The Brutally Honest Christmas Card

One of my favorite writers, D.L. Mayfield, shared an older post of hers a few weeks ago on Instagram. It was her Brutally Honest Christmas Card, and it struck a chord with me this holiday season because all things are not merry and bright under our roof. As a writing exercise, I decided to make my own Brutally Honest Christmas Card using Mayfield's as a model for mine. We are not Christmas letter people or even Christmas card people, but it felt good to write this. It felt genuine. Perhaps if you've have had a hard year, it might be a helpful exercise for you to draft your own honest Christmas letter. One final note: the phrases in italics are her words. I decided not to change them because they fit so well, but I want to give credit where credit is due.

__________

Seasons greetings from the Helzers.

My fave photo of us from 2017 even though you can see all the fillings in my enormous mouth.

2017 has been a terrible year, and we're happy it's almost over. In the last year, we...

had to replace two of our kitchen appliances in the same week that our dog of ten years, Sam, died. We continued to help our kids through tough traumas and losses. Trump is still president. White supremacists are emboldened, and our daughter is grappling with being one of a few black children in a sea of white children at school. Our son's trauma has twisted his brain so much that he believes if he is bad enough at home, then he will get to live with his birth parents again. This manifests itself in the form of constant sneaky behaviors. We've installed alarms on bedroom doors, locked up the medicines/knives/garage, and monitor the kids at all times.

Consequently, we've all started attending therapy. Some families fill their free time with extracurricular activities; we fill ours with therapy appointments! I started in on a regimen of anxiety medications to help settle my brain down. We have lived in a constant state of hyper-vigilance and anxiety since August, so we stay cloistered in our home where it's safe to cry and scream and throw things. Some of our friends and family send prayers, and others have sent meals; we are grateful for their support. But for the most part, we remain isolated from the world--our struggles tucked away like an emergency spare key. It was the year of hard things. We are surprised we are still standing.

But the other day when we were serving folks in need at a local church, my daughter saw a girl from school in line for food with her family. She left her post serving green beans and jumped in line so she could eat with her friend. She had no reservations about being on the other side of the table. My son dried dishes in the back and chatted it up with the church ladies like it was nothing for him. It wasn't a huge moment--just one Saturday in our lives, but I can't tell you how grateful I am for that moment.

Not Today

Yesterday morning I woke up sad with an emptiness in my heart. My kids are struggling with trauma--it's been an ongoing battle for the last four years, but these past four months have been intense and exhausting and emotionally depleting. It will be a year on Thursday that the mother of one of my oldest friends died unexpectedly. Another mass shooting over the weekend. Fractured relationships.

There really is so much brokenness in the world. So much that I'm finding it difficult to live mercifully lately. To live purposefully lately.

Yesterday I had a spare 20 minutes between school drop off and work, so I went for a walk at a little lake even though I just wanted to pull into a nearby park, let my seat down, and sleep. It was cold outside, 29 degrees, but the sun was shining, and save for a pair of Mallards, I was the only living being at the lake. I walked along the bike path that meanders through the park. I shoved my cold hands deep into my pockets and let my shoulders sag so I could nuzzle my neck and chin into my coat away from the morning wind.

As I walked, I wanted to be awestruck by the beauty of a cold, Nebraska morning. I tried to savor the soft crunch of nearly dried leaves beneath my feet. I stopped to take a few photos of the sun shining through some bare branches, the waves slapping against the rocks on the beach. I feel most at home in this world when I'm outside, so usually, nature has a way of pulling me out of whatever slump I'm in. Not today, I thought.

I wanted to confidently prayer walk around that lake, stomp out the grief with every step and hallelujah. I couldn't even whisper a prayer yesterday morning. Not today.

Why we left our comfortable church

Recently my husband and I made a difficult decision to leave the church we had been attending. We chose this church when we moved to our community two years ago  because it had excellent youth ministries, was close to our home, and it seemed to be growing. My husband and I took steps to get involved. Our kids were learning and forming relationships with adults who seemed to genuinely care for them. Of course, no church is perfect, but overall--we were comfortable in our church.

But...comfort was ultimately the problem.

Church services were carefully crafted with cool sets and timed with snappy videos. There was a light show and artificial smoke as a backdrop to pop-worship music. The church was recently renovated with a mixture of wood and steel giving the building a cool, industrial vibe. The pastor had catchy sermon titles with three predictable and mainstream points. There was a coffee shop outside the sanctuary.

Rock concert or evangelical worship set? 

It was all a very tidy, aesthetically pleasing, and comforting experience. There is nothing inherently wrong with aesthetics, and many people thrive in church settings like this one. However, for me, church began to reaffirm my white middle class existence and felt too much like American culture.

Silencing the inner critic

I tend to be rather critical of myself in pretty much all aspects: work, running, wife-ing, and mothering. I've always been my own worst enemy. At times, this quality is helpful as it pushes me to reflect and change and improve. But most times the critical voice inside my head is so damn annoying--like Janice's voice from Friends.

Sure you ran 11 miles, but you could've run a little faster. Did you hear that rude comment J said to K? You know he learned that from you, right? Don't bother applying for that job; you'll never get it. You're feeding your kids sandwiches again? When was the last time they ate something green? No, Skittles do NOT count. Your husband probably would be more happy with a more traditional, more feminine, and more stable woman. 

For me, this voice is loudest during moments of chaos--when the schedule gets busy and things begin to slip out of my control, and so, I fight and claw to regain that control. I do things like choose my kids' outfits when they're perfectly capable of choosing their own clothes. I reject all help from my husband. I run farther and faster. I snap at my kids when they drop crumbs on the table. As you can imagine, I am a very unpleasant person to be around when I let that Janice voice win out, and it happens more than I care to admit because it's so easy to focus on our flaws. It's easy to make a list of all we don't have, all we haven't accomplished, all of our mistakes and failures. Our culture lives with critique on the tips of our tongues because we are afraid of failing or being forgotten or messing up our kids.

Yesterday, J came home from school, and as he was unpacking his backpack, he asked me if he could tell me a sad story.

"Sure, bud. What's the story?"

Pulling up a seat in the smoking section

Parents are responsible for their kids. A kid's behaviors often reflect their home lives. The kid must've learned these behaviors at home. 

I've heard these claims spoken by daycare providers, teachers, parents, and (gasp) these are beliefs I once held. ...Then I became a parent to two kids who experienced physical and psychological trauma during pivotal developmental years.

Suddenly, these statements no longer felt true. Even though my kids have been adopted for three and almost two years, they still struggle (and will always struggle) with trauma. Often they still feel threatened in situations that an outsider would not perceive as threatening. Sometimes they still eat as if food may not grace our dinner table again. Many times they still melt down when they receive even the tiniest of consequences. Are these behaviors a reflection of our home lives? I don't think so. Our home is far from perfect, but generally speaking, my husband and I work hard to maintain a consistent and loving home where curiosity is encouraged, mistakes can be learned from, a home where our kids can be kids with room to play and explore. We try to help our kids identify big feelings, and we give them tools to help them work through these. But, as is the habit of trauma, sometimes our kids' pasts seep through the cracks in their lives that we have desperately tried to repair.

Yesterday, my phone rang at 10:30 AM; it was my kids' principal. She replayed an outburst my son had in his classroom; he was unable to be redirected and had to spend the rest of the morning in the principal's office. I hung up the phone feeling overwhelmed and mortified about my son's behaviors. In fact, my first response was to email J's teacher to apologize for his behaviors. I spent the rest of the day beneath a dark cloud of shame.

Not a real cloud of shame, but it's pretty damn close. 

My brain knows that J's outburst was likely from a perceived threat and not an act of defiance, but I couldn't convince my heart and gut to agree with my brain. I felt responsible for my son's behavior. I wasn't home enough, I yell too much, I don't hug him enough. I worried about what the teacher thought of our home life, what J's classmates would tell their parents about the scenario, and what those parents would think of us. I was in a downward spiral of shame when I finally texted one of my best friends who also is a foster-adoptive mama and is familiar with parenting kids from hard places. I asked her when I would stop feeling so ashamed for my kids' behaviors. My friend is wise and kind and calm. She talked to me about losing my reputation to reach others...she reminded me that my reputation is eternal, and directed me to a sermon she recently heard on Luke 15: Love Can Unbind Us from Pastor Myron Pierce. 

Aging Happens

When it comes to outward appearance, I’m pretty low maintenance. I’ve never had my eyebrows done (I don’t even know what that means). I don’t know how to apply eye-shadow. Anything requiring wax on my body terrifies me to the core. I don’t even wear makeup most days.

An actual picture of all my cosmetics in a super fancy container. 

Nobody told me, though, that when I turned 30, I’d be entering a new era of face maintenance. Perhaps the most annoying body change I’ve seen in my thirties has been a development of dry flaky skin on my face that makes me feel like a snake awkwardly shedding its skin. Last week, after my seventh application of Vitamin E oil on the pesky unscathed dry patches, I remembered hearing about a face scrubbing device with a catchy name. The device was only $10 at Sephora and was cleverly named Cleaning Me Softly...a play on the classic Fugees song, “Killing Me Softly.”

We don’t have a Sephora where I live, but lucky for me, we were heading to a town with a Sephora that weekend so I could run a half-marathon. I had only walked through a Sephora once before a few years earlier. Honestly, I just hung on the outskirts examining the rhetoric of the advertisements on the wall while I waited for my friends to buy an assortment of makeup brushes.

So, before we returned home from our weekend away, I dragged my family to the mall. I left my husband and kids in the car promising to be swift. Malls always make me a little nervous; they’re filled with people, things, loud noises, and smells. They take me back to my middle school days when I begged my parents to drop me off at the mall so I could eat soft pretzels and flirt (unsuccessfully) with boys way too old for me at the Sunglass Hut.

Why I don't choose joy in tough situations

It's been a good while since I've written anything here. In my defense, I had a post due for another site that I procrastinated like a good writer does, and it left me zapped. Actually, winter has a way of dragging me down. It's dark and cold and keeps people indoors; it drives an active, outdoorsy person like me a bit bananas. On top of this, our dog died, our kitchen appliances went on strike, and my husband's work schedule feels relentless. I've found myself wallowing in the muck this winter, trying to climb out but slipping each time I get a strong footing.

What a sad sight. 

Currently, I'm reading Tish Harrison Warren's Liturgy of the Ordinary, and it's been so thought-provoking. Essentially, the book is about embracing the ordinary moments in our lives and finding God in something as mundane as brushing our teeth. Chapter four explores the everyday moments of chaos that we encounter and encourages readers to view these as opportunities to see how much grace we need. Harrison Warren writes about the conundrum of finding more peace while she lived in a conflict zone than while living in her safe, middle-class life in the States:

"I had a theology of suffering that allowed me to pay attention in crisis, to seek small flickers of mercy in profound darkness. But my theology was too big to touch a typical day in my life. I'd developed the habit of ignoring God in the midst of the daily grind" (55). 

I can relate. It's easy for me to see glimmers of God at work in big, chaotic situations--especially when they're not directly impacting me. But when my dog dies and all my appliances quit and it's cold and my husband is gone on the weekends---I don't see glimmers of God. Instead, I see endless chaos. This begs the question: how do we see God in the everyday chaos?

Prairies, vulnerability, and relationships

One of the paths at The Crane Trust

Out here in the open prairie, there's a sense of vulnerability. There are no trees, no buildings, no people to hem me in. I am exposed on all sides. My bright blue jacket is a stark contrast to the golds and browns and grays of the prairie waking up after a cold winter. I find myself walking slower out here, more cautiously, my head swinging from side to side searching for any signs of danger. My right hand clasps my runner's mace--just in case.

One mile into my wandering, though, I can feel a loosening in all my muscles as my body relaxes and my stride quickens. Now comfortable with my surroundings, the threat of danger has passed. I let my eyes focus on only what is right in front of me--a path through the tall wild grasses. I'm finally able to enjoy the solitude. There are not many places a person can go to get pure solitude without a hundred distractions.  

A bare cottonwood

I come to a lone cottonwood in the middle of the prairie. Her branches reach out tall and bare; her leaves--dried and gray crunch beneath my feet. There's a bleached white log next to the tree inviting me to sit awhile, to dig my notebook out from my satchel, and write. I am exposed from all sides in the open prairie, but still, I sit and write, spilling some of my deepest thoughts on this ivory Moleskine paper.

Technology: Setting boundaries to avoid gluttony

It's Friday, which means a long run day for me. About a year ago, I added The Sorta Awesome Show podcast to my listening line-up on long runs. Today's episode was all about technology and the ways it helps and hurts us--a topic I've thought of often. While I fall into the digital native label because of my millennial status, my family wasn't quick to adopt all the technologies.

I vividly remember when my parents got their first mobile phone: a car phone in a bag sometime in the mid to late 90s. I was mystified that my mom could make a call FROM HER CAR.

We even had a computer during my elementary school days, but I don't think we had internet at home until I was in junior high. My small Catholic elementary school got a tiny computer lab when I was somewhere around fifth or sixth grade, and it was a big deal. We played Oregon Trail and learned basic keyboarding skills, but I don't ever remember doing anything on the internet until junior high.

The technology I really loved, though, was my stereo complete with a fancy cassette deck. Music has always been my thing. I know the pain of rewinding and pushing play at just the right time to listen to a song over again. When I became interested in song lyrics, I often would listen to a 10-second snippet of a song, pause it, and then scribble down what I thought were the lyrics. Anybody else do this?!? Those were the good old days of technology.

2017: Keep Breathing

I love lists and goals, but I've never been much of a new year's resolution person. Perhaps this is because I'm already fairly driven and determined. I'm never okay with being complacent, and once I decide I want to do something, I am sure to get it done.

However, while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Sorta Awesome Show, I discovered that some people establish words or phrases to guide their year instead of more traditional new year's resolutions (seriously, I'm so behind on the times). I'm a word person, so something like this really appeals to me. I thought I'd try it out for 2017 since 2016 just makes my stomach turn a bit.

I know it may be a cliche, but 2016 was fraught with hard times. We helped friends and family through some tough stuff this year including marital turmoil, career disappointments, miscarriage, death, illness, dreams deferred (shout out to my man, Langston Hughes for that phrase). It seems like every month we were walking a friend or family member through something tough. Add to this our own dose of difficulties, a toxic election cycle, and contentious current events. My highly empathetic self is just depleted. I feel like I've been holding my breath for an entire year. My shoulders and back ache, and I find myself having to deliberately unclench my body. So, my phrase for 2017 is Keep breathing.

On going home

Today I drove back to my hometown, Columbus. My parents no longer live there, and my grandma has passed on, so it's been awhile since I've been back. Today my visit was a somber one. One of my first friends from when I moved there in the seventh grade, my college roommate--lost her mom too soon. Today we celebrated her full, fun life.

Driving home

Just like death has a way of digging up the bones of old memories, so does place. Things I hadn't thought about in years suddenly became vivid recollections as I turned off the highway:

Yesterday I ran away

This last week was ROUGH.

My work schedule was slammed with students. As a writing coach, I meet with students one on one to help them improve their writing skills while empowering them to understand the rhetorical situation and make their own smart choices. It becomes mentally and physically draining when I'm logging almost 6.5 hours of back to back contact time with students four days a week. I usually have Fridays off, but instead, I went in to work for a few hours to meet the needs of my students.

Thursday my husband came down with the cold/sinus/blah junk that I had a few weeks ago.

On Friday night while attending a play that a friend of mine was directing, I got word that my great-grandma passed away. I have beautiful memories of her from when I was a child. She lived a long, full life, but death has a way of dredging up unexpected emotions.

Saturday my husband and I spent much of our day trying to diffuse tantrums.The bedroom walls endured their usual beating from our kids' unspoken emotions--likely frustration with our boundaries, sadness at all the loss they've endured, confusion about who to be mad at. A sense of helplessness reverberated throughout our house. The last tantrum stretched on until 10:30 PM, and my husband and I collapsed soon after, our conversation about solutions always cut short by sleep.

On Sunday morning I picked my son up from Sunday school and the volunteer teacher reported, "We had some problems with him today. He wasn't listening and the other kids were saying that he said bad words. You might want to fix it." I know she has no context of our situation, but her words were just another reason to call myself a failure as a parent.

Yesterday I ran away.

Favorite Things #4

It's been a while since my last favorite things post, but today is perfect for one because I'm hitting a serious case of writers block. My schedule at work has been nuts and our kids are having a tough time this semester, so when I get time to write, I'm usually zapped. But I like thinking about my favorite things and sharing them with y'all. So, here's what I got this month:

I quit my full-time job, but I'm not a failure

I've made some terrible choices in the last 30 years. The 90s were a decade of poor choices for me--I mean, JNCO jeans, body glitter, and white tube socks with Doc Marten wanna-be sandals?!? My poor choices expand beyond fashion and reach into more significant realms like alcohol consumption and $0.25 tacos at dive bars. Fortunately, I've managed to wise up with age and have made a myriad of good choices, but the one resonating with me the most lately is my decision to step away from teaching.

Now hold up: If you're expecting one of those rant-y, passionate here's-why-I-left-teaching letters, this won't be it. Helping young people engage with the world around them, uncover gems of wisdom from quality literature, and walking with them during tough moments was AMAZING. I loved lesson planning and learning how to more effectively manage my classroom. I loved how political and challenging teaching could be. It was my calling...until I became a mother to two high-needs children.

Social media fast: Update #2

Five years ago, a colleague explained that a week earlier she and her family were hiking in the Rocky Mountains;when they reached the top of the mountain, the first thing she did wasn't to take in the beauty of God's creation. Instead, she admitted to pulling out her phone and writing a Facebook status about the hike while her husband and daughters gazed at the scenery from the top of the trail without her. This was a defining moment for my colleague, and since then, she hasn't had a social media presence. It's a conversation that has stuck with me for five years.

With Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, I've documented many moments through pictures and brief bits of narrative, but I can't help but wonder how much I've actually missed in an attempt to document each moment. How many sunsets have I viewed through the lens of a crappy camera phone? How much time have I lost with my kids because I've been busy posting about them on Facebook? Social media has encouraged us to document lots but miss out on even more.

Social media fast: Update #1

It has been 11 days....11 treacherous days without social media. Here's what I'm learning:

FOMO is more than a stupid acronym. It's REAL. SO REAL!!!! I texted a friend on day two and told her that I felt so out of touch with reality. She replied, "See the interesting thing is that you are more in the real world now..." I wanted to tell my friend to go to hell for being so wise. I wanted to tell her that the real world sucks...it's boring. I want the virtual world full of funny memes and entertaining stories. Honestly, I'm struggling to get my brain accustomed to more "silence." When I kicked myself off Facebook and Twitter, I shoved aside a constantly updated news feed of what my friends were up to, headlines from NPR and The Atlantic, articles from the many parenting blogs I follow, and lots of other worthless crap. On day five my husband asked me if I heard about Trump's latest crazy comment, and I realized that I hadn't read a single piece of news in five days. Because I'm also on my summer vacation, I'm not getting my two hour a day NPR fix during my commute to work. I had no idea what was going on in politics, world news, or state news. Apparently the Olympics has started.....I was a few days late to that party.

Laundry: Honoring the Women Who Came Before Me

My mother reserved laundry for the weekends. My brother and I would have to haul our dirty laundry from our bedrooms on the third floor of our old, old Victorian-Farm style home to the unfinished basement. Our staircase leading from the main floor to the upstairs was curved and enclosed by walls that seemed to be holding their breath, so sometimes we'd just throw the piles down the staircase and collect the stragglers as we walked to avoid carrying the piles down the narrow staircase. The trek from our bedrooms to the basement seemed like a never-ending journey.

On turning 30

I'm 26 days away from my 30th birthday, and I'm feeling nostalgic.

Maybe it's because 30 is almost close enough for me to reach out and touch; maybe the nostalgia comes from listening to bands I listened to in high school that have evolved and taken on mature sounds and themes. Or, maybe my reflection is spurred from my recent lunch with an old friend from my college days, during which we kept saying, Who would've thought this is where we'd be ten years ago?! Perhaps it's a combination of all of these things. For whatever reason, today I'm reflecting on the changes I've experienced in the last twelve years.

In my younger days, I could not study or write in the quiet spaces of libraries or my home. I had to trek out to a bustling coffee shop or a park filled with families if I had any chance of being productive. The lively nature of these places energized me. Now these places are too distracting. I sat at a local coffee joint last week and tried to pound out a post, but the conversations swirling around me were loud and pulled my focus away. It was over-stimulating, and I left feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. It was only when I spent time reading in my rocking chair at home that I was able to regain my composure. Today I spent some time writing in the quiet library where I work as a writing coach. The quiet energized me. Now I'm finding pleasure in the spaces right at my fingertips.

Only five years ago I was teaching high school English in Ogallala,on the brink of finishing my MA in English, and making back-up plans for what I'd do if I could never become a mother--things I could do to dull the pain of a dream out of reach. Doctoral programs, a move out of state, trying for a job as a curriculum director, applying for a summer internship at NPR. It was a difficult time in my life, but it was exciting to think about the possibilities. It gave me a break from dwelling on what might never be. And now I'm a mother to two kids we adopted from foster care (something I said I'd never do) working part-time to give me more time to spend with the kids I never thought I'd have.

About twelve years ago, I fell wildly in love with my husband and thought it was impossible to love a person more. Ten years into our marriage I'm realizing that despite the argument we had last night, I love him more today than I did twelve years ago. There is an attraction I feel now to my husband that moves beyond the boundaries of a physical connection. He has seen me at my absolute worst and still chooses to crawl into bed with me at the end of each day. After ten years of marriage, infertility, parenting, and the impact of age on a body--he still chooses me even though society says it would be okay if he chose someone else.

There have been growing pains for sure, but these changes seem necessary and good and worth the pain. And for the first time in the last year, 30 doesn't seem so scary...

The story our actions tell

I have a serious sugar addiction that I blame on my mother and my grandfather. Before I had children, I could happily indulge in candy and ice cream in my living room at 4:30 in the afternoon. Now that I have children, I have to sneak my sweets (I am too selfish to share them with my kids, #FoReal).

This is what it looks like when I eat a box of chocolates....

I swear--my kids can hear me opening a tiny box of Nerds from across the damn house because EVERY TIME I am about to eat their Halloween/Valentines/Easter candy, in the privacy of a locked bathroom, they come a running from the depths of their basement playroom, yelling, "MOM! WHAT ARE YOU EATING?!" Now that I'm a mom, my behavior (and my sugar addiction) simply is not overlooked.

On Bravery

Here's a bit of a confession for the day: I am a worrier...a brooder...a dweller...a nervous Nelly.

I don't know where this stems from since my parents seem to be fearless and for as long as I can remember, I've been performing. Throughout elementary school I was a competitive gymnast and had no problems flipping and jumping and balancing in front of a crowd. I loved the thrill of performing. I remember watching my older cousin's volleyball games and doing back handsprings and cheers on the sidelines simply because I LOVED being watched by a crowd. In middle school I bravely donned my olive green cargo pants and crop-topped Calvin Klein baby doll shirt to sing "Hit Me Baby One More Time" in front of the entire student body (DON'T JUDGE). In high school, I performed in musicals and ran varsity track--getting a thrill at each round of applause and sound of a starter's gun. I even gave a speech at my high school graduation in front of nearly 300 of my peers and even more of their friends and family. Like most folks, I remember the proverbial butterflies before public performances, but I don't remember freak-outs prior.

Maybe time has just given me a set of rose colored glasses (has it really been twelve years since I graduated?!), but I feel like my sense of nervousness has increased post high school.