Unraveling

I am sitting in a room lit only by the lights of the Christmas tree, eating Halloween candy.  What I should be doing is cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, and prepping for the week.  What I need to be doing is writing.  My soul breathes best when I'm writing, and breathing always comes first.  So here I sit.

There is an angel smiling at me from the tree, her arms outstretched in joyful surrender.  She is one of many ornaments that have shown up on my doorstep over the past few weeks, part of the outpouring of love I have received as I enter into this unique Advent season.  As I await my first childless Christmas since becoming a mother.  I look at the smiling angel and choke back a sob.  I think of my favorite line from Love Actually, "At Christmas, you tell the truth."

So here is my truth this Christmas:  I am unraveling.

I have spent the weekend in full-on-celebration mode, cramming every tradition and holiday event I could muster into my last weekend with the children before saying goodbye to them for two whole weeks.  We all piled into my bed on Friday night, arranged like straws in a game of pick-up sticks -   which is to say, not arranged at all -  all pillows and arms and legs and blankets and love.  We snuggled in front of Christmas shows with all three children piled onto my lap like puppies in pajamas.  We got takeout so I could snuggle instead of stand at the stove top.  We sang and danced and went to concerts and gathered with friends and went to church and saw Santa's Village.  We ate donuts and reindeer-shaped sugar cookies and endured the pure exhaustion of a three-year-old twice deprived of a nap.  It was all of the things.  It was magical and musical and tiring and tedious and wild and wonderful.

As I served my children one final snack before bed, my daughter crawled into my lap and said, "I don't really want gifts for Christmas.  The best gift of all is just being together.  For Christmas, I just want to be with you."  And that's when I felt it again - the unraveling.  I sat choking back tears, knowing that neither Santa nor baby Jesus can grant her that wish this year.  Knowing that she and I want the same thing for Christmas.  Knowing that it's all going to be okay, but it's also going to hurt like hell.

I want you to know that I am okay with the unraveling.

It seems that God does God's best work with people that have come unraveled.  I think unraveled people make the best raw material.  And here's the thing.  In the midst of the unraveling, there you are.  Here you come, your best thread in hand, stitching me back together again.  Here you come with your cards and your Christmas gifts, your generosity and your joy, your treasures and your time.  I can feel you stitching me back together, re-knitting the very fabric of my life.  And I find that I am better for having unraveled.  I am stronger, I am more beautiful, I am more real - and it's because I am fully me, and mixed in with the me is the fully you.  We are meant to live in community, lending each other thread, stitching one another back together, mending the tears and wiping the tears and spending the time and showing up over and over again until we all look like the best-loved patchwork quilts.

Thank you to those of you who have witnessed my unraveling, you who have come to my rescue in the most thoughtful and precious of ways.  I am so honored to have your lives woven in with mine. Just thinking of you, I can smile back at the angel on the tree, can take a deep breath in and lift my own arms in joyful surrender.

Life is Not a Contest: A Letter to My Children and to Myself

Precious ones,

A new school year is upon us.  It’s a big one - new schools for all of you, Kindergarten for one of you, full-time preschool for another.  A new job for me.  We will be seeing a lot less of each other as we spend our days at our schools and jobs, but that’s a letter for another day.  Today I want to share with you (and remind myself of) something that will change your life if you’ll let it.  As you advance through your school careers, you’re going to be faced with numerous measuring sticks.  There will be grades - and eventually ranks based on those grades.  There will be standardized tests.  There will be passing and failing.  There will be tryouts for teams that not everyone will get to join. There will be numbers assigned to you, meant to measure your worth in some arbitrary way.  There will be contests with winners and losers.

There will be other contests as well, but people won’t speak of those.  Beauty contests.  Contests for friendships and popularity.  Comparisons - who has the most money, the coolest toys and latest gadgets, the most fashionable clothes, the best summer vacations, the most exciting plans for the weekend.  Who is the fastest, the fittest, the best in social situations, the funniest.  Who fits in and who doesn’t.  Contests everywhere you look.  No one will mention these and no ribbons or medals will be awarded, but you’ll feel it just the same.  

Here’s the grand secret, sweet children.  Life is not a contest.  It’s just not.  No one else has to lose in order for you to win.  No one has to be “out” in order for you to be “in.” There is enough for everyone.  There is plenty for everyone, and there is plenty for you.  You will NEVER have to take something from someone else in order to have it for yourself.  That’s just not the truth, no matter what the world will try to tell you.  You don’t need to be the prettiest or the smartest, the fastest or the funniest - and neither does anyone else.  This is a myth - to chase after it would be to spend your life searching for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, missing everything along the way.  There is enough beauty to be found in everyone if you will see people for who they are.  There are enough ideas if you will generously listen to those of others and share yours freely. You don’t need to hold on too tightly to anything.  Nothing worth keeping can ever be taken from you.  So lower your fists and open your hands.  Open your hearts.  

You don’t need to be the best.  The only thing you need to be the best at is being fully yourself, and guess what?  No one is competing against you for that job.  It is rightfully yours and always will be.  Learn to relax into that.  You are becoming who you will be, and you already are who you will be.  And who you are is ENOUGH.  You don’t have to strive or compete.  This is not a contest.

You will meet people along the way who are striving with every fiber of their being.  You will know them because there will be no peace in their faces or joy in their eyes.  You will see the struggle on them, for it is a heavy burden they carry.  They will see you as a competitor at best, an enemy at worst.  It’s okay.  These people are not bad people. They just believe the lie that life is a contest, that there is a limited amount goodness in this world and that they have to fight to get their fair share. They are searching relentlessly for a pot of gold that doesn’t exist.

Here’s how you can show grace to those who are striving and struggling - stand in the fullness of grace and truth that belongs to you.  Stand with your hands and hearts open.  REFUSE to join this race with no finish line.  Stand in the eye of the storm and invite others to enter in with you.  Become a place of peace for others by being at peace with yourself.  Someone may see you in all of your beautiful uniqueness - in all of your YOUness - and put down their fists as well.  Someone may cease to fight against you and instead come alongside you.  Others will continue to compete, and that’s okay.  Because you are not in this contest.

Life is a team sport, and we’re all on the same team.  And as soon as we realize that, we have already won.  Let’s get this victory party started!

Always on your team,

Mama