Happy Dance

It was mid July when I sat on the edge of the pool with my friend Christina. The afternoon was waning and the heat was fading. I had chosen my cheerleader with care. I was talking to a woman who globe trots around the world offering retreats to missionaries and engages in extreme sports as well as raising successful kids. So, her mind is what I'd call...  tactical and gritty. I said "look I'm not saying I want to be a straight A student, I'm thinking I just take a "pass the class" attitude and get it done. Do you think it's even tenable? I don't know anything about school." After a long measured silence while looking off into the distance with her head tipped in contemplation a slow nod began and a smile bloomed. "Yes, I think you can do it but it will be hard... don't go full time."
Soon I was waking up at 2 AM and doing the dirtiest job I could find. Not really a criteria, just a coincidence I suppose. I had googled what part time job would pay the most for a college education. If you've never googled it, I recommend it. It's quite interesting. Hello UPS. All they asked was that I become a human sacrifice and they would pay for my school. How bad could it be? Whatever you're thinking, it was worse. I've watched countless people not last a week and if I hadn't grown up in a 110 degree hayfield in Arkansas, I would have quit too. On top of it being a truly terrible job, it's a union job. This has pros and cons. The pros are the amazing insurance benefits and... nothing else and the cons are innumerable. The biggest con is that the management has 30 days to either break you or fire you before you become unionized and then they can't fire you without finding a dead body in your car. So Thomas had already let four people go when I showed up and he had no newbies to focus on except me. I could not believe what I put myself through for $11 an hour. It was completely insane. As Thomas focused on breaking me, I focused on school and my plan. I remember when he did finally break me, but somehow finding my end satisfied him and he kept me, probably because I didn't cry. I just offered to quit if that was what he wanted.
Meanwhile the home front was not going well. By that, I mean that the A-Team was in full blown crisis. on at least four fronts if not five... Hazel seemed to be hanging on by a tether.  I have zero desire to go into that but just kind of imagine me at that job giving a hysterical laugh when Thomas threatened to make me cry because the hell he created for me was a relief from home. From September to December I was in a steady and strong decline. Basically a snowball gathering momentum as I plunged down the hill. I had a computer fall on my head causing some weird apparently untreatable injury, home life was still bad, I started having friend trouble and then...they cranked our hours up to over 40 a week. I wasn't quite sure if I was in a pressure cooker or just being deep fried. By January it was do or die. In one day I got the courage to make the college thing happen, I took the placement tests, took the orientation and registered. I wasn't playing around anymore. The counselor was astounded the classes even had openings. One class was full so I joined a waitlist then was added the next day. Then days later I started college.
By the way my home life was still super hard. Crazy hard. A couple of my friendships were even harder. My heart was hard too. I can't think of anything that wasn't hard except Pickles fur.
Around this time Thomas and I had concluded that we definitely hated each other and it turned out to be a benefit because he had no power over me other than to cut my hours (I swear I saw him checking my car for a body), so he did, smugly telling me to come to work a half an hour after the team every day. Which I appreciated since I was enrolling in school. I needed to leave work early two days a week and somehow the center manager Brett found it in his heart to let me. So by some miracle for the first month of school I was only working about 15 hours a week. Silver lining or just God carrying me through such a hard time I can't believe it happened? Definitely God.
School turned out to be quite fun and my teacheres just loved that I wanted to be there at all so I was welcomed with open arms. But it was hard. I cried as I faced the possibilty of failure several times. I stalled until the last possible moment every week, afraid to do things my interior design teacher assigned that I had never done. I really struggled. Then sometime in March or April I realized I was actually probably going to make it through my first semester after all. It wasn't a breakthrough, just a growing change in me.
But also in April I hit a personal low. If you didn't think I could get lower, neither did I until this hit. I could barely function. I tanked into a deep depression. I quit doing my school work. The weight on me was physical. I could barely move. Could not motivate. I was barely going through the motions and then Eden's youth pastor sent me a note saying Eden was worried and she wondered if there was anything she could do. I felt the burn of embarrassment on my cheeks even as I praised God that Eden has someone to confide in who really loves her. And just knowing that I was loved in a most incredibly unlovable time in my life, gave me the tiniest little boost I needed to do hard things and keep trying in life. I climbed slowly and determinedly out of that hole.
Monday was the end of the semester. I have two weeks of Momsummer and one week of summer with the kids then summer semester. I have all A's which is hilarious and surprising and gratifying and empowering. I was also awarded a shocking grant for $1250. I've used the grant for counseling because UPS pays for all of my school and I'm super fucked up. God provides in amazing ways. I also just reached the employment requirements for health insurance through UPS. My family will save hundreds of dollars a month just in premiums and we will also save on healthcare because it's a really nice insurance plan. I also just got a $2 an hour raise which is retroactive to my first day of employment last August. This means I'm hiring a housecleaner to come in once a month because seriously you guys? I JUST CAN'T.

SUMMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mothering now

The sun warmed my back as a cool breeze tickled my skin. I was leaned over my bike handlebars watching Hazel tie her shoe. It was not yet a deft crisp effort, but more of a methodical painstaking process that she patiently applied herself to. It filled me with joy. Her shining blonde head was tipped forward with chin tucked tightly to her chest. Time stood still as I breathed in the moment. And then she did it, the last of the Allen brood could tie her shoes. It settled deeply in my consciousness, the picture of her ice cream smeared fingers and messy hair falling around her shoulders while a diligent brain willed those little hands to new mastery.
As we sailed home from the ice cream shop, a memory of fixing Eden's eyebrows earlier brought bubbles of laughter to my lips. I knew she was egging me on to fix them just so she could video her mother doing one of the most annoying things on earth to send to friends and yet... the need to fix that eyebrow overcame all sense of self preservation. The hilarious snapchat video couldn't wait for me to discover it. She flashed it in my face while her eyes danced with mirth and peals of laughter filled our yard. Celebrating our whole selves is elemental to happiness.
I stood at the counter gathering the orange juice and champagne with Nick at my elbow. He lifted his chin in supplication and said "is there anything I can do to help?" Knowing his heart, my mind grasped for a job to give him and I found myself in a rare moment without an answer. If there's anything I never want to say to Nick it's that I don't need anything, because he simply thrives upon meeting my needs. He leaned into me and our eyes met. I love this boy. He fills me with peace.
Kait plopped into the chair across from me for a chat and I gazed at her poised beauty and her caring eyes but how to reach that soul? Our conversation meandered through trivialities but then I leaned toward her with every fiber of me hoping. Winning the heart of your child and teaching them to bend with the words of wise counsel is not a casually driven art. Finding the ability to hone your emotional intelligence to the angle that hits them just right is tricky at best. I weighed each word, searching for the ones that would work. As I spoke I watched her eyes flicker with annoyance then swing back with surprise. Was I winning? With children it's always too soon to tell. Oh but I pray.

 I suppose the best of life comes upon us without warning and overtakes us like the aroma of lilacs and leaves with a trail of warmth in it's wake.

Perfectly Reasonable Expectations

I stared at the end of semester survey with a glazed expression, a bent aching back and very little will.  The only reason I was filling it out was because it kept popping up when I logged into the college portal and it was slowly driving me crazy. The third question was "What could you as a student have done better?" I felt a little ache inside me as I reflected on my journey through this class. While everyone else in the room had steadily plodded through, never asking questions during lectures and always arriving to class early and prepared, I had put my awkward insecurity on prominent display, skidding into the classroom with stinky armpits and a haze of exhaustion, five minutes late after changing clothes in the car, losing my flash drive halfway through the semester, forgetting my portfolio and always always always asking poor Claudia to repeat herself. I wincingly thought about all of the lectures I missed for my kids and spring break. I cringed as I thought of all of the assignments Claudia had extended deadlines for me. And my answer surpised me.

I wrote "I refuse to be hard on myself. The very act of enrolling in this class was one of monumental courage for me. I spent 21 years avoiding education after not finishing high school. I think I did well."

 And just like that God redeemed the really horrible terrible no good semester of high school that has haunted me all these years.  I'm sooooo glad for this experience because Claudia showed me the proper balance of grace and expectations. She taught with humor and gentle strength. Yes, I'm just so thankful... and I'm glad I did the survey because the other six questions were all about her and I had all good things to say.
I've had a really amazing weekend with my three daughters. They are literally my best friends in the world and I love sharing life with them. It's just amazing to me that God sent them to me. I'm not even kidding, they're willing to eat fancy cheese and watch chick flicks for days. What if God had given me hyper kids that ran around the house screaming and pummeling each other? I don't know what I'd do. My cup runneth over. We went to church today which feels so good after a long break, although we had a come to Jesus meeting afterwards about appropriate attire. 

This morning at church and I had some rocks in my gut but it was good. It was solid. God used the first words to prick my heart and he didn't stop the whole hour. Some of the real highlights were when I was on my broken record prayer of how to trust people and God said to me that trusting in anyone except him was bound to lead to disappointment and I was like oh yeah I forogt you told me that ten million times! And then when I was listing off things that had me all tangled up, He said "hey, you gotta walk the walk, you can't just throw a fit and ask someone else to do all of the hard things." And I conceded that this was not the first time He had told me such things. I went down to pray with sweet Rosie. I told her I have this super unique problem of listening to God, understanding what He's asking of me and then walking away and doing something completely stupid in the heat of the moment in direct contrast to the original plan. I don't think she found it remotely unique, possibly borderline boring if Rosie could ever be bored, which I doubt. So she prayed over me with such wisdom and faith that I felt really optimistic about my problem. And she always ends with this shining light in her eyes and says "please find me when God answers this prayer! I get so excited when people tell me how He took care of it." And that request means something to me because I've hunted her down and told her how He answered before. And it's always unexpectedly perfect. Which reminds me of my funny work stories.

My atheist coworker likes to heckle me about my faith and politics but particularly why I don't pray about things when I'm whining. Like, why isn't the man upstairs listening to me and making the path before me into a golf green. I've always told her I do pray, the answers are just kinda funny and snarky and not what I have in mind so I tend to try not to pray anything super stupid. She didn't really know what I meant until one whiny day while I pittered on about how stinky the clerk was, she suggested I pray that he would shower on Mondays before work, which I stupidly pronounced to be a great idea. 

When I was about halfway through that prayer God replied with "Why don't you make better use of your prayer time by praying for your coworker who had the serious car accident and then pray that you learn to love the clerk better?" 

I felt the sting but wanted to share the humble pie so I passed that little gem of a reply on to the "genius" who suggested the prayer. Her reply was "Touche." 

A few weeks later she suggested I pray that God would send my flash drive back to me. I rolled my eyes and asked her what she thought He'd say. She acted affronted and said "well do you have audience with the man upstairs or not?" I said of course I do and as I've told you, I'm not always in a mood to be humbled. My prediction is that God will say to me "Elizabeth, this lost flash drive is a great lesson for you to learn to be disciplined and organized and to rely fully on me when you start feeling the tunnel vision coming on due to stress that you never should have put yourself through." Again my friend shrugged and laughed and agreed that this was likely the case but as she walked away she said, "Hey it's not like you hate the guy, you just wish he'd shower, you'd think the man upstairs could have a little pity." 

And if there's one thing in this life I've learned, it's that God is not a pitying God. He made us and he literally knows what we are made of and it's pretty amazing stuff. I can honestly say that I could make it through this season of unwashed coworkers and lost flash drives without God's help. Gasp. What I will not make it through, is forgiving my husband and trusting God to help him forgive me. I will not make it through momming without my God. I cannot do friendships without Him. I am incapable of escaping depression without him. I will not ever properly forgive msyelf for all of my failures without Him. Cannot do it. You want to talk about getting wrapped around the axel? It's trying to do all of that stuff without His infinite wisdom and perfect balance of grace and perfectly reasonable expectations.