To the woman begging in Target,
I’m sorry for my downward glance, my mumbled “I’m sorry” when you asked me if I could help. At first, I thought you had mistaken me for a staff person even though I lacked the tell-tale red uniform. But when you showed me the hand-written index card saying, “Please help my family…” I immediately understood.
My garden is sad. Or at least I’m sad about it. But a combination of bad luck and slight neglect is reminding me where my attention needs to be right now.
My garden is feeding a fellow mommy!
I’ve planted corn, broccoli, melon, beans, peas, basil and tomatoes so far. The May rains of Biblical proportions washed away our broccoli seedlings and corn seeds. The first round of bean sprouts failed, along with the melon sprouts. A hungry animal stripped the leaves from the second round of bean sprouts, along with the vast majority of my pea sprouts. (Possibly our resident groundhog – she did that to the sweet potatoes last year.) Hungry birds looking for worms dislodged the sweet potato and few sprouts that remained.
“I want daddy.”
My breath catches in my throat. “Really? You don’t want me to give you a bath?” My voice cracks.
“No, I want Daddy for bath. Daddy, give mommy [Little Bird],” my older son insists.
Sigh. “I’ll give him his bath,” my husband acquiesces and hands me the baby.
I watch as my almost three-year-old (nicknamed Sprout) ambles over to the bathroom, where I usually need to drag him. I’ve always been the one to put him to bed, only relinquishing it to my husband on the rare occasion I’m out of the house. My husband follows him, pulling my son’s monster towel out of the closet on the way.
I didn’t expect it to be like this.
Feeding and taking care of my child is an important, essential job. I need to keep reminding myself of this.
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked how I could keep up the blog with a newborn. That answer was relatively easy; I write on the phone while nursing. But the question he didn’t ask – why I’m keeping up the blog – struck me. There are pat answers involving maintaining my audience and SEO, but if it came down to it, I would ignore them. No, the reason I’ve kept writing is because it feels like important work.
Note: I started this essay before Little Bird was born, but thought I’d finish it off even though the third trimester is now thoroughly over! Content note: pregnancy loss / miscarriage, pregnancy complications
The most dreaded era of pregnancy: the third trimester. But even though it could be a slog at times, my third trimester was also the best part of my whole pregnancy.
Of course, I dealt with a variety of physical discomfort. From retaining enough fluid that my wedding ring hadn’t fit for months to the baby being in possibly the least comfortable positions possible, it was damn painful. I think he enjoyed sitting on my kidneys and doing upside down push-ups on my hip bones. The Braxton hicks contractions – oh, the Braxton Hicks! The “irritable uterus,” where it gets ineffably hard for long periods at a time, made its return. The lack of sleep was a killer, especially the fact that I woke up every time I tried to turn over.
But despite all that, my mental and emotional health was much more solid than it was any other time in my pregnancy.
Yes, the blog has swag! Except that it’s so exclusive that I’m the only one that has it. While I would love to say that t-shirts are here, in reality, it’s a single, amazing t-shirt. For my birthday, my friend Teresa designed and hand screen-printed the most thoughtful gift I’ve received in a long time. She captured so many wonderful things: Max riding on a Wild Thing’s back, the bicycle with a kid’s trailer, and even a baby in the trailer! And the shirt is my favorite color. (Weirdly, it’s much brighter in person.) I was flabbergasted when I opened it.
Astonishingly, it wasn’t the first time I was flabbergasted on this specific birthday. On the actual day of my birthday, I had to be into work a bit early for a conference call. Opening my door afterwards, I almost walked into crepe paper hanging down from it. Then I saw the same someone had brought in brownies and scones. While I was on my call, my friend Natalie had snuck around so quietly that I didn’t hear her at all! It reminded me of the other girls getting their lockers decorated for their birthdays in high school, except no one ever did that for me. So to have someone do it as an adult was terribly sweet and unexpected.
Feeling that support and love from my friends was actually one of the reasons I was so hopeful and confident in the post about my birthday. Especially in a time of big transitions, we’re so blessed to be surrounded by people who love us so much.
I am now solidly in my 30s*. At 32, I was only a couple of years removed from 30, arguably not so old. Although I was the mother of a small child, motherhood still felt terribly new in so many ways. Now I’m the mother of a kid who will be going to preschool in the fall, with another on the way. While Sprout regularly baffles me, I’m still more confident in my own skills than I was a year ago. I have a suburban house, a Prius that is now paid off (woohoo!), listen to NPR on a regular basis (Snap Judgment is sooo good), and read books about cleaning, for goodness sake. I’m practically a walking cliche. And yet, I don’t feel like I’ve sold my soul. In contrast, I think I’m closer to the person I want to be than ever.
Last year, I talked about how I had been able to be open and honest in what would have previously been stressful social situations. This year, even the nagging doubts have faded. On the few occasions I’m hanging out with adults and not literally chasing a toddler, I don’t have energy to waste on being anxious. I’m just relieved for a chance to talk to my friends.
For example, I went to a Hygge party at my friends’ house on Saturday, which is supposed to evoke the Scandanavian feeling of “coziness” and spending time with friends around a fire. While the candles and thick hot chocolate helped, I just felt so safe. Even though I never imagined that I would tell the story of pumping milk on the second floor of a convention center to anyone at all, much less my male friends, I was recounting it without a care. (Previously, the idea of telling any story involving my breasts was horrifying, much less one involving machinery.)
Even my parenting, which I was so sensitive about people judging in the past, has become more low-stress. Perhaps it’s because everyone knows toddlers can be a pain or I’ve tolerated my fair share of tantrums lately (even in public!), but what other people think just doesn’t weigh on me like it used to.
My self-acceptance is only part of my new-found contentment. Another part is that I’m realizing I now have a lot of the things I always wanted. I always wanted to be married and have kids. While everyone is influenced by societal pressure, I also love both of those aspects of life. In terms of my career, my general position is about as close as you can get to a childhood dream. When I was in third grade, I wanted to be a marine biologist studying whales in the summer and a famous novelist in the winter. While my plan lacked a fundamental grasp of how careers worked, science communicator is pretty damn close. And of course, I always wanted to help people. While frustration and occasionally despair sets in when I contemplate how much needs to be done and how little each of us can do, I do know that my paid and volunteer work does “make a difference.”
Looking over the basics of my life, I’m coming to realize that my frustrations aren’t because of foundational problems, unlike some people. I don’t want to throw everything out and start over. Instead, the places that make me wring my hands are issues where I need to tweak things or find a better balance. That’s a hell of lot better than needing to start from scratch.
The visioning work I did earlier in the year helped me gain this perspective. While nothing is fundamentally wrong, I was starting to feel stagnant. Entering my thirties, I was just going along without a lot of thought to plans that wouldn’t pay off for years. We were busy enough with the huge changes involved in buying a house and having a child, not to mention all of the daily tasks in-between, for me to be strategic about the vision for my career or other life goals.
But just planning for the year shook something loose. From bucket lists to visioning documents, I keep coming across tools and prompts to give me momentum. Seeing a path forward is so much more encouraging than feeling trapped. While my to-do list remains a constant – especially getting ready for the baby – it’s now always in service of larger dreams. Keeping the context for all of the things I “need to do” in the front of my mind is much more motivating and less exhausting than doing them for the sake of it.
While I don’t know what the following year is going to bring, I feel more grounded than I have in a long time, perhaps ever. It’s a good place to be.
*This sentence originally said, “I am in my mid-30s.” When I mentioned it to Chris, he protested, “No, mid 30s is 34, 35, 36. You have at least one more year.” Then he paused and added, “Because if you have one more year, then I have one more year.” Indeed.
I already have one of my main New Years’ Resolutions – to simplify. I am quite sick of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and for a variety of reasons, life will become even busier in the next year. While it isn’t even January yet, I’ve already started applying this philosophy to my life, starting with Christmas. I love Christmas traditions, but I’ve decided that these just aren’t worth the effort – at least not this year.
1) Baking cookies for my co-workers. I like giving my co-workers gifts for the holidays, but between federal ethics requirements and my own cheapness, baked goods are the best bet. However, with only two weekends that we’re actually in town, both filled with other holiday activities, finding the time to do this just wasn’t happening. Ideally, baking cookies is a lovely activity to do with your child, but I’m not giving away anything a two-year-old has helped bake. And cramming it into the three hours between Sprout goes to bed and I do just sounds rushed and unpleasant. While I know my boss likes snickerdoodles, he’ll just need to make them himself this year.
2) Sending out Christmas cards. I always feel like a crappy friend when I start getting Christmas cards and haven’t sent any out myself. I was going to do a photo collage this year, but after both CVS and Walgreens totally screwed up our orders last year, even that seemed like too much work. As we’ll be home for two weeks with grandparents eager to babysit, maybe I’ll send out New Years cards. Or maybe not.
3) Being obsessive about buying local/ethically. I am a huge proponent and fan of buying ethically, especially toys and gifts. But as the mother of a young child who doesn’t have unlimited time or energy to flit around in local boutiques (many of whom don’t want a two-year-old pawing their stuff anyway), I just did the best I could. I tried looking in our local Barnes and Noble and at Powell’s Books online for the specific books I wanted, but neither of them had them. So Amazon it was for those items, as much as I hate their lack of corporate responsibility. I reassured myself that 1) at least I tried, 2) individual actions aren’t the end-all and be-all, and 3) by buying thoughtful gifts, there will be less waste altogether.
4) Not buying all of the gifts myself. I still was the one to pick out the large majority of the gifts, but I actually sent Chris out to purchase at least a couple of them. After all, he’s the one home during the week! It’s a pain to drag a toddler around a store, but it’s still less impossible than me doing it during my work day.
5) Not seeing Santa at the mall. Sprout got to see Santa twice – once at the mall with Chris’s parents without us and at Sesame Place with my parents – which is really enough. Instead, we waved to him as we passed by; he even waved back. It’s all about teaching the kid small pleasures.
6) Elaborate decorations. I’ve never been an elaborate decorator, but I’ve always wished I could be. (Albeit never like my mom, who actually made all of the Christmas ornaments for the entire tree one year.) This year, I stuck some of Sprout’s Christmas books on the coffee table, put Elmo in a mini Santa suit (which is actually for a wine bottle!), and pulled out our wooden nativity. It’s got some holiday cheer and some religious aspect. That’s enough for me.
7) An intolerance for singing stuffed animals. I generally forbid singing toys in my household for their lack of educational value and high level of personal annoyance. But my mother-in-law adores singing animatronics and gifted Sprout a Christmas tree that croons “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” last Christmas. Both of them absolutely love the ridiculous thing. So out it came with the rest of the decorations, along with a piece of my sanity. Sprout’s enthusiasm thankfully dwindled after the first 30 times or so playing it in a row.
8) Feeling guilty for these things. I’m still working on this – as you can see from all of my justifications above – but this is probably the most important one of all. There’s far too much guilt and shame in my life for not living up to my own unrealistic expectations. Like everything else in life, the holidays are exactly what you choose to make them. I’m at least trying to choose peace, hope and joy.
This Sunday, I felt – and cried – as if I was losing a family member. But it wasn’t a person Chris and I are losing – it’s a community. A community that has inspired thought and action, provided comfort even when they didn’t know it, and loved us and Sprout so very much. We’re in the process of losing our church.
Our church started in 1938 as Bethesda First Baptist, part of the American Baptists, who are much more liberal than the Southern variety. About eight years ago, the congregation decided to relaunch, complete with a new pastor and focus. About a year later, with the congregation down to a handful of people, they brought in our current pastor, Todd. Under Todd’s leadership, the church became “multi-denominational,” embracing Christian traditions from a variety of times and places. From discussions of the saints to contemporary worship songs, the church embodied a unique mix of theology and ritual.
Chris and I came into this story long before we even knew about the church itself. After experiencing spiritual community in college and volunteering at Homeworkers Organized for More Employment (HOME) in Maine, I knew I wanted a church that deeply connected people together. While evangelical churches had previously been my go-to, I abandoned that branch as unfruitful after Chris found only disrespect for being Catholic. Not long after, I read Brian McLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy, which is about finding wisdom and depth in a broad array of Christian traditions. After we finally decided to get married in a Catholic church, I told the priest that I wanted a church that combined a strong sense of community with the theological diversity. In response, he not unkindly laughed and said, “Shannon, you’re simply not going to find that.”
And yet, we found exactly what I was looking for in the Church in Bethesda. The longer we were there, the more both we and the church matured. I led theological discussions and attended studies on ancient spiritual practices. Chris and I joined the leadership team, called the Servant’s Group, where we discussed the church’s vision and struggled with budget issues.
As part of the leadership, we realized that our community’s main strength was our focus on radical welcome. Our valuing of theological diversity expanded to include diversity of socio-economic levels, race, and sexual orientation. Beyond simple acceptance, we started emphasizing peacemaking, social justice, and reconciliation with groups often left out of Christian hegemony. We took pride in welcoming everyone without strings attached, from a Muslim family who stopped by to a Jewish woman who never comes to service but always shows up afterwards for snacks.
But just as it felt like we as a church had found our purpose – a very needed purpose – everything was falling apart.
All at once, we had a huge departure of young families. The year Sprout was born, there were 9 other kids born; now none of their families attend our church. While most were military – we have a large medical military school nearby – others couldn’t afford to raise a family in the D.C. area. At the same time, we didn’t have a new influx of people to replace them. Where we regularly had 70 people on Sunday mornings, we had dropped down to 40 on the very best of days.
To pile on the problems, our building was literally falling apart. While we always had problems, the first real emergency was the belltower shedding stones during the 2011 D.C. earthquake. After that, we had a major new repair every few months. The culmination was our boiler completely breaking down and flooding the entire basement last winter. When the repair crew drained the water, they found a natural gas leak. Then a water leak in a previously-frozen pipe and another and another. We didn’t have heat in our sanctuary for the entire winter. (Fortunately, we could meet in a smaller room.) While insurance covered the boiler, the building has continued to disintegrate. Only a couple of weeks ago, the radiator in the front hallway broke, leaving a huge puddle on the carpet in the back of the sanctuary.
Between the loss of members and the continuing bills, we simply couldn’t keep up financially. Our pastor took on a second job as a customer service person for the local Apple store. Members of the leadership group took over maintenance tasks, like mowing the lawn.
I stepped up by doing what I do best – communications. We organized events, increased our social media, improved our website, posted online ads. Our Easter Egg hunt attracted many more families than anticipated, nearly overwhelming our resources. But even though we made sure every kid walked away with a special treat, none of the families returned. The Earth Day event was even more of a bust, with no one outside of the volunteers showing up to hear the speaker from Interfaith Power and Light.
Each Sunday morning, I sat in the back with Sprout playing on the floor and counted the number of people. There were never more, never enough. Even though I had done the best I could, it felt like failure.
What finally brought everything to a head was the decision from our pastor to leave at the end of this year. I can’t blame him – while it was exhausting for the leadership group, it was far worse for him. He was spending too much time just trying to keep the church above water with little time for his spiritual / vocational development and no financial stability. As his friend, I completely understood.
But as a parishioner, I was angry and frustrated. Not at him personally, but the entire situation. We don’t have enough money to keep up our failing building. We don’t have enough money to pay a new pastor. We don’t have enough volunteer time or energy to run a regular service. More than half of the Servants’ Group were too burnt out to start from scratch. The future was a big blank.
So at last week’s congregational meeting, we took the first step in figuring out what to do come January – we gave up control of our building.
While it wasn’t the end-all, be-all, it felt like the first step towards complete dissolution. We had put so much in for what felt like so little. I had envisioned bringing my son up in this community and that simply couldn’t happen now.
Which is why I was sobbing in the pews. All of the community, all of the values that we stood for are needed, now as much as ever. They’re needed in a world with terror, hunger, racism, and violence. We as a society and individuals need to hear and embrace them.
But maybe, our society doesn’t need those values wrapped up in a traditional church structure. Maybe they’re needed in service, art, music, and something completely different from what’s come before. Maybe we can rebuild.
But for now, I’m still sad for the fact that what the future holds will never be the same as the past. I’m still in mourning for what had been and uncertain of what is to come. I already miss my faith family.