Unchurched

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“I believe in God the Father Almighty”

I was born and raised in the Lutheran Church. Baptized at nine years old, confirmed at thirteen years old. Served as an acolyte for years, was in the Youth Choir, then later sang on the worship team until we had two babies and moved from Northern CA to Southern CA.

“And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.”

My best friend through Middle and High Schools was a Baptist preacher’s daughter. We went to youth group on Wednesday nights, church Sunday morning and evening, church camp in the Summer and Winter, and I attended a private Christian college my first two years of undergrad.

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”

When we moved to San Diego, we joined a Lutheran Church. I needed the familiar. It never felt like a church home, however. Little Man was baptized there. I sang in the choir for a bit. But when the church became political (advising how we should vote and whom we should vote for if we were “good Lutherans”) we left. We began attending a non-denominational church that grew out of a CoC, and for a good number of years, it felt like a solid spiritual home, for me anyways. Well, mostly. It’s difficult when you slowly become the only person in your family practicing an active faith.

I began to hear uncomfortable and discomforting things during the 2016 election – not necessarily in the church I was attending, but in the Christian community in general. The conservative Christian community I’d known since high school was becoming….way more conservative, to the point of extreme. For some, it was a one-issue decision, which I couldn’t understand given EVERYTHING else on a certain candidate’s platform that was decidedly un-Christian. The person we’d never thought could even make it through the primaries was now the candidate, and then elected. Things got ugly. The excuses and adamance I heard from the Christian community in support of him stymied me. I couldn’t grasp, couldn’t understand. This man seemed the furthest thing from Christian, and almost immediately following the inauguration in 2017, the policies put in place by the administration didn’t feel very Christ-like. I wanted reassurance in my church community this was not Christian behavior. I heard nothing, or at least not enough to make me feel like I wasn’t losing my mind or over-reacting.

2020 arrived, and with it, Covid with the fear, the shutdowns, the rules. Church moved online, understandably. I appreciated the efforts of my church to stay engaged with its members, to keep worship going, keep sharing the message each Sunday as we churched from home via Facebook streaming. As time went on, there was quite a bit of noise within the community with regard to the lockdowns – how churches should be excluded from the rules of congregating, or that the rules were unfair, unnecessary. There was also anti-masking pushback, etc. I didn’t attend in person until spring of 2021, and was astonished. As soon as people entered the doors, masks were removed, as if Covid still wasn’t an issue. This was a community with at-risk members….very young children and babies, older members with fragile health. That didn’t seem to matter. Masks off, singing, hugging, sitting right next to people from other families/households. It felt so discordant…..this was a community that was supposed to be taking care of those who needed it most, those most at risk, a community that was supposed to care more than anyone else. I’m talking the church community in general, not just the church I was attending. Rather, they seemed to proudly flaunt their actions as “free” from government, and beyond rules because they were a church of Christian followers.

Now I have children who identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community. I haven’t always believed the church was wrong on its stance that homosexuality is a sin. I grew up in a strict purity culture that was very legalistic. As I grew into adulthood, knew more and more human beings who were gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, etc, I grew to understand their love, who they love, how they love isn’t sinful. It’s just who they are. They were created and born that way. I firmly believed they should have the same rights to marriage and life as heterosexual couples. The very first service I returned to church, the sermon was on marriage, and clearly stated that the only marriage sanctioned by God is that between one man and one woman. I sat back, stunned. I mean, I knew this was the stance, but to hear it blatantly, especially knowing I had two children at home for whom love and marriage would likely look different, my heart just hurt. It felt so wrong, almost intentionally painful, and again, not the God I believed in. I left church that day not knowing it would be one of the last times I would sit in a service, in church community. I went back maybe twice more in the spring and summer of 2021. Then I quietly left. For the first time in my life, church didn’t feel safe. It didn’t feel very Christian. It didn’t reflect what my faith was telling me was true. It didn’t seem to imitate the values of Jesus I had been raised on. I was grieving the loss of that community of faith, but I couldn’t keep going to a place that moved further and further from the God I knew. By the end of 2021, I had fully left the church. I haven’t been back.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my faith. I still pray daily. I have been lax on my Bible reading in recent years but that is personal. I engage in faith conversations with others who have struggled in recent years to connect with the church community. Evangelicalism just doesn’t feel very Christian anymore. I’ve watched the American “church” move more and more towards Christian Nationalism, and I want no part of that. It feels in the last ten years that too many Christians are giving Christians a bad name. Saying you’re a Christian who isn’t political is a) very privileged and b) actually a political choice. Christians cannot bury their heads because it’s more convenient that way, or because they don’t want to engage in debate or conversation that can be uncomfortable. Sorry for the aside.

What I’m seeing and hearing other Christians defend these days is diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus to do for the least of these, to love your neighbor, to care for the poor, the ill, the orphaned, the widowed, the aged. Instead, I hear and see ugliness…abusive and racist and fear-mongering behavior, in the name of Jesus. Or there is just silence where there should be yelling in the streets against these abuses. Christians should be on the front line of fighting for those who need defending, rather than standing alongside those in masks with guns who are terrorizing families, those trying to take the rights away from human beings, those stealing from those who are already without. It doesn’t make me inclined to return to the church community. I’ve thought frequently over the last two years how much I miss being in community with others of the faith. I just don’t feel the energy, the drive to search for a community that aligns with me, particularly given all that is happening in our world. I know I’m not alone.

I am unchurched. I have been unchurched. Someday, I will return, I am sure. I trust God will lead me to a community that feels like home, that feels attached to the teachings and life of Jesus. In the meantime, I remind myself that:

I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, Our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into Hell. On the third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He shall come to judge the living and dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.

Therapy

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Our family moved from a large city to a very small town when I was ten years old, my sister eight, and my brother fourteen. To say it was an upheaval and traumatizing doesn’t even begin to touch the level of impact it had on all three of us. We know now our parents were doing their best for our family, and I am glad I spent half of my childhood in that small town, but it was very difficult. It took me a few years to feel settled, like I belonged, had my own space and friends. I don’t fully grasp the deep scars it left on my siblings, particularly my brother.

I was just-turned eighteen, and had just graduated from high school when my parents split up. If I’m being honest, they probably should have separated when I was nine or ten (maybe that was part of the impetus for the move – a reset and restart of sorts?). They came back from a weekend away in Reno, had a huge blowout fight – which was extremely abnormal for them as they never fought, ever, in my memory – and that was that. That was the end. Just over two months later, I left for college, a five-plus hour drive away from home. I felt the guilt of leaving, starting my own life to a certain extent while my parents were suffering at home, while my sister was the only kid left at home to endure the fallout.

College is an adjustment on its own. Add the normal childhood trauma, as well as my parents’ divorce, feeling torn between two (or three) worlds, the struggle to learn how to study in an entirely different way, and to accept that school was going to be more difficult than it had been for years, feeling like a failure, in addition to an eating disorder exacerbated by all of the above, and by my second semester of my first year, I was a train wreck.

I was in my tennis class and had the mother of all meltdowns. The instructor/coach pulled me from the courts to a bench in the shade. He said something like, “This seems like more than not being able to hit a tennis ball where you want it consistently.” I huddled into a heap of tears on that bench. No one besides my closest friends knew what was going on at home. No one really had bothered to look deep enough. We were all so caught up in studying, having fun, experiencing life away from home for the first time. At home, it never felt we children were able to need deeply, to show strong emotion. That coach let me cry it out for a good bit, then said to me, “I think you need to talk with someone,” once I gave him a brief picture of what was going on in my baby-adult life. This is more than one person can deal with on her own. He prayed with me (I went to a private Christian college my first two years of school), excused me from tennis for the rest of the day, and sent me back to my dorm room. Later that day, my Resident Director came to my room with a number to call – the on-campus therapist.

That was my entry into therapy. It wasn’t a magic pill by any means, but having someone to talk with, someone outside of my circle/family, someone who didn’t judge me, judge my parents but rather just let me work through things was life-altering. It didn’t fix everything immediately. It would be years before those hurts were more easily managed. Of course, in the way of life, there would be new hurts to come along. Back to therapy.

I don’t know who I’d be, how damaged I would still be if I hadn’t had that coach set me on a road out of that space, introducing me to therapy. I know plenty of people who don’t believe in therapy, in talking things through with a professional. I know plenty of people who don’t think it’s a viable option for them. To each their own I guess. Therapy is work. It’s scary telling someone you don’t know your issues, what’s happened in your life. It’s scary and it’s work, and then you’re given work so you can get to the root of your issues, learn to manage them and/or your responses to triggers. I still encourage people to seek it out, if they’re at all inclined. It saved me.

I’ve spent the past couple of years thinking about that childhood as I try to figure out why I feel the way I do sometimes, my reactions to situations and other people. I haven’t gone back to therapy, but I have taken that toolkit back out I was given so long ago, the things I learned in therapy in college, right after, and as a young mom. There was a situation last week (not an emergency or anything, just a situation) in which someone I know was struggling with something that wasn’t really a problem but more of an inconvenience. They were extremely frustrated in the moment. I knew it was more than just that immediate problem. I also knew it wasn’t my job to fix everything for them – logistically there was no way I could fix it, but even in theory, I couldn’t fix it. But I felt my whole body tighten, my heart begin to race. I recognized my reaction for what it was – my need to manage everything, to make everything perfect for everyone in my life so they’re never inconvenienced or unhappy, and feeling like it’s my failure if something goes wrong for them. I noticed that reaction, and then made myself stay quiet. I wasn’t there to solve the problem for them. I didn’t have to solve the problem for them. They weren’t asking me to solve the problem for them. They just wanted me to be there while they worked through the problem. I made myself NOT try fix it. I told myself their inconvenience was NOT my failure, and I breathed. Thank you, therapy.

Therapy doesn’t make us perfect, doesn’t make us “healed.” It doesn’t make it so we never have bad reactions or emotional responses. It doesn’t make us stop feeling those feelings. It just helps us recognize and then change the destructive reactions. It’s not that I ALWAYS can do what I did in the moment the other day. But it gave me those tools, helped me recognized my own patterns. To that coach whose name I couldn’t recall if I tried, and that first therapist, I thank you deeply.

“Nothing weighs more than someone else’s belief in you.”

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I retired 22 days ago. Still feels weird to say that. I don’t consider myself technically old enough to be retired. I definitely don’t consider myself “old”, and yet here we are. I am retired. In the months leading up to my last day, it felt I was constantly being asked, “What are you going to do?” How does one justify their existence when the children are done being raised, but you are not being productive in the way the world understands ie a paycheck or something tangible to show you’ve DONE something with your time? I knew I would be busy. I knew I had plans. But even those sounded the tiniest bit lame when I said them out loud, even moreso when I said them out loud to successful businesswomen. Was I doing the right thing, walking away from something I’m good at, leaving behind a ten-year career even if it wasn’t a C-Suite type of career (I left that life behind a very long time ago, when baby 3 arrived in under 4 years)?

What plans do I have to fill my days? First, I plan to slow down. For over 25 years, life has been lived at a pace set by others….career, spouse, home, children and all their various schooling and activities, pets, family responsibilities, volunteer responsibilities I’d signed up for. Mornings were a five-alarm fire drill from the moment the phone starting beeping its wakeup call until the children were dropped off, but only to rush me into getting all the things done in the few hours I had while they were at school, followed by the next fire drill of getting them to and from extracurriculars, feeding, herding through homework and bedtime, taking just enough of a breath to get ready for the next day. I still have an alarm set for weekday mornings, but it’s set back over an hour from those busy school days, and half an hour from the past four years, post having children in compulsory school. I don’t jump right out of bed….I allow myself to slowly wake up, clearing texts and emails that come in over night, checking my sleep app, and the weather for the day before rolling out of bed to brush teeth, put on the exercise clothes, start the coffee, and get the dogs their treats and breakfasts before feeding myself. I take time to journal a few lines in my planner most days, play my New York Times games (Wordle, Strands, Connections and the Mini, in that order), and grab my current non-fiction reading selection for 10-15 minutes. I’ve spent the first few weeks of the new year organizing/reorganizing, getting the donation truck here, putting away holidays, celebrating my retirement over a long weekend visit from my bestie. Now I am just settling in to the plans I had set for myself.

I went to our club yesterday to sign up for golf lessons. Spouse is an avid golfer, and I want to at the very least not embarrass him on the course, and keep up the pace of the game. I’ve had clubs and gone out a few times a year for maybe ten years? But I’ve never had a lesson, sooooooooo…..lessons it is! Just waiting to hear back from the club pro to schedule the first lesson.

I have been journaling more in general. It feels good, centering, cathartic, healthy. The house is less cluttered, more clean, than it’s been in years. I have the time every day to wash those few dishes, actually put the laundry away that no longer languishes in the dryer for days at a time (if it even makes it that far). The new puppy is taken outside frequently in a solid effort to get her potty trained. She’s a teacup Yorkie, so you know that is a huge challenge. Yorkies aren’t known for being easily potty trained. Challenge accepted.

The other thing I am doing….I knew I had to put it out there, verbally and in writing, to hold myself accountable. I am writing a book. I am trying to write a book. I am working on writing a book. I feel like an imposter of the highest order, just saying it out loud. I don’t know it will ever be published, but I promised myself when I was young and writing in my very first journal that someday, I would put my words out into the world. My biggest dream was to be an author, a real one. My daughter has known this wish of mine for years. She knows I had pushed off my dreams for career and motherhood. She knows now is the time. She knows what I’m writing about, and she believes in me. I do feel that as a weight, but not in a bad way. It pushes me…..I want her to see her mom live a lifelong dream, whether or not my words ever see a shelf in a bookstore. I have to try. I have to overcome my own fear and insecurity and at least try. Each day I don’t write, I feel the weight of ignoring my dreams and wishes, of shoving hopes down. It’s not just the weight of her belief in me though, it’s that of friends and family I’ve told of this thing I want to do, to be. They believe in me, in my ability.

I don’t know my thoughts and words will ever be published, out there for the world to see, judge, buy. But I have to try. I have to do this for me, for those who believe in me. That’s what pushes me to my computer, not every day, but right now, at least one day a week, to put those words down and craft them into something like a book that hopefully someday people will hold in their hands.

PS….the quote titling this post is out of my favorite book of 2025 (heck, it’s in my top ten of all time), My Friends by Fredrik Backman.

A Small Thank You to the Tism

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My friends with young adult children and I have been talking lately about the things we don’t miss from our kids being younger. Among the things we miss least (or not at all) is all the driving around – school drop off and pick up, and the hauling around to all the various activites/practices/rehearsals/classes/camps. For. The. Love. The time I am NOT spending in the car anymore is so much better spent these days. I’m still thankful for it, and it has been nearly four years since the last time I had to do a school drop off or pick up, and even longer since the last time I took a child to the dance studio, golf practice, or any kind of meet/rehearsal/game.

From the time they were old enough, we had all three kids in all the activities….dance, little league baseball, soccer, golf camp, Y camp, swim lessons. You name it, we did it, or at least tried for one season. The back of my SUV always had blankets, camp chairs, snacks, various uniform parts, water jugs/bottles, and the wagon to haul it all. We essentially lived in the car on weekdays, starting our days with school drop off at 7:45am, getting home from our last practice often around 8pm or later as they got older. I could never finish any projects at home because as soon as I’d start something, we’d have to leave to take or pick up from one thing or another. I felt like my world was in constant chaos, everything halfway done, if I even started it at all – laundry, dishes, cleaning, grocery shopping.

From the age of five until about eight, we had Z in all the activities as well, painful as it often was, and let me tell you, it was very frequently PAINFUL. As Z got older, we began to realize it just wasn’t worth it. We were torturing them, their teammates, their coaches, ourselves, for very little gain. Their peers were outpacing them in ability and size to the point it was a danger to our child. They just couldn’t keep up, and didn’t care to keep up. When it came time to register them for Minor B baseball (coach pitch at the beginning of the season, and kid-pitch by the end), we knew we were done with baseball. That following summer, we made the decision to pull them from soccer as well. Suddenly, they weren’t doing any extracurriculars.

Z is on the spectrum. They also are ADHD, oppositional/defiant, and have executive function disorder, as well as sensory issues. They are also our youngest – they were going to get slightly different parenting as it was. But add in all those other issues, and everything just looks different.

Why a small thank you the Tism? When I think about Z NOT being all those things, and what life might have looked like if they had been neurotypical, I get even more tired. With just two kids doing all the activities all the way through high school, I was exhausted and often overwhelmed. I can’t even imagine adding all of that for a third, youngest kid. It’s not that we didn’t have things for them….when they were first diagnosed on the spectrum, we had weekly therapy, monthly psychiatrist visits, IEP meetings, med checks, on top of all the “normal” doctor, dentist, parent/teacher conferences and school stuff. We did not have two or three practices a week and games on the weekend to add to the chaos.

So, thank you, Tism, for giving me one small reprieve.

The Great Light Fight

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I grew up in a family that didn’t have much. We kids were hounded to remember to preserve resources – Daddy constantly hollering at us to turn off the lights when we left a room, close the doors to outside to keep heat or cool inside where it belonged, don’t stand there with the fridge door hanging open while we decided upon which snack to choose, don’t leave water running and walk out of the room, etc. Not a day went by one of us wasn’t yelled at for one of the above. We all became super conscious about lights, electricity, heat/cool, water. Add to all of this, we live in California. It’s just part of the CA culture to be aware of resources, and preserving them.

Fast-forward however many years to now. Yeah, Spouse grew up in the same state. I’m sure he got the same presentations at school growing up (although he went to private school so maybe no?). And this isn’t to bash him at all….he does care about the environment. He just has a different perspective. And iso began the “Great Light Fight.”

I am of a mind that if you’re not in a room, you turn off the light. At night, the outdoor lights are off. Doors closed and locked. If I’m not downstairs, why should any lights be on downstairs? When the kids were in high school, I would constantly yell at them to turn off the porch/courtyard lights when they came in or came upstairs. I was forever finding the dang lights back on after I’d turned them off. It came to light (pun intended) recently, with two of the three kids having been out of the house for years, they simply could not be the culprits. Come to find out, it’s been Spouse this entire time, coming along behind me and turning the porch, courtyard, and carriage lights back on after I’d turn them off each night.

A couple of weeks ago, I’d turned everything off and headed upstairs. He apparently came back downstairs for something, and turned them all back on (outdoor lights, not indoor). I came back down for water later and was like, “WTH?” and turned them all off again. When I got back up to our room, he asked, “Did you just turn off the courtyard lights?” I said yes, to which he asked why. Uhhh…because we’re not using them. Why would I leave them on? He asked if I always turned them off. Uh, yep. Who do you think has been turning them off all these years? He really wanted to know why I turned them off. I then wanted to know why he left them on. We, my friends, appear to have a different philosophy here, and it really doesn’t have much to do with the energy bill. In my mind, yes, I do hear Daddy preaching about saving energy, but also, why would I give any potential thieves or troublemakers extra light to help their endeavors? In his mind, he wants lights so he can see them on the cameras. I had never even thought of that angle.

The great light fight ensues, however. Some nights, he wins and all the outdoor lights are on. Sometimes, I am the last man standing, and all the outdoor lights are off. Do you have a great light fight at your house? What’s your philosophy/reasoning for lights on or lights off?

Are we really talking about this again????

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VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM

TYLENOL DOES NOT CAUSE AUTISM

MY CHILD DOES NOT NEED TO BE “CURED” OF HIS AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER

I seriously cannot believe these discussions are, well, up for discussion again. It’s frustrating. It’s infuriating. More importantly, it’s dangerous to the mental health of the mothers of autistic people. It’s frightfully dangerous to autistic people. For the love of all that is holy, can we please stop?

When Z was diagnosed in second grade, it was somewhat devastating. At the same time, it was a relief. We finally had the answers to why he struggled so deeply, to why things were so hard. We had the key to getting him the help he needed to learn to function in a world not made for near-diverse people. I never saw it as a death sentence. I never saw it as something to be cured……my child was then, and is still now, perfect and perfectly amazing. I only saw the opportunity to gain tools to put in his toolbox so he could manage life more easily.

Did I question what I may have done to “make” him that way? Yes…..because I think all good mothers question what we may have done wrong. Then again, that’s society’s fault….we’ve been trained since birth that if something goes awry, it’s our fault. There is so much blame placed upon the shoulders of women. But I digress…yes, I did wonder if I’d done something, or not done something that resulted in our child being on the spectrum. Then I took a close look at close family, particularly Spouse. Let me tell you, they are enough proof the autism is genetic in some way. Seriously. They’re all brilliant, but yeah, gatherings are spectrum-y. Spouse is spectrum-y. I looked no further for ways to blame myself. Even if there were a “cause” besides genetics, knowing that cause wouldn’t change anything. He simply is autistic. Knowing a reason wouldn’t change that fact.

In many ways, I feel our family. has been gifted this child. I love the way he sees the world. We did not get the non-verbal type of autism. We got the overly-verbal type of autism (well, he chooses when he wants to converse, but his vocabulary has always been pretty ridiculous, from the moment he started speaking). He has a way of making connections of what he takes in my brain would never even recognize much less verbalize. He notices things we don’t. He is insanely smart, sarcastic, hilarious.

Having an autistic child has taught me patience when I’m out and about in the world. Before autism, I may have been judge-y of other parents. Now, I know that you just never know what’s going on in someone’s life. What may appear bad/questionable parenting when a child is losing their ish may very well be a mother or father just trying their best to manage an autistic meltdown. Kid with an iPad and headphones on all the time may be managing sensory overload or issues rather than parents who are just trying to keep their kid quiet or disengaged. I have more compassion and empathy for having raised an autistic child.

Here’s the thing….He doesn’t “have” autism. He IS autistic. There is a huge difference. Having assumes you could also not have. Being is a whole other story. He is autistic. He will always be autistic. It just is who he is. He will never not be autistic. And I’m fine with that. Yes, getting him through childhood was rough. There were days I didn’t know we were going to get through. It was hard. It was also beautiful at times…understanding the gift of him making progress, of him connecting, of him reaching milestones….I wouldn’t change him. I would just have made things easier than they were, than they can oftentimes still be.

So, say it with me…..Vaccines do not cause autism. Tylenol does not cause autism. Autistic people are not a drain on society. Moms don’t need to be blamed. Autism is not a crisis in American society. We are blessed with their gifts, their brilliance, their being. Now, can we please put this discussion to bed forever?

“It doesn’t take any talent…”

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There was an interview the other day of a certain pastor of a Christian Nationalist church that’s getting a lot of attention. There are a ton of sound bites. I won’t give him a name or credit here. I refuse. I was infuriated on so many levels watching the interview/piece on this church and its growing following/community. To be honest, I was completely disgusted by essentially everything the lead pastor and his associates – all middle-aged white men, for the record – had to say.

I was born in 1969. In my lifetime, women have gained the ability to have their own checking account, their own credit card account, buy a home in their own name, open a business themselves and own it. Those are just a few things, a few rights we have been granted since my birth. Do I think we’re still figuring our way to really defining feminism and feminist rights, what it means to be a woman in the world in the 21st century? Yes, I do. Our roles and outlooks are evolving. I do not, however, believe that women are and should be “just vessels” nor do I agree with the whole “submitting to your husband” the way this church is currently defining submittance. But that’s not what I’m here to write/talk about today.

This man said, “It doesn’t take any talent to biologically reproduce.” Sir, with (ahem) respect, you’re a fucking moron. I’m going to take it to understand you have zero clues what women go through from the moment their periods first start when they’re teenagers, what happens when we’re trying NOT to get pregnant, when we’re trying TO get pregnant, what happens to our bodies and how we care for them while we’re pregnant, what childbirth is actually like (even when everything goes 100% right, which, to be honest, is rare), much less post-partem and then just being a mom in general. It indeed takes a ton more than biological talent. It takes a strength you’d never have the depth of understanding. It takes a will, it takes tolerance, it takes mental, physical and emotional skills you couldn’t hope to achieve in your lifetime.

But let’s back up a minute…..no biological talent….really? Has anyone you’ve ever known suffered through infertility? A premature birth? A still birth? Do you know what a miracle any pregnancy is, how many gajillion things have to go absolutely right to result in a viable fetus? Seriously dude……We endured 18 months of fertility treatments, granted that’s a pretty short stint in that world. I did EVERYTHING I was supposed to do, endured so many tests and procedures, most of which were painful and invasive. I took fertility drugs that caused all kinds of fun side effects. Then we gave birth 14 weeks early and spent three months in the NICU with our son fighting for his life. But sure, no biological talent.

Do you really think all women are complete idiots who are only capable of reproducing and offer no other skills to society? That is offensive, ignorant, and 1000% wrong. Do you know where you’d be, where we’d be as a modern society without the gifts and contributions of women?

In all honesty, I am a woman who chose to leave her career when our third child was born, to stay home and be a mom/homemaker. It was the best choice for our family, especially given the different needs of a preemie and then an autistic child. But I am still offended, and am allowed to be offended by anyone who says that’s all I was meant to do and be. I worked my way through college, and then twelve years of a career before I became a stay at home mom. Even during the years I was at home, I was much more than a submissive, passive, non-contributing, unworldly woman. I would say that of nearly all women who make the same choices I did, with the only exclusions being the women in this man’s church who believe the BS he’s feeding them.

As a woman, even one whose children are grown, I see this movement as dangerous to everyone BUT white males. The witch hunts of hundreds of years ago….those had nothing to do with real witches or religion, but rather fear of women who refused to dumb themselves down, who would not stay “in their place”, refused to hide their skills, talents, minds. They had everything to do with men who were afraid of those women, and their potential to bring the idea of an equal presence in the world to other women.

Now if you’re a woman who chooses the lifestyle this “pastor” is presenting as viable, go you. That’s your choice. But I will fight with all I have to keep this from becoming the norm for all women. In the words of another recent in-the-news person, “We are not going back.”

Slide Through Summer

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We’ve had the Princess home this entire summer, minus a weekend here or there. She got home mid-May ish to work her legal internship and pour wine at a winery (strangely a life goal she’s had for awhile haha). We have loved every minute of having her home, especially knowing we’re unlikely to ever get time like this with her again. Spouse and I haven’t done any big trips this summer either so we’ve just been home.

It’s been a lot of nights on the back patio, watching baseball, drinking wine, and talking. It’s been evenings of movies, binging tv shows, or just quietly reading side-by-side. We have laughed, and, as per usual for when the Princess and I are together, we have sometimes cried. We’ve talked relationships, old and new, marriage, life, career, the past. We’ve hashed out political topics and world issues. We’ve discussed so many theories around our two favorite fantasy book series/universes (trust me when I say the Empyrean Series and anything Sarah J Maas are our entire personalities…..we can talk for DAYS about them).

I think one of my favorite things of having her home is our morning walks on her days off or when she doesn’t start at the winery until early afternoon. We have a loop that goes all around the outside of our neighborhood, three miles door-to-door, complete with our walking friends (dogs) we see most days. The best days are when we see our favorite route dogs and get all the scritches and snoodles.

When she was a teenager, and we were struggling immensely with her for a couple of years, I couldn’t begin to imagine having a relationship like this with her. People, other moms, told me she would come back and we would end up being close once again. I didn’t believe them for one second. But they were right. They were so right.

She leaves Tuesday to go spend time first with her partner for a few days, and then with her cousin for a weekend before she and the bf start the two-day drive up to Oregon. She will move into her new apartment in Eugene, and then dive into her 2L year. We probably won’t get to see her until Thanksgiving. Sigh…..I know I will spend a lot of time this fall thinking back on these few months, and being so grateful for them.

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Who was I before?

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Do you ever read a book and a line/paragraph will just smack you upside the head, make you inhale sharply in understanding or connection? I recently read “My Friends” by Fredrik Backman and this happened so many times during this particular reading experience. I have probably thirty page flags marking such lines….the book is 434 pages long. I literally hugged this book when I finished reading, it is just that good. Sigh….You’re probably going to get at least a few posts from me on some of those more-thought-provoking lines. For the record, I read everything Backman writes. I’ve liked some more than others. This may be his best work yet, and that’s saying something. He is an incredible writer.

One paragraph in particular grabbed me, about becoming a parent and how it is a “love so immense that it squeezes the air out of your lungs” and that “there’s such a clear before and after. A completely new you.”

I have been a parent nearly twenty five years. Seems insane to consider. I don’t really remember who I was before becoming a mother. What did I do with my time? What did I think about? What did I consider important? Who was I? I can hardly recall that woman, other than to recall she was insecure, shy, introverted, and definitely allowed people to walk all over me. I rarely spoke up for myself, much less anyone else. It wasn’t in my nature. What did Spouse and I do with our time? How did we even spend our evenings and weekends before we became parents? What did we talk about? What did we focus our energy on? And what the hell did we spend our money on before kids?

Who was that person? I am so different than she was. When you have children, you have to learn how to advocate for them. No one else is really going to do it. I had a trial by fire in this arena when Big Man was born so early and we spent three months with him in the NICU. As he was fighting to live, we were fighting to give him everything he needed to do so. We had to learn to navigate the health insurance nightmare of having a micro-preemie, and hospital life, followed by life with a medically fragile child who required all kinds of therapies, follow up, medications, and so on. As we moved through the educational system, we had to manage IEP’s, special education, different needs of different children. All of this stripped that ability to be walked all over by other people. Nope – I HAD to fight for my children. It changed me. I didn’t have the luxury to stay in my own little world, running from conflict.

I have also never loved anyone the way I love my three babies…..not one single person. Sometimes I look at them now and am in awe they came from us. I carried them, held their tiny hands, watched their miniature eyelashes flutter, their pulses beating in that precious soft spot in the middle of their skulls. I traced their tiny lips with my fingertips, ran my fingers through their baby hair on their baby heads, utterly enthralled. I watched them move into the world in wonder, every single thing new to them. We saw them find their interests, their personalities, their faults and curiosities, discovered their dreams and hopes. We’ve held our breath as adult decisions have been made as they become who they were meant to be, out in the world on their own. Two don’t live at home, so my heart exists in two other cities besides this one.

Who was I before? I am not she. I changed the moment Big Man took his first breath. There is a clear before and after.

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Not all at once, please

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I have a complaint to file with the parenting public in general…..well, the parenting public a generation or two older than me and Spouse. Now, we have three adult children now. But my first complaint was this – no one told us how extremely difficult parenting teenagers is. Whew! We survived parenting teens by the skin of our teeth. It. Was. Rough. We made it. But then right on the heels of that, we entered the phase of parenting what we’ve come to lovingly call “baby adults.” If you’ve had a baby adult, you know exactly what I’m talking about….they’re adults, but still figuring the world out, as well as discovering how not fun it is to be an adult. Yes, I get *those* phone calls…..where does a stamp go on an envelope? Where can I find XYZ in the grocery store? How do I deposit a check without my banking app, and what is “endorsing a check” mean? How do I make a doctor’s appointment/dentist appointment? How do I get my prescription here where I’m at school rather than our pharmacy at home? All of the things….I get those questions regularly. What do I? How do I? Where do I? And then, the question all parents love the most, “Can I please get more money for…….?” My complaint is, NO ONE TOLD US HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO PARENT BABY ADULTS!!! Jeeez….can a person get a heads up?

For the most part, our kids do great. Things have been pretty level with all of them for awhile. We’ve been enjoying them being at this stage, the shift in the conversations we have with them, etc. Here’s the deal though. When kids are little, their problems are usually pretty little, easily managed and dealt with problems. The older they get, the bigger the potential for real life, difficult, impactful, life-altering problems. We’ve helped the Herd through some of these bigger, baby adult problems. But let me tell you, when more than one of them has one of the bigger problems going on, it is exhausting.

Not gonna talk about what the problems are, but we currently have two of the three dealing with some things. Sleep has become a serious commodity the last week or so. Every time the phone rings, or FaceTime pings, I hold my breath. My mom worry monitor has been at level orange. I am mentally and emotionally pulled in different directions. I am mentally and emotionally drained. When more than one child is going through something at a time, it is overwhelming. Please, my lovely children, get in line. Take your turn. Not more than one of you may have a problem at any given time, for the love of all that is holy. This momma can’t take it!

I’m being facetious of course. We do what we must. We don’t get to control when life comes at us, comes at our kids. If I could control it, then not one of my kids at any time would ever face big, hard life stuff. Since I can’t control that, I would really love to at least be able to control WHEN they are facing stuff so I can focus on one kid at a time, when they each need us most. Since I can’t control that, I will just take a freaking big breath, make sure I’m taking care of me, dig in, and help my babies through.