From your crazy internet aunt

Dear sweet G and KC,

Let me tell you about your mom.

She's the kind of lady who always asks about your day first, even when she's having the worst day of her life.  And not because she is a martyr, but because she really cares.

She will go out of her way to help if she can see any way to.  She will stay up all night to make someone flowers or cupcakes.  She shows up to help people move.

Being your mom's friend is kind of the best gig ever.

Except maybe the one you have.

Because the only thing in the world your mom loves more than her friends is you and your brother.

Oh and your dad.  But we can talk about how lucky they are too have each other another time.

Your mom, she was born to be a mom.  The love in her heart is probably the most powerful force in the universe.  And even though right now she's scared, there is nothing that makes her more complete than knowing you are all her family.

So do me a favor and look out for her.  Remind her that she's doing just fine, that she's exactly what you need.

We'll be here if you need us.  We love you all so much.

Your crazy internet aunt,

Story

On worth

My deepest fear is that I will become irrelevant.  Unnecessary.  My deepest fear is that no one will really need me. My deepest fear is that I don't matter.

If it's okay for me to leave my kids with someone else, if it's okay to ignore them while they watch TV or do something meaningless, then what is the point of me?

If my friends are okay without me, if they aren't leaning heavily on me, if they aren't pouring all of their problems and their worries and sometimes, yes, their happiness onto me, then how can I be their friend?

If I'm not being wise and taking care of someone, if I'm not doing just the right thing and having all the right words, if I'm not always there when I'm needed, before anyone even knows they need me (but they do), then how can I possibly have any worth?

What is worth?

People say to me that I shouldn't (SHOT) pin my worth on my helpfulness to others.  They tell me I have inherent worth, right now, for who I am, even when I'm not doing anything for anyone else.

I don't even know what the hell that means.

I am ashamed of being a martyr.  I am ashamed of hustling for worthiness.  I am ashamed of not being confident enough, not believing that I have inherent worth.

I don't want to be ashamed anymore.  That's the way of the spiral.  I know this.

I should know this.

I should know better.

(Double shot!)

How can I have worth that is separate from what I do for other people?  People say they don't just love me for my wisdom, for my teacher's heart, for my nurturing.  But that strikes me as a little bit of BS really.

Because what else am I?

When people don't need me, I am overcome with this feeling of anxiety.  I don't know what to do with myself.  I don't know who I am.  I feel so alone.

But the thing is, when I do say something helpful and wise, when I do have the right words, the other shame voice follows.  There's that brief moment of feeling whole, feeling like myself, feeling like I've been and done exactly what I was made for.

And then there's the "Who do you think you are?"

"Do you think this matters?  Do you think this is real?  You are a hypocrite.  You are a phony.  You aren't a therapist, and therefore you aren't qualified for this.  You aren't really wise, you are just pretending.  Everyone is going to find you out.  They're going to realize that this isn't real.   Do you really think this gives you worth?  HA."

I'm not supposed to hustle.  I'm not supposed to think my worth springs from my actions.  I fail because my assumptions are faulty.  There will never be enough to make me feel complete until I start from a place of completeness.

But what is worth?  What is worthiness?  Where does it come from?  How does one have it?

I just don't understand.

Here's what I know to be true

My dear, sweet girls,

Here's what I know to be  true.  With all my heart and all my mind.  With my body, I know it to be  true.

You are perfect.  Already, right now, just the way you are.

And I'm afraid that the things I do, the ways I act, they don't always show that.  Especially with you, BG.  The truth is, you scare the crap out of me.  (But don't say crap, please.  Especially not in front of Grammy.  Again.)

You are brave.  You are strong. You are social. You know what you want.  You hold true to what's important to you.

And mommy is so afraid of those things.

The truth is, there is a big part of mommy's heart that just wants to keep you safe.  Wants to protect you from any and all possible judgment, hurt, and rejection.  When you walk up to strangers at the playground and tell them you want to play with them, my heart is in my throat for you.  Every time.  I want to tell you to be cool, man, be cool.  Don't try so hard.  Don't let them know you care.

But I swallow it.  Thank God I swallow it, every time.  Because I don't want you to ever stop trying and caring.

And I want to protect you from ever failing, too.  You know how sometimes when little sister wants to play with your blocks and you scream and cry and knock them over yourself so you don't give her the chance to ruin them?  I get that.  I totally do.

Sometimes I find myself looking up what to do with a spirited, sensitive child.  I want to find ways to tone you down a little, to redirect you, to calm you.  Maybe just a little more sensory input of some kind, a little more exercise, a little more something would make you ... would make you what?

I love you, and I love your big feelings, and I love your frustrations, and I love your bossiness.  And I don't want you to ever think that I want to fix you, that I want you to be someone different from who you are.  Because what a loss that would be.

And little sister.  Oh, my heart. I worry about you disappearing.  I worry about you not getting enough.  I worry about you getting your feeling hurt by your sister's - let's call it what it is sometimes - reign of terror.  I want to protect you too.

But you aren't at all fragile.  You aren't breakable.  You are subtle.  You are calm.  But you get what you want.  And you usually do it without complaining or crying.  You have a let up on the rest of us on that one.

And as much as I want to keep you little and innocent and pure, as much as I want to protect you, it isn't my job to keep either of you completely safe from the world.  To paraphrase Brene Brown, it's only my job to remind you that you are loved and worthy and safe, even when you fail, even when you get rejected.  To show you that it's okay to try.

So let me tell you what I know to be true about mommy.

I am imperfect.  I make a lot of mistakes.  I doubt myself.  I overanalyze things.  I veer to the negative.  I criticize myself.

And that's okay.  Because I love myself that way.  I don't need to change, I don't need to be fixed.

I need to write.  I need to put my writing out there even if I'm afraid of failure and rejection.  I need to be willing to try and fail.  I need to be willing to care.  And it is okay that those things scare me.  I don't need to wait until they don't scare me before I do these things.  I need to do them right now, even when they scare me.

Thank you for teaching me those things, my sweet girls.

What if this is as good as it gets?

So, last night, I was googling "How do I know what I want?"

You know, like people do.

What I found was a lot of career advice, a lot of quizzes to help you figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life.

That's not really what I was looking for.

I don't need a new career.  I don't need a new project, or a new hobby.  I don't need to ask myself what I would do if I had a million dollars, if I could do whatever I wanted.

I'd be here.  And, no, I probably wouldn't be any more or less happy.

What I was looking for wasn't advice on how to know what to do with the rest of my life.  What I wanted was to know what I wanted right now.  What I want to do with the next five minutes.  The things for which I want to ask and with which I want help.

I know that I'm uncomfortable.  That my gut says there has to be something else.

What if that's a lie?

What if this is as good as it gets?  What if I don't know what I want to be working towards because there's nothing to work towards?  What if I'm already doing all the things I need to do?  What if my life is already fine and uncomfortable is just normal?

I can't decide if that thought is comforting or terrifying.

She says.

There's a noisy voice in my head lately.

You have to be doing something all the time, otherwise you are wasting everyone's time.  Otherwise you don't deserve to be home with your kids.

If you are doing something all the time, it will spoil and smother your kids.  Educating your young children isn't a good use of your time. It's unnecessary.  It's something rich, white, stay at home moms invent so they don't have to work.

Your privilege is shameful.  You have to be humble.  You have to be grateful.

You have to be snarky so no one knows you actually care about being good at this.

You can't admit that you're not good at this or people will think badly of you.

You can't admit when you're good at this or you might make someone else feel bad and then they won't love you anymore.

It is ridiculous to think that your blog matters.  Blogging is frivolous, self involved, selfish.  You are deluding yourself.  You are embarrassing yourself.

The things you want are stupid and worthless.

You are stupid and worthless.

You're always supposed to make everyone happy, to take care of their needs before your own or else you're a bad mother, a bad friend, a bad wife.  Or else they wont' love you.  Or else they'll leave.

They'll all leave.

Even your kids, soon they'll realize that everyone in the world is better at this than you and then they'll prefer being anywhere but here.

You shouldn't care what people think of you.  You shouldn't try to make people happy.  You shouldn't hustle.  You should know better.

You don't matter.

Who you are isn't good enough.

You don't exist.

You are only good for making other people happy.

You shouldn't be proud of that.  You should be ashamed of that.

You aren't good enough.

You have to change.

You aren't good enough.

The Space Between

"Jump up and down, spin around!"  chanted the girl on the song I'd just downloaded.

"Listen, BG, let's dance!" I prompted and burn off all that energy and take a nap later.

She stood still for a long moment, her head tilted to the side, staring me straight in the eyes.  Then she turned her back to my jumping, spinning self, walked over to her toybox and emerged with a tiny drumset.

"I need my glasses."

After a little more digging, my sunglass-clad preschooler perched on top of the ottoman, tapping on her tiny drums with an air of gravitas.

I couldn't make these things up.

There are moments in my day, brief moments usually, when I look at my kids and everything about parenting makes sense.  When I know that they are going to be okay, that I am going to be okay.  When I can see the delineation between the two. When I understand my role in this relationship.  When I can really, for that moment, believe that it's all enough.

And they're never moments when we're doing something I planned.

Often I feel desperate to fill every moment of our day.  Either I am  carting my children to activities and planning crafts and projects for them to do with me, or I am plopping them in front of a screen and tuning them out so I can work my way down my own to do list.  

Why is there nothing in between?

The space between is the terrifying part.  The being instead of doing.  The trusting that even if I don't have a plan, if I'm not in control, everything will be okay anyway.  The trusting my kids and myself to know what to do without a checklist.

If I go through all the motions, if I get to the end of the checklist - both for my kids' activities and for my own self care - then I will have a metric to know that I succeeded.  Then I won't have to face the anxiety and discomfort that comes with the stillness, with not knowing what's going to come next, with not knowing how to measure whether what I'm doing is enough.

But the space between is also where everything that is beautiful happens, where there is the capacity to be surprised.  Where I can see who my kids really are, what they really want and love.

Where I can see who I really am.

Have you seen me?

I've been missing someone lately.  She's about yay high, answers to the name of "story."  Have you seen her?

Oh.

Lately, I've been feeling like I've been missing something.

I wanted to feel more purposeful, so I've been planning more stuff with the kids.  I wanted to do more self care, so I've been reading more, doing yoga, putting my feet up, having treats.

So why is it that I'm disappearing?

What I need, what my soul craves, isn't more frivolous comfort.  It isn't more chocolate or bubble baths.  It isn't a glass of wine at the end of the day.

What my relationship with my kids needs isn't more worksheets, more sensory bins, more choreographed activities.

What my marriage, what my friendships, what my causes need isn't for me to be more of a martyr or more off a spoiled cream puff.

What we all just need is me.  To be me.

I love, with all my heart and self.
I have words that are important, that make a difference to the people who hear them.
I pay attention.  I hear people, what they say and what they don't.  I see you.
I care.  I care about doing a good job.  I care about people around me being happy. I care about the reasons behind the things I say and do, about the theory, about the analysis.
I recognize the good and the value in people and can help them to see it.
I learn, really quickly and voraciously.  I trust research.  I think about things.

That's who I am.  That's what I do.  I need space and time and quiet to recharge and process  but I also need to connect.  I need to help.  I need to show up in the world and be present with people.  To engage in a relationship of equals.  One where I do not try to fix anyone, including myself, but only say "I see you.  Do you see me too?"

I need to be seen.  Even if I don't want to be seen.

I don't need to be fixed.  I'm not broken.  I just need to show up as scary as that may be.

Hi.

I'm back.