The Hard Love - Five Minute Friday

(Ok - it's Saturday, but I just didn't want to miss out)
The Hard Love
Any real love has its hard moments
- when you care enough about the other person to risk the relationship for the sake of honesty and what is best for the other person
- when you love enough to let go and leave the one you love in His nail scarred hands and trust Him to take care of your bruised or broken heart
- when your limited ability to love reveals your utter brokenness and absolute need for Him, His wisdom, His grace
- when you finally realize or realize again His gift and His love are what give any significance to your life and your ability to love

Of Bad Mommy Days

My only child, a daughter, is two years and nearly five months old, and I know I have had my share of bad mommy days in her short little life.  Some of those were just bad days for mommy and some were days mommy was just bad, not the mother I envisioned becoming for so many, many years.  We survived a rocky start with breastfeeding.  We breastfed for 14 months and have a wonderfully healthy girl.  We survived all the immunizations (harder on Mom than Emma, I think).  We survived numerous transitions and challenges all along the way.  These days we are in the process (emphasis on "process") of potty training. To be honest, I was totally unprepared for how hard it would be for me and how long it would last.  Emma has moved through every other transition (move to crib from bassinet, giving up the binky, cross country move...) with such ease that I mistakenly thought she would master the whole potty training thing in two or three months.  The unpredictability, the setbacks, the accidents have undone me on more than one occasion.  I have joked that potty training has certainly brought out the "poop" in me.  I am not joking anymore.  I have had to face some ugly things in me - control issues, unrealistic expectations, frustration that becomes anger, inability or unwillingness to control my tongue- all things that transcend my precious daughter and potty training.  This just happens to be what revealed the depth of these things lurking in me.  I say it has been my undoing, but I am learning to view it all differently.  I think perhaps it will be my salvation, at least as a mommy an hopefully as a woman.  Seeing these things has humbled me and drawn me to my knees, seeking God's forgiveness, strength and wisdom and asking Him to stay after me, to refine me, to mold and shape me, not only into the mommy I want to be for Emma, but into the woman He designed me to be from the beginning.  I guess it is about time, huh?

If You Met Me - Five Minute Friday

If you met me -
you might not be able to guess my age, especially if my daughter were with me, or you might think she was my granddaughter
if you met me
you might think that I am quiet and reserved, until you got to know me better, then you might forget you ever thought I was quiet and reserved
if you met me, depending on the setting, you might learn I can be witty and funny
if you met me, I would hope you found me authentic, "the real deal"
if you met me, you might sense that I love meaningful conversation, and do "small talk" mostly in hopes that it will lead to meaningful conversation...if you met me
we could finish this conversation

My Favorite Things - Five Minute Friday

Hmm, my favorite things -
These days most have to do with my two year old daughter:
her deep blue eyes and long dark eyelashes
listening to her conversations with her animals on the monitor - "are you listening to me?" (where did she hear that?...)
watching her skip through our yard with reckless abandon
quiet songs together in the rocking chair
rowdy songs together as we run errands in the car
her hugs and completely unprompted "I love you, Mommy!"
"can I rub your back?'
some others:
the quiet of the early morning and the late night
Colorado mountain views
friends, always and forever friends
fresh decaf auto brewing when I come out of the shower
and time again to write about my favorite things

New Kid in Town

The first time I moved I was six months old.  The most recent time I moved was six months ago.  I don't even want to count the number of moves between those two bookends.  I will say I have learned a few things along the way.  I have learned that there are good people everywhere.  I have also learned there are jerks everywhere.  So you cling to the good folks as long as you can and avoid the jerks whenever possible.  There are a few things predictable about moving.  Relationships, meaningful relationships, take time.  There are no shortcuts.  There may be people that you seem to click with immediately, but it still takes time to build a significant relationship.  It takes trust and personal investment and it takes time.  You need to share some history and walk together for a while.  It takes time.  These days, a lot of people don't want to take that time. Life is busy.  People have priorities and sometimes the new kid in town isn't one of them.  When you move, your life is basically turned upside down; not so much for the people in your new place. Their life continues relatively unchanged by your arrival in their AO (area of operations - Army speak). You are still painfully close to the last place you lived.  Most likely, it is some place you were known - your character, your strengths (weaknesses too) and your unique gifts, which were celebrated and appreciated (hopefully).  Now you are an unknown, at least for the time being.  You are not trusted, not yet anyway.  It isn't that you are mistrusted, just unknown. There is a difference.  You left a network of friends (that by the way took time to build) and though you knew ahead of time, starting again would be hard, you maybe forgot how hard it is at the beginning.  You remember the end - after the investment in others, the shared history and yes, time.  The great thing is that old place was once the new place.  It was hard in the beginning, but it became the place that meant home, the place you didn't want to leave and the place that held a special place in your heart.  So it will be with this new place. It will become the place you know as home, the people you don't want to leave and the place where you are known.  No one will likely remember when you were the new kid in town. It just takes time.

Reflections on my Mom

I remember my Mom as a sophisticated and elegant woman.  She was an artist and an exceptional seamstress.  She was also very private about her emotions, not easily given to sentiment, perhaps as a defense against the hurt and disappointment she endured over many years of her life.  I knew her much better in the latter years of her life than when I was growing up.  I owe that to a friend, who lost her Mom to cancer when my friend was barely eighteen.  My friend encouraged and prodded me to pursue more of a relationship with my Mom as an adult.  And I did.  I am glad I listened to my friend.

My Mom and I weren't close as I was growing up.  I think I knew too much about the broken promises of alcoholism and too little about the unrelenting addiction of it.  In childlike naivete, I thought she should have protected us (my siblings and me) better from the toll it took on us.  I knew it took a toll on her, but didn't have the maturity to really understand what that meant or how hard it was for her to do what she did to keep the family together and help provide for us.  I didn't understand about the sleep deprivation and energy requirements of motherhood.  At the core of it, for far too many years, I thought I was a disappointment to her because I was so unlike her.  My passion was sports.  Hers was the arts.  She was a beautiful woman and I was a very plain girl.  I was cute as a young girl, but as pimples replaced freckles, I lost any sense of being beautiful, at least on the outside.  I was good at sports before it was acceptable, let alone encouraged, for girls to be athletes. (I am so glad that has changed!) I knew she loved me, but as a kid it is easy to feel like somehow your parents have to love you.

As an adult, following my friend's urging, I got to know my Mom better and we talked about numerous things, even my feelings of being a disappointment to her.  She did her best to quickly reassure me, that I was not a disappointment to her.  She admired my strength and my athletic ability.  She made choices and helped me learn to make choices so I could stand on my own and stand up for my beliefs and values. She did her best to help me overcome the effects of alcoholism on our family. I believe now she did her very best to help us grow into loving, responsible adults.

Nine years ago today we lost my Mom to cancer.  We were blessed she didn't suffer long. She was a smoker most of her adult life and we knew her death could have been long, drawn out, and painful.  It wasn't.  I do believe I will see her again, but most days my feet are very tied to earth and often I miss her.  She never even met my husband or had a clue that I would find such an amazing person with whom to share my life.  She only knew about the broken engagement and broken relationships.  She had no idea I would give birth to a beautiful daughter of my own.  She only knew of the two failed adoptions when I was single. I believe her heart broke with mine as I walked through those seasons.  But that was not the end of the story.  My wonderful daughter, Emma, has shown me in a way no one else could, the joy of motherhood, which I also brought to my Mom.  I am my Mom's first born also. Because of Emma, I know in the deepest part of my heart that I was not a disappointment to my Mom, though I was so different from her. I know first hand that the love of a mother for her child is deep and enduring and independent of our similarities and differences. I love Emma with all my heart, period, nothing added, no qualifiers, no conditions.  And I always will.  What a gift my girl has given to me, the certainty of my own Mother's love for me.  

Memories in Shades of Chocolate

after watching
a three year old
devour a chocolate ice cream cone
i am convinced
that
it's not what's on the inside
but
what's on the outside
that counts

as she smiled
through several layers
of chocolate
i couldn't help
but envy her

it has been
a long time
since being covered
in chocolate ice cream
didn't bother me


(c) 1974 Kathy Jo Schramm