Races

Thursday, December 26, 2013

A Safe Distance

The first time I took a CPR course was in high school. I can't remember why we had to do it but I remember being snotty about having to breathe into a mannequin's mouth, pressured to do all I could to save a plastic torso from the world hereafter. At sixteen, I barely cared about anyone besides myself and a fake choking and drowning germ magnet was no exception. I rolled my eyes, breathed new life and a new mutation of the latest flu bug into the plastic mouth on the floor at my feet, and passed the course.

Thankfully, the only time I've ever needed to use any knowledge from that course was when Katie was about a year old. She was perched in her high chair, chewing on a piece of meat from dinner when it suddenly became lodged in her throat. Not before long the food got loose and she proceeded to throw up her entire meal all over the floor at the dinner table.

There's something that has stuck with me, though, for all these years and that is the fact that when a person is choking, their first instinct is to get up from the table and isolate themselves and that we as observers should never let them wander off alone because it's in these moments that they often choke to death. And what I've also noticed is that when people suffer, like when we are emotionally hurting, we do the exact same thing as the choker at the dinner table. We go off on our own, work at the hurt that is lodged in our hearts until we can breathe freely enough to function and then we return to society.

But you know what? It's a good idea for us to not wander off too far, just in case we have a hard time breathing on our own. We don't need to be superheros, all the time. Sometimes we need a little extra oxygen to help dislodge the slice of life that's strangling us, and that's a lifesaver, too. But hopefully without the throw-up.



Friday, December 20, 2013

Panty Lines

A long-time friend of mine posted a note on Facebook the other day that read, "One of the greatest freedoms in life is simply not caring what other people think of you." And it made me think.

I know what's she is saying here, I do, and I believe her heart is in the right place. But very few people, if any, can actually NOT care what other people think of us. It's like saying, "One of the greatest freedoms in life is simply not having to go to the bathroom anymore." It's like duh. No shit. Would it be nice? Sure. Is it going to happen? Not as long as we're living.

I've thought about this many, many, many times and I have tried, OH so hard to not care what people think of me. But if I truly didn't care, I'd probably wear full bum underwear under stretchy pants. And when I dropped Special "O" sauce onto my shirt out of my White Spot cheeseburger, I'd rub it in instead of change into something clean. And when I let one go in public, rather than duck behind one of my kids I'd puff out my chest, cup my hands around my mouth and holler, "THAT WAS MEEEEE, BAYBEEEE!!!"

I think what my friend was trying to say is what the doctor and theologian Gerald May once wrote, "self-acceptance is freedom." THAT is where the money is. And to take it even further, Anne Lamott writes in her new book Stitches: "they taught me that maturity is the ability to live with unresolved problems."

So to me, it makes much more sense to strive toward something attainable (such as self-acceptance) rather than something that is impossible to acquire: the skill of not caring what others think. And to accept Self means to accept us Just As We Are Right Now. Not when we're perfect, because that will never happen. But to accept the scar on my nose and my bad choices and my blotchy skin and my quick temper and bouts of emotional immaturity. And because I care about me, and because I care about my family and friends and how I view myself and hold myself up to the world, I hope that I continue this journey of learning and solving problems and resolving conflicts with a clean shirt and no panty lines.




Monday, December 9, 2013

Raw in the Middle

Life is full of second, third, fourth chances. Just when we think we have our lives labeled, filed and organized, the label sticker gets ripped off taking our body hair with it. We're left vulnerable and exposed against the elements, completely lost and shivery. But then grace happens, and someone or something comes along and gives us another chance. An opportunity for reinvention, renewal, redemption.

Gump compares life to a box of chocolates and although I can't really argue with him (he's a runner, after-all) I have to add that life is also like a pile of pancakes. The box of chocolates is full of surprises, while the pile of pancakes is full of mistakes.

The first pancake is almost always burnt on the outside and raw in the middle. We learn from the experience and turn down the heat of the pan a bit. We add more water or a little less butter to the pan, and then we try again.

The middle batch of pancakes are usually melt-in-the-mouth fluffy, perfectly browned on the edges. Then the phone rings or someone posts a hilarious video on Facebook or one of the kids runs out of toilet paper. We get pancake-cocky, take our eyes off the pan and wander away for a bit only to jerk back to the sound of the shrieking smoke detector. The last three bits of breakfast are charred and rubbery, almost unrecognizable.

I don't think my purpose in life is to make the perfect pancake. And thank God for that. I can't even toast a pop tart. I believe that my purpose in life is to learn from my mistakes, to do what I need to do to stop from making any more of them, and then forgive myself when I do.

And most of all, to be thankful for my loves who show up at our table for breakfast. We don't huddle around the garbage can grieving the hot mess of pancake batter, but rather we gather together and eat the melt-in-the-mouth fluffy ones, perfectly browned on the edges.

Love kind of does that, you know? It pulls our focus off the garbage and fixes it on each other, instead. And without having had burned a few of my own pancakes, I would never have known this. Because without mistakes, there is no grace. And without grace, there is no love.


Sunday, December 1, 2013

Evergreen

Before I met Andrew, whenever I'd come across a blended family, I always imagined that the relationships within would be dominated by tension and discord. That the number of times the sullen teenager dipped his little stepbrother's toothbrush into the toilet water would exceed the warm and happy times ten-to-one. But we have been lucky or blessed or whatever you want to call it to be able to honestly say that it's much more like a "real" family than we ever could have imagined. There's fighting, but it's mostly between blood-siblings (mine... okay? sigh...) and there's tension and discord and frustration, but it's no different than any other family.

I like to think that we are empowering our children with the life skills necessary to survive out there in the real world. That when they venture out and encounter conflict, that rather than panic, they'll be able to face it all head-on and with confidence. 

Today hasn't exactly been a Martha Stewart Christmas decorating day and nor did we expect it to be. Andrew and I can plan all sorts of lovely festivities but when we start the day with Jake and Ethan rolling up their boogers and burning them in our space heater, we also set flame to our high expectations. Our tree went up despite an inevitable game of Booger Tag, and Andrew made sure that the chocolate chip pancakes that I started to make for breakfast actually got cooked in the middle (he is our culinary saviour).

But when Andrew left for his open house, Freddy, who has been battling a fever for a few days, gave in to The Puke and threw up his morning dose of Tylenol. What was supposed to be a holiday movie theatre day quickly became a stuck-in-the-house day. But despite the disappointment, the kids made the best of everything. I made pumpkin muffins and bread, Jake and Ethan resumed their game of Booger Tag and while Freddy slept, Kylah made him a "get well" card which cheered him up to no end when he finally left his bedroom at 6pm to help decorate the tree.

It's days like this that reveal the true heart of a family, blended or not. We may not have the picture-perfect Christmas postcard but our hearts are all in it. I just wish they'd leave out the boogers and puke.

Decorating the tree together...
This was taken a split second before Katie took justice into her own hands, punching Jake for accidentally kicking her in the face...