mean, but she is the prettiest girl in your class.”

“Are you serious right now?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. First of all, he was right. She was definitely the prettiest girl in our class. Second of all, she was a friend of mine, and he knew that. Third of all, I was his freaking girlfriend! Anyone with a brainstem knows that, regardless of the validity of a statement like that, you don’t bloody say it!

“Yeah, I mean, no offense. If she weren’t in your class I’d vote for you.”

Nice save.

For the record, I am still friends with this beautiful girl. I never told her this story but I wish I would have because I know we would have laughed our faces off about it. Perhaps at the reunion?

Ten years later, I’d all but forgotten about this little exchange until the Facebook group brought back a tidal wave of memories, both great and (like this one) less than great.

To be honest, I don’t remember who won Best Looking. Or Most Likely to Succeed. Or Best Hair. (And I have no idea where my yearbook is — oops — so it’s not like I can look this stuff up.) But, you see, here’s the thing.

Ten years ago, my life hinged on whether or not people found me attractive. If they did, I felt like I was worth something. If they didn’t, it was crushing because I was convinced it meant I was useless.

Today, I know that isn’t the case.

I have a wonderful husband and a devastatingly beautiful son and a life that is so full, so abundant, that it has exceeded any and all dreams and hopes I’d ever had for myself.

I am radically loved by so many people. My God and myself included. And I am grateful.

So. Here’s a message to all you young ladies in high school right now who are praying to whomever you worship that you’ll be voted Best Looking. Or that your boyfriend won’t cheat on you. Or that you’ll lose ten pounds before prom. Or that you’ll go from a B to a C cup by your junior year.

Listen to me. Listen good. 

I know all of this seems important. Like earth-shatteringly important. And I’m not here to tell you that it’s not because it was for me, too. But what I am here to tell you is this:

Just wait. It gets so much better than this.

Ten years from now, you will look back and laugh at yourself for ever thinking (or caring) that you were fat or ugly or lonely. You will look around you and see all the blessings you have because of your brain and your heart and your talents and your demeanor and you will wonder why you ever thought any differently. So just hang in there.

Oh — and for Christ’s sake, eat something.

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June 7, 2013 · 3:03 pm

when it rains.

I know this can’t possibly be true but it really feels like it has rained nonstop since I moved to Naples.

dangnatureuscary

First, it was your regular ol’ summer-in-Florida situation in which the sky would turn a mean black around 2pm and then vigorously pour buckets for all of ten minutes before clearing back up.

Then, one day, it just kept raining.

And then a tropical storm rolled through.

And it kept raining.

Really put a — wait for it – damper on things around here. (I COULDN’T RESIST. I REGRET NOTHING.)

rain

Yesterday was one of those five-star parenting days in which I was operating on very little sleep and it was all I could do to not burst into tears and so, despite the tropical conditions outside, I took Dax out for a drive hoping the lull of the car and the sound of the rain would calm him.

I told you; five. star. parenting. (It worked, by the way.)

While I was waiting at a red light, enjoying the sound of my baby not crying, I tiredly stared through the windshield while the wipers swish-swished back and forth rapidly to clear away the cascade. My eyes fell upon that triangular space between the wipers that never gets wiped and I remembered analyzing that same spot as a child driving with my mom. I could hear my tiny voice in my head, whining: ”Why can’t they make wipers that wipe the WHOLE windshield? There is so much left of the glass that has droplets all over it!”

(I’ve always been a perfectionist, I guess.)

As an adult, I looked at the glass differently. Instead of being upset that, all these years later, they still haven’t made wipers that actually wipe the whole windshield, I felt grateful for those wipers and their persistence. No matter how hard it rains, no matter how many drops (or buckets) fall, those wipers keep on keepin’ on, with no regard for how many drops have already previously fallen or how many will fall in the future. Swish-swish-swish-swish. Dry-not dry-dry-not-dry-dry. 

One of my last days in Tallahassee, I was out wedding dress shopping with my best friend. Toward the end of the trip, though, I got a frantic text from Dan asking me to come home as soon as possible to nurse a very cranky Dax. I headed home as fast as I could which evidently wasn’t legal because I got a speeding ticket.

I was so angry with myself because, I know better. During my twelve years of driving, I’ve gotten more than my fair share of speeding tickets and, until that moment, I had finally cleared all points from my license and was again deemed a “safe driver”. And one stupid misstep of speeding home cost me all that.

When I got home I yelled at Dan and yelled at myself, saying, “I’m just so sick of the fact that I’m such a crappy person.”

“You are not a crappy person,” he said, “you are just a person. Who does crappy things sometimes. Because you’re a person.”

“But I always do this!”

“Just because you’ve done bad things doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. You’re forgiven.”

It’s amazing to me how often this happens to me. I make some (relatively) minor mistake and I fall apart because it makes me think I am forever doomed to making mistakes and that I’ll always be bad and nothing can fix that.

It just keeps raining.

If you have the same issue I do — you seem to remember every dumb thing you do and beat yourself up every time you do another dumb thing — just remember the windshield wipers.

What.

Forgive yourself as persistently as my wipers clear away the rain. Forget the drops from the past, don’t anticipate more drops in the future. Just wipe them away as they come, just as fast as you can, so you can see what goodness lies ahead.

Because if I was still angry about all the rain that has fallen in Naples over the past three weeks, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself right now, sitting outside at a Starbucks, warming in the sunshine with the dry sidewalk beneath my sandaled feet.

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May 6, 2013 · 10:16 pm

naked and unashamed.

If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you might know that I was diagnosed with an eating disorder in 2007 and have since made it my mission to figure out how to love myself — inside and out — relentlessly. My blog has been instrumental on this journey. I’ve blogged my way through all sorts of self-love hangups, from navigating self-imposed pressures to be the perfect wife to finding my sexy.

I’m thankful to report that, in the past year, I haven’t had many reasons to turn to Ye Olde Blogue in order to make myself feel better about my self or my body. With God’s help (along with the assistance of my sweet husband and faithful mentors) I think that it’s safe to say that I’ve finally made peace with my own body and any chance of ED relapse is behind me.

However, regardless of my own personal growth, a recent chain of unsettling events has made me realize that this world is still, if I may be so bold as to say, effed sideways concerning the ways we women view ourselves:

+ My mom hasn’t had a nice picture of her taken in a while, so a few weeks ago she requested that I take one of her with my SLR. As soon as I was done she pleaded with me to Photoshop away some lines from her face.

+ During prayer requests at my bible study a week ago, a girl asked for a way for her to use her body to get ahead in life.

+ There are hundreds of leaders (male, of course) in the church community that have come out recently speaking against women for what they wear for being the cause of men to lust after them and even cheat on their wives. (Yes, read that again. The women are at fault for the men who cheat.)

+ Someone told me that of course I’m happy with my body because I’m beautiful. And there’s no way they can be happy because they’re not.

You know me — I can’t just sit back and not blog about how much these events (particularly the last one) infuriate me.

I’m currently fumbling my way through the book of Esther and trying to make sense of it; a story about a Jew girl who was integral to saving God’s chosen people because, quite frankly, some batshit crazy pseudo-king thought she was hot and, for that reason alone, wanted to “know” her. (This is, of course, the New Lindsay Translation of the story. I suggest you read it for your own context, even if you aren’t a believer.)

The other day, I hopped in the shower ever-so-quickly while my son was napping and gave myself the New-Mom-Speedy-Scrubdown, my ears tuned to the static sounds coming from the baby monitor in my bedroom. When I finished actually washing and found that, surprisingly, my child was still asleep, I stood very still and watched the streams of water race each other down my body.

For a while, I just stared blankly, sure my child would rouse any minute. But each second that passed with no sounds from the monitor, I would turn the COLD knob just a bit more toward the OFF position to allow the stream to increase in heat. As soon as my skin adjusted to the temperature change, I’d turn the knob just a little bit more.

I did this until the COLD knob was completely off and, though the water was scalding, my skin was comfortable (albeit considerably more pink).

Under the stream, my eyes surveyed my exterior and — as bizarre as it sounds — I marveled. I couldn’t believe that this vessel at which I was staring had done so much in its 27 years of life — danced its 10,000 hours, learned scales on the piano, grew and sustained another human life — and, yet, took the brunt of my own abuse for the better part of two decades. And then I thought about Esther.

And my mom.

And that girl from my bible study.

And men who blame their missteps on their victims.

And all the girls in this society that think their bodies are as deep as their worth goes.

And I got mad. Like. Really mad.

I think the main reason I got so mad is because I feel like I can’t do anything. I’m just one person in this giant effed up world and, as these recent events have pointed out, this issue is much bigger than me.

I said what I could say in bible study in order to encourage that girl. Ultimately I don’t know if anything I said made one bit of difference; I left feeling like something had been stolen from me. Perhaps that something was the notion that this problem is suddenly gone just because I’m not suffering from it anymore.

You know that played-out Goo Goo Dolls song from the 90s? You know, from the City of Angels soundtrack? Meg Ryan and that other dude? I can’t remember the name of it, but there is one line that sticks out to me:

“And you bleed just to know you’re alive.”

I think these events have served their purpose to cut me open and remind me that there is still work left to be done and that lots of people are still bleeding. And we’ve got to speak the truth to those people.

Because God knows no one else is going to.

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November 15, 2012 · 11:35 am

working through your crap. or, a crappy metaphor.

This morning while I was getting ready for work, I looked back to the bed to see my husband doing something strange.

He was holding our baby boy upright, while gently pushing on his tummy, and working his legs in a bicycling motion.

“I’m trying to get him to poop,” he explained. “He hasn’t pooped in three days.”

Mind you, Dax wasn’t fussy or anything about his gastrointestinal disposition. He was rather happy, actually. But, concerning this issue, Dan and I were miserable. The kid was farting like he wanted to gas us out. I swear, I thought he had turned against us and was using his own methane to let us know.

After a determined Daddy stuck by him all morning, Dax finally pooped. Not as much as he should have after holding it in for three days, but at least we got some movement going. This will, we believe, encourage more poop later. This is exciting!

Oh, the way your life changes once you become a parent.

You see, Dax needed to poop, no doubt. He just needed a little help from Daddy to work it out. We are not unlike my (almost) four-month-old child in this. Please excuse my “crappy” metaphor and the consequential puns, but this needs to be said.

Sometimes (more often than not, I’d argue) we need people to help us work through our own crap. We might not know we need help, but others around us — those who are close enough to us to “smell” our “farts” — know something’s up. For a while, they may be polite and not say anything. After all, they’re probably just hoping you’ll work it out on your own. And they don’t want to call you out or embarrass you. But other times, if it goes for an extended period of time, they may step in and finally confront you.

I’d really encourage you to get some counseling about this.

Have you talked to anyone about this issue you have? 

Get your shiz together already. Jeez.

Someone close to me said that to me recently. And a year ago. And the previous year.

“Lindsay, you should really consider seeing a counselor about the fact that you grew up without a dad.”

Up until now, I’ve just been kind of ignoring it. Hoping it goes away on its own. Letting those around me “smell the farts” — seeing the destructive behaviors and attitudes born out of this gaping void I have in my life.

A couple weeks ago, I went to the doctor for insomnia. I hadn’t slept more than a couple hours a night for seven days and I’d had it. The doctor gave me a prescription for Ambien but, since I was in tears over being so exhausted, he also referred me to a counselor for postpartum depression.

I don’t think I have PPD. I think I have insomnia, like I always have. And I think I was sobbing over the fact that I was so bloody exhausted. But the doctor insisted I see a counselor, so I shrugged my shoulders and went. I thought it might be divine intervention or something. My time was up. It was time to “poop”. This is how the first couple minutes of my first session went:

Counselor: “What brings you in today?”

Me: “Well, honestly, I didn’t sleep for a week so I burst into tears in my doctor’s office and they said I have postpartum depression. I don’t think that’s the case. I mean, maybe? But probably not. So, at any rate, postpartum depression is what ACTUALLY brings me here today but I don’t think we need to talk about that. What we SHOULD talk about is that my dad left me when I was three years old and I think I’ve got some issues surrounding that and I think it’s time I dealt with them.”

Counselor: “Oh. Uh… you’re pretty self-aware.”

Me: “I try to be.”

And so — here I am, admitting to the entire Internet that I’m currently seeing a counselor. I’m letting someone help me work through my crap. I’ve only had one session but I can already tell it’s going to do wonders for my spirit.

Is there something in your life that you need help working through? My advice is just take the plunge. Get the help you need. We can all smell your farts anyway; stop denying it.

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November 13, 2012 · 4:17 pm

a job built on second chances.

You know what’s funny about babies?

They’re humans.

I know that sounds ridiculous but I’m pretty sure other parents can level with me here. Sometimes, you think your kid is a machine, right? A machine which, when you push exactly the right buttons, will do exactly what you tell it to. Feed Child at X time. Put Child down for a nap at Y time. Do all these things and Child will cooperate with you without fail. And DEFINITELY without tears.

At least, that’s how some of the parenting books may make you feel.

But you know what? Children, even babies, are humans. They’re little walking, talking brains with emotions, desires, pushes, and pulls. There is no perfect formula for child rearing. You just do the best you can today and hope it doesn’t end in a meltdown. And, if you are unsuccessful, you try again tomorrow.

Yesterday Dan and I tried to follow a formula. We tried to stick to a schedule. A method we’ve followed since he was two weeks old. But our child, who is not a machine, decided he didn’t want the same things we wanted.

He didn’t want to sleep.

He didn’t want to nurse.

He just wanted to be awake and wiggle. And cry. And be awake. And not sleep. And be hungry but fight me rather than nurse. And not nap. But lay on the bed with his eyes closed like he wanted to nap. Then cry.

It was a hell of a day, I tell you.

According to my friends and the Interwebs, it’s probably because he’s starting the teething process (WHICH BLOWS MY MIND INTO SMITHERINES YOU GUYS… MY BABY BOY!). Of course. Just after we get through a rough bout of colic, he starts to teethe.

Because he’s a human. Not a machine.

This post doesn’t really have a point. Just letting you all know that sometimes, parenting is hard. And today, I’m thankful that, after yesterday, and after not exactly getting it right, I haven’t been fired from the position of Dax’s mommy. For better or worse, each day is another chance to be the mom I was called to be.

It’s another day. I’m here, and I’m trying. Thank God for second chances. And second second chances. And second second second chances. And so on.

For good measure, here’s a picture Dan snapped of Dax passed out hard after raging all night. Party hard, crash harder, y’all.

For more adorable pictures of the human I helped make, follow me on Instagram.

 

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October 30, 2012 · 4:35 pm

tuesday tip — dodge the bad news on monday.

When I come into work on Monday, the day is already crappy because it’s Monday. This isn’t my job’s fault. It’s really no one’s fault but Monday’s. No matter what occupation you hold, even if you’re a stay-at-home mom, even if you’re a Seventh Day Adventist, I bet you hate Mondays. They just suck, no matter who you are.

Sorry, Monday. Don’t be mad at me. I’m just stating the facts. No one wrote a song about a Manic Tuesday, okay? And The Cure never said, “It’s MONDAY, I’m in love…” Hate to break it to you, Monday, but everyone agrees that you’re the worst.

The first thing I do when I sit down at my desk on Monday is check my email and the real estate websites I subscribe to on my Google reader to see if there’s any good industry-related blog fodder. (I’m a copy writer for a real estate website, by the way, in case you didn’t know.) But, because I’m such a news-fiend, I also subscribe to a few local and global news outlets.  You know, just to stay informed.

The problem with letting my Google reader lay dormant over the weekend is that the news section kind of explodes.

Exhibit A:

 

429 news articles? Good grief!

At first, I used to scroll through them really quickly so I could at least read the headlines. But you know what I found out?

Good news rarely makes it to my Google reader. 

“So and so people died in so and so country’s natural disaster…” “So and so number of soldiers can’t go home to see their families this Christmas…” “Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are actually a thing…”

Blah.

By skimming the headlines, even avoiding the actual articles, I was starting out an already crappy day by adding more crap to it.

And so recently I’ve changed my pattern. Now, when Monday rolls around, the first thing I click on in my Google reader is the Mark All As Read button.

Silence. So golden, right?

You see, when you know something is going to crap up your mood, why do it? Why stalk your ex-boyfriend’s Facebook page if you know it’s just going to stress you out? Why try and squeeze into the skinny jeans in the back of your closet that you know you haven’t been able to fit into since high school? Why squeeze the pimple on your face to smitherines when you know it’s going to make you bleed?

Why? Because that’s how we’ve always done it.

We’ve always opened our Google readers on Monday and just accepted that we’re going to be overrun by a tsunami of terrible news. It’s just how we’ve always done things, even if it sucks.

You know what? Doing something just because you’ve always done it is the worst reason to do something. Like. Ever.

Shake it up. Start your week by avoiding bad news. Maybe start your Monday by seeking out good news (or YouTube videos of kittens in lieu), or finally unfriending your ex, or finally cutting those damn skinny jeans into rags because good GOD girl, let them GO already!

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October 10, 2012 · 4:48 pm

the crazy cat lady.

Seven (seven!!!) years ago, a friend of mine called me up and said, “I know your aparment complex doesn’t allow pets, but my mom just found a box of three four-week-old kittens. One has died, I’m taking one, and the other one needs a home. Will you take him?”

Even though my apartment complex did, indeed, forbid pets, I told her I’d come over to “take a look at” said four-week-old kitten to “see” if I’d “want” it. As if anyone with a soul is going to look at a four-week-old kitten and be like, “Nope, sorry, good luck not dying like your sibling did, pal.”

That’s how I ended up with my first cat. I named him Romeo, after the Shakespeare character, because he was loving to me and only me and was rather intense about it.

So Romeo and I spent a lovely five and a half years together as a team. Me and Romeo. Romeo and me. No other cats to distract my attention. All Romeo, all the time.

Until June of 2011.

One day, I had to stop by the house after work for something on my way to a meeting. So I zoomed home, ran up the steps toward my front door and, as I was running, caught a small, black fuzzy thing in the corner of my eye.

“Please don’t be a kitten,” I prayed.

It was a kitten. Of course it was a kitten. A freaking four-week-old kitten with an eye infection, teetering on the edge of life. Damnit.

I scooped up the little dying furball and ran inside. I tossed him at my poor, unsuspecting husband and said, “I’m sorry. I have a meeting to run to. Please do something about this.” And then I left.

A $70 vet bill later, we couldn’t just set this kitten free. So he was ours. We named him Hamlet, because “Romeo and Whiskers” just doesn’t sound right and he is dressed in all black and acts out in outlandish ways, much like his Shakespearean namesake.

So. That’s how we got Romeo and Hamlet. Normal, right? At that point, I wasn’t anywhere near crazy cat lady status. I was just a girl with two cats.

But you see, it didn’t stop there.

Since we took Hamlet in at such a young age, his mother began to hang around. Feeling quite sad for her, what with the loss of her only begotten son, we started to feed her. And so we named her Gertrude, after Hamlet’s mother in the actual play.

Fair enough.

But then, other cats started to show up on our doorstep demanding food. Gertrude even took a suitor, whom we named Claudius. Okay, that’s cool, can’t fault a girl for shacking up right?

But then she got pregnant. Ugh. Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

So that makes two cats on the inside of our house (Romeo and Hamlet) and four outside.

Until Gertrude got pregnant again. By Claudius, we assume, but who knows. (Does it matter?!)

At that point, we just gave up and decided to name all future cats to come into our lives via this avenue as The Players.

Our friends thought we were nuts. When we went out of town, we’d have to have someone come feed Romeo and Hamlet, of course, but also the entire cat population in our neighborhood that we felt a heavy obligation to.

Someone once told me that I was an anomaly because I am, and I quote, “… the only crazy cat lady in existence who actually got married, too.” I don’t see why adopting every cat that crosses my path makes me “crazy” rather than “more loving than all of you, Selfish McSelfishpants”, but whatever. An anomaly I is, I suppose.

When I think of a crazy cat lady, I imagine her sitting in her house, talking in a high-pitched voice to one of her thousand felines, basking in the attention they give her simply because she refuses to leave her house lest one of them mews and goes unnoticed. She is up to her ankles in litter and Meow Mix, and the only thing she gets in return is the thunderous roar of simultaneous purrs and a coat of cat hair on her lap so thick she could knit a blanket with it.

She cannot move on from this life. She is invested now. Invested, it seems, in something that is really only a detriment, both physically and mentally.

As a I dabbled with cat lady-dom, I felt way too close to that image for comfort. The fact that I couldn’t take a trip out of town without taking the entire cat population into account was disheartening at best, frightening at worst.

Luckily (???) some people broke into our house and stole all of our stuff so we had to move, leaving Gertrude and the rest of them all to die, probably.

I tell you that story, not to draw attention to the fact that, when it comes to cats, I could probably benefit from some sort of psychoanalysis, but because I think there’s a little crazy cat lady in all of us.

Yesterday, I had lunch with my good friend Libby. We talked about a myriad of good things, but at one point in the conversation I found myself begging and pleading with her to stay my friend despite my new-found responsibilities surrounding motherhood.

“I just don’t want you guys to forget about me, you know? I mean I had a baby, which means I couldn’t hang out with you guys on Saturday night, so I’m worried that you’ll all forget about me…”

My insecurities were just zooming out of my mouth like a freight train.

“That’s so silly,” she reassured. “We’d never forget you. That’s just your crazy cat lady talking.”

Huh?

Evidently, Libby refers to the voice inside one’s head that plays off of one’s insecurities, the voice that makes you feel like you’re not good enough the way you are and no one — except maybe your cats — will ever love you, is your crazy cat lady.

Ha. Despite the fact that she has to take a truck load of allergy medication before heading over to my house, that metaphor resonates with me more than she probably knew at the time.

Over the past several weeks, my crazy cat lady has been telling me that I’m going to be forgotten and replaced by my immediate circle of friends because I’m the only one with a kid. I’m the only one who, when invited out somewhere, has to take into account bedtimes and bathtimes and nursing times and if I’ll have the car seat or not, etc. etc. etc. My crazy cat lady wants me to believe that, because of all this, I’m less valued by my friends. I’m not the same Lindsay I was before, and they won’t love the new Lindsay. Or my kid.

My crazy cat lady doesn’t want me to leave the house. She wants me to stay where it’s comfortable, surrounded by a thousand cats (doubts, fears, insecurities) that bind me forever to a life of recluse. A life without reaching out, accepting love from other people who are real and honest and different. There is nothing beneficial from this thinking. Much like an actual cat lady, there is little return on this sort of thinking.

It’s all lies, of course. But the feelings are there regardless. My crazy cat lady is relentless.

What does your crazy cat lady tell you?

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October 3, 2012 · 1:56 pm

it isn’t easy being green. with envy.

I’ve been dealing with some stuff.

That’s what I told a couple of my girlfriends in an email last week. Only I didn’t say “stuff”. I said something else. Something much more fitting to describe exactly what it is I’m going through.

Yesterday, I got an email from NaNoWriMo. When it hit my inbox it felt like a sack of pumpkins to the face. Oh yes. It’s October, which means that next month is November. National Novel Writing Month.  Has it really been a year since I touched my novel?

Let me give you a little bit of insight as to how my life looked a year ago:

I’d just gotten surgery to repair my ACL, an injury I sustained during an awesome dance class at an incredible studio. I was writing like it was my job (which, okay, it is my job but youknowwhatimean), my blog was getting roughly a bazillion hits a day (roughly), and I was taking on my biggest writing challenge ever — fashioning a novel (albeit a complete crap one) in a month. All the while, I was involved in four ministries, one of which I led, at my church.

I was doing it all, basically. I was the it-girl.

And then bam. On November 16th, I took a positive pregnancy test. A figurative slam on the brakes of life, if you will. A happy gear shift, for sure, but a gear shift none the less. I went from being completely focused on my life and my goals to turning down everything (including beer, dang it) that I wanted in order to put someone else — someone so precious and special — first.

I was thrown head-first into a season of rapid life-changes, both physically and otherwise. As I watched my body grow, I also watched important things in my life grow distant. It was almost as if I was taking up too much space to allow for anything else. A painfully obvious metaphor, of sorts. I stepped down. From a lot of things. I put writing on the back burner. I surrendered the ministries in which I volunteered (one of which I’d run for five years — that was pretty hard to let go). I removed myself from all of the “good” things in my life in order to make room for the “best” thing.

Make no mistake. When I saw his little face on July 19th at 1:34 AM, I could see why he was, indeed, the “best” thing. He was (and is) absolutely perfect. He is my whole world. 

That should be enough for me. It should. But guess what?

I’m human. I’m broken. So sometimes, it’s not. Sometimes, like right now, for instance, it’s not.

This year looks  a lot different than last year. I’m not dancing. I’m not writing as much. I’m most certainly not writing another novel, or even editing the one I did write, and I’m watching as all the ministries in which I served move on without me. Moreover, they’re moving on with other people. People who, by my account, are better and more lovable than me. My brokenness begs me to cling to the public affirmation associated with being involved in and doing everything, and so now, since I don’t have any of that, I don’t feel as though I am worthy of love. It’s especially hard because the only person for whom I’m “doing” things, the only person from whom I can receive affirmation, can’t speak. Can’t audibly affirm me. (Unless you count coos and the occasional but oh-so lifesaving smiles.)

To make matters worse, I had to go back to work. And my milk supply consequently dropped. So now I sit in my cubicle, praying that the one thing I — and only I — can do doesn’t slip away, too, making me (in my mind) completely and utterly useless. It feels like this thing — breastfeeding my child — is the only thing keeping me from being obsolete and unloved. As each pumping session shrinks just a little smaller than the last, I begin to panic.

Enter: envy. Pure, immature, annoying, soul-crushing envy.

I find myself envious (and bitter, to boot) of everyone these days. Stay-at-home moms who can answer the demand of their nursing infants and, therefore, don’t have to worry about a diminishing milk supply. Published writers who, because they’re published, are better at it than I. Singers, because dear GOD don’t ask me to sing. Songwriters. Artists. Friends. Not friends. Redheads. Brunettes. Blondes.

The list is endless.

Chances are, if I know you, I’m probably envious of something you have that I don’t. Even though what I have — a beautiful and perfect baby boy — is something you can’t ever have. Sure, you can have a baby boy at some point. But he’ll never be my baby boy. He’ll never be the perfect little angel I wake up to every morning.

It’s the nature of the sin. It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t God-honoring. It’s wrong and stupid and awful. And yet, here I sit, stewing in envy. The painful thorn in my side.

One of my favorite writers touched on this earlier this week when she lamented about the solitary nature of book-writing. The way she explained her feelings echoed mine. It’s as if I’m a duck floating atop a pond. Quiet and inconspicuously still above the surface, but furiously paddling my feet beneath, unseen and unappreciated by all.

Barf. Whatever.

Because this terrible ulcer in my heart wouldn’t stop festering, I had no choice but to open up about it to a couple friends. (In two completely unrelated lunch meetings, both over sushi, which I found to be adorably ironic.) I sat across the table from these two friends, friends I’ve known for years, friends who have seen me at my absolute worst, and I let them have it. I let them know that, yep, I’m still messed up. I compare myself to others and get really freaking jealous and it really sucks.

And they listened. And they challenged me to think differently. To be proactive and to make changes.

But change is hard and I hate it. 

This past weekend I took a short, 24-hour trip to my hometown to see my best friend’s little brother get married. It’s a four-hour drive, and since I had to take Dax with me, I had to drive at night. I hate driving at night, but Dax sleeps through the night now and also conks out during car rides so there was no way I was going to drive during the day if it meant my son would revert back to a nocturnal disposition.

My least favorite part of the drive, probably because of the low speed limit and lack of passing lanes, is driving east on highway 40 through the Ocala National Forest. As soon as I get on 40, I start counting the minutes until I can finally turn right onto 17 and get the hell off of 40.

But this time, it was different. I wanted to stay on 40 forever.

In the dead of night, the Ocala National Forest should have, by all accounts, been pitch black. My Camry and I should have been shrouded in complete darkness. But we weren’t.

The moon was full, and so it poured buckets of silvery moonlight across the land, transforming the forest completely. The trees were a mass of dark, almost-black-but-just-not hunter green against a slate sky and clouds disguised as clumps of charcoal. It was devastatingly beautiful — a type of beauty that could only be seen in the dark of night. As much as the sun could try during the day, that type of allure was only achievable with the overwhelming glow of the full moon. (I tried to take a picture of it with my iPhone but none of the photos did it justice. So hopefully my words will.)

It reminded me of me. And what I’m going through in this time. Though I am, indeed, walking through a “dark” period, a night which has gone on way too long with the hope of dawn too far off in the distance, there is hope. There is truth. There is light.

There is light in the truth my friends bring me through honest, raw, desperate conversation. There is the reality that, though I am broken and have weak moments, I am loved and valued, even if I am not publicly esteemed as such right now. And though I’m currently wrestling with this beast of a sin, I can beat it because I am a daughter of the Most High. A princess.

A broken princess. A messy princess. But a princess, none the less, bathed in the sweet, soft moonlight of grace.

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September 23, 2012 · 11:02 am

just the way i am.

Let me tell you about the first time I was humbled by my child.

Everyone kept telling me that I’d know I was about to go into labor once I started getting the urge to nest. I found that to be quite strange, as I’ve never had the urge to decorate much of anything in my life. Take my childhood bedroom, for example. Once I discovered that my favorite color was aquamarine, I decided to paint my room that color. It was a bit jarring when compared against the rest of our muted home, but I didn’t care. It was my favorite color and I was going to rock it. Then, on top of the wall, I plastered a bunch of posters of my favorite bands. I guess that makes sense when you’re twelve years old — like I was at the time — but I left my room exactly that way until I left for college. My poor mother was burdened with the task of bringing that room back to a state of decorated normalcy.

Despite my self-proclaimed “creative” disposition, I just. Don’t. Decorate. Period. (And Lord help me if I ever have to show up some place and look presentable. My fashion sense is almost as bad.)

But because every other mother on the face of the planet (read: planet = Pinterest) seemed to me to welcome their bouncing baby with a perfectly decorated nursery, complete with unique BUT SENSIBLE color palettes and adorable and probably handmade adornments, I figured I’d probably be no different, despite the glaring fact that that isn’t me.

When the 38th week of my pregnancy rolled around, I started to panic. That “nesting” urge had yet to kick in and our nursery was just an over glorified closet with a crib in it — boxes and bags of baby shower stuff that’d been thrown in there, piles of clothes that had yet to be washed or sorted, you name it. Babies R Us threw up in my kid’s room and, two weeks out from my due date, I’d had yet to do anything about it.

So I figured that if the urge to nest wasn’t going to organically appear, I had to force it. I started making lists. I color-coded those lists. I confided in other moms to make sure my lists made some semblance of sense. Then, I took my lists and used them to create a “Nesting Calendar” on Google. I shared that Nesting Calendar with my husband and declared quite boldly, “Dan! We’re going to NEST! We’re going to NEST because Google says so!”

The way my calendar worked out was that Monday, we’d do one project. Tuesday we’d do another, then one on Wednesday, and so forth, until Friday. At the end of that week, we’d have a nursery put together. Seems legit, right?

When the labor pains set in on Wednesday, I knew I was in trouble. Baby Dax showed up an entire week early, not even taking my Nesting Calendar into consideration. When we came home from the hospital on Saturday afternoon, I looked dejectedly in the still-closet-like nursery and sighed. I was already failing at being a mom.

Fast forward to today. Dax is nine and a half weeks old and the nursery STILL looks like a Babies R Us mine field. I’d take a picture but seriously you guys it’s so embarrassing. In order to get to the changing table, you’ve got to tip-toe around piles of new clothes, bags of breast milk storage, and towers of receiving blankets.

However…

I’m writing this on my husband’s desktop in our bedroom. I can hear that Dax is starting to stir from his morning nap. The sound isn’t coming through a baby monitor; it’s in this room, right behind me. My sweet baby boy, the little child I was so worried about nesting for, refuses to sleep anywhere except our bed.

Not his crib. Not his not-yet-nested nursery.

It’s almost as if, from the womb, he could sense that I was doing preposterous things like making lists and Google calendars and decided he’d make a beeline out of my uterus that week to put a stop to it.

“Mommy,” I can almost hear him saying. “You’re not acting like my mom. You’re not acting like the woman to who was called to raise me. You’re acting like someone else. Please, just let the nursery be a mess. I won’t use it anyway. Can’t wait to meet you, Mommy, just the way you are.”

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September 21, 2012 · 4:29 pm

introducing: friday favorites!

Can I speak off the cuff for a second? (Psh. Why am I even asking? This is my blog, you guys. I do what I want.)

I’ve been pretty aware of all the ways I suck lately. Mostly, over the past week. I guess that makes sense, what with me going back to work and wrestling with what that means as far as my contribution to my home and family. It stands to reason, I suppose, that in this time of transition I might find myself struggling to focus on what is praiseworthy about myself. (Philippians 4:8.)

The truth is, self-love isn’t something you just achieve one day and then bam, you’re all better. I really wish it were that simple, but the reality is that loving yourself in a society that does its damnedest to point out everything that’s wrong with you takes daily discipline. It takes the strength to wake up every single day and look yourself in the mirror and say, “Hey, Self, you’re all right.”

Unfortunately, with everything that’s been going on in my life as of late (you know, having a kid and all) I haven’t really taken care of myself in that respect. Sure, I make sure I eat every day and try to squeeze a shower in here and there (I washed my hair last night, y’all!) but as far as putting forth the effort it takes to truly, honestly, take care of my self-esteem and consequential mental health, I’m falling behind. And it’s starting to wear on me.

An old issue I’ve struggled with in the past has reared its ugly head recently. The issue? Allowing myself to be loved without doing anything. 

I’d thought I’d beat it. I thought that, with the help of this blog and the people with whom I surround myself, I’d finally let that little part of me die. But, since stepping away from all the things I “do” for people in order to focus on my son and my family, I’ve started to feel as though I’m being replaced. Forgotten. Unloved.

While I know that isn’t the case, right now it’s hard to believe it. So, I’ve decided to go ahead and use this blog for what it was originally intended — a tool with which I can learn to love myself daily. I’m going to dust off the old “self-love” warrior training boxing gloves and start a new weekly post series on my blog. I’d like to introduce to you,

lindsay’s friday favorites!

On Fridays, as a discipline, I’m going to post a blog highlighting one thing about myself that I like, that is my “favorite trait” of the week. One thing, I might add, is just ME. Not something I DO. Just something I AM. It may be physical, or not. It may be an item of clothing I bought or a way I did my hair. It might be a book I started reading and the thoughts it provoked within me. I’m not sure yet. But all I know is that I’m going to commit to doing this every Friday to remind myself that I’m valuable just because I am.

I’d like to challenge you, my readers, to do it, too. On my Friday Favorites posts, I want you to comment the things you love about yourself that week. Nothing would make me happier than knowing that my struggles, and the disciplined nature through which I will try to overcome them, might actually be a positive influence in your lives as well.

And so. Starting next Friday, we’re going to do this. We’re going to start to love ourselves, one little blog post at a time.

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