Birthday Drama

I read this blog today and it actually brought tears to my eyes. It was almost as if she jumped into my head and wrote out my thoughts from the last two weeks.

I turned 30 almost 2 weeks ago. Yes, a milestone birthday. No, not something I dreaded. I actually was looking forward to getting out of my 20's - I kept saying "The 20's are nothing but drama!"

I have to admit, I have a hard time toning down my expectations when it comes to birthdays. Birthdays were a big deal for me growing up. Coming from a big family, it was the ONE guaranteed day when I got to choose the meal, the dessert, hear others celebrate me. As silly as that sounds, it was special to me growing up. 

This year was a little different, however. Our church was doing a corporate fast from January 8-January 29 in order to seek God and give him the first of our year. I was 100% on board.....and then I found out that the fast fell on my birthday. And not just any birthday, but my 30th birthday. My insides turned and twisted as every selfish fiber of my being tried to find a loophole. I wanted every reason in the world to go all out celebrating this milestone year, but how would that happen if I was fasting every kind of birthday goody?

Because of my strong reaction to not wanting to fast over my birthday and wanting the 25th of January to be ALL ABOUT ME, I felt that it made it even more important to give that day up for God. So I took all my willpower and conceded that I would indeed fast over my birthday this year. 

And then I patted myself on the back. 

As Matt made efforts to plan my birthday - do you want a party? Do you want to go somewhere? What should we do? - I poo poo-ed and pah pah-ed and skirted past every effort. 

When my mom, with all of her birthday traditions in tow, set out to put birthday plans on the calendar, I told her after the 29th. We will do everything after the 29th!

Then my birthday morning came. And went. My husband, parents, and best friends were all working. And as my birthday was ticking away, something nasty was stirring inside of me. When Finn was cranky and irritable, I bathed in my own self-pity. Didn't he know it was his mommy's special day???? As soon as I put him down for a nap that day, I spent not a few minutes pathetically crying into my pillow with extra emphasis on the pathetic. 

This was my birthday. My 30th birthday!! 

My best friend, who knows me so well that even when I say I don't need anything that I really secretly do want something, met me at the mall and gave me the most thoughtful gift. And we talked about how birthdays were always a big deal in our families and that it is hard to adjust to those birthdays when it just doesn't feel special anymore. I got the chance to breathe in that conversation. 

She knows me well!

Pinners and his birthday mama

The next week unfolded pretty undramatically. The fast was broken and on an even better note, I still had many birthday activities to look forward to since I had "postponed". Things were looking up!

The one thing that I was most looking forward was a night in a hotel that Matt had gotten for me. We would go as a family and enjoy the water park, continental breakfast, and the big, fat jacuzzi tub. 

As Matt was driving home that afternoon to quickly pack so we could go, he gets a flat tire. Since he can't get the tire off, I drove across town with Finn to pick him up. As I drive, I can feel the self-pity rearing ugly in my head: "I have been so looking forward to this. I postponed everything and all I wanted was this one night and now everything is postponed even further.....". 

When the highway patrolman that was sitting with Matt was thoroughly rude to me, the load crushes upon my shoulders and mind and the flood of tears breaks through. 

I was sad. And morosely disappointed. 

Long story short, after about 2 hours and gracious help from my mom and step-dad, the car is taken care of and we are on the way to the hotel. It was still a fun night and I am glad that we went......but getting out from a load of self-pity can take awhile. 

My handsome boys

Family splash splash!

I truly feel silly sharing all this, but I think that that is the root of the problem. Wanting to feel special makes me feel silly - because it feels so frivolous. 

I have no one to blame but myself. 

There is this annoying dichotomy in me that screams simultaneously, "I want to feel special!!" and "I don't really need to feel special!" I think what it is is that - stay with me - I want to not want to feel special but want to feel special without wanting it. Does that make any sense at all?

For this reason, I had a hard time articulating that I wanted to feel really special on my birthday - even if we were fasting. For some reason, when Matt asked if I wanted a party, I couldn't say "Yes!" even though I really did want one. Instead I heard myself saying, "No, that's okay...". I found myself envying my friend Emily, who when she turned 30 last year, told her husband, "You'd better throw me a surprise party!". 

I mean, doesn't being honest about the way that we feel make it easier on everyone - especially ourselves? If I had just said, "I want an amazing day and I want to feel thought of and loved and appreciated!", that could have solved the entire issue. 

Through all of this, I think the lesson that I take away is to not shove down or ignore my innate desires or feelings. Shoving them away only makes them boomerang back with more intensity at inopportune times. I need not be ashamed of wanting to feel special. After all, there is nothing wrong with wanting to feel special, especially on one's birthday. 

I think the dramatics might have followed me into my thirties. Ooops.

From the celebration with my mom and step-dad - my mom does birthdays well! She surprised me with a cake and she never ceases to beautifully wrap the gifts

Shoo-ee that's a lot of candles!

Mmmm.....BTS cake.....

Birthday daughter and thoughtful mama

Me and my little rockstar

Gloomy Doomy

Uff-da.

It has been quite a day already; I feel like I have earned my mommy stripes. All day yesterday, Finn was pretty fussy and just not acting like himself. Then, last night, he slept - on average - about 30-45 minute increments. Needless to say, my poor sweet boy was not feeling well and there wasn't a whole lot that I could do about it. And there wasn't a whole lot of sleep being gotten at our house.

This morning, I was up before the sun in order to get ready for church. I was on the worship team and had to be there by 7:30. I tried to do as much as I could to myself before Finn awoke, but didn't get nearly as far as I wanted to. When Finn woke up, it was clear to see that he still was not feeling great. But I nursed him and bathed him and got him ready without much incident.

Except for the part where he pooped in the tub.

But I got him cleaned up, got the tub cleaned up, and got him dressed. As I tried getting ready, I pulled out every trick in my bag to keep him from fussing and wanting to be held. Dancing, singing, handing him things to suck on..............here it was, only 7:15 and I was already exhausted!

On the way to church, I began praying for the service and for my own spirits as they were dragging. The sky was beautiful.....the sun rising in the east was magnificent in the way that its rays were passing through the clouds. But even that wasn't lifting my spirits as it normally would. Off to the west, a dark wall of clouds was making its way into town and it was easy to see that a storm was brewing. Unfortunately, those were the clouds that better matched my mood.

All of a sudden, I saw a rainbow spreading forth against the storm clouds as the song that I was listening to sang, "Love never fails....".

And it hit me that I had a choice: I could either focus on the storm clouds rolling in, or on the rainbow and its representation of the promises of God.

If I focused on the storm clouds, my gloomy, doomy mood would be allowed to take over and the storm could rage on.

If I focused on the rainbow, the shadows of my mood could surrender to the beauty of God's promises. The storm may still come to rage its power, but it could never cause God's promises to falter or fade.

He promises to never leave me or forsake me.
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you." Deuteronomy 31:6

He promises to be my helper.
"For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you." (Isaiah 41:13)

He promises that He has plans for me.
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and future." (Jeremiah 29:11)

He promises that He loves me and that nothing could come between us.
"But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loves us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:37-39)


What was I feeling gloomy about again?

White Piano

There are some days that no matter how terrible they are, can still end well and totally redeem themselves.

That is how yesterday was for me. It kind of felt as though I was trying to swim through water.

You know that feeling........in your mind you are moving your legs as fast as you can, but as your legs try to move through the water, the resistance proves futile. The deeper the water, the greater the difficulty to wade successfully through.

Yesterday it seemed that I started at about ankle deep water and as the day progressed, the water grew higher and higher. The strange thing is that there wasn't any major thing that went wrong. It was just a lot of tiny little things. Every time there was a chance for something to go the way I wanted it to, it didn't.

Like Alexander's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I woke up with gum in my hair, didn't get the dessert I wanted at lunch, got shafted on the tennis shoes I wanted, and had to eat lima beans for dinner. Metaphorically speaking.

And so it went.....all day long......until finally, yesterday afternoon when I was writing a blog, I somehow managed to delete the entire thing. I can't even explain how it happened, which increased my frustration!

On an ordinary day,  I would have been annoyed and disappointed. But yesterday, it was the tiny string of straw that broke the camel's back.

I cried. I went into my bedroom and flat out ugly cried.



And it felt amazing!!! What a release!

Now, the rest of the day wasn't a fairy tale by any means. There were still minor hiccups and headaches. But because of my cathartic ugly cry, I was in a better place to deal with them.

I was ready to concede to the day going down in the history books as "meh", when I was surprised by the ability of a single circumstance to completely turn it around.

We were over at my mom and stepdad's house last night for my nephew's birthday party. And as the party was winding down, my mom sat down at her piano to play.

(this is not my mother, but it is her piano!)

Now let me just say: I LOVE listening to my mom play the piano. It is one of my favorite things on earth. It has the power to instantly bring me back to being a child. So although the white piano room was filled with people playing and talking and consorting noisily.........in my mind I was in my happy place.

I felt immediately refreshed and ready to take on the world once again, lima beans and all.

So the next time that I have a frustrating day, I hope I don't underestimate the chance of an eleventh hour redemption.

After all, there is always hope that things will get better.