Friendsday #10

My kids are eight and five.  Our days are generally filled with video games, laugh track TV shows, and chapter books.  We’re all routine-y, so the dynamic of mom and kid interaction is pretty predictable and lovely.  We have what I like to call the occasional full moon fall out when one of them loses his mind over something completely inane (or more often I reach some sort of mental limit and have to apologize later), but really, truly, honestly most of our days are awesome.  Breakfast, lunch, school, after school activities, dinner, bedtime.  With so very little drama that I feel like I’m cheating at parenting somehow.

A good number of my friends are still in the under five stage of motherhood, and it seems strange to say, but that stage of motherhood feels like a lifetime ago.  I am so far removed from nursing, sleep schedules, napping, potty training, and sleep deprivation that sometimes my mind plays tricks on me.  I think to myself—was it really as bad as *these people* make it out to be?  “These people” are all of my friends who post things on Facebook on the regular like “Bedtime has been moved to 6:00 this evening so no one dies” or “I haven’t slept longer than one hour straight in four nights…teething is from the devil!”

I read those words, and I’m tempted to do what older women did to me when I was bemoaning the fact that my husband was gone AGAIN during an emergency room visit or that someone had just peed all over the shower curtain.  I’m tempted to give advice or say something like “Cherish your littles because they grow so fast!”  But I don’t.  1) Because I would never actually say something that cheesy, and 2) because I remember wanting to punch people in the face when they said those sorts of things to me.  (If someone ASKS for my advice, I’ll give it, but I’ve made a general rule to let other people parent their children because they’re not mine to parent.)

The reality is that those early years were challenging.  Will didn’t sleep through the night and rarely napped longer than 23 minutes (seriously, you could have used him as a cookie timer) until he was 2 1/2.  You read that right.  TWO YEARS AND SIX MONTHS of waking up multiple times a night.  I didn’t give him away because he was freakishly happy during the day even with no sleep.  Ben, on the other hand, slept like he wrote the book on sleeping but screamed like someone was giving him a lobotomy for the first nine months of his life every time we got in the car.  Will had a four-month period during his third year where he would screamcry until he threw up if I told him to take a nap.  Of course, this was right around the time that Ben began to HATE clothes—all clothes, including his diaper.  So, sometimes they would scream in tandem, chasing me around the house like two little naked, sleepy banshees.

The reality of what those days were actually like lies somewhere between my nostalgia of a quiet nursing baby and the disaster I described above.  In fact, it’s all of that, nostalgia and disaster rolled into a moment of motherhood that shaped me in ways that no other relationship with human beings has.

That might be the longest introduction I’ve ever written for a Friendsday post, but I say all of that to say this: the reason we all made it through that stage in tact had a lot to do with my friend, Jenna.  

Jenna, I chose this picture because 1) I love your hair like this,
and 2) almost all of the pictures of just you are of a pregnant you.  Ha!

Jenna’s husband and my husband were both pilots at Charleston AFB when we met, and I’d known of Jenna through friends for a long time before I ever met her.  Our friendship started at Rolly Pollies, one of those places with lots of wide open squishy space for your children to bounce around and run.  Our oldest kids, Will and Samantha, were enrolled in the Beetles class, where they were learning basic gymnastics and other energy-using skills.  For us, two women with three-year-olds and newborns, it was forty-five minutes of someone else engaging with our children a couple of times a week.  Jenna and I would sit on the benches watching Will and Sam balance on the beam or flip on the trampoline while we nursed our babies and talked about The Bachelor.  The conversation was not deep, but it was also not about Little Bill or goldfish crackers.

Eventually, the conversation shifted to sharing our mothering experiences, our faith, and our life as military spouses.  We started attending “open gym” sessions together, when we could let our growing babies crawl around on the giant blocks while the bigs jumped in the foam pit.  Quickly, we added a new dimension to our routine—grabbing dinner at an Asian fusion place in the same area as Rolly Pollies.  We’d bundle everyone into the car and drive over to Red Leaf, where the waitresses (thankfully) fell in love with our brood.

Will and Sam would play “school” under the table (which I realize seems wildly inappropriate in most eating establishments), each of them taking turns “teaching” each other how to spell new words.  We’d drink tea and eat pad thai and gyoza, checking on our table trolls occasionally and nursing the littles.

Jenna and her super duper family

Before Jenna and her family moved, we had added one more dynamic to our ritual that sometimes included our in town husbands.  After our earlyish dinner, our counterparts would be getting off work, so they’d join us and our worn out babes at Rita’s, an Italian ice place that served snocones and custard.  On several occasions, our kids, now all old enough to at least toddle around a bit, would run the length of the building in the drainage ditch that separated parking lots, while our husbands timed them to see how fast they were.  And we would sit on the red benches, spooning the last our our snocones into our mouths as the sun set.

I think part of the reason I have a hard time remembering how difficult that stage of life was is because most of my memories are like this—laughing and eating and watching my kids make friends.  When our family took a road trip to CA two summers ago, Jenna packed up her three kids (she’d added one since we’d seen them last) and drove to Downtown Disney from a couple of hours away to have dinner with us.  We stay connected through social media—with conversations about homeschool and The Bachelor (some things don’t change), and I’m continually entertained and encouraged by the way she opens herself up to the people around her through her “Friday confessions,” in which she relays some story about something stupid she’s done in her life.  

One of my friends, who is in the thick of this stage of motherhood right now posted on Facebook, “If it takes a village, where’s mine?”  And I responded, “Ha!  You have to build it!”  I know why she posted that exasperated status—she’s got a three-year-old who wants to do everything by himself and a five-month-old who can’t do anything for herself, and that can feel really isolating—especially in this life where our husbands are gone so much and our families don’t live near.  

Jenna was a huge part of my village in a time when I often felt like the idiot.  Village-building can be challenging and exhausting (and not natural for those of us who would rather hide away in our Hobbit holes), but it is also life-affirming and life-saving at times.

Thank you, Jenna, for being a person who showed me the value of raising the roof of friendship over pillars of shared laughter and tears and on a foundation of vulnerability and love.  Keep up the good work—you are one of the best village people I know.

Friendsday #9

In 2003, I spent a semester at sea, working with Mercy Ships.  I’d dreamed of going to Africa for years, and volunteering in the hospitality department on the M/V Anastasis, a traveling hospital ship off the coast of West Africa, was my ticket.  I had just graduated from college and was engaged to be married, and I was every bit idealistic and passionate and ambitious as anyone should be at twenty-two.

In the five-month period that would become the basis for the story of my masters thesis in grad school, I met three girls—Sarah, Jessica, and Maro—who became my family away from family as we navigated the cathartic joy and bumbling pain of international travel.  

I know a picture exists of all four of us leaning over the reception desk on the ship,
but this is the only picture I could find that I had saved digitally--
Sarah and I at a dance party/lunch in Sierra Leone.
One of the best days of my entire life.

In the past eleven years, we’ve seen each other in spurts.  This one was able to go to that one’s wedding.  These three gathered because the timing was right.  When our family found out we’d be stationed in WA, we were overjoyed because it would mean being within an hour and a half of both Jessica’s and Sarah’s families.  Maro was still waaaaaaay over in FL (which was nice when we lived in Charleston, SC), but the other three of us could gather semi-regularly.

Sarah and her husband, Kris, took assignments doing international relief work in Kenya and then South Sudan for a good portion of our time in WA, but we saw them on their trips home and happily stored all their belongings in our garage.  Last month, when Kris and Sarah were officially home for good, we got a message from Maro's husband, Rich, that their family was thinking about trekking out west for a vacation.

Within two days, Jessica, and her husband, Andrew, had organized a long weekend in Leavenworth, WA—a Bavarian “Christmastown” known for its charming downtown and snow-related activities.  The plan was to pitch in food and go where the wind took us.

And we’d all be together.  For the first time in eleven years.

Maybe you’ve got friends like these—you first met at camp and saw each other every summer for seven summers and then not again for ten years, when you ended up living in the same city.  Or maybe you were roommates during the one year of college you spent away from home, and you meet up every time she’s in town for business.  Maybe you shared a short assignment to a remote Air Force base with very little to do for entertainment and haven't lived in the same place since.

These kinds of friendships are different than the ones you create with your mom’s best friend’s daughter, who was your best friend before you were born or the girl who sat next to you in first grade who still calls you once a week.  Those friendships have had time to simmer slowly and are obviously delicious.  But these other kinds of friends—the kind of people who have lived through intense moments of life together—they make for instantly deep friendships with a level of love and commitment that defies reason.

As I packed our bags for Leavenworth, I thought about the fact that I didn’t really know what to expect from the weekend.  If I travel with the people I hang out with on a regular basis, I know what to expect—who likes to stay up late or be the first one up, who’s messy and who cleans up after everyone.  But this group of people—we don’t share life daily together.  In fact, the last time we did, none of us was even married.  Now, we’d be heading to a house in the mountains with eight adults and eight (and a half) children.  And you know what? I wasn’t worried one bit about any of it.

I know this to be true about humans: good people are good people.  When you’re “picking up where you left off” after eleven years with good people, it just works.

The four of us squished on a love seat

Throughout the weekend, I watched as one mom fixed a plate for all the kids, not just her own, while a dad wiped the face of a kid who didn’t belong to him.  We shared food and mittens, played games and went sledding, stoked the fire and shuffled around a giant house in slippers.  And it felt like we’d been doing it forever.

The night before we all headed back to real life, the kids (who had been getting along freakishly well all weekend) were tucked into bed, and the adults were snacking on all the things we’d hidden from the kids during the day.  We asked questions of each other about all the things that needed “catching up”—how is your brother?  How has your pregnancy been?  What’s this new business venture?  What’s the next step in your career?  How’s the adoption process going?  Big questions with big answers that kept us talking late into the night.

The Fruits of our Labor

And one with Sarah's growing Fruit included

The weekend was peppered with reminiscing about moments on the Mercy Ship—that time when we were young and goofy and just stepping into the skin of adulthood, when we were thrown together for a few months on the other side of the globe.  As I watched each of us handing off an upset child to her spouse or nursing a baby or baking good morning rolls or organizing the mountain of snow boots and coats, I couldn’t help but be supremely happy.  There is no greater joy in this kind of friendship than realizing that reality is infinitely more beautiful than the picture you had created through nostalgia.

Jessica still has perfect timing with her smart, quiet jokes, and Sarah’s and Maro’s laughter is still the perfect response.  I like to think we are more comfortable in our adult skin now, but if you peel back the layers of years of living on opposite coasts and navigating marriage and family life without daily interaction, we are still very much the four girls who met on a ship off the coast of Sierra Leone.  We planted the seeds of friendship in the soil of intense adventure and watered each other with our love for justice and mercy and laughter and grace in such a way that our roots have inextricably intertwined.  Our family tree is broad and beautiful and still growing.

Thanks to all three of you for this weekend.  And for everything.

Sixteen and a half people all looking at the camera
at the same time while the camera is on automatic.
Nothing short of miraculous.

Friendsday #8

When I was born, I had 72 living grandparents.  Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but thanks to short generation gaps and good genes, I have vivid memories of time spent with grands and greats.  Grandpa Joe pickled his own cucumbers in gallon jars. Grandma Bea gave me pennies in recycled jelly jars.  Grandpa Claude walked around with a pipe in his mouth that he never smoked.  Grandma Marge (whom I called “Grandma March” because I thought that was her actual name for far too long) kept a step stool conveniently perched next to the cookie jar.  

Grandma March and Grandpa Claude at their 50th wedding anniversary party

Some of my earliest memories are of visits to older members of our church’s congregation with my mom.  We’d drop by, sometimes unannounced, and I’d sit on floral-printed couches while my mom spoke in hushed tones to ladies who seemed older than the Earth to me.  They’d talk about their grandchildren, their children, their husbands who had passed--sometimes decades before, or about their Bible study group or recent trip to the grocery store.  Most often, my mom would not need to ask more than three questions to fill the hour with listening opportunity, and almost always, I would fall asleep in her lap to the squeak of a rocking chair.

When we moved to Olympia, WA, we attended a hip-ish church for a few months and never felt “at home” for lots of reasons.  When we signed Ben up for preschool at a Lutheran church, we decided to attend a service.  Our second Sunday, Scott was gone, so I attended a Sunday school class by myself, and I was the youngest person in the class by thirty years.  Most of the members of the class had me by forty, fifty, even sixty years.

One lady came up to me after class and bear-hugged me.  When she let go, she grabbed my wrists and squeezed, not letting me go.  She introduced herself as “Lucille” and quickly told me that her husband had been in the military--I knew she was my people when she ribbed me a little about the difference between Army wives and Air Force wives.  Before we left, she took down my name and phone number and stuck it in her purse before shuffling off toward the sanctuary.

Over the next few weeks, our church attendance was a little spotty because of summer activities, and I got a note in the mail from Lucille saying how nice it was to meet me and my little family.  One day, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize.  When I said hello, she launched into a conversation. 

“Leia?  This is Lucille from church.  We met at Sunday school.”

“Yes, I--”

“I was wondering how you are.  I haven’t seen you the last few weeks.”

“Yes, we’ve been really busy--out of town a couple of weekends--”

“Well, I hope you’ll come back.  I want to see you.”

“I’m definitely planning on it!”

“Okay, see you.  Bye.”

You are right to assume I was right back in Sunday school the next Sunday.  Over the last couple of years, Lucille has remained a ray of sunshine in the Washington rain.  I see her occasionally in the middle of the week at church because my women’s Bible study meets at the same time as her senior exercise group.  Twice, I’ve run into her around town running errands, and she pays no attention to the people waiting behind her in line when she stops to tell me glad she is to see me and to ask how things are going, always brightly dressed and smiling.

Today, Will and I ran to our favorite farm stand to grab some produce before we had to pick up Ben from school.  I saw Lucille standing by the potatoes and onions.  I scooted past her buggy and hugged her.  Immediately, she started talking about how much she loves me.  Right there in the store.  She grabbed my arms, my face, my hands, and said, “I’m just so happy to see you.  I love you so much!”

When I said, “I know!  I love you, too!” she stopped me, grabbed my hands again and said very seriously, “Those are important words--I love you.”

Will was standing behind me, playing his 3DS, which has a camera.  He said, “Mom, let me take a picture of you guys!”  We posed with a random guy who was looking at potatoes.  The two of them started chatting about how kids are so smart about technology.  Lucille said to this stranger, “Do you know that I’m going to be 95 this year?”  And his response struck me.  “Well, good on you!  I’m almost 70, and anyone who would get out in this weather is either healthy or stupid.”  They laughed and laughed, and I said a tiny prayer of thanks, like I do, for this little miracle of a moment in my day.

Then I grabbed my phone and taught Lucille about selfies.

Much is said about how older generations get frustrated with “kids these days” and younger generations complain about how out of touch their parents and grandparents are.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been old since I was born, but I have always had a healthy appreciation of the people who made me, the people who have lived more life than I have.  More often than not, I prefer to learn from other people’s experiences when possible--good and bad.  When it comes to all the things that really matter--the way I explore my faith, the way I love my husband, the way I mother my children, or the way I cultivate friendships, I take cues from people who have lived well.

When Lucille was leaving, she walked up to Will and cupped his face in her hands in a moment that was too beautiful to interrupt with a picture.  She said, “I need you to come to my house and teach me about my iPad!”

I love Lucille.  I love her for the number of years she’s lived--almost three times mine.  I love her for her cold hands and bright yellow rain jacket.  I love that she’s 94 and still gets out to buy onions.  I love her because she’s who I want to be when I grow up--someone who writes notes and makes phone calls, someone who recognizes the importance of finding common bonds with people who seem very different by appearances, someone who knows the value of saying I love you.

Today is for Lucille.  We’ll be paying her a visit next week to make sure she knows how to read this on her iPad.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. (Oscar Wilde)

During the Christmas season, we are told by our churches and our families and Macy’s to BELIEVE—in Jesus and in Santa and in holiday cheer, and for some of us, it’s easy.  I am surrounded by the “faithful,” joyful and triumphant, ready to behold the King of Angels.  We will adore him in our Christmas Eve services with candles lit during “Silent Night,” our children acting out the Nativity at an altar built for a baby in a manger.

I count myself in that number because I really do BELIEVE in capital letters the gospel message of Christmas.  If you asked most people who know me well, they would undoubtedly call me a Christian.  But if I’m honest about my faith (and I don’t have time or energy for a dishonest faith) when it comes to the nuts and bolts of the Christmas story, I am a doubter.  Reading the Bible and theological commentaries jumbles things for me.  Add to that the ugliness that parades around as Christianity in our time, and I want to hide in my Hobbit hole with my fingers in my ears and cry.  I just have so many questions—and a lot of heartache and pain.  Luckily, I have in the last decade been part of two faith communities where my questions were welcomed, and in some instances, answered.  One of my favorite blogger/author/moms, Jen Hatmaker, gave me words to describe my faith when she blogged at A Deeper Story: I am comfortable letting my mind suffer, yet letting my spirit rest.

I’ve thought more and more about this kind of thinking faith that relies heavily on resting in love and grace, while struggling to reconcile reality with the narrative my faith provides.  I’m reminded of the importance of living this out transparently with the people around me when I get messages from new friends that say, “I liked your post today. For the actual story and also because I now know you at least won’t judge me for not being Christian…I am glad to know you will still accept me even though I have no idea what I believe…”

If this Christmas, you are a doubter or a going-to-church-to-keep-the-peace-with-my-motherer or a I-don’t-know-what-I-believer, this post is for you.  BECAUSE YOU ARE MY PEOPLE.  Even though I’ve labeled myself a Christian, a truly life-long Christ follower, my faith is a process.  Contrary to what some of my counterparts preach, I don’t have the answers to a lot of your questions (or mine), but I CAN tell you why at the end of the day, even when I’m angry about how my faith is portrayed in the media or by other Christians, I have not thrown in the towel.

One of the Christmas songs that rarely gets played on the radio but has been stuck in my head this season is “We Three Kings,” a song about the quest of the Magi to bring gifts for the Baby Jesus.  In essence, here are some smart people (who by the way were not kings, but pagan astrologers by most theological accounts) who leave on a journey to find salvation—from a hostile world, from eternal meaninglessness, from themselves.  Through the song, the chorus repeats:

O star of wonder, star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect Light.

The Magi were literally following a star, a medium with which they were all too familiar as astrologers.  We as Christians look for the star of wonder, the perfect light in Jesus.  When I say I am following Christ, this is what I mean: Jesus Christ is a shining star on a dark night.  My dark night looks like fear and doubt, like anger and depression, like disappointment and fatigue.  The Christ child represents love and confidence, happiness and perspective, encouragement and energy.  A guiding light in the dark.  

One of my favorite TV characters is Sue Heck from ABC’s The Middle, a lovable if clumsy high school sophomore, whose less than fashionable clothes and braces get in the way of her popularity.  She is the epitome of everything that was painful about high school, but she remains an eternal optimist, an idealist who believes the best about others and herself, despite what the rest of the world might be trying to tell her.  In a recent episode, Sue had some friends over for a sleepover and long story short, she experienced a supernatural experience in which she believed the ghost of Christopher Columbus had spoken to her through a shadow shaped like the Santa Maria.  (I know, it sounds stupid, but like most things, you’d have to see it for it to make sense—just go with me on this and keep in mind that she believed she’d had this supernatural experience.)

Afterward, her parents were horrified that she’d been telling her friends and teachers.  Worried about what other people might think, they sat her down to talk some sense into her.  Despite their best efforts, Sue responded with this:

There are so many beautiful, amazing things that happen every day that sound crazy.  Think about it.  If I had to explain the miracle of how babies are born to someone who didn’t know, wouldn’t I sound insane?  And stars!  I read somewhere that when a star explodes, the dust they find is the same thing that makes up humans, animals, the entire universe.  How amazing is that?  The same stardust is in everything and everyone—me, you, even Christopher Columbus.  You know, in his day, some people still thought the world was flat.  Columbus said it was round, and people thought he was crazy.  Look—I know there’s always going to be doubters, but it just takes someone who thinks, “Why can’t it be true?” to truly change the world, and I am one of those people, so how can you sit there on this planet made of stardust that was once thought to be flat and still not think anything is possible?

The heart of the Christmas message is this: Jesus was the star of wonder lighting the way for people who believed in the possibility of redemption, that when hope is lost, there might be a better way.  When Jesus spoke to his followers later in life, he told them to be the light of the world.  The star of the Magi, Christ himself, me, you—we are all made of stardust.  Later, in Christ’s last days, he says that we will know his disciples because of their love for one another.  At the end of the day, when all the stardust settles, I believe that we belong to each other, that we need each other, and that when we love each other, we are whole.

Last year, I wrote a piece for our church’s Advent devotional about a Walt Whitman poem that illustrates how I feel about my evolving faith: 

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, measure them;

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;

Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Like Whitman, I’ve listened to all the experts, the God-monopolizers, the unshakable-faith-havers, and all the charts and diagrams started to make me tired and sick.  When I take a moment to glide out of the lecture-room and look up, the way those wandering kings might have, I am awed into perfect silence at the stars.

Merry Christmas, friends.  For unto us a star is born.  Amen.

Friendsday #7

I’m lucky to be part of a project called Somebody’s Mama.  Our mission is to bring awareness to issues affecting women across the globe, to create a community of people who care deeply about finding real solutions, and to turn ideas into action.  We live by Margaret Mead’s words: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”  This week, our Facebook page admin posted this:

If you glanced at it and scanned back down to my words, go back.  If you read it, read it again.  I CAN’T EMPHASIZE ENOUGH HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS.

The first time I remember having this experience was in elementary school when we started playing competitive sports.  Through softball and soccer, I found myself surrounded by girls who loved the same things I loved and who rallied around me win or lose.  One of the people I still love most in the world stood in front of me as a sweeper when I was goalie and behind me at third base while I pitched.

Throughout high school and college and into adulthood, I can point to groups of women who carried me through challenging times and brought the party when it was time to celebrate.  Some of my best memories as a military spouse are of nights when I shared dinner with other spouses whose husbands were also deployed. The thing about finding and loving a group of friends is that you never know when or how it will happen.  Sometimes it’s a result of organizational structure (sports teams, sororities, community or church groups), and sometimes it happens organically over time as a result of just living with each other—getting naked together as Jeanette Leblanc says in the picture above.

I met Stephanie when we were eight years old.  Our families were attending the same church, and we spent those formative years scheming about how we could spend the night together every weekend.  She was the first person I told when I started my period, and I gave her my training bra when she was too embarrassed to ask her mom to buy her one.  We crushed on the same boys and wrote notes about them on church bulletins when we should have been paying attention.  We traveled on mission trips and family vacations together, and when I decided to move “home” after my freshman year of college, the only thing that made sense was for us to be college roommates.  If there is one person on the planet who could ruin my chances to be president, Stephanie is the one who holds the key to my closet.

In elementary school, I thought Stephanie and I would grow up to be like CC Bloom and Hillary Essex from Beaches.  I, of course, was Bette Midler’s loud and obnoxious CC and Stephanie was Barbara Hershey’s demure and kind Hillary.  (Thankfully, we did not play out the plot of the movie for so many reasons—primarily because I very much like having Stephanie alive and well.)  I had the soundtrack on cassette tape, and even then, I thought of Stephanie every time I belted out Wind Beneath My Wings in my bedroom.  While my personality may have been bigger at times, I always appreciated Stephanie’s quiet strength.  

I asked her to stand with me at my wedding, and she asked me to officiate hers.  When she and her husband struggled to get pregnant for three years, I was astounded at her ability to never lose hope.  Watching her become a mother has been an awe-inspiring lesson in never taking life for granted.  Stephanie has always been a deep feeler, and I have come to appreciate her sensitivity as a strength, something that pulls me out of my head and grounds me when I’m thinking too much.  A few weeks ago, she called me crying because one of her other best friend's sisters found out her cancer is back, and the diagnosis this time is--well, it's not good.  As we cried over the phone together, she said, "I just need you to know I love you.  And pray.  Just pray."  That phone call was in large part the impetus for writing these Friendsday pieces in the first place.

Our friendship is one with history, with layers, with ups and downs and twists and turns, a long road for a joyful journey.

I met Jennifer because she’s Stephanie’s older sister. Because she’s a *wee bit* older than us, growing up, I thought she was beautiful and fancy.  She threw parties with real food when we were poor college students.  She was the first person we went to with good news about a new guy in our lives or for help if we needed a picture-burning party.  While she knew how to have a good time, she was also a well of wisdom during that time of life when we needed a mom but didn’t want to talk to our actual moms.  

As I transitioned from college kid to real life adult, my relationship with Jennifer evolved.  Ten years ago, her daughter, Elizabeth, was a flower girl in my wedding, and now when we visit OK, her house is one of the first places my kids ask to go because she has a swimming pool and “the best snacks like candy and marshmallows.”

On one hand, Jennifer is deeply private, someone who works through things mentally before she talks through them, something I tend to do as well.  On the other hand, she is generous with her time and energy and truly invests in the lives of her friends and family.  She is the first to open her house for a party, and she has shown up at all the important events in my life—my wedding, my baby showers, and even my husband’s promotion party—because she understands the value of hospitality, gathering, and togetherness.

When I think about my relationship with Jennifer, I’m reminded of Paul’s exhortation to the Romans in chapter 12 verse 15, “When others are happy, be happy with them, and when they are sad, be sad.”  She’s truly a friend for all seasons.  Aside from my mom, she's the one person who nags me the most about publishing a book--with gentle reminders that what I have inside needs to be shared with the world.

I met Erika because her brother was Jennifer’s first husband.  After both of them went through divorces, Jennifer and Erika were still friends, two single moms of young daughters.  When I think about that time in their lives, I’m in awe of both of them.  With life experience and perspective, I’m able to admire Jennifer and Erika for their determination and strength in adversity.  They have known difficulties different than mine, but I recognize and covet their ability to come through challenges with grace and an appreciation for the lessons learned. 

Despite the distance, Erika and I have an every day kind of friendship.  She’s the only person I literally text/talk to/message every single day.  I frequently go to the mailbox to find a package from her for no reason—a book she thinks I might like or on one occasion, a knitted Princess Leia doll that brightened a really dismal week I was having.  She’s insanely thoughtful in the way she loves her people and understands the details of friendship. I named one of my chickens after her—the only one not named after a famous writer or book character.

Most recently, we have been venturing together into new territory—the world of “human care” (she’s the Facebook admin for Somebody’s Mama I mentioned above).  We each have our strengths, and we make a great team.  If I am the brain behind Somebody’s Mama, Erika is the heart.  I’m a thinker; she’s a doer.  I’m a questioner, and she’s an answerer.  We are creating a community of people who care deeply about improving the lives of mamas around the world, and Erika is the reason it’s happening.  She’s going to hate that I put it that way, but it’s true.  I brought the ball, and she’s getting it rolling.

Because I'm an only child, and she doesn't have any sisters, it makes sense that we have adopted each other.  If there was a process that existed to make us legally bound as family, we would be the first in line to sign the paperwork.

Our shadows in Sedona--I had this picture mounted on canvas
for everyone for Christmas one year.

While my relationships with all three of these women continue to evolve, we formally named ourselves the “Four Sisters” a little over two years ago when we traveled to Sedona, AZ to celebrate Jennifer’s 40th birthday.  Since then, we have very purposefully gathered together when I am visiting OK, intentionally celebrating each other—through Christmas present exchanges over brunch, days by the pool with our kids, or dinners out.  I could write pages about the lessons I’ve learned from each of them, but the bigger point is this—I NEED these women in my life.  These are friendships forged in the fires of life’s greatest messes and on the mountaintops of celebration.  I need them in my life because they remind me that I’m not my weaknesses or my failures, and they reflect all the best things I love about myself.

When I was in the middle of writing this piece, I (no joke!) got this text:

While I can’t be there in person, you better bet I’ve got a date via phone with my girls.  I’ll bring the virtual mimosas.  As we head into this week before Christmas, I am thanking my 8-pounds 6-ounces newborn infant Jesus for these three gifts he’s given me in the form of laughing, feeling, thinking, loving women who choose to dive in, hold on, and love it up with me—so much so that I believe the fabric of my being is woven together with theirs.  

Merry Christmas, sisters.  I try to tell you as often as I can that I love you, but there is no such thing as too many times.  I love you.  I love you.  I love you.

This Is What Ten Years Looks Like

I have been married for ten years.  Did you get that?  Let me repeat.  I HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR TEN YEARS.  You know how people talk about dog years?  Well, I like to say we count by Air Force years—that’s when every calendar year counts as ten years, so because of that, I want to say, happy 100th anniversary, Scott Johnson!  On this day, in 2003, you made me a kept woman, and I want to celebrate by taking a walk through the eleven Decembers we’ve been married.  And we’ll start here…

2003

I woke up the morning of my wedding completely at peace.  Honestly.  I’d written love letters to my husband since long before I knew he was going to be my husband, so when I chose him as the one, I was positively sure I was doing the right thing.  I didn’t have jitters or second thoughts, and the only reason I had cold feet was because it was freezing outside.  As the day progressed, rain turned to sleet turned to twelve inches of snow on top of frozen ice, and yet, somehow, we were able to fill a sanctuary with almost four hundred people.  I walked down the aisle to The Beatles’ “Blackbird” played by a string quartet, and when I got to the end, I let go of my dad’s arm and took Scott Johnson’s hand.  It took close to twenty minutes to drive two blocks to our reception, where we danced our first dance to “Fly Me to the Moon,” sung by an ancient man in a forest green crushed velvet tuxedo jacket.  Scott danced with my Grandma Hazel—the first dance in her Pentecostal life—and I threw my bouquet completely over the heads of all the single ladies waiting.  Magical.  The whole thing was just magical.

2004

We were weeks away from finding out where we would be stationed for our first assignment out of pilot training.  Knowing we would be moving to one of the coasts and therefore less likely be “home” for Christmas in the coming years, we made the rounds for all the Christmases—visiting all the grandparents and great-grandparents in OK and MO.  It would be our second and last Christmas as a family of two, as in this picture, Will had been cooking for about two weeks.

2005

I’m cheating with this picture.  It’s not December—it’s the end of November, just after Thanksgiving.  We don’t have any family pictures in December because Scott had started his stop and go schedule, which involved very short stops at home before he would go again for weeks at a time.  If I look tired, it’s because I was.  Will was not a fan of sleeping, and without someone else to take shifts most nights, I was…well, I was the mom of a three-month-old.  It was the first of a handful of holiday seasons that Scott celebrated over the phone (and later over Skype or FaceTime).

2006

Scott left for his first official deployment in the fall of 2006, so it was just me and the Will-man in December.  While the deployment was difficult, I’d found my rhythm as a part-time single mom, and we were lucky to be part of a flying squadron, which deployed as a whole, so I was never without the support of friends, whose husbands were also deployed.  I saved all our emails, and most of my deployment emails involved stories about Will not taking naps and updates about who got kicked off of Big Brother.  Scott said things like “i miss you crazy insano madness (that’s a lot).”

2007

Remember when Ugly Sweater parties were actually a thing?  Some of our best friends, the Wetzels, hosted this one, and we took on the eat, drink, and be merry challenge with gusto.  Scott fell asleep on the couch, and we wrote on his face with markers.  We slept on a futon in the loft and ate leftover chicken wings for breakfast.  So, basically, it was JUST like college, except we had kids who woke up needing to be fed and diapered.  I think we were all just giddy to have husbands around long enough to have a party.  At the end of this December, I told Scott it was now or never if we were going to add to the family, and his answer was resoundingly NOW.

2008

Ben was born three days before Thanksgiving, making him the youngest baby in the church when the Christmas Eve service rolled around.  This picture—THIS PICTURE—is all of the feelings.  There we are, all four of us, feeling like everything was perfect and right in the world.  We’d been tasked to be Mary and Joseph for obvious reasons, and Will suggested a re-write, so instead of riding a donkey, this Mary and Joseph had a pet sheep (a sheep who would strip his wool halfway through the service and run out to his Mimi who was sitting in the pews).  Fun fact: unbeknownst to me, I had MRSA coursing through my body, a little gift from Ben’s delivery, and two days later, I’d land in the emergency room to be lanced and drained.  HOWEVER, in this moment, I’m sitting next to my favorite wild sheep and staring at the child born unto us, and I couldn’t be any more in love with the look on Joseph’s face.

2009

In all of our pictures of December, there isn’t one with all of us, but this picture is perfect. Scott was around a *little* more this year, and we had a good thing going.  This was the year of toddler trenches—when some days, I just had to go upstairs and shut the door for fifteen minutes of silence, as soon as Scott walked in the door.  And when I was finished with my sanity breaks, I’d come downstairs, and the three of them would be stacking blocks or reading books or watching football, and I saw my future unfolding.  Scott was a good husband and a good daddy to these tiny people and a good man, and I felt like the queen of the castle.  A somewhat sleep-deprived queen of a relatively disorganized castle, but I wouldn’t have ruled any other way.

2010

Home for Christmas four years in a row!  How did we pull that off?  Oh, yeah, I remember now—Scott was preparing to leave for weapons school—a six-month program which involved a lot of anxiety for both of us.  I remember feeling disconnected for the first time in our marriage, like he was moving into territory without me for some reason.  I’d been doing so much “on my own” (I know this concept is preposterous given my wide circle of support, but it felt that way much of the time) for so many years, and something had shifted.  It was a fun holiday season, spent in OK with friends and family, but when we pulled back into Charleston, I had a six-month single-parenting stint on my horizon, during which I would have to pack our house for a yet-to-be-determined cross-country move, all while raising two children (and a dog who insisted on peeing at the top of the stairs every day).  I was right to be anxious, and so was he.

2011

What a weird year.  After Scott was gone for a very stressful, strained six months, we moved from SC to WA, and three months later, he deployed (again!) for the last three months of the year.  We’d run the gamut of emotions in those twelve months, asked a lot of hard questions, and gave a lot of ugly answers, and in the end, I think we were both feeling apprehensive about the future to say the least.  We were diligently communicating throughout the deployment, both desperate to continue with the momentum we’d gained before he left.  My friend, Renee, said of her husband (also a pilot) once, “When I give my husband the chance to be my hero, he does it.  Every time.”  That had been stuck in my gut this whole year, as we worked through a really trying time in our marriage.  I had to come to a place where I trusted Scott to be my hero again instead of approaching him from a place of bitterness and resentment and anger.  And that’s when he did this.  Unbeknownst to me, Scott organized a surprise “anniversary dinner” with all of my closest friends from OK.  What I thought was going to be a night out with one friend was actually THIS.  Not pictured: my dad and the boys who stopped by to say hi and I love you, Scott’s best friend, Jefferson, who read a letter on behalf of Scott and delivered flowers, and my mom and mother-in-law, two marble pillars, who held up the roof of our house for us during this year.

2012

What a difference a year makes.  And a change of scenery to beautiful WA.  And a time when Scott was “home” with just a few short trips for almost six months in a row.  We hit our stride again with an astoundingly quick recovery—it’s amazing how things come together when you’re actually together.  In Olympia, we found great children’s theater and Thai food and farm stands and chickens—we got chickens!—and a house in the hills where you can see the Olympics on sunny days.  We found a church and preschool all in one and hiking trails and a boy scout troop and horseback riding lessons and and a gymnastics gym and highways that will take us north to Canada or south to Voodoo Donuts in Portland.  And we were happy—really happy.  It was a year of reevaluating EVERYTHING.  And on Christmas morning, we woke up TOGETHER, looking a little less Hallmark and a lot more Cousin Eddie, and it was perfect.

2013

And we’ve made it to this December—our last December in WA, as we know we’ll be moving this summer.  Right now, the house is a mess of winter coats and decorations and stacks of dishes and school supplies, and tomorrow marks ten years of marriage.

Scott Johnson,

Before bed tonight, you told me you loved me and you were sorry that you fell asleep before I got home from running errands.  It’s okay—because when you’re sleeping, and I’m up being a night owl, sometimes I sit on the couch, listening to you puff in the other room and writing love letters for you to read in the morning.  I sit on the couch in my ugly pajamas, reminiscing on the life we’ve made together, a gurgling mess while I think about those two babies in the back of the house who are blessed to call you Daddy.  

So, on our anniversary—you’re going to go to work, and I’m going to buy groceries and run Ben to preschool and homeschool Will, and then we’re going to meet up at Ben’s Christmas program (6:30—don’t be late!), and we’ll have cookies and juice in the church atrium, where I’ll watch you help our boys and have polite conversation with the teachers and the other parents in that easy way that you do.  And then we will grab buy-one-get-one burritos at Chipotle on the way home, tuck our babes into bed, and grub down while we catch up on The Daily Show.  I will probably eat some chocolate or maybe a spoonful of peanut butter for dessert, and you can have an extra Cherry Coke if you want.  We can play Skip-bo when we’re done eating.  After all, we’re celebrating!  

And it will be the most perfect and romantic 100th anniversary we’ve ever had.  Here’s to 1000 more years.  The other night, I was reading our bedtime book with the boys, and I came across this passage that tells how I feel about the future:

“Nicholas, we have what we need.  Brave hearts.  And sharp minds,” Ombric reminded him.  “And as you might recall, we always abandon our plans and end up doing things we never imagined.”

That’s it.  I can’t imagine what’s in store.

xo

Leia