Last Christmas Eve, I sat in a church service in a huge old church. Surrounded by stained glass, candles, pews, the sound of an organ playing, the soft hymns drifting through the sanctuary. This is normally my favorite night of the whole year – when anything is possible.

The night before something is like a blank check for the next day. You can fill in whatever you like in your mind. All the excitement, expectation, what you think it will be – that image can be untainted in your mind that night.

But the light of day changes things.

Nothing is quite as idealistic as you want it to be. People still wake up and cry. They poop and they fight, and they need fed just like on all the other days. Partners get let down by each other and families talk politics. But the night before there is a stillness.

I sat in the stillness in my pew, and I wondered about all those things – what was, what was to come, what is now. A wave of doubt hit me. An existential crisis that I’m not sure I’ve fully gotten out from under. What always was a beautiful and somewhat mystic story to me took on a different form. I started to wonder if this was even possible – the angels and the singing and the divine being impregnating a human.

I felt the need to know. And right behind that feeling, I felt the need to let go.

To let go of what I thought the next day would bring. To let go of where I thought I was fitting into religion but still wasn’t quite. To let go of always needing to know exactly what happened and what I should believe in.

As the year went on, I felt this continual tension. I wanted to believe in wonder, in miracles, in anything that could be possible. And yet, the grit of life and the grime of how imperfect it is weighed on my mind constantly. I dragged this crisis with me, probably letting it taint me a little bit, leaving me a little more jaded than I would like.

But unlike other times in my life, I wasn’t afraid of the questions. I leaned into them.

It’s hard to believe a whole year has passed and, in some ways, I feel like I know much more and in other ways much less by now. As this December crept towards me, I was afraid I wouldn’t know how to feel. I wasn’t part of a church, and our families weren’t gathering together as they normally would.

What is Christmas outside of church and family? Where does the wonder truly lie?

I thought back to my somewhat tumultuous relationship with church and religion – how dependent I had been on the institution to keep me connected to my spirituality and to the Divine. I thought about how that all had fallen apart at different times, and at some point I had stopped trying. But I never stopped trying to connect to those parts of me. I just had to find them for myself.

I found the Divine in the outdoors, in the peace in my house, in the changes in my heart. I noticed the things around me I couldn’t directly explain with reason, the things that still made me somewhat of a mystic – what helped me always believe in something bigger and a little more magical than what I could see and feel. And I leaned into it.

Just like on Christmas Eve, what I have expected out of life and my journey has always been a shiny idea I have held tightly, always kicking it out a little further into the future. I didn’t want the light of day to ruin it. I didn’t want to deal with the grime and the fights and the ugly parts. Those didn’t seem like “the dream” for me. And yet, if I listen, I am living right inside it, right now.

I have had to find the Divine on my own this Christmas season – in the unexpected places. I found peace and wonder in the lights, the music, the way my daughter said, “Christmas tree!!” fifteen times in a row when she woke up from her nap to find the house lightly decorated in magic. I found joy in planning gifts for those I love the most and making the holiday foods for my kids that feel like tradition to them now. I leaned into love and light as I realized that now I was the one creating a festive home and enjoying it with my people. No longer a shell of a person, I was here, present, in the now.

What we are looking for isn’t always found in the obvious places. The wonder of it all is that the kingdom is here, within us. We don’t have to create anything to find it, we simply have to lean into it, quiet ourselves for just a moment, and breathe it in.

Let the unexpected wow you. The wonder of it all is that it is here, in and around us, just waiting to be felt, to be realized, to be welcomed in.

There’s no way of knowing when your children are toddlers that there will come a day when they won’t need you every second of every minute of every day. There’s no way of knowing you’ll eventually come up for air and this won’t last forever. How could you know that eventually your body would be your own again and you could move about the world untethered?

When you are in it, it takes forever.

There’s no way of knowing when someone asks for space how long they’ll take, how long it will be until they circle back around, or if they ever will. How could you know the relationship that has been laid on the line is enough to span the new gap created?

There are few guarantees in life, and even fewer where love is concerned.

There’s no way of knowing the risk will pay off, that the reward will outweigh the struggle. We don’t know when we jump whether we’ll land on our feet, all we know is that staying still feels like death and there’s a limit to how many more times we can wake up and do the same things, have the same conversations, wear the same clothes.

There’s so little we know, even less that we’re told.

Even if there was some way for the young mother to grasp what the kind elderly lady in the grocery store is droning on about regarding the passing of time and cherishing moments, when their children bite their fingers wrapped around grocery carts or throw up their lunch all over the car seats on the way home, time will stand still, and hours will refuse to pass. Seconds turn into centuries and their previous lives with flash before their eyes all golden and glistening, tempting them to throw in the towel and run.

What are we told about moments and days and years? Who is sounding the alarm that commercials of adults returning to college and submitting projects over warm bowls of spaghetti in clean kitchens while the rest of their households sleep is largely false advertising? Show me a moment where this is happening and there isn’t someone hunched over a laptop in restaurants or at ball games, or with their other hand stirring the boiling pot of spaghetti. That when they hit submit, the kitchen won’t be clean, and its possible someone is calling for their attention.

How do we know who is in our life for a short time or a long time? And how do we go about letting go gracefully? Or even disgracefully? Why do we act like our big love is reserved for one person and that our hearts aren’t strewn across our families and friends near and far? What do we know about the ache of missing someone who is just out of reach? When best friends live countries apart?

I knew a lot more in my 20s than in my 30s. I know even less as I travel through life. No one told me you can sit in a fifth-grade choir concert and have your ears wincing from the notes but have your heart wincing with ache because suddenly there is a half-grown man in front of you who came from your womb and is now on a stage under bright lights singing songs you’ve never heard before. While theme songs from children’s shows still ring in your ears from years and years of repetition, he’s now spending time away from you, learning things you didn’t teach him.

There’s no way to know how happiness and sadness weave together in such a tragically beautiful way – how our hearts can break and get pieced back together in the same fell swoop. And then how in other times that same crashing happens in slow motion over years and years and years.

So, what do we do with the unknown?

We do what we do with all the other parts of our lives we can’t control – turn them over in our hands for a while, release them when they are too heavy, and pick them back up again when we have the strength. This could take seconds, or it could take years. 

But, most importantly, we tell the truth about what is happening to us.

There’s no way of knowing who is listening, and who needs to hear it.

I guess I took my own advice seriously – to stop creating when I feel burnt out. And also to take advantage of the negative space in my life. I was on term break for the last couple weeks (working through my final year of my BAS Psychology), and I was just soaking it in. I took extra long walks, wrote some poetry, worked on my book, and turned inward for a while. Which is totally great, and also comes with some silence.

I feel a pull to slow down, or perhaps to just not speed back up. For many of us creatives, the pandemic gave us a chance to see what we could do when we weren’t going at break-neck speeds. And I’ve been hearing it more and more from my creative friends how it is getting harder to switch back into the old gears of productivity and hurry. I personally feel so resistant to it.

It’s exciting to do new things, to go public and share things. But more than ever I’m also finding the reward of keeping things small – making sure my home base is secure before I branch out. If our homes and closest relationships need attention, whatever we can do “out there” in the world needs to come second.

I was in a meeting recently and my children were with a babysitter, something we try to keep a rare occurrence here. The babysitter texted me a question and later apologized for interrupting what I was doing. Without missing a beat, I replied, “I am a mother first, a board member second”. And I really felt that.

My priorities are changing, they keep changing. I am changing, I keep changing. Not everyone is along for the ride, not everyone understands. If you knew me years ago, you’d know I wanted to be anywhere but here… present, at home, at peace. Now, I (mostly) love my time at home. I worked hard to find the peace in myself and now I don’t want to trade it again for the hustle of the world. I love working hard, I love sharing with people, and that will come I am quite sure. But for now, I’m soaking in these quieter seasons where I simply put my hand to the page and see what comes out. Creating just to create, no firm plan of where it will go. Being present with those in front of me and watching where those relationships go.

Resist the need to have a plan for everything, to have it all mapped out.

Preaching to the choir here, I am the queen of mapping out my life. But what if we just leaned into the mystery of it all? What if we went into this next season of reflection with open hands and quiet minds? What if we held things more loosely? Gave ourselves space to change and see what is trying to grow underneath? What if we don’t have a name for it, this season that we are in? What if we give up the need to explain everything we are feeling?

Permission granted for slowing down and letting something grow in yourself first.

Permission granted for not returning to the speed of life if it isn’t allowing for your creativity.

Permission granted to not explain the quietness.

Permission granted to just be.

I had in my queue this topic of negative space. I planned to write about it last week, but some personal matters came up that took all my energy and creativity away from writing and into problem-solving. And then, of course, a few days of recovery. Now, I can feel my brain starting to re-boot itself and come back to the things I enjoy.

And that is the importance of negative space.

The negative space in our lives is the in-between, the things that don’t exist, the empty spaces between all the things we do. It is the blank space on our walls, what’s left when we clear off a table, the sky between all the stars. Negative space serves such an important place in our lives.

We talk so much about how our culture is so fast paced, how we need to slow down, how we need to practice self-care and do things we enjoy. But what if the thing we would enjoy most is… nothing?

Nothingness can feel scary at first. Nothing exists in negative space except us and our thoughts. It is where our inner lives are the loudest, and we hear everything going on inside us. If we haven’t come to terms with our inner worlds, negative space is where we will be able to tell.

And yet, if we have…

Negative space can be the most beautiful parts of our lives – a space void of responsibility. No responsibility to engage, think, find humor, plan, or complete tasks. Negative space gives us the option to just be ourselves, show up how we are. We have no need to perform in this space, who would it be for? Nothing and everything exists in those spaces, for our imaginations are free to roam and create.

Creativity lives in the negative space, or perhaps just on the other side. We cannot create when we are stressed, rushed, or pressured. Or, I should say, we can’t create well. My kids often complain about boredom. They hate being bored more than almost anything… except me when I remind them that boredom is good for them. Creativity springs from boredom, boredom from negative spaces. Like a blank canvas begging to be painted on, these spaces hold value beyond compare.

I’m not sorry when I pull away. I’m not apologetic. I need it.

Ride in the car without music or a podcast. Listen to the wind and the raindrops on your roof. Hear your own heartbeat and what your thoughts are trying to tell you. What boils up the most when everything goes quiet? Likely the thing that is asking for space the most in our lives – the thing we are afraid to give a nod to, the thing that just won’t go away.

Whenever I move into a new house, I leave the walls blank for a few days. I imagine what would go on them, and I come to terms with their emptiness. And then I ask myself one question: what do I like enough to put here to trade for the emptiness? Sometimes it is a photo or art piece or wreath, but more times than not, the answer is simply: nothing.

What are we constantly trading our negative spaces for? What are we valuing above the quiet and roar of our own thoughts? Is it worth it to us or could we use a little bit of stillness to listen and recalibrate? Make friends with the silence, be at peace with the empty spaces. They might hold more than you know.

The world is on fire.  

I wake up with that feeling most days… if I start my day with my phone. But if I start my day with a deep breath, a snuggle of my baby’s head, and some scrambled eggs, then the world is a better place where the small things mean the most.

The speed of crisis feels insane right now. Empaths everywhere are no doubt holding their heads in their hands on a daily basis. Friendships and relationships feel uncertain or shattered, depending on how far we have taken our arguing and discord. There is rarely common ground, nothing is neutral. Almost everything feels like it rides in the black or white, left or right. And each day, there is a new crisis – and each crisis feels large enough to topple our world. And yet it keeps cycling. We are forced to form opinions and stand our ground. We are forgetting what we used to do before we openly debated matters of the world we barely know anything about.

And we forget that, at our core, we are all wildly human.

What connects us will always top what separates us. When we stand face to face, our differences feel smaller, our humanity looms larger. We crave connection and vulnerability, and now both those things feel unsafe. We are buried under the weight of the world’s crises, and now we do not know how to exist properly at home. We are mad at our neighbors, restless in our pews, short with our families, and uncomfortable with our own words. What we are sacrificing is becoming so much more than what we are gaining in our fights.

A few months into the pandemic, while election conflict was still raging quite high, I had a simple thought that I could never quite get away from. It still haunts me, and the answer seems further and further away: How do we all come back together after this?

Is there a coming back after this? Have we forgotten what matters most? Have we become so consumed with taking a stance that we forgot to just sit down together for a minute? Maybe share a meal? Lend a hand? Be human together?

A few weeks ago, I bumped into someone in public I hadn’t seen for a few years. We talked about our kids and houses and churches and job changes. We smiled and laughed and bid farewell. And for that moment in time, I totally forgot that we agreed on nearly nothing as far as headlines were concerned. We shouldn’t be getting along. And yet, there we were, standing outside our cars, being human.

I miss neutrality and common ground. And then I remember one thing: Common ground starts with me. It is my job to keep showing up as a human. As hard as it seems, it’s my job to remember what connects us and not always see people for what separates us. Largely, we are tired and overwhelmed, almost no one is their best version right now (and if you are, please share your secrets). But if connection and vulnerability is what I crave so much, I have a choice to show up and provide that as well.

Our hearts are aching with the weight of the world on our minds. Sometimes I envy those who have come before us who have not had the cumbersome tool of the internet. I wonder what it would be like to only be aware of our own communities – to always remember that how we show up in our houses, with our families, and with those in closest proximity to ourselves will always be the most important thing. I have to trust that there is a reason I am in this particular corner of the cosmos – and I need to make my biggest impact here at home. I can’t be so distracted and disillusioned by things a million miles away to where I cannot function in my own sphere. I send help when I can to those fighting the good fight elsewhere, but I always need to remember that, with being human, my limitations are great, but my love is even greater.

If we cannot exist together, we have lost something even greater than the thing for which we are fighting. Let’s not do that. Let’s remember how human we are. Let’s move in, link arms, and just exist sometimes. Together. As humans.

I hit close on the tab and took a deep breath, another session under my belt. This one felt really hard to show up for. I was exhausted, spent. I was worn out from being vulnerable and having the hard conversations earlier in the week. I felt like I was on the edge of relapse, and I just could hardly breathe. My back was tight and my chest even tighter. But now, a deep breath.

I love how therapy puts things in perspective – how I can see what I need to work on but also what I am doing really well. I love how therapy lets that stack up. There is someone who remembers where I used to be and can tell me how far I’ve come… and steps to go even further. It’s the trust built, and the progress made. It’s having a space to say literally anything on my mind without fear of judgment or what will happen when I am honest.

I talk about therapy all the time. If you have spent any amount of time around me, I’m sure I have brought it up. I’ve been in individual therapy, marriage therapy, and group therapy. I’ve been going to school to get my degree in Psychology. I’ve been passing out phone numbers of great counselors I know for years.

I. Love. Therapy.

But I don’t always feel like showing up. Showing up takes work. Vulnerability is hard a lot of the time, even for an Enneagram 4. What always leads to me being a better person is sometimes that hardest thing to want to do.

Here’s what I do when I don’t want to go:

1. I keep a consistent schedule. At the end of every appointment, I schedule my next one. I trust the timing that by then there will be more things to talk about. And even if there aren’t, it’s good for me to show up anyway. Even on my “good” days, consistently talking to someone and letting them have input in my life (especially a skilled professional) is one of the best things to keep my life on track.
2. Show up regardless of how I am feeling. The days I need it the most are the hardest ones to show up for. It’s hard to admit when I’m struggling and made mistakes. It’s hard to open up when I just want to hide away and not let anyone see me. But the beauty lies in being seen at our worsts and being loved anyway.

Going to therapy guarantees that I will be seen, and in the best ways. It serves as a looking glass to give a good perspective on where I am actually at. And it allows someone to deeply believe in me and give me helpful tools to move forward. It has been an incredibly important part of my life whether things were going smoothly or were terribly rocky. In every season and at every point, therapy has been nothing but helpful and valuable. I recommend it to everyone. All the time.

With all the current stress in our lives, families, nation, etc, most of us aren’t at our best right now. It’s okay to seek help, recommended even. It doesn’t make you weak. Rather, it’s a very empowering thing, having someone in your corner.

What in your life could improve by opening up regularly to someone who could give skilled input? What might be holding you back from it? I have never regretted a session. Ever.

One of the hardest things about telling your story can be anticipating people’s reactions to it. This can be true if you are sharing it with one person or with hundreds. Maybe they experienced it differently than you did. Maybe they have a perception of you that doesn’t feel like it matches what you are telling them. Regardless the case, it can often feel like your words and experiences are up for debate.

It can be really scary to put your words out into the world, whether with strangers or those closest to you. And, I would venture to say, it becomes harder the closer the people are to you. Sometimes I wonder why I keep waking up and doing this – this whole sending-the-words-out-into-the-world thing. But, as I have said, this is the single thing I can never get away from and I can’t seem to live without it.

Our fears of what others might think or say can stop us from doing any number of things in our lives – and telling our own stories is one of those things. It can be really scary to tell our stories. It can be even scarier to let it up to others to do so.

When we write things down, we give them room to breathe and a place to exist. No longer do they only exist in our minds. And often, when we see those black and white letters on a page, we feel the shift in ourselves, pulling it into focus, making it all seem a little more real. Telling it our way and in our own words helps add to the validation of what we have gone through.

People might have a lot of opinions about your life – what you have gone through, what you should have done, what you could be doing now – but it isn’t really up to them, is it? What you experienced was real and how you felt about it was just as real. The feelings that you took away from the experience have shaped you as much as the experiences themselves.

When we leave it up to other people to interpret our stories and what we have gone through, we release our ability to have our own truths heard. No one understands your life better than you do; no one has experienced things exactly as you have. And so, no one can weave together the stories and lessons you can.

I’m in the process of writing a book about the last ten years of my life – the heartache, illness, addiction, pain, loneliness, struggles, and ultimately the hope on the other side of all of those things. Almost every day I wake up with crushing fear of how it all will land. Did I explain it correctly? Did I get all the details right? Did I remember the dialogue? Who will this offend? Who won’t agree with this? If I live in those questions for too long, there is no chance I will create much of anything. All my carefully crafted words will land on the page and dissolve because they don’t hold any weight. I have to trust that my vulnerability has always been the thing to carry me through. I have to trust that my story can stand for itself and that it will help those who read it.

It’s a wonderful thing, really, to have your words exist somewhere in the world. What are you drawn to create and what might be holding you back? Whatever it is, it is yours. And it is not up for debate.

Where to begin?

Right now, I am staring at no less than five house projects that need finished. There are more, no doubt, but actually counting them would bum me out too much. My husband loves to start projects. And I love when things are completely finished. And in the contentious middle is where we often find ourselves.

I have a hard time starting things if I can’t say with all certainty they will succeed. I like when things can wrap up nicely and I can stand back and admire a job well done. I like a start and a finish, a check in the box. But the thing about life is, we don’t often get to do that exactly. I know I certainly don’t.

I’ve started a lot of things in my life. Most of them met mediocre success. Not many were complete failures, but those pepper the list as well. There are things I would rather not talk about, pictures I don’t want to paint, chapters I would like to close forever. But somehow, the winds of time keep blowing the pages open.

When I first started writing, I was on a mission to say things that would change people’s lives for the better. I wanted to provide answers, road maps, boxes to check, and lists to cross off. I wanted those things for myself, too. And, for a while, it all felt within reach. I could keep things buttoned down, the ugly parts hidden away; I could fake it until I made it and look pretty good doing it.

Until everything crumbled.

I read back over my old writings sometimes and just sigh a little (and then archive them). My intentions were surely there but I just wasn’t being honest – not with myself or anyone else. I was chasing what I couldn’t hold, trying to escape a darkness I couldn’t name. And then it all caught up with me. The façade fell and I was better for it.

So, now there’s a new beginning – for me and for my words. This time I come to you not with answers but with stories. Most of the stories don’t have clear beginnings and endings. There are scuff marks, exposed cracks, raw edges, and gaping holes. I come in humility and honesty, not trying to hide the ball on anything. I’m figuring this all out with everyone else in the world. There are no steps and road maps, only places I’ve been and places I hope to be.

I hope you find yourself in these pages; I hope they reflect me well. I hope you hear me talking to you and not just about me. I want to be encouraging and realistic, hopeful and reflective, gracious and honest. I want to hold darkness and light hand in hand and know that one does not exist without the other. All parts have a place here.

I don’t want my fear of failure to stop me from doing the one thing in life I can never get away from – putting my words out into the world. I want to measure success with a different barometer than what seems the most obvious. I don’t want to keep denying what runs deepest in my veins because I don’t know where it will go. This is me giving it wings and trusting the process.

This is me trying something again and for the first time. Trusting. Hoping. Believing.

I am glad you are here.

I used to write on here on the regular. And then semi regular. And now, it looks like annually. And I suppose at some point I will delete this all together as I’ve evolved so many times since the beginning. But sometimes it’s okay to have reminders of how far we’ve come. And why. And so, in the spirit of Christmas, here is my yearly Christmas piece.

Christmas writing is my favorite. It is the sort of guiding light that I need to make it through the long darkness. I love the Winter Solstice for that reason – it marks the end of the reign of darkness. From here on out, it must recede.

This is one of our quietest Christmas seasons. It’s one of our quietest seasons in general. Isolation is hitting many of us so hard. And while I crave (super crave) physical contact and experiences outside of these four walls, what I’m finding within them is so surreal. It brings me great pause.

Never before have I tucked in so closely.

I’ve never been one for roots, Restless to my core, I always felt like I was searching, too afraid to be stuck in one spot. I’ve been flighty. I’ve been wayward. I’ve been lost. And now, for once, I’ve been found.

I’ve never spent so much time in one place. Mentally. I have done this before, physically, under great protest, watching my mind drift to and fro. And now, here I am. Rooted. Grounded.

The day the world shut down, my daughter was born. She is the icing on the cake of our family. We waited and prayed for her – ten long years we whispered her name in prayers and through long dark nights. When my body was wracked with infection and trying to piece itself back together, through pain and fever and addiction, I thought of her. She filled my dreams and always brought me hope. Ten years. We waited.

And then one dark evening, she burst into the world. Named with the meaning of ” bright, shining light”, she has brought us far more light than I could have imagined – more light  than my dreams, more light than what guided me all those ten years. It takes my breath away that she is here. I’m getting to know her. I’m loving her. She is changing me. And I am just trying to take it all in.

I tried to share her with many, virtually. And I pulled back. I wanted to share her in person, and we pulled back to be safe. Instead, we just have tucked in closer and closer. I know her every move, her every noise, her every want and need.

And right now, in this Christmas season, all I can think of is Mary – how the bustle was going on all around her:  the census, the angels in the night sky, the traveling. And yet she chose to pull in, to ponder it in her heart. Because, somehow, he was the Savior of the world, but he was also her son. She had carried him in her body, given birth to him, and now she was going to raise him as well.

 The whole world had waited for him. Through long dark nights they had whispered his name Messiah. Through the pain, the silence, the slavery, the dessert, the oppression, they had waited. And now, on this glorious night, they were all bursting forth. And Mary, she was pondering.

The world is a little mad right now. There’s a lot going on. And while my daughter isn’t a Savior, she is somehow helping to save me. The whole world wasn’t waiting on her, but I was. We were. I carried her in my body, gave birth to her, and now I’m going to raise her, somehow. She was promised and now here she is. What a miracle. And all I want to do is ponder.

To feel complete and settled is a new miracle for me. I don’t want for much. Sure, I still get restless sometimes and need air, but there’s something bigger happening – shifting, cracking, light breaking through. Settling into motherhood is an experience (even though it seems about ten years too late, here it is). I’m stepping into a place I’ve never been before. It’s all happening and I don’t want to miss a moment.

How did Mary ever take her eyes off of Jesus? Did she lay awake watching him breathe? Did she laugh when he made funny noises? Did she teach him to walk and read and climb and run? How did she hold every day in her hands, knowing they weren’t hers to hold, knowing her time was so limited? She knew the prophecies, and yet somehow at her young age, she pulled in close and loved well anyway. I wish we knew more about her journey of motherhood. But what we do know is she was the chosen vessel.  And somehow, that was enough. For her, for all of us.

Glory be. The Light has come.