Tag: struggles

Cha-Ching

Sunkissedsoul

Those credit cards that are offered with no interest for a year…then if you don’t pay, the interest has accrued the entire time and CHA-CHING….everything is due.  #life

All the emotions, desires, regrets, grief and stuff that I have managed to keep nicely boxed seems to be screaming….”BALANCE PAST DUE!”

In honor of this reconciliation; Spotify gifts me with ” my most loved songs of 2019″. Songs of life, love and love lost permeate the air.

I dream up all the things that life is not but ‘should be’ and try to fit those things nicely with the reality life is offering. My thoughts are intertwined with a hurting heart and I’m desperately fighting to simply ‘sit with “It”; “It” being the unpleasantness.

The wind is strong, the night is dark.  I imagine the leaves dancing and fluttering their way to new locations; far from the safety of the now barren trees they once were attached to.

If the leaves could talk, I feel we would have much in common.  I, too, am fluttering about; unsure of where I will land next.

I see that someone else is living in the life that was once mine.  I want to latch onto the notion that this is not how things ‘should’ be.  I want to take back what is ‘mine’.  That thought makes me laugh.  It also makes me cry.  I own nothing and nothing is mine.

I am.  That is sufficient.

The home I have known my entire 47 years is for sale.  My heart is broken yet I know these  broken pieces still make a whole and my home is truly where my heart is.

My oldest kiddo is driving.  My youngest kiddo just got rid of her braces. I got a “new to me” car.

I have completed a Master’s program and am simultaneously thrilled and terrified.  I followed through with a really hard task, and I struggle to not allow the worry of the unknowns steal the joy of now.

Three years later, it has dawned on me that it’s perfectly good and okay to move on from the marriage I once had.  I just have to figure out how.  I want my own version of a fairy tale.  Before that, I have to surrender my all to the God I (kind of) trust.

Stretching.  Trusting.  (Trying hard).

A fluttering, sputtering leaf who desperately wants to safely land.

Please God, just let me land.

 

 

 

 

A Heart Kind of Hip

Sunkissedsoul

this is a post I made last year and I think it’s worth a re-share.❤️

In honor of the heart kind of “hip”…..

I just read a well written, light hearted article from a local magazine that targets families…mostly moms and kids. It was chock full of wisdom from ‘hip’ mom’s who answered such questions as: Where do you shop? What are you favorite cosmetics/hair products? Do you follow a fitness regime? Final tips on how to be hip? It ended, appropriately, by summing up the real secret to being the beautiful, hip woman…self confidence, poise, sense of self and sense of humor.

What is ‘hip’ anyway? The (hip) Urban Dictionary defines it as, “Beyond all trends and conventional coolness, cooler than cool, a pinnacle of what ‘it’ is.” Hmmmm…. I try to consolidate the array of emotions and questions that are welling up in me after reading this. Am I hip? Am I defined by hip? Do I have hip friends? Is there a hip club and am I part of it? What better way to absolve my ponderings than to interview myself on the matter?

Where do I shop?

I have heard of most of the places mentioned but I am not in a place right now where I can shop there. I feel a little bit jealous. I can tell myself over and over that ‘stuff’ doesn’t matter but the truth is I really love pretty clothes. Why did nobody mention shopping in your Momma’s closet? Thankfully, I have a Momma who has great style and it’s a privilege to borrow from her. Oh yes, and sisters too, my personal fashion mentors.

What are my favorite cosmetics and hair products?

I love make up and I love skin care, perfumes and hair products? Currently, I am using the last of my Mary Kay Timewise skincare…unless I’m too hurried in the morning and when I have energy left at night. Morrocan Oil is my favorite hair product, and though I love fancy, delicious smelling shampoos, we are on a Suave budget in this season. Strawberry Suave reminds me of being a teenager and whipping my blonde locks strategically so the cute boy next to me would be held captive by my pheromones. The pink bottle of Chance by Chanel is scrumptious, and I’m savoring the last portion of mine. My most favorite products are the fabulous lotions and soaps I got from my sweet Kindergarten class at Christmas. One of the little angels in my class asked me, “Mrs. T., why do you always smell like that?” (I was a little fearful but asked anyway), “Why do I always smell like what?” He burrowed his little face into my shoulder, wrapped his arms around me and took a big whiff. He looked up at me with twinkling eyes and a smile and said, “when I do that you always smell so really dood (good). Winning.

Do I follow a certain fitness or health regime?

I laugh! Regime indicates some level of consistency, right? I walk for days in a row until I don’t. Then, at some point I start all over again. I drink hot lemon water each morning and my skin looks fantastic, then I run out of lemons. I journal furiously for my mental health and then I stop. On the upside, I laugh, cry and pray daily…those things are essential to the fitness of my heart and health.

Additional Tips?

Tips to myself….

1) Hip looks different in my world. While I agree that self confidence, poise, sense of self and sense of humor are indeed awesome assets, I know from personal experience that it’s quite possible to present these on the outside and not feel them on the inside. That pretense is exhausting. Hip in my world is authenticity, transparency, joy, grace, love, and being a safe place. Hip is living who you are on the inside, at your core, whether it is currently trendy or not, out loud!

2) I am where I am. You are where you are. Everyone in their own season. This reading has been a little prompt to remember that it’s okay to take care of me first, it’s essential if I want to keep my speed up. What does that look like? Tennis shoes by the bed so I actually remind myself to go walk. A little corner in the house to myself with a great pen, my journal, my Bible and whatever awesome book I’m reading…and a lovely candle with my favorite coffee cup. Grace. An overwhelming abundance of grace because I am human and that is sometimes very not hip to the untrained eye. Ah…but to those who see deeper there is deep understanding.

3) Remember always the truly heart hip women I know. Momma’s making their way through life and working hard to provide for their children. Momma’s living in the midst of horribly unhappy marriages but because the are afraid risking what that might look like in their social circles, they have become actors worthy of an Academy award. Women who struggle every single day just to get out of bed and keep breathing, everything within is a fight and every baby step is momentous. The precious Nana’s who are now caretakers for the loves of their lives and are letting their dreams of winter years die? The widows who all of a sudden have to make it without their mate? Momma’s chasing 4 little ones around 24 hours a day who are blessed to brush their teeth much less take a shower. A heartbroken Momma who has lost both of her grown children just years apart…both in car wrecks. A precious woman who deserves the best is coping with the worst prognosis.

These are just a handful of the women I know that are the pinnacle of what ‘it’ is. I know that the ‘hip’ the world sees can coexist with these…but given a choice I am going with the heart hip sister walking down the street. I recognize her. I see her. I see my reflection….and it is heartily hip.

Struggling

Sunkissedsoul

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke

Oh geez louise.  If there is a mistake to be made lately, I am making it.  The struggles are real.  I’m trying to comfort myself by reminding myself, ‘this too shall pass’, ‘in everything there is a lesson to be learned’, ‘find the value’ and ‘God’s got me’.  Truthfully…I wonder if these things are true.  What if this is as good as it gets and nothing is going to ‘pass’?  How come I keep getting the same lessons, what am I missing?  Am I figuring out who I have always been or am I living out the years I never got to live out (adolescence)?

I bet parenting me is much like parenting a wild 17 year old who is determined to find her own way without undertaking any advisement.  So be it, I guess.  It’s where I am and I am so entirely sick of fighting with myself that I’m trying to just be.  Be me.  The challenge…I’m not entirely sure who I am.  One day I’m full of maturity, light and goodness…the next day I am determined to be as naughty as can be, wanting nothing or no one to constrain my freedom.  But you see…I’m not even sure what freedom means to me.

Forgive my scatteredness, and be thankful I took time to write in my journal before this post in order to ‘sort’ my everrunning thoughts. 

I spent time with a fabulous new friend last night, who happens among other several things to be an atheist.   I am very much a lover of Jesus and a hater of rules, and I greatly enjoy discussions with those of different belief systems.  As long as we can agree to disagree, I find great value in hearing another’s perspective and in sharing mine.  I am open to both their story and to telling mine.   We are all connected, there is value in each of our stories.  This is why I have difficulty when someone is closed to these interactions.  Like…what’ so scary about hearing another person’s view?   There’s no need to have a change of heart or mind just because there is a different perspective and if a change results…whatever.

I also have a dear, dear friend who happens to be more devoted to his Catholicism than anyone Catholic person I’ve ever known.  We have strikingly different views and we’ve had some terrifically difficult conversations.  That said, I have the utmost respect for his beliefs and I feel valued when I share with him.  I am thankful for that give and take. 

On the same token, another one of my dearest friends is an atheist.  It’s the same kind of give and take in our relationship and we actually learn a lot from our open heartedness toward each other. We ask each other super tough questions and continue to challenge one another to grow through these fittings together of our puzzles.  I guess I can surmise from this that when a person is valued over the need to be right, a very different relationship emerges.

Furthermore, I have many friends who don’t fall into an extreme end of the spectrum but somewhere in the middle.  They might be sure of their faith, they may be doubting and searching or they might just be numb and oblivious.  There isn’t one of them that doesn’t offer value to my life with where they are and I hope I do the same for them.

So…back to last night with my new friend….  I was very curious about their reasons they hold so tight to their beliefs.  They shared  and so much of it made  complete logical sense to me.  During our conversation, I tried to share just the little bit that I could about my faith.  It was hard.  I am deeply searching and trying to understand the foundations of my beliefs.  The faith part is so much easier for me to share.  Just like my own life, I’m so much more assured of how to share my feelings than my thoughts, and as a Christian, my feelings are more cemented and easier to share than my logic.

I explained that it was exceptionally difficult for me to understand how I was alive.  I made it through an open heart surgery at 9 months of age that was supposed to be done in two parts.  As I understand it, they came out in the middle of my first surgery and told my parents that they had to do the rest then or I would ‘be a vegetable’.  My Momma tells me that this was the first time she really knew she had faith because she never doubted that I wouldn’t be just fine. 

To give a little picture of the weight of the circumstances, I was more tubes than baby, and was one of the youngest babies to ever have this complete correction at such a young age.  It was a significant deal.  The doctors told my family it was a 50/50 chance of success but not doing it would mean bad things.  They did it and I’m obviously here to tell about it.  So, why, oh why are there babies with a lesser degree of the same defect that die today still?  Why am I alive?  Why doesn’t everyone get their miracle?

Then…a pretty healthy life.  Fast forward to that big ole stroke when I was 37.  That one that ‘should’ve killed me’ and that one where I had to learn to walk again…like an infant.  Again…why am I here?  So many are not.

So…my new friend asks me what kind of God would let little bitty babies die and me live?  An extremely fair question and one I have often wrestled with.  Tonight, I wrestle extra hard because the best answer I have is that I’m not God and I have to trust that He has a panoramic view and I have a snapshot.  Sometimes I believe this a thousand times over, other times, I doubt everything.  

I sure don’t know why God has me here and I’m really wondering how my life is one he’d be proud of right now.  I mess up.  Alot and quite intentionally.  I can be obstinate and determined to create my own path, hurting others along the way of my learning.  I can be unfocused and lackadaisical.  I am a bundle of pure messiness.  It is what it is. I am so deeply grateful for every moment.

A bit weary and overwhelmed, I am searching too often in others and not often enough in my own heart. It’s all okay. I’ve finally found peace with trusting that God not only accepts my doubts, He welcomes them.  For when I doubt, I am searching for his majesty when I am so small.  I am searching for His peace amidst my chaos.  

I am struggling, 100% with the dawning of these new lights…and that’s perfectly okay.