You know what hurts? Unrequited love.
I remember my first experience with that kind of hurt happened in third grade.
(haha! I actually just snorted laughing at how ridiculous that is! Oh heavens.)
Derek Simper.
He cared more about baseball at recess than he did about marrying me.
(actually I'm not even sure he knew who I was in the third grade. so, in all fairness maybe he WOULD have wanted to marry me if we had, in fact, been properly introduced.)
(see? this is why I blog. I wasn't expecting to make peace with that this morning, at yet here I am.)
Anyways.
It really hurt.
I wanted him to want to talk to me and chase me at recess and think I had pretty hair and tell me my backpack was cool.
He did none of those things. (rude.)
Lest you think that youthful experience with unrequited love was a solitary one confined only to my elementary school years...pick any of my older sister's boyfriends and I promise I felt that with them (except for the few that I ended up dating after her. I'm not sure why. Maybe I just was totally incapable of originality as a teenager? Maybe I just didn't trust my own judgement, so I just decided to like whoever she did? I'm not sure haha but I'm sure it was insanely annoying to her! Sorry, Nik!).
College was the same. Lots of dudes I liked didn't like me.
(who are these men?! did they even have eyeballs in college?!)
You know what I WASN'T expecting, though..?
The weirdness that is loving your children more than they love you.
Especially when that weirdness comes as a result of blending a family.
I had kind of hoped that my earlier blog on this subject would be the beginning and end of my need to talk to about this. Like the summer would just resolve all of the issues involved and it would be put to rest forever and we'd be seamlessly blended by the time the school year started again.
Wouldn't that have been lovely?
I think so, too.
Last week one of the kids was chatting with Violet and the conversation turned to wishing things were the way they were before.
'Before' meaning...before we were a family.
I wasn't there for the convo, so I can't say for certain what exactly was said...but the overall sentiment was that things were somehow better before.
(for clarity's sake: we just had a baby a few weeks ago and everyone is exhausted and running on fumes. I get why this conversation would be coming out in light of how the last month or so has gone. new babies mean the older kids don't get as much attention or exciting parent time...because the parents are usually in survival mode.)
Even knowing all of that ↑, though...hearing that the kids somehow prefer the way that it used to be over how awesome it is now? It made my chest hurt.
I get it. I really do. But it still really, really hurt.
It made me wish for time to fast forward ten years. In ten years from now, we'll have been a family for almost 11 years! Whoa! Hopefully I won't be blogging blogs on this subject anymore (enter nervous smiley emoji with the sweat drop on forehead). We'll have our oldest heading off the college (oooooook I had to take a break for a minute to cry postpartum hormonal tears of sadness thinking about the fourth grader leaving...), and Ava will be rioiweohtoheghuehoeiowiowrqiqhqh
Ok I can't type about how big our kids will be in 10 years because I'm crying too much and I have to finish this blog before Ava needs to eat again.
YOU GET THE PICTURE.
In ten years we'll have had a lot of time to BE together as a family.
But how do I make sure my heart doesn't hurt so much in the next few years of blending that I close off..? Sometimes it feels like I WANT to close off...step back somehow. Protect myself from the uncomfortable comments and unintentionally hurtful comparisons.
I'm not the way that it was. I'm the way it is now.
...and that's hard sometimes - for all of us.
****
When I first found out I was pregnant, I thought about canceling my Time Out for Women/Girls event in Sacramento this last weekend. I knew I'd have a five week old, and that I would be recovering from a c-section (and that recovering from my first c-section was an absolute nightmare). As I prayed about it, though, I felt like everything would be ok...that I should still do it.
I didn't feel particularly nervous about it until a few weeks ago when Ava first came. I looked and felt like I'd been hit by a bus and I wasn't particularly excited about getting up on stage in that condition haha. Again I prayed - and again I felt reassurance that everything would be ok...so I packed up my babe and husband and headed to CA on Friday morning.
The event was wonderful. I only missed my cues to be on stage twice (ha! ugh!!) (in my defense, I was nursing backstage for the second one and was truly caught off guard. my bad, guys.) and even though I was so, unbelievably tired, I felt so grateful to be back. Time Out feels like home in so many ways to me now - and I didn't realize how badly I needed to connect with that feeling.
As I was mulling all of the blending-family/unrequited-love-issues over in my head this morning, I thought of Time Out for Women this weekend in Sacramento. I thought about standing on that stage in front of hundreds of girls (and thousands of women) and testifying that our worth lies in who we are - not what we do (or don't do). I thought about testifying about God's timing...that our hurts and pains and struggles are meant to SANCTIFY us, to perfect us...not to destroy us.
And then I thought about Elder Boyd K Packer teaching us that "a testimony is...found in the bearing of it."
I suddenly felt like my being at Time Out was just for me this weekend. I needed to remember those things. I needed to reconnect with that testimony that I learned and earned through years of struggle and questioning.
Even when I want my kids to love me as much as I love them - to want me and choose me and love me...but they don't? I still have (and will always have) God's love - and that is more than enough. It's ok for them to take their time. It's ok for it to not happen all at once. I am worthy of love, I am good enough, I am loved and seen and known by a God who chooses me every single day.
Even when the struggle of learning how to be a mom to all of my kiddos and this new baby (and try to continue building relationships with new family members and maintain relationships with my original family members and friends and callings and etc etc) feels overwhelming and like I'm failing WAY more than I'm succeeding...
Even when the weight of that failure feels heavy and I want to run away...
Even when all of those things are true/present - I believe that God's timing is perfect, and that all of these things are working together for my good (Romans 8:28).
The hurt? The struggle? It doesn't have to have a quick, easy resolution.
I know how to handle struggle.
And I bet you do, too.
****
I'm putting this blog out in to the universe today because I needed to remember something I already knew. I was forgetting to connect with what I'd already knew; and remembering feels like taking a breath of fresh air. So...maybe...hopefully...reading this will make you take a second to ask yourself what it is that YOU might need to reconnect with. What are the truths you have already learned in your life (that maybe you've forgotten) that could help you face your challenges today?
Sometimes all we want is to see the light at the end of the tunnel, right? To know the end of the struggle is coming soon?
I once read something really profound about the light at the end of the tunnel and wanted to leave it here at the end of this blog to wrap things up (so I googled it, duh). Before I found it, though, I came across these gems that I want to share first:
-The light at the end of the tunnel isn't an illusion; the tunnel is.
-The light at the end of the tunnel is your life; it's the tunnel that's temporary.
-I stopped waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel and lit it up myself.
and my favorite:
-The light at the end of the tunnel might be an oncoming train.
(hahahaha just dark enough without being tooooo dark, right? ...right, guys..? ...guys?)
When I finally DID find the quote - I realized it actually doesn't reference a tunnel at all (oops) but it's still awesome:
"I'm not waiting for the sun to shine; the light, it comes from within me." - xan oku
Remember what you know.
Remember that the light comes from within you (a gift from God) when you find yourself in that deep, dark tunnel.
Stay strong, my friends. Have the best Monday. ♡
