Linger
Linger. My family and I have been lingering during this pandemic and it seems like a manifestation of the past two years. It feels incredible. The lingering part. The stress and anxiety part that come on the lower end, not so much, but the lingering, the slow idle conversations with Kellen, allowing the day to unfold as it may with no plans and no places to be has been such a gift. A gift I have been craving for a while now.
In my first post on this blog I talked about feeling like my life was a nightmare. Riddled with anxiety and stress while trying to manage a toddler and a baby with no friends or family, feeling totally lost in my marriage, lost to myself. Well. After I basically hit rock bottom in that, the point where it hurt so much I couldn't not change how I did life, 2018's word for the year was 'Simplicity'. I was desperate for a slow life, one I could catch my breath in, one that didn't have me rushing with two children in tow, late to everything. A life that made space for conversation with my husband, which is hard enough to come by with small children anyway. A life that actually made time for me. For me to be alone and hear my own thoughts, do things I used to do all the time but didn't have time to do anymore, like read or sit at a coffee shop, linger with myself.
The first year of Foeller's life he'd been on a plane ten times. 2018 I said, "No travel with kids, not even Christmas, zero travel allowed." I straight up refused to go anywhere. If you've every traveled with small children (especially on your own, which I did twice and almost died) you know the stress that is invoked in just the mentioning of the word 'airplane' or 'roadtrip'. We cut out travel, we stayed in Austin the entire year except an anniversary getaway just the two of us, kid free. That alone reduced much stress. Both of us were the antsy travel bug types. We loved exploring new places and seeing old friends so naturally, cutting out travel also caused a good amount of stress and panic. I began to realize all the moving around, all the traveling and events on the calendar were actually covering up some major disfunction in our family (namely, marriage). It felt too hard to stop and have conversations to work through some really hard things. Too much effort to sit and figure out how to parent a three year old with intention (without losing your mind on him and just demanding obedience). Taking the time to talk through things, work through things seemed very scary and hard. Lots of conflict. Lots of emotions. Too scary. Keep moving, avoid, avoid, avoid.
At first the slowing down was excruciating. I found myself day dreaming about trips. Then noticing the day dreaming mostly came when I was avoiding conflict, avoiding confrontation in my marriage. I found it weirdly hard to be alone with Kellen, not really knowing how to talk properly anymore, how to have in depth conversations. It was a weird year. I started reading more, educating myself of trauma and relationships. We started having a consistent date night and talking about harder things. I slowly started to make myself pay attention to how I was feeling, noticing the intense anxiety and anger in my body. Still clueless to what to do with it all, but finally noticing and naming. As the year progressed I started to dig into simplicity more and more. Gradually passing on playdates I wasn't that into, very very slowly realizing how I was out of the house most of the day to keep the kids occupied, to not have to deal with tantrums and to-do lists. I claimed they were happier out of the house, but truth was, I was happier out of the house. In the house I had to deal with lots of screaming and fighting from a strong willed three year old. A baby who was always needing to eat. Endless loads of laundry and dishes. Feeling utterly alone an trapped. I couldn't do that, so I was always escaping the house. Slowly, I realized that leaving the house only intensified all of that. Sure, sometimes it really did help my mood to be around people and grab a coffee, that is always okay. But I was leaving before and after every nap. I was exhausting myself, completely depleting my body by constantly moving from thing to thing to avoid how unhappy I was at home. Coming to the conclusion that to be happy at home, I needed to start voicing my needs to Kellen, telling him I needed consistent breaks and help with all the things instead of muscling up and trying to do it all on my own, trying to achieve that ultimate 'mom' role where sacrifice is key, the role I'd been fed all my life.
As I began to notice my exhaustion, I began to realize how much I just wanted to be at home more. To sit and breath. To be alone more. This running wasn't giving me any time to do those things. The next year, I dropped out of a women's morning bible study, the free childcare not worth the intense anger at my three year old to just get his clothes on and get out of the house (among other belief things as well). This, this was the thing that was starting to get interesting. How much church played into our crazy schedule. Two nights a week one of us was out of the house for small group. Every other weekend was spent at group - our children with a sitter, then church (more childcare) that afternoon. I usually dreaded my small group and Kellen would have to push me out the door. Some nights I was glad he did, but most nights I'd come home angry and exhausted because I just wanted my precious hours to myself for the day to be just that - to my self, alone and quiet. Eventually I dropped small group. Then church. Suddenly we had an entire weekend to ourselves. Sundays we now go for hikes and have leisurely afternoons that rolled into early bedtimes. It felt insanely good to be with my people, actually resting. A full 24 hours just us. Saturday mornings have become my time to do my own thing for a good chunk of time, which I had always had to sacrifice in the past for family time since Sunday was dominated by church. Now I have time for me, time for family and we're all much happier.
And it's not just the church, obviously. Our culture is obsessed with extroversion and running around like chickens with our heads cut off in search of a bigger dollar and/or prestige - the busier you are, the more important, worthy, etc you surely are. The past two years I found myself in my car driving to something I'm already late to and asking myself, "Why am I even going to this? Is this the thing I really want to be doing?" More and more that question popped up. And more and more I gave myself permission to turn the car around or to not even attempt to get in the car and get angry at the kids for being late yet again. I started calling bullshit on our culture. My body couldn't take all the moving, the driving, the hustling. My nervous system couldn't take it. Simply take away having to be five places at a certain time in one day and the anger significantly dropped. Let's be honest, it's ridiculous I felt that way because my kids aren't even in elementary school yet. I hear horror stories of driving older kids around literally all day and I'm already refusing. It makes me consider home schooling purely just to have slow days. I'm still refusing to sign my kids up for sports or activities. No way am I ready to give up slow Saturday mornings or adding to the evening hustle and I cannot handle having one more place to rush to, one more thing on my weekly calendar all in the name of the American hustle to 'have it all' and achieve all the things.
Over the past two years I realized how much I crave slow. I crave actually knowing, deeply knowing my family, my husband, myself. I cannot handle just passing Kellen by throughout the day. I cannot survived without intentional conversation with him. I want too truly see my children. To have the time to just sit with them, in silence until they start a conversation about things that interest them. I don't want to be constantly pushing aside conversations with them because we're in a hurry to get somewhere someone told us to be at a certain time. Is that thing really worth more than knowing my child? It's eating up the precious childhood I have with them. And do I really want to teach my child to live in this crazed manner, running from one thing another hardly noticing the people around them and missing out on real interactions and conversations because they're late? Do I really want to add undo stress and exhaustion on my child simply to tick the cultures 'good parent, good child' box for showing up to soccer and swim and music lessons? Nah, I'll pass. I'd rather hang with my five and three year old.
I've found the more I have in my life, the bigger the to-do list the more agitated and angry I become. I know some things are inevitable, that is true, but so much of what we do as a culture is simply to keep appearances. If we sit without selves long enough we realize how much we abhor this constant striving, the constant never measuring up with the glittery trophy always just out of reach. The more I start to question why I'm doing what I'm doing, I start questioning the systems we operate under. I was never allowed to question growing up, or rather I never had any idea it was a option. The consequence was always being shunned from the group, not belonging anymore, being the weird outsider. The systems don't want us to question these things. They don't want us to find freedom and joy outside their standards. They can't control us or sell us their dream that way. The longer you sit in silence, the more you realize this. This is why the system doesn’t want us to be alone. But this is necessary. To find out who we really are, what things pull our hearts and what things are simply noise distracting us. To find out what really, truly matters to each of us. To live with more meaning, more joy, more conviction and integrity.
Even though we've cut so much of the silly busyness out of our schedule the past few years, this shelter-in has been the ultimate dream come true for me. Kellen is home all day and we mostly (except those annoying conference calls ha) have his undivided attention - random midday in-depth conversation, what?! Clement is absolutely thriving, especially when he gets both parents to himself. I took him for a walk one night and the entire two miles (TWO MILES) he just chatted away about his favorite animals and all their details. It felt so good to just let him have those two miles to talk. To not interrupt him to tell him to go get ready for something or do a chore, but to just let him take center stage with his ideas, his passion for a good long while.
We've always been a family that loves a good hike, being in nature, and now we have more time to explore outdoor spacious areas where we get to linger. The loss of nap time means we can wander around taking our sweet time, climbing trees, enjoying the birds, the flowers, the lizards and rollie pollies. We don't have to rush to be home and we can sit and watch as the boys splash in questionable water, or spend hours by a creek feeding them snacks, watching them dig tunnels and chat, or just sit in silence and rest. We simply get to BE together. No agenda or time restraints, nothing that needs to be done, or even still putting off the little chores that could be done because just being together seems more necessary, more favorable. Free and easy. We have time to talk about our anxiety and stress, to process what is going on in the world, to try to explain it to the kids. That alone is huge. To name feelings and voice them to the family. To see and hear everyone's feelings and needs with space and time to let it be as it is feels so good. Feels so healthy. Starting every day with: "How are you feeling? What do you need today?" has been incredibly life giving. Like we're beginning to live as whole people, not fragmented and pulled in a million directions. And I think this is how we were truly created to live.
In my first post on this blog I talked about feeling like my life was a nightmare. Riddled with anxiety and stress while trying to manage a toddler and a baby with no friends or family, feeling totally lost in my marriage, lost to myself. Well. After I basically hit rock bottom in that, the point where it hurt so much I couldn't not change how I did life, 2018's word for the year was 'Simplicity'. I was desperate for a slow life, one I could catch my breath in, one that didn't have me rushing with two children in tow, late to everything. A life that made space for conversation with my husband, which is hard enough to come by with small children anyway. A life that actually made time for me. For me to be alone and hear my own thoughts, do things I used to do all the time but didn't have time to do anymore, like read or sit at a coffee shop, linger with myself.
The first year of Foeller's life he'd been on a plane ten times. 2018 I said, "No travel with kids, not even Christmas, zero travel allowed." I straight up refused to go anywhere. If you've every traveled with small children (especially on your own, which I did twice and almost died) you know the stress that is invoked in just the mentioning of the word 'airplane' or 'roadtrip'. We cut out travel, we stayed in Austin the entire year except an anniversary getaway just the two of us, kid free. That alone reduced much stress. Both of us were the antsy travel bug types. We loved exploring new places and seeing old friends so naturally, cutting out travel also caused a good amount of stress and panic. I began to realize all the moving around, all the traveling and events on the calendar were actually covering up some major disfunction in our family (namely, marriage). It felt too hard to stop and have conversations to work through some really hard things. Too much effort to sit and figure out how to parent a three year old with intention (without losing your mind on him and just demanding obedience). Taking the time to talk through things, work through things seemed very scary and hard. Lots of conflict. Lots of emotions. Too scary. Keep moving, avoid, avoid, avoid.
At first the slowing down was excruciating. I found myself day dreaming about trips. Then noticing the day dreaming mostly came when I was avoiding conflict, avoiding confrontation in my marriage. I found it weirdly hard to be alone with Kellen, not really knowing how to talk properly anymore, how to have in depth conversations. It was a weird year. I started reading more, educating myself of trauma and relationships. We started having a consistent date night and talking about harder things. I slowly started to make myself pay attention to how I was feeling, noticing the intense anxiety and anger in my body. Still clueless to what to do with it all, but finally noticing and naming. As the year progressed I started to dig into simplicity more and more. Gradually passing on playdates I wasn't that into, very very slowly realizing how I was out of the house most of the day to keep the kids occupied, to not have to deal with tantrums and to-do lists. I claimed they were happier out of the house, but truth was, I was happier out of the house. In the house I had to deal with lots of screaming and fighting from a strong willed three year old. A baby who was always needing to eat. Endless loads of laundry and dishes. Feeling utterly alone an trapped. I couldn't do that, so I was always escaping the house. Slowly, I realized that leaving the house only intensified all of that. Sure, sometimes it really did help my mood to be around people and grab a coffee, that is always okay. But I was leaving before and after every nap. I was exhausting myself, completely depleting my body by constantly moving from thing to thing to avoid how unhappy I was at home. Coming to the conclusion that to be happy at home, I needed to start voicing my needs to Kellen, telling him I needed consistent breaks and help with all the things instead of muscling up and trying to do it all on my own, trying to achieve that ultimate 'mom' role where sacrifice is key, the role I'd been fed all my life.
As I began to notice my exhaustion, I began to realize how much I just wanted to be at home more. To sit and breath. To be alone more. This running wasn't giving me any time to do those things. The next year, I dropped out of a women's morning bible study, the free childcare not worth the intense anger at my three year old to just get his clothes on and get out of the house (among other belief things as well). This, this was the thing that was starting to get interesting. How much church played into our crazy schedule. Two nights a week one of us was out of the house for small group. Every other weekend was spent at group - our children with a sitter, then church (more childcare) that afternoon. I usually dreaded my small group and Kellen would have to push me out the door. Some nights I was glad he did, but most nights I'd come home angry and exhausted because I just wanted my precious hours to myself for the day to be just that - to my self, alone and quiet. Eventually I dropped small group. Then church. Suddenly we had an entire weekend to ourselves. Sundays we now go for hikes and have leisurely afternoons that rolled into early bedtimes. It felt insanely good to be with my people, actually resting. A full 24 hours just us. Saturday mornings have become my time to do my own thing for a good chunk of time, which I had always had to sacrifice in the past for family time since Sunday was dominated by church. Now I have time for me, time for family and we're all much happier.
And it's not just the church, obviously. Our culture is obsessed with extroversion and running around like chickens with our heads cut off in search of a bigger dollar and/or prestige - the busier you are, the more important, worthy, etc you surely are. The past two years I found myself in my car driving to something I'm already late to and asking myself, "Why am I even going to this? Is this the thing I really want to be doing?" More and more that question popped up. And more and more I gave myself permission to turn the car around or to not even attempt to get in the car and get angry at the kids for being late yet again. I started calling bullshit on our culture. My body couldn't take all the moving, the driving, the hustling. My nervous system couldn't take it. Simply take away having to be five places at a certain time in one day and the anger significantly dropped. Let's be honest, it's ridiculous I felt that way because my kids aren't even in elementary school yet. I hear horror stories of driving older kids around literally all day and I'm already refusing. It makes me consider home schooling purely just to have slow days. I'm still refusing to sign my kids up for sports or activities. No way am I ready to give up slow Saturday mornings or adding to the evening hustle and I cannot handle having one more place to rush to, one more thing on my weekly calendar all in the name of the American hustle to 'have it all' and achieve all the things.
Over the past two years I realized how much I crave slow. I crave actually knowing, deeply knowing my family, my husband, myself. I cannot handle just passing Kellen by throughout the day. I cannot survived without intentional conversation with him. I want too truly see my children. To have the time to just sit with them, in silence until they start a conversation about things that interest them. I don't want to be constantly pushing aside conversations with them because we're in a hurry to get somewhere someone told us to be at a certain time. Is that thing really worth more than knowing my child? It's eating up the precious childhood I have with them. And do I really want to teach my child to live in this crazed manner, running from one thing another hardly noticing the people around them and missing out on real interactions and conversations because they're late? Do I really want to add undo stress and exhaustion on my child simply to tick the cultures 'good parent, good child' box for showing up to soccer and swim and music lessons? Nah, I'll pass. I'd rather hang with my five and three year old.
I've found the more I have in my life, the bigger the to-do list the more agitated and angry I become. I know some things are inevitable, that is true, but so much of what we do as a culture is simply to keep appearances. If we sit without selves long enough we realize how much we abhor this constant striving, the constant never measuring up with the glittery trophy always just out of reach. The more I start to question why I'm doing what I'm doing, I start questioning the systems we operate under. I was never allowed to question growing up, or rather I never had any idea it was a option. The consequence was always being shunned from the group, not belonging anymore, being the weird outsider. The systems don't want us to question these things. They don't want us to find freedom and joy outside their standards. They can't control us or sell us their dream that way. The longer you sit in silence, the more you realize this. This is why the system doesn’t want us to be alone. But this is necessary. To find out who we really are, what things pull our hearts and what things are simply noise distracting us. To find out what really, truly matters to each of us. To live with more meaning, more joy, more conviction and integrity.
Even though we've cut so much of the silly busyness out of our schedule the past few years, this shelter-in has been the ultimate dream come true for me. Kellen is home all day and we mostly (except those annoying conference calls ha) have his undivided attention - random midday in-depth conversation, what?! Clement is absolutely thriving, especially when he gets both parents to himself. I took him for a walk one night and the entire two miles (TWO MILES) he just chatted away about his favorite animals and all their details. It felt so good to just let him have those two miles to talk. To not interrupt him to tell him to go get ready for something or do a chore, but to just let him take center stage with his ideas, his passion for a good long while.
(I took this picture one day as we wandered through the park. The trees captured my heart, took my breath away. The sun flare, the little boy. It was a moment I want to always remember. Pink and yellow give me life, so there's that.)
We've always been a family that loves a good hike, being in nature, and now we have more time to explore outdoor spacious areas where we get to linger. The loss of nap time means we can wander around taking our sweet time, climbing trees, enjoying the birds, the flowers, the lizards and rollie pollies. We don't have to rush to be home and we can sit and watch as the boys splash in questionable water, or spend hours by a creek feeding them snacks, watching them dig tunnels and chat, or just sit in silence and rest. We simply get to BE together. No agenda or time restraints, nothing that needs to be done, or even still putting off the little chores that could be done because just being together seems more necessary, more favorable. Free and easy. We have time to talk about our anxiety and stress, to process what is going on in the world, to try to explain it to the kids. That alone is huge. To name feelings and voice them to the family. To see and hear everyone's feelings and needs with space and time to let it be as it is feels so good. Feels so healthy. Starting every day with: "How are you feeling? What do you need today?" has been incredibly life giving. Like we're beginning to live as whole people, not fragmented and pulled in a million directions. And I think this is how we were truly created to live.
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