Awake

The trauma someone else created is not your fault, but dealing with it is your responsibility.

most of what I was taught as gospel standards turned out to be optional values abandoned for power, greed, or lies. The church that raised me bears almost no resemblance to the one dehumanizing refugees, defending white supremacy, and aligning with a morally bankrupt autocrat. To put it succinctly: Organized religion, once my happy place, truly confuses me. I am adrift inside it for the first time in my life.

What if Mary Oliver is right and this is our one wild and precious life? What if we really don’t get any days back, and this whole life is ours to either grind our way through or throw our arms open for delight, for wonder, for joy and beauty and connection? What if we keep putting off happiness until later and later never comes? What if we hang doggedly on to 'surely this thing will eventually get better' but it doesn’t? Are we really just helpless recipients of stalled, drained, broken things, or do we have some agency? What if a life exists so full we would barely recognize it against our hustle and exhaustion and emptiness? Have we settled when we don’t have to? What if there is a different path, a different pace, a different peace? Apparently people can choose the life they want.

My forever looks different than I expected, but sometimes beautiful things do.

for a medical abortion? Put her in jail. Men who grab women by the pussy without their consent? Put him in the White House. It was all a sham.

It is tempting to disparage the earlier versions of myself

The church that raised me bears almost no resemblance to the one dehumanizing refugees

an accomplished master gardener, told me: You can’t tug on spring shoots of new plants. You have to wait. They are setting deep roots. You can’t grow a crop by pulling on leaves and stalks. You just create the right conditions… and you wait.

All the Women” i hope when you come home to yourself there are flowers lining the front porch that were left from all the women you were before ~MAIA, When the Waves Come

I’ve lost my institutional memory partner, and that loss cannot be quantified. No one else will ever remember the fake pothole. They weren’t there.

Oh, Jen, detachment isn’t about loving him. It is loving peace and freedom more than chaos and anxiety. Honey, it is loving yourself.

Sending love to my sisters with the prescriptions, be they long-term or short-term. Well done. You are taking the best possible care of yourselves, and I am proud of you. There is zero shame in this, unless we should be ashamed of creating strong, steady lives for ourselves and the people we love.

To witness a woman denying that she is beautiful is like watching someone set fire to an art museum. It’s like watching an angel drink gasoline. It’s like watching a Phoenix rip off its wings.

This was when I learned that “what is true” mostly factors in when it benefits white, straight Christians. If it doesn’t, or more to the point, if it threatens the narrative, it will be instantly divorced from “what is right” and rebranded.

I reject the patriarchal narrative that says this is how men should be, this is how women should be, and this is how power dynamics should be. I condemn it everywhere it reigns. It does not harm just the women but also the men, not just the girls but also the boys. It is the ruination of freedom. It robs us of autonomy and forces us into caricatures.

What if bewilderment at social choreography is the only true thing happening in the room? What if decorum doesn’t grease the machine but grinds it to a halt? I’ve never lived in a world where we all say what we actually mean and feel and think and believe and want. Maybe she is the one standing in integrity and the rest of us are just following the damn script.

The very next day after the county fair, Mom brought me to the optometrist to get contact lenses, because sad moms get real permissive.

I Am Not Your Cup of Tea” I am not your cup of tea because I am made too strong and frankly, too hot for you to enjoy maybe you can tolerate me in tiny sips but I don’t want to be tolerated. I want to be devoured by those who value all I am and who do not wish I was in any way watered down to meet your tepid tastes. ~David Gate, A Rebellion of Care

The connective tissue of love and like is gone, and rebuilding on sand is a fool’s errand. To save a marriage you have to want to.

It has been one day since I found out my life is not true...

currently find myself unable to attend church and unable to reject it, and I worry about this unresolved leadership, and then I remember, dear reader, that I am not your leader; I am your sister, and this is not a handbook. You are a grown-up and make your own choices. You get to look for the Spirit however you want, and you will find her. I bless the search for divine love, a journey with a million routes. That leaves me in charge of me only, like Jesus and my mom and Melody Beattie have been trying to tell me. Worry about yourself and all that. I am still finding God. Just not where I used to think he lived.

Forgiveness is not foolishness. Foolishness would include no boundaries, no responsibility, no honesty. Foolishness would bypass accountability for pretending. A fool would diminish the consequences to protect the offender’s conscience. Foolishness would open a door that should remain firmly shut.

The rage I feel watching leaders who assured us we were the problem now repeal our autonomy while giving men in power a free pass. Male pastors embroiled in sexual abuse? We’ll handle this in-house; no need to alert the authorities for family business, she is probably lying anyway. Women who cross state lines

lot. You don’t realize you aren’t walking on eggshells anymore until you can’t hear them crunching under your feet.

I am my own best friend. I am safe with me. I am home.

...but we are not helping the self-drowner; we are attempting to control them. This is their work, and our frantic intervention only delays that possibility while keeping us in a perpetual state of anxiety, anger, victimization, and trauma.

Whatever I am resisting finds a quicker end when I let it exhaust its energy without my participation.

Ugh. I absolutely wanted this book to be funnier.

Women who cross state lines for a medical abortion? Put her in jail. Men who grab women by the pussy without their consent? Put him in the White House.