Being new and growing pains

It has been a long time since I was the new person. So long that I forgot how hard it is to grow. Growing is just painful. Remember when you were in the third grade and you would get a horrible ache in your leg bones? Your a healthy eight year old  and then out of nowhere your bone would hurt! And your parents would say, "oh, growing pains" in a passive way that made you feel that your pain was not supposed to hurt and was actually common. 

I remember, I would be left trying to understand HOW without injury, or even a band-aid, did I have pain in my bone?

Or was that just my parents? 

Either way it was a good lesson: change is going to hurt and you are going to have to live through it. And by live through it I mean you are going to have to act like it's completely normal, and nobody else will really understand and may not even notice.  And still, it will really hurt. 

It does not always hurt physically, sometimes it hurts your heart, or your pride, or your feelings. And sometimes it hurts all of those things at once. Sometimes you are taken over by the pain of a situation or moment, and the world looks at you and says, "oh, growing pains"

I had growing pains this week. I stood in front of my boss, and my bosses boss and, OUCH! I was full of pain. I found myself pushing through and trying to come out the other side without crying. It has been years since I worked that hard and was that bad at something. The meeting ended and I walked back to my desk, breathing and walking, focused on each step.

From the meeting room door closing to me sitting at my desk something had happened. To my surprise I was not lost in disappointment. I was not beating myself up. Minutes after the meeting I was not worried about how to fix the situation. I sat at my desk as tears filled my eyes and maybe for the first time I realized, "oh, growing pains" 

And then this piece of me opened. A piece that was reminded that being new is hard, and is important. This piece of me remembered that learning is more than just knowing the right answers. Not knowing the answers is actually liberating. For so long I felt I had to have all the answers, and now I get to participate. 

Participating is where all the magic of creating happens, and I am not great at it yet. But the best part of participating is it is not lonely. Leading can be so lonely that the growing pains don't help you grow, they just hurt. Being able to lead people you care about is wonderful, and lonely, and can hurt in a way that hinders your growth. 

So I am here for the learning. I am here for the creating. I am here for the growing. I am here for pain that comes on quick and changes you once it's gone. These growing pains are going to hurt and make me stronger (not all pain does that). 

I am going to fully participate in being new. 

Why ya gotta be so mean...

I never understood mean. I can understand hurt and brokenness, but mean is beyond me. I am not talking about hurting someone feelings as an act of acting out, this is an act of self defense. An episodic lack of judgement at best. I am talking about behavior that is repeated and hurtful and often steeped in selfishness and fear. It is when you have lost the humanity of others, and your selfishness has infected you to a point of nastiness, that your authenticity is lost.  

I don't think the opposite of mean is nice. Nice can be mean with a smile. I think the opposite of mean is authenticity. If you are mad be honest about your madness. If you are frustrated tell me why. If you simply don't like someone, that's okay too. It's when all of that frustration, madness, and discontent consumes you that you become mean. 

I have been mean. There have been times in my life when I was so self involved, so worried about how I was being seen that I purposely lashed out at others. It feels awful. I lied to myself, the way we all do, and told myself that the person I was mean to deserved it. They didn't. 

So why am I writing this on a Sunday night? Why am I preaching to an invisible choir. Because I have been hurt by someone who is choosing to be mean. Twenty years of therapy and a lifetime of being human have taught me that I am in control of how I feel, no one can make me feel a certain way. And here I am sitting on my sofa feeling hurt and mad because of a mean girl.

It stinks when someone does not like you. I really like being liked, and not being liked is annoying. It's like that dress you see in the boutique that is so cute on the hanger and when you put it on it looks ridiculous. You are cute, the dress is cute, and together, garbage! You want it to look good, you want be liked. And sometimes it doesn't and sometimes you aren't. 

That's not what I am talking about. 

I did my best. I worked my hardest. I was authentically me. I tried. This person looked at me and didn't say, you are not for me. They did everything they could to intentionally hurt me. They were mean. 

The hard part is I want to be mean back. That's what meanness does. It ignites pain and deep feelings of hurt and it begs to push back as hard as you are being pushed. It is a chore and a choice to not give in. I want to scream and tell the person that they are mean, but they know. Just like I knew. 

My hope is that I will start to care less about their intentional hurt. That I will turn off the part of my brain that tries to figure out why they want to hurt me. I hope that I am able to see them and let them go. That the emotional toll that is being paid with cease to exist and their  actions will be invisible to me. 

Also, just don't be mean. 

Alabanza!

The first time I heard the word "Alabanza" was when I first listened to "In The Heights". Lin gives you the definition in the song, "Alabanza means to raise this thing to God's face and to sing quite literally "praise to this". I sang this song throughout the pandemic: in my car, in the shower, at the kitchen sink, I would close my eyes and sing Alabanza in the haunting way Lin wrote. Alabanza, Alabanza, Alabanza. 

Tonight Trent took me to the movies to see "In The Heights". He bought the tickets weeks ago. I am such a musical theater nerd that he wanted to take me opening night, but this was a big week. I am grateful that the tickets were for tonight. 

I have not been to the movies in over a year. I love the movies. I love the previews. I love the popcorn and soda bigger than my head. Movies have always been my favorite escape. We sat in the center of the theater and the lights went out, and the previews played. No, Yes, No, Yes, Yes. I like to grade the trailers as we go. And then it was time. 

The move started, the music started and then I was home. Home with the music around me and joy inside. I watched with expectation and delight as the songs I know were brought to life on the screen. It was coming time when the cast sings Alabanza, when Abuela Claudia dies. The cast sings praise for the woman that raised them, loved them, and was not related to them. 

Soon tears came and then as the lyrics continued, I started to weep. As the cast mourned the loss of this fictional character I sat and mourned my friend Judy Tenenbaum. 

Judy loved so big. Judy gave everything: love, time, money, advice, kindness. I sat and mourned my dear friend who I loved and who loved me. Judy was a romantic and loved that I was getting married. She would always smile at me like a proud mom at events and board meetings. And as I sat in that theater I thought of how much I will miss her on my wedding day. I thought about how much she would have loved to see me in love. I can imagine her sparkling eyes and warm smile. 

Alabanza, Judy Kohn Tenenbaum! I lift you to Gods face and sing praise for you! You loved me, you loved your City Year "kids", you gave and gave and gave. I know many will remember Judy for her contribution to the arts, which are extraordinary. I will remember how she loved people, how she loved our corps members, and how she loved me. 

The only picture I have of us together is from our 10th annual Red Jacket Ball. The picture is of a City Year alumni giving President Clinton an award. Judy is where she was for so many of us, right behind the spotlight cheering us on. Alabanza, Alabanza my dear friend Judy, Alabanza, Alabanza! 

I go to church

I am leaving my job this week. I started this job when I was 18. I moved to a new state, with a new wardrobe, in my old car and started working for something I knew nothing about (pre internet you just had to do stuff). And tomorrow is the first day of my last week. I am sad, excited, scared, and feel a sense of freedom. 

Here I have met almost every person I love, with the exception of those I am related to. Here I have had opportunities to meet neighbors and students that I would never have had the courage to meet. Here is where I have found my voice, found my footing, found my home. This job was everything for part of my life, then it was an important thing, and now it's a place I worked. 

When I moved to Arkansas there were five of us who worked to start up this new thing, four of us lived in the same building, and the person that introduced me to my church home lived next door. He was completely nuts, and completely kind, and completely one of my best friends after 2 years of being my neighbor. Before he left Little Rock, he took me to church with him, and it was there I found a community I did not know existed. 

We have established that I have crazy anxiety that can be crippling. I want to do so many things and often sink into the nothing that keeps me safe and is fueled by fear. When I went to church I knew I wanted to be part of this community. I wanted to know the people in the pews and I wanted to praise God here in this place. So I did. 

I was invited over and over and it was not until I was sitting at Betsy's house with my small group crying and praying that I realized I belong. Not because I was the hardest worker, or the one to say yes, or the one to speak her mind. I belonged because I was with a community that loved me, they just loved me. 

Today I sat in church nearly 15 years from the first time I visited, and a year and a half since quarantine. I hugged my church family, worshiped with my family, and cried as I listened to the sermon. I belong here, if I have ever belonged anywhere it is here. Part of anxiety and early childhood trauma is disassociating, not feeling you belong, or  wanted, or a part of something. It's like looking from the outside when you are standing in the center. 

Today though, I stood in the center and felt like I was in the center. The center of Christ's love, the center of my life, the center of where this long journey has taken me. Today a young boy stood in front of the church, next to his dad, and said I want to be in the center of this love. And today I mourned a kind man that was a church deacon and called me every month during the pandemic to see how I was doing. Not to ask me for anything, just called to chat and let me know I belonged.  

I am leaving my job this week, a community that I have loved and cherished for 25 years. A place where I grew up. And this week I realized that God has been at the center of that work. It's not something I talk about. It's not something I can or should talk about as the boss and leader, and it's true. God was and always has been at the center of the work. The center of the bravery. The center of the decisions. My work was my ministry. 

And though I will be leaving this job I loved, I realize it is not the work that gave me 25 years of friendship, love, growth, and belly laughs. It was my faith. A faith that I share with my family at Second Baptist Church. It seems fitting that the week I leave my job, the sanctuary opened. 

I go to church. I love going to church. I belong to a community that loves Christ, Loves Neighbors, and loves me. I am so lucky to have a life where God sees me, knows me, and gave me a place. 

  

Anxiety: A story about Christmas Cookies

I spent time with a gaggle of guy friends in High School. They were always at my house eating leftovers, (my parents are really good cooks), drinking Mountain Dew (my mom bought just for them), and watching cable. They were never boyfriends, maybe an unrequited crush or two. 

When you grow up chubby, with PTSD from early childhood trauma, and regular teenage anxiety you don't realize that these boys are at your house because they are your friends.  You think: "They come here because my mom always has junk food and Mountain Dew" "They come here because we have cable and my parents don't care if they say fuck" or "They come here and act like they are having fun and then leave and talk about you" 

One night when I was 16 and a senior in High School two of the guys who had graduated the year before (one that I could not believe was my friend because he was so handsome and smart, and the other I could not believe was my friend because he was so creative, mysterious, and kind) came over with a plate of Christmas Cookies and I hid in my bedroom. 

I was having a full anxiety attack and I could not face them. I did not have the energy to worry about what they were thinking about me, thank them for cookies, and wonder why I deserved this treat. I wanted to be invisible. I remember sitting on my bed crying hearing my mom tell them that I could not come out. I could hear the disappointment and questions in their voices. Two boys that I adored standing in my living room, a wall away from me, with a plate of cookies. 

I don't know if I ever talked to them about this night. I don't know what excuse or lie I may have made up on why I could not come to the door. I know I did not tell the truth, which was I couldn't. This was the first time I remember making a decision that was focused on my care and not the care of others. I needed to sit on my bed. I needed to breathe. I needed to be invisible. I needed to cry. This does not mean I did not feel guilt or pain as I heard my friends in the other room. But I did not get up. I did not betray my feelings. I sat. 

I was thinking about this story over the past couple of weeks as I was at my parents house for Christmas. I used to think that I would see those guys every year. That their families would live in the same town my family lived in forever. That we would all get together as adults. That's now how growing up works. 

I do wish that I had another night when my anxiety was not drowning me. When I could greet them at the door. When I could laugh and eat cookies that my friends made for me. That I could feel that warm belly feeling that the comfort and love of being with true friends gives you. That I could bask in the joy of being special enough to have cookies made just for me.

And, I will always be grateful for the winter night where I chose to honor my feelings. 

It would take years and hours of therapy to understand why I feel anxious often. It is a daily battle to remember that my anxiety can take time away from people I love, and can give me time to learn to love myself simultaneously. I am still learning to listen and untwist the lies that you tell yourself when you don't believe that you deserve the kindness you are being offered. When you don't feel worthy. When you can't get off your bed. 

So why this story tonight? I needed to be reminded that it's okay to sit. It's okay to stop and breathe and even disappoint someone, even if they brought you cookies. More importantly you deserve to be without obligation for a moment. Let's take our moment before anxiety requires us to. Let's find the kindness in sitting still and wrap ourselves up in it, and breathe, and wait. You have always been more important that a plate full of cookies. 

Oh and those friends came to your house because they liked you. They liked the leftovers, the cable, the Mountain Dew, and the ability to say fuck. But they also liked you and think you are kind and funny, and ridiculous in all the right ways.