The Perfect Example of Grace

  

I have been told approximately 500 times during my life that I look just like my mother. I take that as a tremendous compliment considering how good she makes almost-50 look. I know what people are referring to when they draw the comparison: I have my mother's smile, chin, cheeks, mannerisms, and cheery disposition. When we laugh, we crinkle our noses and throw back our heads. When we're nervous, we sound very matter of fact. When we're angry or sad, we become quiet and isolate ourselves. We can take on the world. We've got this. Headstrong. That's my mother. That's me. 

On a warm night in the summer after my sophomore year, I remember slamming the door of an ex boyfriend's truck for what I swore was the last time, tears streaming down my face and a pounding in my forehead. I opened the front door quietly, sliding into our entryway, trying to control my sobs enough to sneak down to my room unnoticed. I heard my mother's voice in the living room up the steps. 

"What's wrong, Jelly Bean?" 

I started to insist that I was fine but my voice cracked - a dead give away. She walked to the stairs, looking at me with the kind of empathetic eyes only a mother can give. She reached her arms out wide. 

"Come up here and snuggle with me." 

She held me there on the couch for more than an hour. She didn't interrogate. She didn't ask what she could do to help. She just held me. She could have been waiting for me to say whatever it was I needed to say to feel better or she could have been waiting for my tears to stop. But maybe she wasn't waiting for anything at all; I think she knew that simply being there was all I needed from her.

My parents have always been, and forever will be, the most beautiful gifts God could have ever given me - the kind of gifts I had from day one, the kind I was born with, the kind I in no way earned - the perfect example of grace. By God's grace, I was raised in a home of guidance, encouragement, growth, freedom, patience, acceptance, and the kind of unconditional love that is so rare in this world. 

To my mother, the woman who read me the first few Harry Potter books out loud before bed each night, the woman who never judged my tears or frustration, the woman who allows me eat half of her sandwich even when her stomach is growling, Happy Mother's Day! I hope to someday provide the same strong, selfless love to my own children.

"No one else will ever know the strength of my love for you. After all, you're the only one who knows what my heart sounds like from the inside." 

Wrapped Up in Happy

Written 4-7-05:

"Someday, somebody is going to ask who I am. By saying my name, they won't hear the true answer. I am a girl who doesn't always have all the right answers, no matter how much she says she does. I am a girl who tends to fall in 'like' quickly, due to a wild imagination. I am a girl who fears getting her heart broken almost as much as breaking someone's heart. I sing what I can't express, write what I don't dare speak, dream of what I've not yet done, and admire those who I will never be. I'm opinionated, bossy, and often times judgmental. I'm working to change what I do not like about myself. I fear being judged, being hated, and failing. All opinions impact my thinking. Thoughts keep me awake in the early hours of the morning. Time is a concept I have yet to understand. I am a young, sophisticated, and often uncertain girl who wants to love how she spends her life. I sometimes wonder where I'll live, who I'll love, and what I'll do. All I can hope for is that I'll be happy, in love, and secure. I value trust, strength, faith, and unconditional love more than anything. I have a tendency to speak before I think, answer rhetorical questions, and trip over my own feet. I can be an overachieving slacker, which sounds like an oxymoron but it's the truth. I can be jealous and I can procrastinate. I'm a contradiction. I want to be unlike anybody else."

I was 16 when I wrote this reflexive statement of who I was, what I valued, and what I wanted. It amazes me that after six years, countless crushes, several first kisses, several last kisses, a few all-nighters, many new friendships, a few faded friendships, and two graduations, I can still see myself in a very similar way. I am very much the same person I was in that moment back in the spring of 2005.

Let me reiterate one point that is especially true to this day, maybe even more so than in the moment it was written: “I am an uncertain girl who wants to love how she spends her life.” I wrote this so nonchalantly but it is a very intense idea - happiness. In the deepest part of my heart, I feel that is exactly what I want. I want happiness. I want to be proud of the life I live. I want to be proud of myself. But what in God’s name does it take to get there? How do I get from here to there? Or am I already THERE? Where the hell is happiness?

I used to think of happiness as a landing point – a destination. Once I got to ultimate happiness, I would surely look back on the past as some sort of dark time. What I am learning more and more is that happiness occurs in the most unexpected, beautiful, fragile moments; the kind of moments that can never be recreated, no matter how badly we wish for them or how much we plan. Happiness may not last weeks or days but there are simple moments, sometimes only seconds at a time, that remind us why this life, often filled with uncertainty and pain, is worth every tear and every heartbreak. Happiness makes up for it all.

Pure happiness. The giggles that play like a soundtrack to any and all of my childhood sleepovers. The chills I felt the first time a boys’ hand touched mine in a dark movie theater. The buzz I felt as I sipped my second beer at a bonfire in the middle of nowhere North Dakota surrounded by people I’d known since preschool. The flutter in my chest I felt as I spotted a familiar face after too many years apart. The freedom I felt on the back roads of Mercer County. The therapeutic smell of home after I had been gone for too long and made choices I wasn’t proud of. The raw emotion I saw as I looked into my sister’s eyes on her wedding day, just knowing that she was marrying her perfect man. The warmth of my mother’s arms as I snuggle up with her on the couch, no matter how old I get. Hearing my dad’s whole-hearted laugh at something only he and I understand. The comfort in knowing that I will wake up tomorrow morning and my best friend will be right there next to me. Those simple moments, no matter how fleeting or seemingly insignificant they may have seemed at the time, are wrapped up in happy.

There is no use trying to create perfect, happy moments. Perfection is impossible. It is much more effective to strive for spontaneity. The most unforgettable moments of happiness will come naturally and they will be speckled with imperfections. Happiness is a strange thing but, in those wonderful moments when you know you feel it - truly happy - make sure to be grateful for whatever caused it.