When It's Not Comeback Time

This undefeated stuff is hard. The last couple weeks have felt like a perfect storm, and I’m not sure I’m in the clear yet. I tend to write when I’m in the learning place, where lots of exciting connections are happening and ideas are bubbling up and life seems to be in an upward spiral. It’s like three quarters of the way through a movie - when music plays and you watch the person exercising and doing hobbies they always wished to do and just getting better. I LOVE that part. It goes fast and you can see improvement. I love it in my life too.

I’m less in love with the rest of life. The slow part. The part where you do what you thought was good, but it backfires. The part where you do the good and it doesn’t stack up to any obvious results. Or the part where you just can’t do the good you want to for whatever reason. For me that looks like my kids’ school friends talking about my napping, and a panic attack after trying a new work out, and reading a book to get out of my head and then being so engrossed in it, I’d rather my family didn’t bother me. Oh, and also, my sweet husband trying to make vegan mac ‘n cheese for me to eat at a Super Bowl party, only to not finish it in time and leave the kitchen a food-processing disaster.

Last week the shame gremlins (Brene Brown’s words) crowded around me. Why couldn’t I just be present and happy? Why didn’t I care what my daughter was trying to tell me? Why do I take naps when the rest of the world is working their butts off? If this is so hard, then change something! Just fix it!

It makes it hard to breathe deeply even now.

I fought those shame gremlins. I did. I told myself it was okay to be embarrassed and frustrated and even feel a little defeated. It was a S-T-R-U-G-G-L-E and it went on and on. It doesn’t feel like I won, even now when I’m pretty sure the clouds are going to break soonish.

The point of all this is, I judge times like this. I mark them, “BAD,” and want to hand them off. If it can’t be easy or at least rewarding, like a Hollywood comeback, you can keep it. At best, they seem like worthless space between the good times, necessary to endure. But guess what?

Cadence and I had a conversation one evening last week. Brian and Chandler were somewhere else, so it was just her and me in the living room. She talked and I listened and asked questions. It felt like time stood still. When I think back to last week, it stands out as a shining moment, like my greatest accomplishment and my greatest treasure. I’m a little shocked that something so brilliant could happen during that week. The one I’d written off as bad. The one I thought I was doing so poorly.

It makes me want to trust more. Trust in the mystery of good weeks and bad weeks and the way they change on a dime. I want to trust good gifts to come, even in hard times. Mostly, I want to trust that God and I are okay - that my struggle is not a barometer of the love between us. 

I hope you're week is off to a wonderful start. I hope you feel like you're kicking ass and taking names, but if not, it's not a waste. 

That's a lie. 

I'm not gonna say we can enjoy it all, but none of it's wasted.