A Tribute to Moms: I see you

Unbelievably--because I don't feel like I should be old enough and because there were so many moments when I didn't think I would survive--I have now lived through all the stages of raising kids (at least once)--from infancy to adulthood. This most definitely does not make me an expert. If anything, it has only made me deeply aware of all I don't know and all I still have to learn. But one thing I do know is motherhood is probably the most important, least appreciated job on the planet. And so, today, on Mother's Day, I want to recognize all the moms loving their kids and doing the best they can day in and day out. You are all amazing and I'm so thankful for each of you! 

I see your sleepless nights, rocking and feeding fussy babies or waiting anxiously for teenagers to come home. I see you setting your alarm 30 minutes earlier than necessary just so you can have a moment to yourself, and then using that time to clean up last night's dishes or pick up the toys scattered on the floor or throw in another load of laundry. I see you reading the same picture book over and over and over, and then beaming when your little one learns how to read the words back to you. I see you desperately thrusting a tiny person at your partner the minute they walk in the door. I see you packing lunches and backpacks and reminding everyone to put on their shoes, and then making another trip up to the school when the lunch or the homework or the sporting equipment is forgotten at home. I see you kissing boo-boos and solving problems with whimsical bandages. I see you absorbing all the pain of a first broken heart and talking through problems that no amount of whimsy can fix. I see you working all day at your paying job and rushing out the door the minute you can to make it to the game and be your kid's biggest cheerleader. I see you celebrating all the victories and comforting all the defeats. I see you grabbing dinner in the drive-thru because you don't have the time to cook and still get everyone to their activities on time. I see you spending hours in the kitchen making nutritious meals for your family that they refuse to eat or only eat reluctantly. I see you watching your odometer turn over another thousand miles and wondering how that can be when you never even left town. I see you researching all the things late at night because you're worried and you just want to help your kiddo. I see you slogging through the mundanity of the days and asking yourself when was the last time you even showered. I see you hoping this stage will end soon and that it will never end. I see you staying up well past midnight to put the finishing touches on a beautiful birthday cake that will be destroyed and devoured in a matter of minutes but will make your kiddo smile, and that smile is everything. I see you sacrificing your comfort for the comfort of your kids. I see you facing challenges while trying to co-parent with someone with whom you do not share your daily life. I see you signing all the forms and paying all the fees. I see you finding the lost thing that simply can't be found. I see you producing a perfect costume for the school project--that you just found out about this afternoon but is due tomorrow--out of odds and ends you just happen to have laying around the house. I see you lighting up when your tween forgets they aren't little and reaches for your hand. I see you stomping on the floorboard of the passenger side of your car during a driving lesson with your new driver, as if there might be a brake there to help you slow things down. I see your eyes filling with tears created from a mixture of pride and grief as your adult child walks out the door to start their own life apart from you. I see you comparing notes with your mom tribe. I see you crying on the floor in your closet, wishing you had that tribe to turn to for help and encouragement. I see your heart filled with more love than you ever imagined it could hold and your mind filled with concern that you are screwing it all up. I see you doing all the things--day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year--sometimes without any help, almost always without any thanks or recognition or praise.

Please, hear this now and let it settle on your heart: Your work as a mom matters so much and you are doing a good job. It is brave, beautiful work--hard, for sure, but worth it. And I want you to know I see you showing up day after day and giving it your best. You are amazing! Thank you for all you do.  

{I also want to say I see all of you who are grieving the loss of a child or the loss of the dream of having children. And I see those of you who have chosen not to be moms and those helping raise other people's children. Those are also brave, beautiful paths to walk.}

I See You Being Brave

No one can deny the bravery of a firefighter who runs into a burning building to rescue the people inside. Or a person who boldly stands up for something they believe in when it goes against popular opinion. Or a daredevil who engages in some dangerous activity just to prove they can do it. These are certainly amazing feats and worthy of our praise. Unfortunately, we often fail to recognize the small acts of everyday bravery that make up the bulk of our lives. And we certainly forget that there is no comparing brave. There aren't levels of bravery. Every act of bravery is just as important, just as real, just as brave as every other, even if it might seem small or nonsensical to people not engaged in the act. Sometimes bravery looks like putting on your running shoes and running an infinitesimally small distance before returning to a walk. Sometimes it looks like starting a new job or moving to a new location or entering a new relationship. Sometimes it looks like apologizing or stretching a budget or making a phone call. Sometimes it looks like having a tough conversation, asking for the help you need, seeing a different perspective, putting on a happy face, or offering forgiveness. Sometimes it looks like showing up and doing the things that need to be done, without thanks or acknowledgement of any kind. Sometimes it just looks like getting out of bed, taking a shower, putting on "real" clothes. Every person is influenced by and operating according to their own level of comfort, trauma, insecurity, and mental health. We are all brave because we are all finding the strength to face our own fears, dangers, and difficulties. Sadly, we have a tendency to think that if something comes easily to us, it is ridiculous for another to struggle with it. We judge, ridicule, and ignore the brave acts of others because they seem silly or unimportant to us. I wonder what would happen if, instead, we looked at every single person we interacted with, in whatever circumstance they're in, and thought, "Wow! How brave they are to be where they are and doing what they're doing!" What if we looked at ourselves and said, "You are very brave, and I'm proud of you!" 

Listen, friends: Life is hard. We are all overcoming. We are all brave. And, I'm proud of us!

Saltwater Cures

 

© Mandi Watts

I have loved this quote for as long as I've been aware of it. The truth of it is simple yet so profound, and it absolutely holds up in practice in my life. When I feel stressed or overwhelmed or lost, I can often remedy my situation by adding saltwater in one of these forms. Just in the last week, I have employed all of them at various times, and I can feel healing running through my body and mind.

It's interesting, though, because in that cure there is also pain. A workout that produces sweat is not an easy or lightweight one. It requires much of your body, which may feel difficult in the moment and may leave you sore for days afterward. The grief, hurt, and stress that produce tears do not feel like healing in the moment. In fact, I just read a quote in Sarah Pearse's book, The Sanatorium, that sort of sums up how grief works: "Grief is like a series of bombs exploding, one after another. Every hour, a new detonation. Shock after shock after shock." Sometimes we have to cry loads of tears over the same grief before we start to feel some relief. And the sea, while beautiful to look at, will find every tiny cut or scrape on your body--ones you didn't even know you had--and it will burn like fire. But you will continue walking down the beach with your toes in the water because the reward is greater than the pain. In every instance, the pain is real and can be wildly intense. But on the other side of the pain, there is healing. So I will continue seek out these lovely saltwater cures and allow them to do their work in me. 

Beautifully Broken

I took a walk on the beach yesterday. And, as always, as soon as my feet hit the sand, I turned into a treasure hunter, my eyes scanning the sand and coastline searching for interesting creatures or shells or even bizarre bits of trash. I know myself well enough to know I want to collect every shell or bit of coral I come across because they are all so lovely, so I long ago put limits on myself to keep the collection manageable: only fully intact or truly unique treasures that I can carry in my hands or pockets, which will then be further scrutinized and filtered before I pack up my bag to head home. The beach I am visiting at the moment doesn't have many shells, but yesterday there were tons of sand dollars littering the beach...or, more accurately, sand half-dollars. Every one I came across was broken. Ignoring my own beach combing rules, I couldn't help picking them up. As I continued to walk and think and pick up as many severed sand dollars as my hands would hold, I wondered why. Why was I drawn to these broken things that so many other beachgoers had passed up? And then like a bigger-than-expected wave, it hit me: they reminded me of me. They were broken, yes, but still surprisingly beautiful. And because they were broken, I could see the intricacies of the structure inside, which was also beautiful in its own right. The stories of how they came to be on this beach tumbled out in the palm of my hand--tossed by unpredictable yet consistent waves, pecked apart by birds, trampled on or completely ignored by other beachcombers because they were not perfect or whole. The sand dollars' stories reminded me of my own. I would normally have been one to walk on by, but my own beautiful brokenness allowed me to see the beauty in these objects whose very name implies value. As I thought about it more, I realized that even if I were to find a fully intact sand dollar, it would not be perfect. The edges would be jagged, the surface rough. The only perfect sand dollars are the ones that are manufactured and show up in a souvenir shop. It made me think about all the perfectly curated social media pages that aren't real or authentic but are meant to make a life look put together and flawless. Though I have often been tempted to pick up every sand dollar I've come across on the beach, I have never been tempted to buy a manufactured one. Fabricated sand dollars--and lives--are never interesting to me because I am repelled by fake things. I'll take real and authentic over fake every single time. 

There's no doubt I am broken. But I'm no less beautiful, and my story doesn't matter less. If anything, it matters more. It's real and authentic, and it allows me to see the beauty in the other broken ones around me. I never saw one intact sand dollar on the beach yesterday, but I saw scores of beautifully broken ones. Chances are good that if you're a human (or a sand dollar) you are living a broken life. Getting to where you are now has been hard, and lots of people have not or will not see your beauty. But trust me when I tell you that doesn't make you any less stunning. I see the beauty in your brokenness, and I intend to fill my life with people who can see the beauty in mine.

                  

Enough

From the time I was a child, I have been absorbing spoken and unspoken messages that I am not enough. I have received these messages from people and organizations I know and have experience with personally (friends, family, teachers, religious groups) and those I've never actually met or interacted with in a personal way (advertisers, media, celebrities, strangers). And I've experienced rejection and failure enough times in my life to create insecurities that have caused me to connect with that message and make it my own. Throughout the years, it literally became the voice in my head. You are not smart enough. You are not pretty enough. You are not thin enough. You are not ambitious enough. You are not athletic enough. You are not playful enough. You are not adventurous enough. You are not interesting enough. You are not holy enough. You are not kind enough. You are not funny enough. You are not creative enough. You are not dedicated enough. You are not strong enough. You are not sexy enough. You are not brave enough. You are not relaxed enough. You are not enough as a mom, as a wife, as a daughter, as a person. YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH. 

For whatever reason, I didn't seem to have the mental fortitude to combat these thoughts, and the truth I suspected in them became fear for me. Paralyzing fear. The kind that makes you not want to move or breathe or, for sure, speak because you know that whatever you do or say will not be enough. And you know that when you are not enough, people don't want to have anything to do with you. Because my main love language is Words of Affirmation, I think I kept waiting for someone to say, "No, really, you are enough. Just the way you are." And this last part was important. I knew I was flawed. I knew I wasn't perfect. But I needed to know that was okay. However, people either weren't saying it or my brain had developed the inability to hear it because the voice in my head was too loud. Most likely, both of those things were happening. I wanted to be loved and accepted and included more than pretty much anything, but the only thing I knew for sure was that I wasn't enough, and so I believed that those things were not ever really to be mine. So, I stood there, paralyzed, holding some relationships too tightly and some not at all and losing more and more of myself while I tried not to rock the boat. I waited for some magical event to turn me into someone who was truly enough. Of course, it never happened...at least not the way I expected.

There was no magical event. Wishing I was enough didn't make it so. And there was no outpouring of appreciation for me just as I was. In fact, the very opposite happened. I went through the greatest trauma of my life, and all my suspicions about not being enough were magnified and confirmed and laid bare for all the world to see. The person I trusted most in the world and the one I had truly hoped I could be enough for decided I wasn't and walked out of my life. I'm well aware that there were lots of factors involved in this decision and many things led up to it, but I have wondered sometimes if perhaps my fear of not being enough created a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm not sure, but I don't allow myself to worry about that anymore. It is what it is. 

I had been standing on the edge of a seemingly bottomless pit for a long time, but when this traumatic, rather than magical, event happened, I toppled head first into the hole. As I sat in that dark place with all the pieces of my broken heart strewn around me, I realized no one was coming to save me and I could either die in that pit or figure out a way to pull myself out. I'll be honest: my first inclination was to die in the pit. I already knew I wasn't strong enough, brave enough, capable enough, or resourceful enough to pull myself out of the pit and start my life anew. So why should I even try? 

I sat there a long time, but death didn't come. Nor did a hero come along to save me. And these things sort of pissed me off in equal measure. So, either out of rebellion or boredom or some last-ditch sense of self-preservation, I decided to become my own damn hero and go ahead and pull myself out of the pit. I was going to have to be enough because I was all I had.

Somewhere along the way of that arduous climb, I read something that encouraged me to talk to myself the way I would talk to a friend. I don't have too many close friends, but I would never even tell a stranger they weren't enough. I have an encourager's nature, and I try to make a practice out of building people up rather than tearing them down. But for some reason, it had never occurred to me to offer that same kindness to myself. I decided to experiment with it, and I literally began to speak out loud to myself--in my car, in the shower, staring at myself in the mirror--the way I would speak to a friend, an acquaintance, or even a stranger. I was telling myself I was okay. I was telling myself I just needed to take the next step. I was telling myself I could do it. I was telling myself to take a deep breath. You are strong. You are brave. You are capable. You are creative. You are smart. You are beautiful. You are resourceful. You are dedicated. YOU ARE ENOUGH.

I didn't believe my words at first and kind of just said them to have something to do to pass the time and to distract myself from the seemingly endless climb. But the more I said them and the more I noted the progress I was making, the more true they seemed. I'm not really sure if I will ever be completely free of the pit, but I have climbed far enough up at this point to be able to see the light and to know with certainty that I am enough. I'm still flawed and imperfect, and the the messages of not being enough still buzz all around me. And I still don't always believe the kind words I tell myself. But I've learned enough now to know that I am brave, beautiful, strong, caring, thoughtful, smart, positive, hardworking, and kind of amazing. But even when I'm not, I am still enough. I don't have to prove my enoughness through my performance. I don't have to have it confirmed by someone else. It is simply a fundamental truth of my existence. And in case you don't know, it is a fundamental truth of your existence as well. So say it with me: I AM ENOUGH...JUST THE WAY I AM!

  

Outside the Box

The other day I was visiting with a friend who happens to be a 6'6" athletically built black man. He was telling me how often people come up to him and ask what position he plays in basketball or which team he plays for. Some people say it jokingly, just to have something to say. And some people have actually pestered him almost to the point of harassment trying to get information that doesn't exist out of him. He has participated in many sports at truly competitive levels and been quite successful at them, but basketball is one he has only played recreationally. Still, people see him and immediately make an assumption about him. Notice, they don't ask if he plays basketball. In their minds, they are already confident of that fact and it's only a matter of filling in the details. They put him in the box they want him to be in so they can make sense of him, so they can get him to fit their narrative. 

As my friend and I talked about this, we recognized that people do this all the time--sometimes with regard to race, sometimes gender, sometimes age, sometimes appearance. Really, it could be anything, and it happens in romantic relationships, in work relationships, with friends and family, and even with strangers. Unfortunately, many of our assumptions are much less complimentary than thinking someone may play for a professional basketball team. I have shocked many of my co-workers and customers when they have found out I have a college degree (in biomedical science nonetheless). After all, why would a woman of my age be working at Starbucks if that was true? It doesn't fit their narrative. It doesn't make sense to them. I don't fit in the box they had constructed for me. And assumptions can get much worse than that. It's one of the reasons our country still struggles with racism and why politics can get so ugly. It's why all relationships can be a struggle. Our brains have a need to make sense of things and people and are very good at constructing boxes to help us do that. But the problem with this is--whether we are joking or making small talk or being dead serious, and whether we are expressing our thoughts or keeping them to ourselves--when we do this to people, we become unable to see them as they are and can only see them in a way that makes them be what we need/want/assume them to be. And not seeing a person as they are is the beginning of disrespect. 

I have certainly been guilty of approaching people with the boxes I've built for them more often than I would like to admit. But one of the really cool things about brains is that they can be retrained. Thought processes can be changed. And boxes that have been constructed can also be deconstructed. But it takes work and practice. We need to start to notice when we're making assumptions, when we're creating unrealistic expectations, and when we're trying to make a person fit a narrative we have in our heads (whether we're telling a positive story, a negative one, or a neutral story that simply isn't true). 

Many of us may be trying to figure out others because we've never really figured out ourselves. How arrogant of us to assume we know who or what other people are when we don't even really know ourselves! But we can combat this by sitting with ourselves and trying to know ourselves by digging deep and pondering and analyzing our thoughts and feelings, even though that may be an uncomfortable process. This will do a couple of things: 1. It will take up a huge amount of time and mental focus, which will make it harder for us to have the energy to construct boxes for other people, and 2. When we really and truly know ourselves, we don't need to try to make sense of someone else or get them to fit in a box that makes us feel some sort of way. We can just let them be who they are because we will be confident in who we are regardless of who they are. When you read business books that talk about being successful, there is always some version of "think outside the box" advice. It holds no less true in our relationships. When we approach people without a label or an expectation or a "box," we will have the pleasure of really knowing them and will free ourselves of the pressure to have to make them fit. This will only create stronger, healthier, and more successful relationships. I'm working on putting down the various boxes I carry around because I truly want to see people as they are and not only as I imagine them to be.

Success

I have always struggled to really feel successful, especially when I look around at what American culture deems successful. Money, power, possessions, and "coolness" are successes that just don't resonate with my soul, and even when attained don't feel like real success to me. They just feel empty and pointless. I have written about my struggle with defining success before in an essay that was published on The Art of Simple blog a couple of years ago, and it's something I've been pondering again recently, as I start to gather the necessary information to prepare my taxes and see numbers upon numbers that declare my "worth" but that feel completely meaningless. 

I imagine I don't much look like a picture of success to those peeping in from the outside, especially in the affluent part of the world I live in. I live in an older, smallish house with nothing in the way of fanciness. I drive a car with 108,000 miles on it and a huge gash down one side. I'm a barista at Starbucks and will never get rich doing that, even with the recent raise I received. But interestingly, it is in this line of work that I have begun to understand different, more meaningful (to me) definitions of success and where I have finally felt the greatest success of my life. 

Early on, when every part of the job still felt a bit overwhelming and I wondered if I would ever really get it, a manager said to me at the end of a shift, " I can really tell that you are improving. Be patient with yourself; everything will click before too long." For much of my life, "perfection" felt like the definition of success, but this word "improvement" resonated deeply with me and felt like actual success. "Improvement" is a level of success I can handle. "Perfection" is just ridiculous. Another time at work, a co-worker said, "I love working with you, Mandi, because you are always so proactive." Seeing what needs to be done and doing it, anticipating the needs of those around me and helping reduce the frustration an unmet need could cause: This feels like success. I don't get paid extra to be proactive, and I have plenty of co-workers that are not and get paid the same as me, but being "proactive" matters, at least to me, and feels like a true contribution to the team. Another time, a manager said, "I appreciate you because no matter which role I ask you to fill, I know you will do a good job and that you will do the job without complaining," which triggered that same feeling of success within me. On several occasions I have had co-workers say how much they enjoy working with me because I'm always so kind and encouraging. More feelings of success. And, recently, I had a customer come through the drive-thru and tell me at the window that I was "absolutely the most pleasant person" and that she could "feel [my] positive energy radiating through the speaker." After work, I relayed this moment a friend, ending the story with, "this is what success feels like to me because it's truly the kind of person I aspire to be." And, it's true. Being a person of character, who makes my little piece of the world a better place, even in a job that will never be considered "important" by the American success gurus, is what matters most to me. I'm glad I'm finally at the point in my life where I can stop shaming myself for not being "successful" as the world sees success and truly appreciate and celebrate those things that my heart recognizes as successful.