Last 30 Days of My Thirties: Blog 7 - Safe Harbor

Unfortunately, life is full of drama and conflict quite frequently.  I decided several years ago that my home needed to be a safe harbor as much as possible from these toxic, negative things.  Obviously, voices get raised, conflicts arise between the children, the children & I, or myself and another adult.  But home has become a place I crave to be when I am feeling stressed, sick, or sad.

 

Once I grew out of the idea that I needed to be out and about as much as possible with a loaded calendar, I came to grow very fond of my couch, cuddle time, and peace and quiet.  I protect my home as much as possible from the things we encounter daily in life that bring us stress and discomfort.  It is important and effective in creating boundaries. 

 

Also, other than brief venting about the events of our days, we make it a point not to bring those stresses home with us and let them devour our home life.  Might not seem like a big deal, but when I look back on the last decade, this is a great change I have reinforced and encouraged in my life.

Last 30 Days of My Thirties: Blog 6 - Taking Care of Me

One of the keys to my growth and happiness in the past decade is the development of ability to take care of myself.  I'm really not talking about "handling my business" independently.  I'm talking about recognizing what my mind and my body need, and seeing it to it that I give them what they need. 

When I need to de-program a bit, I give myself permission to read for awhile or to watch something entertaining on TV.  When I feel lonely, I make sure to find a trusted, supportive friend to talk to - rather than just hoping someone might call me at just the right time.  When I feel tired, I take naps instead of pushing through it.  When my head hurts, I make things quieter and soothing.  I just pay attention to my needs more than I ever used to (or had to) before.  I operate much better and more efficiently when I'm not depriving myself of reasonable remedies for my malaise.

Last 30 Days of My Thirties: Blog 5 - Pursuing Passion

Since my teens and twenties, certain passions have been awakened in me.  When you have a passion for something, you don't have to talk yourself into it and you never feel obligated to it.  You want to follow your passions. 

 

In my thirties, I have followed several passions and become involved in various initiatives.  Not all of them were a good fit for me, for one reason or another.  Sometimes becoming involved in one area helped me to see a different area that was a better fit for me.

 

At church, I've been involved in several bible studies, small groups for single mothers, choir, writing devotionals, writing curriculum for small groups, and serving at a women's shelter.  I've participated in coat drives, prepared meals for recovering addicts and people dealing with setbacks in life, and prepared shoeboxes full of Christmas gifts for needy children.

 

In the schools, I've tutored kindergarteners and first graders for whom English was a second language.  I've prepared meals for teachers on conference nights and created tokens of appreciation for teachers.  I've coordinated auction baskets and coordinated room parents.

 

I've volunteered for a non-profit organization that pursued legislative changes for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities.  I've contributed to and/or participated in many community causes for cancer research, heart research, AIDS research, veterans' services, and many others.

 

Internally, I've encouraged myself to pursue passions right here at home, such as gardening, reading, and writing.  I try to read 2 books a month at least, and I write two blogs when time permits and inspiration strikes.  Typically, I find it easier to write about life's valleys than life's peaks.  I've tried to develop songwriting skills.  I need to carve out more time to sit down and play through my piano, as it is one of my greatest cathartic acts.

 

All of these things have been outlets for me - ways to express my compassion and apply my skills in efforts, large and small, to change lives.  But as much as certain things may or may not help others, they all help me to pursue my passions.  And I have found that doing that is one of the keys to being happy with myself.

Last 30 Days of My Thirties: Blog 4 - Toddler to Teen

In my thirties, my oldest child went from age 3 to 13.  Exhale.... 

 

So much of parenting is winging it, isn't it?  You choose your battles, determine your boundaries, set expectations, and then you really take it as it comes.  Hopefully you have a strong sense of values, a good support network, and a strong relationship with God to help guide your parenting.  There's no right or wrong answer for so many of the dilemmas, conflicts, and forks in the road.

 

In some ways, the issues don't change.  At three, there are hurt feelings by the way their friends and classmates treat them.  Same at thirteen.  At three, they seek the comfort of their mother when they are sick, sad, or hurting.  Same at thirteen. 

One of the hardest parts of parenting, for me, is explaining the evil in the world.  I try to tell her enough to make her vigilant and cautious, but not so much that she is terrified to live her life and be a kid.  She was 8 months old when 9/11 happened, but eventually the time came when I had to explain that to her (as best I could).  Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti, tsunamis, and school killings have all impacted her greatly.  Still she asks me how the survivors of these events are doing. 

She can hardly remember when her father and I were together (she was 4 when I dissolution was finalized), which is, in some ways, a blessing.  She has watched me date, break up, suffer a broken heart, and stand up for myself with men.  I hope that, even though I haven't been able to model a marriage for her, that my experiences have taught her something helpful about relationships, conflict, and healing.

 

In short, we've both grown up a lot.  She has taught me and I have taught her.  I have worked hard to instill important values in her and to demonstrate responsibility and compassion.  I love to hate the parts of me I see in her, and I love to see the new directions her life is going where mine has never gone.  In the last decade, I've gone from adoring who she was when she was born...to who she was born to become.

Last 30 Days of My Thirties: Blog 3 - The Traveler

The decade of my thirties was the decade of travel.  The primary reason is that my employer began offering an incentive trip tied to our annual revenue goals.  Through their generosity and our team’s hard work, I have been taken to Cancun, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Orlando (okay it was the year of the recession), and a dude ranch in Colorado – all expenses paid.  I never would have had the opportunity to travel to these places otherwise. 

 

I saw and experienced some really amazing things on those trips, including:

 

·         Riding a horse through the jungle and into the ocean in Cancun

·         Eating on a rooftop Mexican restaurant, complete with a mariachi band and a view of Cozumel across the water from Playa del Carmen

·         The most beautiful, warm people filled with hospitality and kindness in Jamaica

·         Walking up the waterfalls in Ocho Rios, Jamaica

·         Two ridiculously fun nights at discotheques in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic

·         A private island in Puerto Rico

·         The bioluminescent bay in Puerto Rico

·         Breathtaking scenery, trap shooting, and archery in Granby, Colorado at the dude ranch

In my thirties, I also traveled to Canada, to the Bahamas (won a free trip) with my roommate from OSU, to San Diego by myself to see two friends from grad school (amazing trip with a spa offering mud baths, a gay country line dancing bar, and the best massage ever from my grad school roommate who opened her own massage business), and to Austin with a friend for a week of fantastic “eats and beats.”

Even after all of this, my three favorite vacation destinations are: South Central Virginia, East Coast beaches (Virginia and Myrtle), and Gatlinburg, TN. 

 

Virginia is where you will find all but my immediate family.  As a kid, twice a year we would go there for our vacations.  The importance of family was instilled in me at an early age.  Sometimes when we’d go for a week in the summer, my parents would leave my brother and I behind  in VA, and we were over the moon to spend a week with our grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles.  It’s a completely different world from the large Midwestern city where I reside, but it feels like home to me.  The scenery is beautiful, the people are colorful and hospitable, and even the smell is soothing to me.  Virginia, to me, is dirt roads, lots of tiny churches with their own cemeteries, large family gatherings, laughter, the best food in the world, hearing stories about days gone by, or just sitting on MeMa’s front porch listening to the whippoorwills, raising my head at the rare sound of a car passing down on the road below the hill on which she lives.  Still I make the 1,000 mile roundtrip drive at least once a year – sometimes by myself.

 

Gatlinburg was where my ex-husband and I spent half of our honeymoon (the other half in Nashville), and we returned every fall for our anniversary, eventually with children - even when our son was a mere 6 weeks old.  I fell in love with those Smoky Mountains in the fall.  It looked like God had taken the most beautiful blanket and draped it over the landscape.  It was peaceful, breathtaking, and it restores my soul to be there.  After my divorce, I still vacationed there alone with the kids or with friends.  The beauty of those Smoky Mountains is awesome, literally.  It’s been a few years since I’ve visited, but I intend to return this fall if at all possible.

My first trip to the beach was when I was 17, believe it or not.  In Pretty Woman, Edward says, "People's reactions to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic; they either love it or they hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don't, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul."  That is how the beach is to me.  I will never forget when my eyes first rested on it.  The enormity, the magnificence, the power, the SOUND of it.....it completely captured me.  There is nowhere on earth I feel the presence of God more strongly than at the beach.  I just can't fathom how you could deny the existence or the power of God once you've stood on a shoreline of an ocean.  As the song sung at my daughter's baptism goes, "I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean." 

Isn't that what travel is all about?

Last 30 Days of My Thirties: Blog 2 - Moolah

A few months into my thirties, my (now ex) husband and I separated, and divorced a couple weeks after my 31^st birthday.  Gratefully, there was no additional stress of arguing about the terms of our dissolution.  We agreed on essentially everything.  We treated each other with fairness and respect despite our differences. 

I was only working part-time when we separated.  I know now that God provides for us in ways we don’t always recognize, and this was one of those times.  Very shortly after we separated, my employer extended an offer to me for full-time employment and I eagerly accepted. 

My parents raised me to spend responsibly, to save, and to be fiscally responsible.  I thank God for this on a regular basis.  At the time I was 16 and working my first job, my Dad required me to tithe 10% of my income to our church, save about 40% of my earnings in a savings account, and I could spend the rest.  Of course, this was irritating.  I had name brand jeans to buy, movies to see, and a gas tank to fill!  But they instilled in me financial discipline and responsibility.

In my thirties, when I became a single mother of two, I relied heavily on this foundation.  I became an expert budget creator and implementer.  Even if it meant a regular rotation of grilled cheese, hot dogs, and mac and cheese, we were living within our means.  Mommy wasn’t spending much on herself in the way of new clothes, purses, shoes, pedicures, etc.  Mommy was supporting two children and trying to hold onto the house they’d known all or most of their lives as “home.”   

A significant recession hit during my thirties, and my salary was reduced.  Again, I turned to my budgeting skills to figure out how to make ends meet.  Things that once seemed mandatory or needed were reclassified as luxurious and merely wanted.  This included the Sunday paper, cable TV, name brand products, and the retirement of my much-loved but impractical Mustang. 

There were many acts of financial kindness during the rougher times though.  My parents would often help out in large and small ways, whether it be taking the kids for a haircut and refusing to be reimbursed, or picking up a “pre-Christmas” new coat the kids needed, or inviting us over to dinner.  I had friends that would babysit for free when I had an appointment.  I once received an anonymous $100 Kroger gift card with a note saying the sender admired the grace with which I handled the difficulties n life.  God continued to look out for me, and I continued to do my part in being responsible and strategic with whatever resources I had. 

But the biggest transformation occurred in my late thirties when I finally decided to truly tithe to my church.  I had always given offerings, but honestly it was only amounts that were comfortable for me and did not put me in any hardship.  I felt good about those chincy offerings.  But my pastor helped me to see that tithing is commanded of us, and is actually a joyful, God-honoring behavior that tremendously helps in building faith and trust in God.  Since I began tithing 14 months ago, my life has changed.  Money has literally shown up when it was most needed, and in the most unexpected ways.  It has changed my life and I will never go back to dropping a twenty here and there in the offering plate.  It's something I want and need to do, and it makes me happy.  Is it possible I'm finally growing up? 

Last 30 Days of My Thirties: Blog 1 - Looking Back at 30

A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook that she was about to turn 40 and wanted to know what friends suggested she do in the remaining days of her thirties.  This got me thinking about how I will be turning 40 very soon, and I decided to do a series of blogs for the last 30 days of my thirties. 

 

So I find myself reflecting back to when I turned 30.  My daughter was 3, my son was 6 months old, I was one month into employment with the employer I’m still with, I’d had the house I still live in for 2 years, and I was 5 months away from separating from my (now ex) husband. 

 

Socially, I had almost an entirely different circle of friends than I have now.  There are a few cherished friends with whom I’ve maintained a relationship in the last decade, and I suspect they will be friends for life.  There were other friends from whom I’ve grown apart. 

 

Spiritually, I was at a different church, and my faith was what I would call "treading water." 

 

Professionally, my career path was uncertain.  I’d just left a large, secure employer and taken a chance with a very small (5 employees) family-owned business, reducing my work from full-time to part-time. 

 

 Most of my emotional resources were being invested in my family and my marriage, which was floundering.  The kids were very dependent upon me/us for their physical needs.  We were still adjusting to the addition of a baby in the household.  Frankly, I was still adjusting to thinking of myself as a mother.  I’ve never been the natural mothering type.  When someone walks in the room with a baby, I do not ask to hold it. I only held mine because I figured I had only myself to blame if I dropped them! 

 

 I was feeling grown up in that I’d been married for 6 years, was a mother of 2, and had undergraduate as well as graduate degrees from fine institutions.  But 30 was that “in between” place where, “on paper”, you are certainly an adult, but you are still finding your way in life and hoping someday things will come more naturally or fall into place a little easier.  At least that’s how it felt to me.  I suppose I felt a bit like an imposter in every area of my life.  My marriage wasn’t working, I felt under confident as a mother, and my professional life had just started a new, uncertain chapter. 

 

So I arrived at 30 with very little hoopla, just another birthday, and began to lay the framework for what would be the most tumultuous and life-changing decade of my life to date.  Of course, maybe we all are prone to feel that way about the most recent decade in which we’ve lived.  I’ll let you know when I’m 49.