After

"Whenever you take a step forward, you are bound to disturb something.

 You disturb the air as you go forward, you disturb the dust, the ground."

~Indira Ghandi

One of my favorite artists, Carrie Newcomer, has a song titled "Before and After". In it, she describes the way that trauma and tragedy strikes us--"The dust settles after a hit and run, bewildered by the damage done". The metaphor always catches me, with its sense of shock, bewilderment, confusion, and, if you have had a moment like this, that unique sensation of time coming to halt. Everything stopping. An end to the world as you know it. It seems as if nothing will ever be the same again.

And, in fact, it won't be. It will never be the same.

This is the first, maybe the hardest piece of learning--that it cannot ever be the same again. As Carrie says, our lives from that moment onward can be framed in terms of "before" and "after". These moments, seasons, experiences, are the watershed moments of life. They change us. They change everything.

Sometimes, it seems as though it takes everything in us just to get from before to after. We put our energy into surviving. We are not sure if we will make it. We keep on, maybe only because others are depending on us and quitting is not an option. We get up another day. Others move around us as if in a dream, as if life continues as always. We keep getting up again, another day and then another. And eventually, to our great surprise, we are through. Everything is not made better, things are not fixed, our loss has not been returned to us. But there is life on the other side of our pain. The question is now, what shall we do with it?

Everything has changed, and we are faced with choices. What does our path forward look like in the new world that has been created? One thing is clear--we can't remain the same. We can try, of course, and some do. But the space that used to hold us has shifted, and any attempt to go on living in the "before" will simply be a painful reminder that "before" is gone forever. As the circumstances of our lives change, our choices and responses must adapt to things as they are, not as they once were. 

Seeing things through new eyes, making new choices, is hard too. Now, not only must we realize that things will never be the same again, but we must learn to want something new. We must do battle with the lie that wanting something good for ourselves in the present is a betrayal of the past; we must tell ourselves the truth, in spite of what our deceitful hearts whisper--that the past is no longer here, and that it no longer requires our devotion. We must know that our love for what was torn away from us in the past is not diminished by our ability to find new life, new love, as our wounds heal and we begin to live in "after".

What happens to "before" then, once we are walking the path of "after"? Immediately after my divorce, someone close to me said, "Now it's time to take some time to heal before moving forward." How nice that would be.  :)  Unfortunately, the healing can only happen by this constant motion forward. Just sitting still or rolling up in a ball, thinking, "Now I'm going to get all healed up before I do anything else," while it sounds very appealing, is not moving away from "before" and toward "after". Healing is a process more like walking across a live minefield. We will only know what's out there when we come across it. "Before" does not disappear. It will never go away, nor should it.

What this means is that the dividing line between before and after is not a clear and bright one. They are inextricably intertwined with each other. Healing from the tragedy and trauma of the past can only be accomplished by moving steadily forward toward the future; the path to the future will always wind through the memories, losses, and fears that are the landmarks of the past. 

So if, like me, you're moving on today, know that moving into our "after" is not a betrayal or an abandonment of our "before".  We can move forward with no harm to what was worth keeping. And if, as we go, we sometimes encounter the pain and loss as well, we can't be discouraged. The dust that has settled in the wake of the impact will inevitably be stirred up again as we survivors struggle to our feet and begin to move away. But never fear--we are on the right path.

How's That Working For You?

I am not a morning person.  And by "morning", I actually mean "before noon".  If I'm going to get up and get going in the morning, I need something, as my friend and director Julie used to say, "to take the sting out", and that usually means food. Fortunately, one of our regular receptionists subscribes to this same theory of mornings, and whenever she's in the building before noon, she comes bearing donuts.  LOTS of donuts.

In my workplace, many people do not regard the donuts as a positive development.  I am surrounded by co-workers who meticulously track their weight, body measurements, miles run and walked, calorie intake and burn rate, and various metrics of food ingestion.  People monitor their daily grams of protein or sugar, eat "meals" of carefully measured amounts of cottage cheese and peanut butter, and replace food altogether by drinking mad-scientist-looking concoctions that they create in the break room blender or bring from home in a Mason jar.  One of my co-workers appears to subsist completely on a diet of popcorn and grapefruit--when I asked him if he eats anything else, he said, "Lettuce?"

This, as you can imagine, leaves me alone with a lot of donuts.

It's a problem.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the break room with my friend Victoria, contemplating the vast array of fried sugary goodness.  She was saying that she had been really disciplined and hadn't eaten one.  I was saying that I had eaten one, and that the last thing I needed was another.  Victoria laughed.  She said, "You skinny people. Small people always want to be smaller.  I'd be happy if I was your size."

All I can say in my own defense, is that at least I had the grace to be embarrassed about it.  I told Victoria, "I'm sorry.  I do get the problem. I actually wrote a whole blog post about it. But it's hard, when it's yourself."  Victoria, always gracious, agreed.  "It is."

And I walked away kicking myself, but even then, even then, here's what I was thinking.  I was thinking about how many times I have told myself exactly what Victoria said.  That there are people who would be happy to be my size, who would consider themselves skinny and beautiful, who would accept and love themselves in my body, so why isn't that enough for me?  If so many other people would be happy with what I have, I should be happy with it myself.

I thought about it, off and on, for the rest of the day, and until now.  And I'm happy to say that at some point along the way, my thoughts about it changed, when I suddenly realized something.  If being my size would really make people happy, then why doesn't it work for me??

I know.  You think I already said that, right?  You think I'm just repeating myself.  But listen.  Just hang in there with me for a minute.  The words are almost the same, but follow me--think.  Think about it differently.  Victoria said she would be happy if she was my size, and I believed her.  We both believed her.  But let me ask you a really important question: would she??  Would any of the people I was thinking of earlier--if they became my size, would they really be happy with it?  Because I think that if being my size (or any size) is really what makes people happy, then it would be working for me. And not just me, but all the small, skinny people Victoria is talking about who always want to be smaller.  It would be working for every woman I wrote about in that blog post who is 25 pounds lighter than me but still thinks she needs to lose 10 pounds.  And for every woman I see at the gym and think, "I'd be happy if I was her size," but she's still frowning later when I see her on the scale. I have been thinking of it backward.  It's not that if other people would be happy being my size, that's proof that I should be happy with it.  Instead, it's that if I'm not happy being my size, it's proof that no one else would be either--at least not if size is what they were depending on for that happiness.

And the people I am really envying?  The people who are at peace with themselves, body and all?  If they are happy, it's not because they are smaller than me. It's because they are smarter than me. Because at that moment, I see, in a blinding flash, AGAIN, the lie that has crept in yet another crack and obscured this truth:  If being any certain size would really make us happy, make us love ourselves, accept ourselves, become witnesses to our own beauty and power, then it would already be working for all of us.  This lie--that skinniness equals happiness, or worthiness, or lovableness, or even beauty--has so deeply pervaded our cultural and individual consciousness that even when we have seen the falsehood in it, even when we are vigilant in our attempts to combat it, it still lurks there, just under the surface, secreting itself in the hidden places we will not see, camouflaging itself in the cleverest disguises, manipulating even our attempts to diminish it into mind-bending tricks that unknowingly grow its power.  It is evil. And I am not exaggerating.  If being the Beloved is indeed the core truth of our existence , the sacred truth on which everything rests, then this is its true unholy opposite, this lie that says we can never be perfect enough, pretty enough, small enough to be loved.

Almost every morning when I eat breakfast, I see this tagline on the back of my cereal box:  "More whole grains, less you!"  Let me ask you this, what kind of a message is that?  Whose voice is it, that we still, in spite of everything, are allowing to say to us, "You know what would really be great here?  Less you.  If you could just kind of shrink down a bit.  Just keep getting smaller. The closer you are to non-existent, the better that will be. We'll all like that.  You'll be happy then.  Trust me."

Make no mistake, people.  It's not the donut that is our enemy.

10 Things That Are Not Actual News

1.  A celebrity couple starts a relationship

2.  A celebrity couple ends a relationship

3.  A celebrity posts a picture of something on social media

4.  Donald Trump says something stupid or insane or outrageous

5.  Someone made up a new hashtag

6.  A celebrity has a child and gives it a name

7.  Some people are reportedly upset over some trivial daily matter (drink cups, holiday sayings, clothing trends)

8.  Some people are upset over people being upset over trivial daily matters

9.  A celebrity does pretty much anything that constitutes normal, everyday life

10.  Something crazy-sounding happens in WalMart

Mother of All Christmases

This year, it is not my turn to spend Christmas with my kids.  According to a very fair and well-regulated co-parenting agreement, the celebration of this holiday alternates from year to year between parental households.  (This year, I had Thanksgiving.)  They left yesterday morning with their dad, his wife, and her daughter, to spend four days with their grandparents out of state, and they'll be back on Sunday.

This isn't the first time I'll be spending Christmas without them--it's the second, actually.  This time is different, though, because this year is the first Christmas that will be shared with a step-family.  As the central point of coordination for gift-giving, I've been surprised and a bit alarmed at the flood of emails, inundating me with lists of gift after gift that will be purchased for them by brand new family members, eager to welcome them with open arms.

Each year of the last four has presented a new set of challenges, a new uncertain territory for my family.  And somehow, the holiday season often seems to be the time when the highest of these hurdles are presented.  This Christmas season, as I release my little ones (not so little any more) into the care of others, I have been thinking a lot about that other mother, that famous Christmas mother, Mary.

We Protestants don't like to talk a lot about Mary, lest someone get the wrong idea.  But I think it's possible that Mary has some things she could tell me, and I'd like to hear what she could say--as it's said in Home Alone, "from a mother, to a mother".

I think about how it must have been, as a mother, to release the man that was still your baby, not just to another parent or another family, but to the whole rest of the world.  So many other mothers, sisters, brothers, and miscellaneous claimants on his time, his attention, his life.  It didn't just seem like there were hordes of people trying to claim him.  There were hordes of people trying to claim him, some out of genuine love and devotion, but many for their own purposes, with their own agendas.  His relationship with each of them would be part of his own story, and part of theirs, but not part of hers--she could only look on, with a heart full of hope and fear.

I think about how puzzling, how impossible, it must have seemed, sometimes, to hold on to her confidence in the promise of his destiny.  Her job, her mission, was to nurture him to readiness for his part in a plan she could not know, see, or understand.  So many people, events, and influences lay outside her control. I wonder how many times it seemed to her as if something must have gone horribly wrong.  I think surely she must have second-guessed herself when things appeared at their worst--was this how things were supposed to be?  And if not, was it her fault?  Had she failed him, failed her task, failed God?

I might be wrong, but I think maybe she worried a little, just like me.  Maybe she even cried sometimes.  Maybe her text history would have looked something like mine:

I can't do this.  I'm serious this time.

They need someone else.  I'm just not up to it.

What am I doing wrong?

I know our situations are not the same.  Obviously, she had a lot more at stake than I do.  But to every mother, our own dear ones are The Ones.  And for all of us, the lesson is the same.  They belong to us, but they are not ours to keep.  They have their own story to live, they are part of a larger plan that we cannot know or understand.  There may be a path before them that is longer, harder than we would desire (and possibly greater than we could guess), but there is only One who can direct it.  We can try with all our might to remember to be grateful that they have been entrusted to us for a season.  We can look on, with fear and trembling, with joy and pride, and with unfailing hope; we can be there from beginning to end, every time they look back, fall down, or take off and fly.  But ultimately, stumble or fly they must.  And no matter how painful, confusing, scary, or downright crazy-making it might be, Mary, that other mother, with her heart both full and broken by her baby boy who was Emmanuel himself, tells me--hang on.  It will be all right.