“How are you doing?” she asked. “I’m fine,” I replied.
But, I wasn’t fine, and afterward, I realized I was simply giving a standard answer. After all, as Shauna Niequist said, “I’ve been training all my life to pretend I’m fine.”
In hindsight, I should have said, “Actually, I’m fine, but only if being fine means Freaked Out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.” (Thank you, Italian Job movie, for that acronym)
I’m tired of the standard “I’m good, just crazy busy” answers we tend to give each other regularly. On occasion, that answer is honest, but it is often not the whole truth. And right now, in this current season, me saying I am fine is code for “I’m a mess and trying hard not to show it.”
Everyday life in our house has felt challenging in recent weeks. We find ourselves in the emotionally exhausting season of parenting teens and feeling worn out from the normal crazy of life at this stage. Have I told you tiny humans are my people and I have no idea how to do this parenting teens gig?
But in addition to normal life crazy, we seem to keep getting hit with “first world,” “it could be worse,” “small but annoying” events, and they didn’t stop at three. People say that things happen in threes, but I am reasonably sure we are way past the number three at this point.
One of our automobiles had to be towed to the mechanics this week. It’s getting a time out for refusing to start, even after we asked it nicely. I think this is at least number five (perhaps six, I’ve lost count) on the list of “seriously, I do not want to deal with this” events in just the past few weeks.
Guess what? I’ve had a bad attitude and have not handled “all the things” very well. I’m going to put that out here, but it’s humbling to admit out loud for someone who prides themselves on living well despite circumstances. I have not been living well in ALL these crazy circumstances lately, at least not behind the closed doors, in the safety of my home.
“When we are outside our window of tolerance, we often default to a pit of shame, feeling powerless to climb out and enter a curious state of mind.”
Curt Thompson, M.D.
The Soul of Desire
Emily P. Freeman once said that there are times she does not know how she feels about something until she writes it down, and I can relate to how writing words helps clarify all the jumbled-up thoughts. But I’ll add that sometimes I don’t know how I feel about something until I read what someone else has written. It just so happens that I am currently reading three books simultaneously, The Soul of Desire by Curt Thompson, M.D., Waymaker by Ann Voskamp, and I Guess Haven’t’t Learned That Yet by Shauna Niequist. And in this current season, these three authors are gifting me with words for many things I’ve been struggling to put into words.
Side note: If you need a dose of inspiration, a reminder of beauty, and all that good stuff, these authors bring just that. But, be warned, they won’t let you sit for long being inspired without an attitude adjustment. Their words will likely challenge you to peel back the layers and ask yourself all the hard questions.
As I peel back my layers to get to the “why am I not handling all the things well,” sadly, I find control sitting there again, hanging out with a mindset of failure. It seems that I am currently living outside my window of tolerance and seated in a pit, feeling powerless.
The other night @a.t.marker and I were walking and talking, and I found myself admitting with my out-loud voice that I believed my over the top reactions to all these things was coming from a place of perceived failure. I was telling the story of our circumstances through the lens of failure. I am engaging life as a problem to be controlled or solved and failing at it all.
“So much of the life I’ve lived up to this point was about holding things together, preserving them, never letting something fall or fall apart.”
Shauna Niequist
I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet.
Control and I have a long history, and while we have been working through things and coming to a healthy agreement in several areas, we still have a lot of work to do. This season, having lost so much control in my parenting life (this is the healthy next right thing in parenting that I’m not too fond of), all these crazy interruptions to my “plans” feel like failures. Just one more thing, and one more thing, oh, and another one more thing that I am not managing well (aka able to control.)
“Life is hard, not because you’ve taken a wrong turn. Life is hard because this is the way of love – and LOVE himself will be with you every step of the way.”
Ann Voskamp
Waymaker.
It seems I have fallen into a rhythm of assuming that I am in charge of solving “all the problems” and fixing “all the things.” This, in turn, has tainted the story I am telling myself as I view it through a lens of failure. With this mindset, I have allowed the beauty of the ordinary everyday moments to drown in the sea of waves crashing against us daily. Instead of holding my hands open to living fully present with what is, I have once again clenched my fist tightly shut, trying to hold on and find something, anything that I can control.
When I hold my hands clenched tight in an attempt to control, solve. and manage “all the things,” finding beauty becomes far more difficult. I, for one, do not want to live in a world without beauty, and I know in my heart that beauty and joy are more likely to be found in letting go and ceasing my attempts to control.
The words beautifully written by others remind me that beautiful things do not always emerge in the way we imagine or wish for them. Perhaps even the most glorious beauty is found in the rainbow after the storm.
“I don’t know when the dawn will break, for you or for me, but I know that the healing comes in the trying and that even in the dark we have to keep practicing our callings, whatever they are. We have to keep doing the things we were made to do, the daily acts of goodness and creativity and honesty and service – as much for what they bring about inside us as for the good they do in the world. Those two things work together, and they both matter.”
Shauna Neiguist
I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet
Yes, I am fine. I am freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional as we continue to navigate the chaos of this season. Perhaps you are feeling this kind of fine, too? Maybe together we can learn to be honest about what our “I’m fine” actually means. And even better, maybe, we can weather these storms and ride out the waves, “seeking out beauty absolutely every chance we get, as an act of prayer, as an act of worship, as an act of resistance,” as Shauna Niequist says.
Life is not always fine, but we can always keep fighting to find beauty every chance we get.
