"How We Show Up" Pt 2

I finished Mia Birdsong's book, but it hasn't finished with me. I feel the lack of pages and words like a leaving of the nest. The next phase of learning will be uncomfortable because I have read all that was written. I will have to leave my bedroom and live the words into being. I will have to do it wrong before I really get it right. I know that I can always start again at the beginning, but if I don't engage with the text in the 3 dimensional world, then this book might as well be fiction. 

And I don't want it to be fiction. I want it to be my life. I want to be better at defining friendships and building community. I want to have better words for those who mean so much to me. Take my step mom for example. Her and my dad split in 2009. We weren't close before the divorce but we came to an understanding through the divorce and in the years after. I call her my stepmom still because she's still here and still family. But I don't call or text on mother's day. We've never been close like that. She's never been a mother figure. 

But we are bound together by our survival of those years and by the fact that when asked, we both chose each other in a time of uncertainty. And that choosing shaped us powerfully. We are closer now than we were in the 8 years of living together. And there is so much love. Where are the words to describe these kinds of complicated bonds. She's not really my stepmom but she's more than a friend. She's definitely family and a special kind of family at that. Many of my family member have never had to "choose" me and maybe they wouldn't choose me in a line up of possible family members. We're more stuck together than chosen. 

And that choosing is powerful but must be done by both sides. I can choose whomever I want but it doesn't mean anything if they don't choose me back. One of the most powerful things I've experience by trial and error is how "taking a break" from a family member can give you both space to re-evaluate the circumstances under which you would choose each other. My dad and I did that. I think it was nearly 2 years of mostly not speaking, pretty terrible communication. But the rule was "don't call unless you want to talk". 

That means don't call just because it's a holiday or it's been awhile. Don't call because you are lonely or bored (or drunk). Don't call because someone asked you how I was and you didn't want to admit that you didn't know. Don't call because you missed my call. Don't call because you feel guilty or obligated. And if that means a whole year goes by, don't call for a whole year. The silence was strange and sometimes unnerving. But it was also useful. I think we do our sense of guilt and obligation a disservice by always trying to bury them as quickly as possible. Sometimes doing nothing and proving to your guilty that no huge disaster happens is the best salve for chronic guilt. And the part that came after was worth the uncomfortable silence even though there was no guarantee that the silence would end. 

Being sure that you do want to talk and choosing someone and them choosing you back is powerful. Connecting because you want to. Sorting out your guilt and anxiety from your love. Loosening your hold on your relationships from "we're family we have to be there for each other all the time" to "I'll let you know when I'm ready" even though there's no promise that both of you will be ready at the same time. 

And I guess that's the scary part. I've been smothering some of my family members in my attempts to choose them and have them choose me back. But they aren't ready. And I'm afraid that by the time that they are ready, I will have changed too much internally and built a life that I don't know how to incorporate them into. But that's their choice. And they shouldn't take the future or the people around them for granted. I can't make them choose me back. All I can do is clearly communicate my love and my boundaries. 

So that's it. Just some musing on the power of choosing and being chosen. Go read Mia Birdsong's book and tell me what you got out of it.

Big and Small and Deep.

For a long time now I have felt this push and pull between what I have described as a "small life" and a "big life". Looking back over the years, the definitions have changed and fluxed with whatever pressures and choices I have faced. Sometimes a "big life" meant choosing a life devoted to ministry which would affect many people but which would ultimately be more uncomfortable. Sometimes it meant being involved in aviation. Ultimately, it really meant "whatever felt bigger than me" with all of the fear and intimidation that could carry with it. A small life has typically meant "what was expected". For many years that was defined by a marriage, a house, kids, and comfort. It meant settling down, shrinking until I was no longer coloring outside of the lines that had been provided for me. There has never been a time where I desired that kind of smallness no matter how comfortable. Not when I was 8, 18 or 28. 

These definitions have never been meant to make a comment on what other people choose, just a way for me to try to find my own path. And I'm starting to wonder if it isn't time to change the definitions again. Maybe "big" and "small" are missing the point. Maybe what I want is something more...connected, rooted. And maybe what I really want is better described as a "deep life". Not deep as defined by how much I overthink things (got that covered from day 1). But deep as a description for the roots in a the community that I hope to build soon. Deep as in inextricably tied up in the folks around me. Deep as in deeply interconnected. 

I didn't grow up that way. My dad was weird and my stepdad was abusive. Not very many people were allowed into our family circle because it upset a delicate balance and an agreed upon silence. Through it all, I think I've been craving the kind of connection that you can't have while protecting secrets about those you live with. The kind of community where you can say "help" and know that folks won't judge you or be surprised. The kind of community where people will ask for what they need also. Where our successes are caught up together and our problems are shared.

"How We Show Up" Part 1

Two chapters into "How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community" by Mia Birdsong, I already want to recommend this book to everyone I know. I want to say "this! This! THIS! This is what I have been growing inside me as I read and study and think about what I want in my life." Finally, there is somebody who has the words that I need. And I am ready for them. How beautiful is that? How strange is it to find the needle you have been searching for in a world of hay stacks?

Birdsong is talking about the American Dream and talking about whiteness and how unsatisfying both are. And by "whiteness" I don't mean light skinned people, I mean the culture that we have made by erasing our roots and separating people into how much power they have by the color of their skin. I mean the individualism, the consumerism, the worship of independence and wealth, and all of the other values that make up white America. 

Ever since I bought a house I have felt like I joined a club and I can feel the pull of the American Dream. The only problem is that I have never believed in the American Dream. Not when I was little and not when I became an adult. I couldn't say why it never appealed to me, but you can probably blame a certain body of literature for why I was always wary of the markers of status that indicate success for those who are purchasing the American Dream. 

I want a dream of fulfillment that doesn't have a price tag. I want a dream of success that is accessible to people of every life circumstance and income. I want the richness that comes with being known and loved. And I have always known that whatever else the American Dream was or wasn't...it was not a way to be known and loved. Plus, I am naturally averse to competition of nearly every kind. That being said, Mia Birdsong's criticisms of the American Dream resonate deeply with me. I want there to be another way, another metric of success, a deeper way of connecting.

Halfway through the book, I am beginning to feel like I have part of a map for that kind of connection. I am encouraged because it includes a definition of family that doesn't exclude my stepmom who hasn't been my stepmom for 10+ years but who is family anyway. Without name or title for our relationship. And if I choose to have a family, I'd want them to think of her as family. And as I struggle to figure out how much vulnerability to give to my family of origin and the family I married into, I find guidance in Birdsong's words. 

I'm finding that maybe my family doesn't get to have as much of my trust and vulnerability as I have shared for no other reason than because they don't reciprocate that trust and vulnerability. I show up as my whole, honest self and they show up polished and wrapped in their defenses. It's exhausting to maintain vulnerability that isn't reciprocated. It's also not safe. But part of the American Dream is a loyalty to family that transcends everything including safety, health, and accountability. And that is taking a lot of energy from being able to build relationships with people who will reciprocate my honesty and trust. I'm looking for people who will tell me when they need something so that I know it's safe to ask for what I need.

"The practice of explicit communication that she found there countered the fantastical ideas we learn about relationships. 'I think we have to deal with the idea that we learn from movies and from norms that say, "Oh, relationships are so organic. You don't need to say anything. Things so naturally happen." Well no, things naturally fall apart.'" And if that isn't what I've been fighting against all of my life, I don't what it is. There are plenty of people who bail at the first sign of needing communication and continuous effort. And maybe I've been one of those people if the type of effort and the season of my life didn't line up with what someone was asking for. Maybe if we had been able to talk about it explicitly, we could have made something work.

As I get older, I leave more doors open but I also leave through more doors. I'm both more confident in leaving when a relationship doesn't feel mutual and I'm trying to be more gracious about the fact that sometimes people can't give me what I need and it's not necessarily personal. They might come back in later years with exactly what you need. The world is both huge and very small. People who you used to know find their way back in unexpected ways. But being clear about what you need and want from your community helps avoid slammed doors, cut ties and loneliness.