Bloodletting...

A couple of weeks ago I turned 33.  I have never been one to be bothered by getting older, but this one was a doozy.  For the first time in years, I felt terrible about myself, like I was going nowhere and just getting worse and worse as a person.  The one big area where I seemed to be offending humanity?  My weight.

I have always struggled with weight.  About five years ago I started making a real effort to get healthy and lose weight, and I lost about 70 lbs.  Yay!  Then I got pregnant and gained every single ounce back.  Boo.  Then over the following two years I got back down again.  Yay!  Then my sister revealed that she had been struggling with an eating disorder for ten years, and in supporting her through her treatment process I realized that my own obsession with my weight was not only harmful to her but to me and also potentially to my kids.  So I made a commitment to her and to myself that I would not weigh myself again and started working to reevaluate my goals for my health and life without being obsessed with the number on the scale, or tracking calories, or crushing myself with guilt about food choices.

It is a thousand times harder than I expected it to be.  Over the past year, though I don't know how much because I'm still committed to not weighing myself, I've slowly gotten bigger and bigger.  I'm still exercising and eating sensibly, but apparently if I don't obsess and restrict and go crazy, my body doesn't want to be that smaller size.  It is incredibly frustrating to feel the pounds come back on and have to buy bigger clothes.  I have paid a lot of lip service to not valuing myself by my weight, size, or physical appearance, but saying it is a heck of a lot easier than really believing it.

So back to my birthday.  For the last five years I've felt every year like I was making progress, going forward, getting more and more awesome.  But this year I just felt like crap.  And I was walking around for weeks beforehand with all these negative thoughts and feelings swirling around in my brain, feeding on themselves and growing bigger and bigger until it was all I could think about.  I couldn't see my many other great qualities, or the fact that my appearance is just one small part of my identity and life. It was a dark cloud from which I felt like there was no escape.

I started thinking about writing this post, but realized that I hadn't even talked about it to another human being.  And that maybe that would be helpful.  And that, just maybe, I should talk about it to my husband, who I know without a doubt loves me.  Duh.

So, the night after my birthday, I spilled my guts and cried on his shoulder (literally) for an hour.  And since I had been holding all this in pretty effectively, I'm sure it was kind of blindsiding for him.  And guess what: he didn't have any miraculous fixes for me.  He just let me talk it all out and tried to reassure me.

And when I woke up in the morning, I felt much better.  I don't mean to say that I was suddenly okay with everything about my body image and my self worth, but things were more proportionate with the rest of my life.  I was able to see that yes, I was unhappy with that one area, but I was also growing in many other areas of my life that I was very proud of.  I was able to stop obsessing -- instead of could see taking things one step, one choice at a time.  The dark cloud lifted.

While we were talking about it, my dear husband was sorry that he didn't have any answers for me.  He joked, "I could suggest leeches..." I replied, "Well, as a lover of the Jane Austen time period I should be all over those old-fashioned methods."  Which made me think of bloodletting (stick with me here), where doctors would open up a vein or artery and drain some blood out of a patient in the hopes of getting rid of the bad blood making them sick.  When I finally opened up and poured out all the poison that had been swirling around in my head and heart for so long, it worked just that way.  I let it all out and that allowed healthier thoughts to come in.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that keeping negative thoughts and feelings bottled up is only going to make them stronger until they poison everything in your life.  I am grateful to have a loving and understanding husband I could talk to and I really wish I had done it sooner.  For you it might be a husband, friend, mom, sister, or just a journal where you write everything down.  This blog post is helpful for me, too.  I kept it in because I didn't want to admit that I was struggling with the changes I've made.  I didn't want to burden anyone else with my negative emotions.  But the truth is, my husband knew I was unhappy about something.  My mom knew.  My kids knew, because by the time I finally let it out I was not a particularly cheerful person to be around.  So I wasn't fooling anyone anyway.

I realize that many people upon reading this would think, "Duh."  But for those who are like me, and have a difficult time talking about hard things, I hope this will empower you to open up your heart to someone you trust.

Perfect is nice, but imperfect makes better memories...

The other night we had a joint birthday party for my little Eliza and my niece Amelia, who both just turned 3.  This is the first birthday they've really been old enough to "get" what was going on, and I wanted to make it big.  My sister Amy is an awesome cake decorator, and I asked her to please help me make a super fantastic girly cake, and she was with me all the way.

But, as so often happens, our plans got derailed.  With 40,000 other things happening, I didn't get the cakes made early enough to freeze (which would have made them much easier to decorate).  Then I was late getting to my mom's house to do the actual decorating.  Then, as my sister was hurrying over to teach me how to do the decorating, her tire blew out and she was stranded.  My brother went to rescue her, and by the time she got to the house there was almost no time left before the party was meant to start.  I said, "Maybe we should just forget the cake.  There's no way we can do it in time."  I was thinking we could just cover it with canned frosting and call it good, or steal the cupcakes my mom had bought for another occasion.  But Amy was adamant -- the cute girly cake was going to happen!  Moving at lightning speed, she leveled cakes, rolled out fondant, and did a bunch of other stuff that I didn't even see because I was trying to put up balloons and streamers.  I have never seen someone work so hard, so fast.

She was apologetic about the final product -- it was lumpy and bumpy and did not have the perfect finish that her other cakes have had.  But the little girls loved it.  I loved it.  Everyone at the party loved it.  It was really the centerpiece of the whole party!  

Do you think they're excited about the cake?

As I thought about it later, I realized how much more memorable that cake is now.  If everything had gone according to plan and we had come up with a perfect cake, when we looked at the pictures of the party in the future we would have said, "Oh, there's the cute cake Mom and Amy made."  Instead, we have this crazy cake that every time I see it, it will remind me of that crazy day and how much my sister loves me and Eliza and Amelia, and how hard we all worked to make that party a fun one for our little people.  It reminds me that my sister is willing to drop everything and do anything for me and my family.  It reminds me how much I love her.  It might sound silly, but now that cake stands for something.  Kerry Vincent probably wouldn't give it high marks, but that's okay -- it's about so much more than the decoration now.

In Honor of "You're My Favorite" Day...

 Yesterday marked the 3rd anniversary of the passing of my sweet little sister Carissa.  Words cannot express how much I love her, or how much I still miss her every day.  Carissa was 22 years old and had Down's Syndrome, and I truly believe she was an angel walking on the earth.  She had a greater capacity to love than any person I have ever met, and she used that capacity to lift every person she met.  She told everyone she met: "You're my favorite!" And she truly meant it every time. She made us all feel like the best version of ourselves. She smiled and hugged us and wrote us letters and made silly faces and told ridiculous jokes and always, always told us she loved us. 

My brother Dan of Single Dad Laughing has written a beautiful tribute to her here that everyone should read, and the main focus of what he wrote was about how Carissa was able to love people because she never thought of herself as better than another person.  This could not be more true. And while I could write for days about the things I learned from her, today I want to just write about the flip-side from what Dan wrote.

Carissa also never thought of herself as less than any other person.

Just think about what that means for a second.

My beautiful girl

I truly believe that Carissa never looked at another person and only saw her own shortcomings. She never thought to herself, "Oh, that person thinks they're better than me" or "That person is better than me/smarter than me/richer than me/more beautiful than me/happier than me/more good than me/etc." Carissa saw each person only as a brother or a sister, someone to love and someone who would love her in return.  She never doubted that everyone would love her, and as a result, everyone did.

I have written a lot on this blog about how we let our perception of our own imperfection stand in the way. We don't reach out in love or in service because we're afraid that what we have to give will never be good enough. We don't explore and expand the gifts God has given us because we don't think we'll be able to do it as well as others.

Carissa never let her imperfections hinder her from being who she was meant to be. And I'm not just talking about the limitations inherent to her disability.  She also had normal imperfections -- she was stubborn as a mule, and she got sad and mad and scared just like the rest of us. But she accepted those parts of herself and allowed the beautiful gifts that she'd been given to shine through.  Let me just tell you one story to illustrate this point.

I was with Carissa when she was admitted to the hospital for the last time. She was in serious distress from terrible pneumonia, and she was scared and in pain. A short time after she was admitted, a nurse came to insert a pic line into her arm so they could better administer her meds (any medical people out there will have to excuse my lack of medical expertise here). Carissa's veins were notoriously hard to find and I think they hadn't been able to get an IV in, so they had to go with the pic line.  The nurse told me that inserting a pic line was almost always very, very easy, but that sometimes it because very, very difficult.  Carissa's experience proved to be the latter. The nurse tried for what seemed like forever to get it in, basically digging a needle around in Carissa's arm trying to find the right placement. Carissa was in intense pain, tears rolling down her cheeks.  But that was not her focus. Carissa could see that the nurse was distressed about the pain she was causing.  Carissa started saying, "It's okay! You're doing a good job. Keep trying. I love you. It's okay," all while patting the nurse with her free hand. By the time she was finished, we were all in tears.  I actually don't remember if she was even able to place the pic line in the end.  But the spirit of love in that room was so strong that I will never forget it.

Carissa with my mom and my boys, just a couple days before she died.

Carissa was not focused on her own fear or pain or unhappiness, all things that would have limited her ability to reach out. Her concern was for the person she saw suffering in front of her. That was the suffering she wanted to alleviate. Throughout that last hospital stay, which lasted about a week, she continued to lift everyone who came in contact with her, despite her deteriorating condition.  Her hospital room had large windows facing out into the hallway, and she waved cheerily at everyone who passed.  We were told later that hospital staff and patients were going out of their way to walk by her room and see her smile. And to this day, the memory of her unselfish love pushes everyone who knew her to be a little more loving to everyone they meet.

Love conquers fear.  Love conquers every negative emotion or action in this world.  Because love for others -- others she saw as no better or worse than herself, only brothers and sisters -- was the greatest emotion in Carissa's world, she was able to lift and serve and be the best possible version of herself. 

I miss you, my sweet Carissa.  I will keep trying to remember your example every day.  You're my favorite!

If this post has touched your heart today, please feel free to share it wherever you share things.

***I just realized I never explained -- we call the anniversary of Carissa's passing "You're My Favorite" Day in her honor.  We try to celebrate the life she lived even as we still mourn her loss. I know that we'll be together with her again in heaven, and that even now she's with us in spirit, and I thank God every day for that blessing.***

Can I get a do-over?

This weekend is General Conference for the LDS Church -- twice a year the prophet and apostles and other leaders of our church come together to speak to all of us members around the world. It is truly my favorite weekend of the year, because it always seems like 90% of the talks focus on just exactly what I need to hear at that moment.

Everyone "reverently" listening to conference...

But yesterday was, I have to admit, not awesome.  In these parts they show the conference on TV, so we watch it from home.  We tried to keep the kids engaged and interested but they were tired and cranky and the day was mostly consumed with us nagging them to be quiet and at least let us listen.  In the evening we went over to my parents' house, and on the way home I was lecturing (again) about how important conference is and how they need to have a good attitude and blah blah blah... (I'm pretty sure that's how it sounded to them.)  But I suddenly had another thought and said, "But you know what, Sammy? [my oldest, who was definitely the only one even pretending to listen at that point] When I was your age, I thought conference was boring, too.  I had a hard time listening to it, too.  It's something you learn to love as you grow up and feel the Spirit more and more.  But it starts by having a good attitude."

There was a moment of silence, and then Sam said, "Thanks for giving me that advice, Mom.  Because for most of the day, I felt like I was the only one..."

His voice sounded so tender and almost tearful.  I realized that I had gone about things in all the wrong way -- just nagging and lecturing without really making an effort to understand things from the kids' point of view -- and instead of creating an environment where they could feel the happiness and peace of the Spirit (even if they didn't understand everything being said), they just felt bored and guilty for feeling bored.  And then I nagged them some more and eventually sent them to their rooms, creating a spirit of contention instead love.

Thankfully, conference is, in fact, a two-day event.  I'm up early preparing some different activities for them to do and also praying for guidance in how to make this the family-and-spirit-strengthening day that it's meant to be.  Thank heavens we do get a do-over once in a while...

Going with the flow...

The other night I unexpectedly had quite a bit of time to just sit and think, as I sat in bumper-to-bumper gridlock waiting to get off a freeway that had been closed to make way for the moving of the longest two-span bridge ever moved in the Western Hemisphere.

The sad thing is, I knew the freeway was going to be closed.  I was out partying late into the night as only scrapbookers can do, and my friends and I had discussed the freeway closure and alternate ways to get home.  As I got on the freeway I saw there was no slowing and thought, 'Well, I'll go down a few exits and get off at the one before the closure.' 

I drove a few miles down the freeway there was still no sign of slowing.  I approached the last exit before the exit I knew I'd be forced off, and I thought, 'I should really get off here.'  But the freeway had only just closed, and no one else was getting off there, and there was only a mile or two until the final exit.  I dithered long enough that the choice was pretty much made for me -- I had passed the last exit and I was committed.

Sure enough, as I rounded the bend there was nothing in front of me but a sea of brake lights.  As I inched forward I wondered why on earth I hadn't just gotten off when my gut feeling and just plain common sense told me I should.  It would have added an extra 5 minutes or so to the time it normally takes to get home.  Instead I was stuck on the freeway an extra half hour just to go about 1 mile.

But I was content to just follow what it seemed like everyone else was doing.  I wanted to get as close as I could to the edge before changing my path.  And by the time it became apparent I had made the wrong choice, it was too late and I was stuck.

How often do we do that in life?  We take the path of least resistance, we go with the flow.  We don't want to be weird or make waves, even when our gut is telling us that it is time to get off the road we're on.  Maybe we think that we can get closer to the edge without falling off than others can.  Maybe we take for granted that the path we're on is the right one, or we're just on auto-pilot.  Instead of taking responsibility for our own choices, we dither until the opportunity for making a choice has passed us by.

Sometimes we feel like that wrong choice (or that choice we didn't make) is permanent -- that we are now stuck on the wrong road.  Thankfully, real life does offer us a chance to turn around.  Or perhaps I should say that God offers us a chance to turn around.  No matter now far down the wrong road we go, he is always there, waiting to show us our chance to exit and get back on the right road.  It might take us a little longer to get to our destination than if we did what we should have in the first place, but God's detour is always going to get us safely to our destination.


So I guess I'm saying three things:

1.  Listen to what you feel inside and live on purpose.  Don't just go with the flow and allow life to make choices for you.

2.  If you end up on what turns out to be the wrong road, don't give up.  God will show you the detour to get back on track.

3.  If you know the DOT is moving a bridge the size of a football field, just get off the dang freeway.

Just Dance!

I have never been what anyone would call graceful.  Stories of my childhood and adolescense are populated with stories of me tripping over things and being attacked by inanimate objects.  I always wanted to be a dancer, but as the chubby, uncoordinated kid that was just not in the cards.  One of my most embarrassing moments was auditioning for a music dance theater program as a high school senior and completely forgetting the choreography to the very simple dance about 8 counts in.  Still, I didn't shy away from opportunities to dance.  I went to lots of dances and parties and danced away.  I took social dance in college and loved every second of it even though I knew I didn't look as much like Ginger Rogers as I felt.  Now I go to a dance exercise class called Zumba every week and I enjoy myself hugely.  I get half the steps wrong and I know I look funny doing the ones I do get right, but you know what?  I don't care.  Sometimes I work in my dad's woodshop for hours all by myself, and you know what I do?  I crank up the music and dance like I think I belong on Broadway (or maybe a Shakira video, but I won't burden you with that image...).  I LOVE to dance.  It feels free and liberating and FUN!

I think I got this attitude from watching my sweet little sister Carissa, who had Down's Syndrome.  She loved to dance, too, and she never let any inhibition get in her way.  When the music started, she was always right there in the thick of things.  More than once I saw her get right up on stage with the band.   She could shake it with the best of them, and she always had the best time of anyone because she wasn't worried about others' judgment.

A while back, my brother Dan of Single Dad Laughing talked about his "dancing black duck" -- how he had stopped himself from dancing for years because he was so worried about what other people would think, and how he decided to get over it and just dance.  He invited all of his followers to send in clips of themselves dancing, which of course meant we all had got to be in it, too.  I showed off my awesome moves for a few seconds and then rolled my ankle really, really badly.  (It still hurts, weeks later!)  Dan asked me if he could use that in the video and I hesitated only for about half a second before I said yes.  It's not cute, but it's totally me.  And since the whole point of the dance video is enjoying dancing without worrying about how you look to others, how could I say no?

Today he finally posted the finished product.  I'm stealing his video to post here, but you should definitely go read his original post about dancing.  It applies to so many things in our lives.  What are we holding ourselves back from enjoying because of how some past experience has affected us?  Just dance, people!

The right to bare arms...

Yesterday my beautiful, wonderful sister Emily got married.  Before the ceremony started, my (also beautiful and wonderful) sister Amy was bemoaning the cap sleeves on our bridesmaid dresses, not feeling particularly enthused about showing so much of her "fat" arms.  I told her I had recently been thinking about my own fat arms, and how EVERYONE says they hate their arms, and entire half-hour segments of the Today show are dedicated to showing us how to get Michelle Obama's arms... and it occurred to me that if everyone thinks they have fat arms, when are we going to realize that maybe that's just how female arms naturally are?  Soft and maybe a little jiggly, but perfect for giving hugs, right?  So we made a pact to accept our arms for what they are...

Of course, a few hours later, at the reception, we were cleverly using our Spanish fans to camoflauge our ample arms in all the pictures.

Accepting imperfection is definitely a one-step-at-a-time process...

Seriously, though -- isn't she beautiful?  You should totally check out her new blog, So Says Amy.  It is both thought provoking and hilarious, just like Amy herself.

Best Self/Worst Self Snapshot

I've written a few posts now about what I call the Best Self/Worst Self Scenario, and a few weeks ago I had an experience that really drove it home to me.

I was at a large fabric store with my 2-year-old daughter, waiting in a loooong line to get fabric cut.  She was grumpy and I was trying to entertain her with one of the animal-sounds apps on my phone, but she got frustrated and threw it on the floor.  That, of course, was the end of her getting to play with my phone, which inevitably led to her throwing a fit.  After a minute she wasn't really screaming and yelling anymore, but she was still doing that "I'm just going to keep crying because I still want my way even though I probably don't remember what I'm mad about" cry, which I'm sure any of you parents of young children know all too well.  At that point, honestly, I was completely tuning her out. I was still trying to soothe her, but my brain was definitely more involved in the sewing project I had planned.

A couple minutes after that it was finally my turn at the cutting counter.  As the lady was cutting my fabric, a middle-aged woman approached the counter and started demanding (loudly) that I do something about my screaming baby, saying that it was upsetting people and that I should leave the store immediately.  I don't even remember what I said, just something like, "I'm sorry, I really am doing the best I can."  Before I even really had time to register anything but shock, she turned and stormed away.  As she passed a man a few feet away, he said loudly "She's not bothering me!"  And then every customer and employee within 15 feet jumped to my defense, saying how awful she was for being so mean and how great I was for not getting angry back at her and that I was right not to give in to Eliza's tantrum and that she really wasn't upsetting anyone.  I really did appreciate the kind things they said, but of course I was embarrassed and I really did want to get out of there as quickly as possible.  One lady even chased me up to the cash register to tell me I was doing a great job as a mom, and another found me in the parking lot.

But I didn't feel like the hero of the situation.  I really was tuning Eliza's crying out instead of being considerate of others.  I'm sure I could have done more to settle her down, but I was tired and stressed.  As for the customer who got angry at me, who knows what her situation might be?  Maybe she was tired and stressed, too.  I thought about my grandma, who had a nervous condition that was great exascerbated by constant, grating noise like crying.  Whatever the reason, obviously that woman was not having a Best Self moment when she lit into me.  But I wasn't, either.  I wasn't a saint for not getting angry back.  Mostly I just didn't have time to be anything but surprised.  The people who went out of their way to come to my defense?  I think they were having a Best Self moment -- reaching out to give comfort to a stranger.  Most of them were older (or shall we say, more experienced) moms who, I think, saw their younger selves in me.  But I hope someone was also around to reach out to the other woman as well.

So there we all were, a bunch of imperfect people, all at different places on the Best Self/Worst Self sliding scale that day.  I was really glad that most of the people in the store were understanding and forgiving of my imperfection.  In fact, I felt much worse for the woman who got angry with me -- she probably felt even worse after everyone jumped to my defense.  Maybe she regretted being so harsh.  Maybe she didn't.  Maybe she just felt even more victimized that now she had to listen to a crying baby AND no one agreed with her.  Maybe she was having a terrible day and the whole thing made her feel worse than ever.

We'll never know, because we never can know exactly where someone else is on their own personal scale, or what they are going through that pushed them to that point.  All we can do is treat everyone with understanding and compassion, trying not to be quick to get angry or be offended.  As human beings, we are all going to have Worst Self moments -- let's not define others (or ourselves) by them.

Tomi Ann

P.S.  If you think others might be uplifted by this post, please feel free to share it wherever you share stuff. :)