I don’t know where I belong…but I can write a song.       –The Lumineers

I sat across the table from my friend a couple of weeks ago, before the holidays kicked into high gear, and we discussed life. And death, unfortunately, since Newtown came up, and she said something that got all up in my face with its simplicity and truth. Something I wish I had thought of myself, but had never articulated, but then that’s why we have each other, isn’t it? To shine light on the words that we can’t find on our own.

She said that maybe we weren’t meant to bear every person’s burden, because people were talking and posting about the tragedy to the point of apparent obsession–ceaseless expressions of despair and hopelessness–and she said it was just too much for her, and I agreed. “Maybe we weren’t meant to carry that much around, ” she said, and continued that when it comes to the people we live in community with, that bearing each other’s burdens may look different and be heavier than it does when it comes to people we don’t know personally–and that’s okay. There are practical expressions of support, and there is emotional weight, and sometimes we focus on one at the expense of the other. And sometimes we just need to send help where we can, then stop and look awhile at those around us, and in doing so, let go of a weight we weren’t meant to bear.

Our talk was freeing, because there is a deep distrusting piece of me anyway that sees all those posts and wonders whether they’re really just about the people writing them. Why dwelling on it seems like the noble thing to do. Why there are so many ways to interpret “no man is an island”. My counselor once reframed my perspective by telling me that often our family is not defined by blood, but by the people with whom we walk in the Gospel every day. Which I love for many reasons, only one of which is that there are plenty of people who are walking in the Gospel and don’t even know it yet. And it just makes sense that we would love family differently than we love strangers. It makes sense that we don’t have to carry the world on our backs if He has it in His hands.

I think we feel better, more accomplished, when we try to carry it ourselves. But there are the moments, more often than not, when we aren’t called upon to bring about drastic change; instead, we are meant to decorate our corner of the world with whatever gift we’ve been given. And in doing so, we set in motion a redemptive process that does change everything.

The Husband and I were gifted a date night by The Mom and Dad, and we went to hear the Atlanta Symphony’s Christmas Pops Concert. As a choir full of school children sang behind the orchestra and familiar holiday tunes filled the air, I felt thankful for music and the people who create it. I can’t play an instrument since my days of piano lessons ended, and I’m not quite as good a singer in reality as I am in my fantasies, and I often rue my lack of talent in this arena: what gifts I might have bestowed upon the world, what beauty is now missing! Then I come back to Earth and decide to leave it to the professionals before me, and I hear the real beauty. And I am changed by what others have done.

Our American Christian church, in all its opulence and tax deductiveness, is excellent at the administration of gifts, at sending people to faraway places and “saving” those they find there. And while God sets no geographical limitations on our generosity, and so neither should we, I wonder how much of our own gifts are lost in our perception of appropriate giving. Could I volunteer more? Could I give more? Yes and yes. And one day as I thought about quantifying my shortcomings, a friend sent an email discussing a joint writing venture and how thankful she was for the redemptive effect it had on her life, how  grateful she is that God can use words to change lives and that this is the specific work he allows us to share. What a gift. Have you thought about what yours is? We all have one, you know.

Because sometimes, often even, he calls us to do. But there are also times when he calls us to be. And redemption can come through both.

At the end of my Christmas Eve spin class (#humblebrag), the kindly sixty-something instructor mentioned the difficulty of the past few weeks and he said, “I thought this song might be fitting.” The strains of a ukelele filled the room, followed by the words to “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” I left the gym holding back tears, feeling sad and the urge to cave in to hopelessness, and then I remembered my family waiting at home. How I walk through grace with them daily and messily, how their love gives me the courage to find words and use them. How there’s even one who walks in so much grace that he indulges not just my words, but even my singing every night before I put him to bed.

I’m not good at empathy. Never have been. It actually took having a kid to drill that quality into my heart, an extreme measure on God’s part to empty me of myself, but maybe he was running out of options? At any rate, empathy runs right alongside sleeplessness and frequent illness and all-consuming love as side effects of childbearing, and I felt it overwhelmingly on Friday afternoon, when I looked up from teeth and at the office TV to see the news out of Connecticut.

I had already thrown up on the floor at work that day (see aforementioned “frequent illness”), so bursting into tears didn’t break my seal of humiliation. I’ve never wanted to leave work so badly–and trust me, that’s saying something. When I walked up to the door at The Kid’s daycare and saw him playing in the exersaucer, characteristic head tilt and grin present, I cried again. Sometimes gratitude doesn’t have to be tracked down.

Then, in characteristic form for me, I headed home and embarked upon some cynicism and taking-for-granted. Though I, like all of you, resolved to be more grateful and hug loved ones more tightly, I checked Facebook and Twitter first and walked away wishing that both social networks would take a collective moment of silence. I realize this sounds disingenuous coming from someone who writes a weekly blog ABOUT HERSELF, but I found the status-updated attempts at catharsis to border on self-indulgence. How can you summarize tragedy in one hundred and forty characters or less? I just wanted to be quiet. So I was–and proceeded into my weekend, recovering from illness as TK embarked upon his, and felt sad and undeserving for a couple of days as I struggled to be grateful (secret: struggling doesn’t achieve it) and just felt irritable and heavy-hearted.

Part of my irritation, I realized pretty quickly, was that everyone was seeking an immediate answer. Or trying to tritely provide one. Arming teachers vs. taking away everyone’s guns. Posting prayers vs. denouncing God’s existence. Such extremes by well-intentioned people. Then the bouts of name-calling and blame-placing (really, people? if you own a gun you’re complicit in the tragedy? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, back away from the soapboxes!). I follow Ricky Gervais on Twitter (or should I say, TK does?) for two reasons: he’s funny and he’s an atheist. I’m not (either?), but I feel an inclination to hear from people who are. Gervais is on a life path that led him to his belief system (and make no mistake, atheism is a belief system too), and I have been convicted lately of how each of us is such: a product of experiences that have led us exactly where we are. Which is to say that judgment and name-calling are so laughably hypocritical and counter-productive because were it not for the direction of God or Xenu or your self-willed control or whatever you believe in, you could be that person you sneer at. So can I submit that we take away our judgment of The Other Side and really examine this?

The hashtag #notpowerless was trending on Twitter yesterday, and that personified my frustration with all these pithy responses to the tragedy. Because here’s the thing: we sort of are. Powerless, I mean. I’m not suggesting we all crouch in a defeatist fetal position in the corner and give up on life; quite the opposite. But if any of us aspires to a form of hope in this lifetime, we must open our eyes and face facts about the position we’re in: broken people in a broken world. An evil surrounds us that will not be vanquished by making new laws or changing old ones. And here’s the thing: it’s always been around. You think the world is getting scarily violent just now? It always has been. War has always been a part of this planet’s landscape, and it rears its head in myriad forms, from guillotines to atomic bombs to movie theater rampages. Evil loves to capitalize on brokenness, and it never runs out of weapons.

But redemption loves to heal brokenness. And I believe it gets the final word.

To think that we can solve our ultimate problem on our own, through solely practical measures, is to choose blindness, to walk among the carnage with our hands over our eyes. You can’t heal a heart by placing a gun in a teacher’s hand or taking one away from a hunting enthusiast. Evil is looking for a way in always; it is insidious and unyielding and if we have only our own resources, the ones we can see and control, to save us, then we are screwed indeed.

Control is not the opposite of helplessness. How can it be when it’s an illusion at best? Do you know how many people you walk past each day who have a hidden agenda? Do you really believe there’s a way to legislate ourselves into peace, or enough pillows needlepointed with Bible verses to hide behind until the storm is over? We need more. If the outrage we feel in our hearts tells us anything, it’s that easy answers are not enough.

I believe faith is the opposite of helplessness, the antidote to it, and I respect your stance if you disagree. But here’s the thing: if you have questions, or doubts, or outrage, then you’re already more at home in faith than you know. It’s the offerers of simple solutions and trite prescriptions who haven’t stumbled upon real truth yet. The ultimate resolution to all this mess can’t be summed up by a status update or a framed proverb; it is a story, a narrative that unfolds over the halls of time, and it doesn’t insult our need for meaning by showing up on Twitter. And if that story does hold the answer, doesn’t it stand to reason that it’s big enough to operate outside the limitations of my current understanding? Do I have the wisdom to be willing to wait for it to be fully revealed, even as the world groans and heaves with heart-wrenching pain?

It comes back to the question, I guess: What if there’s more? What if the longing we have for good to win, the need we have for things to be set right, what if that comes from somewhere and is headed somewhere? What if we must live in constant grief/joy, defeat/triumph because we’re in the middle of it all? Maybe I’m not as cynical as I think; maybe I’m just done with short, easy answers. I want the story. Because there’s this:

What if the story isn’t over yet?

The Kid is going to have surgery on his neck. Because of the way he was stuffed into my ute, all crunched in and upright, his left side didn’t have as much room to grow as his right. Specifically, the left side of his head and neck (don’t worry, both sides of his jewels are HUGE). So he wore the helmet for a good six months and now his head is a beautiful sphere–that tilts cutely to the left at nearly all times. Which is cute for pics, but bad for life. No one wants to pass the ball to the guy with his ear on his shoulder, amirite?

After nine months of court-ordered exercises, we heard the dreaded S word from his trusted physical therapist. So we went for a consult with the surgeon. I knew what he would tell us; I mean, hello, TK’s head was cocked from the moment we walked into that office. But I still had to allow myself a grieving period when it became final that, at the end of next month, they would be putting my baby to sleep for a (fifteen-minute) procedure that involves cutting and tearing and sewing.

Then I remembered that there’s something else that involves those activities. And it’s called life. And since grace is my surgeon, I don’t have to stay sad about this or anything.

Can he get by without surgery? No. Will you agent my book and have it published within the year? No. Can I get married at the age of twenty-five and have two kids before thirty? No. (And, you’re welcome.) There are times when I look back over my thirty-five years and all I can see is a series of negative responses to the hopes I had. For awhile, those Nos made me question God’s goodness, even his existence. He was being so mean! But hindsight is quite the window-washer, and as I look out of mine right now, surrounded as I am by a home and family that I love, I’ve learned to be a little more okay with No.

Because, really, all No is? Is a step to a greater Yes. All the trite answers and quick fixes I used to long for, they were just my efforts to feel whole by filling a hole. (Don’t be gross now.) Nos led me to New York City, to The Husband, to The Kid, to friendships and stories and this. The partnership that grace forges with me is not about trite answers and quick fixes; it’s about something so much bigger that I don’t even know the half of it yet. But I get glimpses: sometimes from a post with my Soul Sister, sometimes in a shared laugh with TH, sometimes over a shit-filled diaper, sometimes in the reflection of the Christmas lights in TK’s wondering eyes. All I know is that if it took No to get me here? I can live with that.

I am currently being tossed about my life on waves of Nyquil and Tylenol Cold & Sinus, walking around in a haze of congestion and sore throat. And I’ve thrown up twice now, in my hand and on the floor, after coughing spasms that made me miss morning sickness. In between the retching and the snotting, I pray that I got this from The Kid because if it ends up going the other direction, we’re all screwed.

Speaking of him: since his conception last year, I’ve been sicker than I’ve ever been, the weight of carrying then sustaining a human being bearing down on me with ferocious intensity, the self-centeredness of my former life squeezing out drop by painful drop. One of you called it being “properly broken” and to that I say, damn straight. I am broken to bits but, as I look at that face that looks more like The Husband and me each day, I remember what grace teaches and what I believe: that brokenness is never an epilogue, but always a foreword; the good stuff happens after.

That truth is easy to see in a nearly-one-year-old’s wondering eyes and soft skin; it’s a bit harder when you’re picking up your eighty-five-year-old grandmother from her current assisted living residence and engaging in a constant loop of conversation covering information she has always known until now. Names, places, events, over and over. I listened to The Mom patiently repeat herself for hours as her own mother, right there with us, continued to slip away. We gave her multiple tours of the house she has visited countless times. She held The Kid with TH and I sitting sentry on either side. There were moments of levity that she would have enjoyed a few years ago, laughs we would have good-naturedly had at her expense but let her in on and she would have chided us for being vulgar while grinning herself: when she gazed at the green Publix reusable bag and exclaimed, “What a pretty sack!” or looked upon TK playing with his toys and marveled at “such colorful balls!” or when The Mom, seeking medicinal support, gave her a glass of champagne and she sipped it and said, “Delicious! Now what do you call this again?”

I had to laugh, because the other option was tears and if I let them start I had no certainty they would ever stop.

The one thing we can always seem to be sure of is that the good stuff ends. Health deteriorates, order crumbles, dust gathers, and we are forever picking up pieces of the world and each other. How damn depressing is that?

I caught up with a dear friend last week as I huffed and puffed and pushed TK uphill in his stroller, and she told me that she and her family are finally leaving New York. It’s time. The party always has to end.

But. What’s really the end? If we’re all just settling down and winding down and wearing down, why do we even bother? If dirt is our final destination, what matters anyway?

We dropped her off later that afternoon, and as the change of hands took place between us and her caretakers, I was reminded of dropping off TK at daycare every day. About all the ways we’re called upon to take care of each other, about how so many of those ways involve putting our trust in someone else. About how life winds down but also begins again, the weight of its newness both reminding us of our weakness and making us something we never were before. About how love never leaves us the same, and never gets old.

The Mom and I headed home, quiet and sad and feeling surrounded by no-win options. Then we walked through the door and there were The Dad and TH, and TK was pulling himself up on the chair, headed towards walking. Falling down every time except for the last time, when he won’t.

In the hidden corners of my mind, where I often see sugarplums dancing, I also have visions of the Me I want to be–the Me I secretly believe myself to be. She is equal parts Martha Stewart (the non-jail version), Ina Garten (the lightweight version), Mother Theresa (the not-so-old version), and a fashion plate.

She does not exist. On me or anyone else.

But the aspirations are still there. So, when I had gotten a pass on hosting duties for the past couple of years due to bed rest and then as the sleepless owner of a newborn, I knew that my first group dinner at our house would have to kick ass. Or at least not totally flounder and end in food poisoning. My standards, they are high. I wisely chose to keep the menu simple and familiar, but that didn’t keep me from cooking all day and throwing the vacuum around like a rag doll. When all was said and done, everyone left full and happy (though I have a family full of bullshitters, so who really knows for sure?).

And me? I was exhausted. And a little buzzed.

I write a lot about being a recovering approval-holic, but there is the occasional relapse. I want people to perceive me a certain way. I want to appear capable, intelligent, put-together. Which makes me sometimes, in the effort, forget Who put me together. I want the perfect meal, the perfect house, the perfect lighting, the perfect picture of my life. Meanwhile, people just want to eat. Especially The Kid, who doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about whether his food is homemade or organic or featured on Pinterest.

I don’t want to create a home life where perfection is the honored guest. I don’t want to set the scene for The Kid in a way that he never encounters Confusion or Difficulty or Failure, because those are some of life’s greatest professors and I was so afraid of their classes until I stopped trying to audit them. I don’t want my son to make being perfect his goal, to think that is where love resides, because it doesn’t. God showed up in a stable, not a Park Avenue dinner party.

The morning after our hosting was done, I came downstairs to a TH-sponsored dearth of dirty dishes, which gave me a moment to look out the window at the seasonally changing backyard. It was bathed in golden rays, and I remembered that there’s only One who does perfect lighting. Around noon, I took a piece of bread and a shot glass of grape juice from a tray in a gym. It was supper. It was perfect.

The Husband just cannot seem to get over my betrayal of our formerly shared horror affinity, and will talk to anyone who will listen about it. At least that’s the way I interpreted his recounting of a conversation he had at work the other day, a conversation whose end result was his admission that I’m not the only woman who can no longer handle scary stuff, at least according to female coworkers and wives of male coworkers. Mothers all.

Last night I begrudgingly accompanied TH to the neighbors’ annual haunted house. And by begrudgingly, I mean I was a major asshole about it: deep guttural sighs, zipping up boots angrily, arms crossing and glares thrown. “You don’t have to go, you know. I can just be the creepy adult who shows up alone,” he said, and I snapped, “I want to do it for you,” because I’m nothing if not a model wife. After a few complaints about my back and work day, we walked around the corner and beheld the neighbors’ front yard, a.k.a. entrance to the haunted house, where a china doll sat in a tiny rocking chair staring at a TV as a creepy female voice intoned over ghoulish music. “I just can’t,” I said to TH, my resentment converting to fear, and I waited outside for him.

We returned home, where he manned door duty as I sat on the couch, avoiding the crowd. This is why we work well, TH and I: his accommodation of my introversion/moodiness with his innate friendliness. During a ten-minute stint when he had to step away, I counted the seconds until his return, coupling my countdown with a running commentary on our door traffic: “Did you hear that jerk? He asked if he could have a Reese’s because it’s his favorite. Like I offered him a menu! That kid tried to take two! Kids these days are ridiculous. When are you coming back? I hate this.” TH rescued me, a pattern in our relationship, and I returned to the couch from where I could roll my eyes unobserved. The explosive finale came when a neighbor asked if her preteen son could use our bathroom. TH let him in while I gritted my teeth at people’s lack of boundaries. And then…blessed quiet.

TH is an introvert too, but the nicer sort who doesn’t assume everyone is out to pick his pocket or take advantage of him (thanks a lot, Dad and heredity). So he reconciles me to society, forces me out of my comfort zone, and gives me room to breathe by clearing the path ahead when he knows it’s all too much for me. It’s a mission that The Kid has unwittingly signed on for too, one he’s already making strides at: I can no longer remain unmoved by disaster footage or horror movies or long-distance commercials. My emotions, formerly hidden under layers of sarcasm and concealer, are now, always, just beneath the surface, a river ever threatening to flood. He connects me to the world in a way I never asked for or expected; he takes me from spectator to participant as I man the path around him. And at nearly eleven months, as the days and grins have stacked on top of each other, the cumulative effect of his meaning can be overwhelming–tears for no apparent reason, love that alternately warms and burns–but it is helping make me who I am meant to be. It is a gift. It is grace.

My family, a group more comfortable trading jabs than sweet nothings (thank God, because I don’t speak Sweet Nothing), likes to recall a time when I was about eight and frustrated with people (read: them) always being around. “I want to be LONELY!” I finally yelled, trudging off to my room as The Parents laughed at my mixup of that word with alone. In New York I found a place where I could be alone but not always lonely, surrounded by people all the time. But now we’re back in the ‘burbs, and I have TH and TK around to keep me showing up for this gig called life, and I don’t get to be alone. And even when I’m scared, I don’t have to be lonely. A little girl came to our door last night and told TH about the decorations he masterfully assembled, “Your house is spooky.” He laughed, and as she grabbed her candy and bounded down the porch steps, she threw back, “But I’m not scared of it!” Little girl, I’m getting there too.

Are pumpkin lattes worth all this mess?

My health has undergone a trio of hits recently (and I’m only a fan of one threesome), though I suppose it’s only fair to blame one of them on the weather change. First, there was the form of revenge that would have made Montezuma proud. Then came the news last week that I had developed a fun little ovarian cyst (a condition easily solved with Sandra Fluke-levels of birth control). Shortly after I popped that pill I came down with a chest cold that leaves me gasping for air as if I’m Honey Boo Boo’s mom on a treadmill. Oh, and I just stubbed my toe.

Meanwhile, the neighbor next door lost his wife on Friday to a combo platter of Alzheimer’s, double strokes, and a brain hemorrhage. The cars line the street as I cough. And breathe. And try to remember that this life is a gift for which I am never grateful enough.

I think about it often, their long marriage ending as The Husband and I have just begun our family, our story next door. I think about it when I am tempted to think about other things, like hopping into the car and driving down to the beach without telling anyone, especially when the sun hasn’t yet risen at 7 am but I have, hiking The Kid up on my hip and making his bottle and feeling oh-so-tired and put upon by all the things I prayed for, all those years. I am tired and rundown, yes, but I am here. Here, where I wanted and waited to be for so long. And then I remember that the beach getaway wouldn’t work because my two favorite people wouldn’t be there, and what’s the fun in driving three hundred miles without coos from the backseat and someone else’s soda to steal sips from?

I am in danger every day of ruing the life I was made to live as a story.

On Sunday morning, TH and I dressed TK and ourselves in cute outfits and shoved Puffs into the diaper bag and TK into his carseat, bib-clad because if he wasn’t he would puke all over the jumper RC gave him, and we drove to a pretty park to have our picture taken. At first, the smile felt fake–I hadn’t slept the night before, TK was starting to act like an asshole, the light was in my eyes, my diamond shoes were too tight. Then they took a shot of The Niece planting a kiss on TK (after she had been bribed with food), and just after the click TK screamed and threw himself back onto the blanket in tired, angry tears. What a mess, I thought, checking my watch. Then they showed me the picture.

It wasn’t a mess. It was just right. And it had been the whole time.

Parenthood changes you, man.

Or maybe it’s not even fair to blame it on parenthood; maybe it’s the rearranging of priorities brought about by parenthood but not limited to just that enterprise, but anything that results in the relegating of self to a much lower rung on life’s ladder, in the recognition and breaking of fearful patterns, in the redefining of words like safety and love and best. Whatever the case, I will not be watching American Horror Story this season (what, you expected a different revelation?). The Husband keeps asking if I’m “suuure?” with a disappointed gleam in his eye, but I know what I can handle these days. Or more to the point, what I can’t. I don’t need to feel any more helpless or afraid than I’m already inclined.

It’s the same reason why, the other day, I remembered that movie The Village and thought, “I totally get that now.” Who could have a protective instinct so strong you would consider building an actual fence to keep the terrible world away from your children? (I’m typing with one hand as I raise the other.) But fences usually come crashing down at some point, don’t they? At least all the ones I’ve ever built have.

I’m an introvert, which is a personality trait but also an excuse to fold up into myself like an origami model and run from the world, all INTJ and scared. The space I occupy within my own head has curtains and wall hangings and everything, I spend so much time hiding there, and fear can be all too easy to nurse when you’re on the lam. I like life to be packaged into manageable, well-ordered, mystery-free segments of time; or, like I told TH yesterday, “I can be flexible! Within a rigid framework that allows me an inch to express my flexibility.”

But life, and grace, like to pull the well-placed-and-vacuumed rug right out from underneath me from time to time, because who am I if not a believer forgetting to stand on the Rock?

Just a week ago, I was burying my toes (and, arguably, head) in the sand. I ventured into the crystal water of the Gulf and handed TH my stuff and floated beneath the surface for a minute, the rolling waves washing over instead of into me, and I thought about how much of life is letting go. How surrender can be an act of bravery. Apropos of something, because three days later I was curled into a fetal position on my bed, jumping up every few minutes to recreate Niagara Falls in my toilet, the victim of a stomach virus. And my soul sister emailed and called a spade a spade, or in this case a forced Sabbath, and I thought, “Oh you. You again, grace. You may be amazing, but you’re also sneaky!” And I let sickness do what fear tries to prevent, which is, cancel my plans and expose my weaknesses. I leaned more heavily on TH. I didn’t put dinner on the table. I reeked. I kept some distance from The Kid. I became unreliable to people who were depending on me (don’t worry, it was mainly just work people and they had it coming). My greatest fears realized, and I survived.

I’m beginning to see the kinship between effort and fear, the secret agreement they have with each other that allows effort to cover for fear, to be its louder and more accomplished form. I know how quickly anything good can be turned bad, really, the way milk is fresh one minute and spoiled the next, the way this world can poison the best intentions then pave the road to hell with them (seriously, where is that fence, M. Night?!). How my diamond shoes can be too tight and too much sunlight hurts my eyes and sacrifice can turn into martyrdom. Your generosity may look prettier to the world than my boundary-setting, but have you any idea how hard it is for me to stand up for myself, how doing so is negating a lifelong trajectory of fearful agreeability?

What I’m saying is that we’re all more motivated by fear than by grace. And sometimes the bravest thing may look like the weakest–I can remember one time in particular in history when it did. Grace allows for broad definitions, sometimes even individual ones. And miracles and life don’t just occur on top of water; often they are embedded in splinters of wood.

Trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with planks of thanks. Remembering frames up gratitude. Gratitude lays out the planks of trust. I can walk the planks–from known to unknown–and know: He holds.  (Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts)

TK and I have had a standing date for the past few days on our hammock in the backyard. I swing us as he is nestled up next to me, eyes wide at all the trees standing tall around us, doing their thing as we do ours. Yesterday, TH joined us and there we were, our family of three, hands holding each other instead of hanging on for dear life. The surrender of being held.