Metaphors, the Rat Race, and Slow Showers

It was another morning on the beach. Another day of nearly 12 successive walks on the beach. Sand, shore, shells. Run, chase, walk, breathe. We stomped through shallow pools while the high tide pulled the ocean away from below our feet, and I considered every beautiful analogy the ocean offered.

Everything, great and small, points to Him, to beauty, to imagination. Stories are in every element of creation and nature, and if I'm tuning in, I feel like I see and hear them all.

And instead of feeling the usual overwhelming sense of gratitude toward the great analogy played out around us, I was irritated.

I was annoyed that the ocean was so big, and I was so small. I was annoyed that I looked at shells and saw my heart. I was angry that watching my daughter chase birds made me think more about a blog entry instead of her.

I am prone to always dig below the surface in my own life. Sometimes this is beauty. Sometimes it's distraction. I admit, there are times I end up extracting another meaning out of a situation simply because I am unable, unwilling or too bored to experience what is actually happening.

I wonder how different my words and relationships would be if I stopped viewing all things through the spin of my wild mind.

On that beach, while my daughter chased birds, I told myself to forget about the extra meanings and possible metaphors. I actually shook my head and closed my eyes and told myself to listen, and breathe, and then watch and experience.

Extracting is good. Mining for the deep things is a hard and necessary work. Sometimes I need to look at the world around me and realize that God is still speaking through the work of His hands. I want to notice how interwoven and connected everything is.

And sometimes I want to just get dirty feet, feel the heat of the sun and notice how my daughter's curls form perfectly on her shoulders on a humid April afternoon. I need days full of her crinkled nose and storytelling. I need to pay more attention to the words I say to her instead of the words I'm writing inside. It's all happening so fast, I think. While I'm mentally adding and erasing metaphors, I'm accidentally erasing myself from my own story. Those little things? The things that are happening in front of me? These are the joys I am tucking into my pocket and remembering these days.

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This morning, I woke up racing. For no good reason. I jumped out of bed, started the routine like an internal alarm was constantly ringing, constantly telling me I was behind schedule. Which I wasn't, but I felt it.

And in the shower, I furiously scrubbed my head and felt my heart pumping in my throat. A list began in my head, and prayers spilled out of my lips until I sensed one thing.

STOP.

I whispered it to myself and let the hot water run. I breathed. I slowed.

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I'm exhausted from exhausting myself. Yesterday Emily Maynard tweeted this:

"If we want to live a wholehearted life, we have to cultivate sleep and play, and let go of exhaustion as a status symbol." - @brenebrown

— Emily Maynard (@emelina) April 30, 2013

I wanted to shout yes! And then wrote it down in about three places. And retweeted it. And then told myself to chill out.

Because internally, I'm a mess. I'm racing. Running. Writing. Noting. Observing. Calculating. Adding. Praying. Begging. Shouting. Crying. Dying. Listing. Working.

And I'm exhausted of it all. That is not the person I want to be. That's not how I want my daughter to remember me: a mother who was never at peace until she was laid to rest.

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So today, I'm recalling the beach. I'm looking at a long list and just taking another breath. I'm doing the next thing, and then doodling in the margins. Internal conversations sound a whole lot more Gospel & Jesus-centered, and less me-centered. Not because I'm a good Christian, because that's hardly the truth. Rather because I need to center my life around something unmoveable, unshakeable and un-Andrea-metaphorical.  I need the center spoke of my life to be made of wood and grace, not my sweat and fears.

Yes, I need to pay the bills, continue writing, be a mother, finish work, wash the dishes, and so on. But the condition of my heart does not need to reflection the chaos of my hands. 

Let the checkered flags be wrapped up and stowed away. I was not tapped to run in this rat race.

Clean Up in Aisle 7

Hi. My name is Andrea.

And I would like to know who to call to get admitted to a resort spa for exhaustion. Because it seems like that's a thing now, and maybe you need loads of cash to get in — but seriously, do I just need to pass out in a grocery store or something? Because I can do that. I can do that with gusto. I'll take down the whole cereal end cap if need be.

I just moved last week, which could also be read as, last week, I dumped all of my crap into various corners of a city view apartment. Now I am left to empty boxes, put away mugs, and sit on the floor crying over all the notes my mom has sent to me through the years that I just found at the bottom of my office paper bin.

Anyway, I digress.

Sometimes life just hands you a bunch of stuff. Not lemons. Not a glass of lemonade. Just a handful of things that you're not sure what to do with.

Work. Relationships. Children. Plans gone awry. Bills that seem daunting. Tasks that feel impossible. A little girl who wants to eat an entire half of a watermelon.

I'm sitting here in my new apartment, with a stack of books next to me, a jar of random things like skeleton keys, a purple lighter and a clothes pin, and my coffee is nearly cold. Life is just so quickly happening with things being thrown at me and I feel like I'm tossing most of it into a mason jar. My heart is a lot like that miscellaneous collection. I know I have enough of me for some of these things, but not all of them. I know they all have a place, and in time, will find a place, but for now I'm handing out clothes pins and red ribbons to my world and hoping they're worth something.

This is the last year of my 20s. At 29, I am finding that everything I hoped life would hand me by this point has come and gone. I have fragments of some dreams, some hopes passed on in my rearview mirror, and some things I've just boxed up and placed on the shelf until another day. I am tired, and yet grateful. I'm starting to realize that we never might actually feel like we've arrived or accomplished anything. This whole elusive idea of climbing a ladder, achieving the dream, marking out our territories with flags and picket fences is ridiculous. And I'd go so far as to say it's damaging.

The whole idea that there is something to achieve here on earth is absurd. I mean, besides true love (not the selfish kind, but the kind that spills from the depths of an unconditional grace) and authenticity and brokenness (not self-indulgent messes, but the kind of brokenness that invites healing). And then the great Redemption story. (That's the story. Not my passport pages or bank account. ) I mean, what is our struggle for if not for one of those things?

I don't want to live in a state of perpetually trying to figure it all out. At what point do I tell myself it's ok to stop stressing out and to just sit cross-legged in the middle of my bedroom floor and listen to Johnny Cash? It's ok to not have to always be making lemonade, or fixing, solving, planning, and going. 

Sometimes the best parts of my day are when I'm eating a bowl of Lucky Charms and my 3 year old is telling me about how she wished on a star for a magic pony.  Sometimes the best thing I can do is not have a freak out moment in aisle 7, but rather give myself the chance to breathe and push off all of the daunting expectations. 

And sometimes I just need a resort spa. Is that too much to ask?

No Requirements Here

I want to blog. I need to write. I've even returned to ink and paper with my journal lately. I forgot how wonderful that is. (When is the last time you sat down to write without the possibility of any public acclaim? It's worth it. Good for the heart.)

My evenings are spent with my nose in a book, lately this one.

My soul feels a bit bare, but not in the scary deathly way. More in the wintry, waiting for new life kind-of-way. My brittle branches are reaching toward the light, absorbing the warmth, anticipating the inevitable burst of green.

Around here, afternoons are spent in music, writing and scratching out lyrics that will probably be later replaced with seemingly better and more poetic ones.

Somewhere in there, I'm working.

And parenting.

And thrift shopping (to find lovelies like this $12 coffee table.)

Somewhere in there, I'm squeezing in social gatherings, some of which I should probably just leave out, but I don't want to, so I won't.

I'm waking up as the sun rises to move, to walk, to run. I'm letting my eyes droop shut over above said books. From dawn to long after dusk, life moves and chases, loves and breathes.

And, I really, really just want to blog.

I'm determined to not blog just because another day has come and I'm putting pressure on my mind to be witty and charming.

I won't blog out of requirement.

But I will blog because I like you. You friends. This community. It's a whole other world that is beautifully broken, and I like you all for it.

(Though between you and me, I'm feeling another rant blog coming on soon. How fun will that be?)

Back to my books, music, coffee and lists. Happy Tuesday!