2.07.2013

re: the other side of the pillow

this moment just fell into my lap (literally) yesterday afternoon. 

i think it's kind of flawless. i have no complaints about my own appearance that might get in the way of fully appreciating the moment: her perfect baby mouth, her pudgy hand holding my necklace, her sweet little mullet upswept into a high pony by my hand, and even the 3rd volume in my teddy roosevelt biography series looking on.

best believe i plastered this baby all over tarnation.


but lest this picture pull an internet/pinterest/social media trickaroo on you (like when i see a beautiful picture of twins on there and think, "oh i wish i had some!" based on one single frame) and you run off looking to get your most fertile egg nice and fertilized by the closest sperm within boinking distance--because, OMG motherhood is such a righteous snugfest!--let me show you just why the above photo is the elusive needle in the proverbial haystack of the moments that dont often get pinned:

4 minutes after the first picture, she woke up.  ponysprout erection, slack-jawed grog face, sweaty bedhead. she's still perfect and amazing but in a less "pin it!" kind of way

and then her personality wakes up:

 and yes. we are back in the wheelhouse.


i think the reason so many "perfect" pictures get internet love is BECAUSE they are the exception. just like the stories on the news are always about the 1-in-a-million thing that happens rather than exclusive interviews with the 6.5 billion people who had a normal day, didnt get murdered, win the lottery, or pull a balloon boy.

but the same tricky lies that convince us to fear those freak stories, or to waste our money on the statistically impossible (though i will always buy a $1 ticket when those jackpots get huge just to join in the fun) can mess us up, but in the opposite direction.

let me explain.

i have spent a lot of my adult life praying and wrestling and cowering my way through the crippling wound of fear. like paralyzing, imagination-on-a-rampage-until-i-am-full-on-catatonic fear. i have clung HARD to the the promises of god that i dont need to be afraid because he is with me. the exercise of NOT going there in my mind to the one in a million scenario, of taking captive those thoughts before they steal any more moments of my life has been grueling and so worth it. 

i set a boundary in jesus' name and refused to live my life a slave to the highly unlikely. if any of those things do happen, well that will suck, but jesus will drag me through it and somehow i just trust that glory will come.  but i wont live in that place until i am actually living. in. that. place.

the big scam was that i was mortgaging thousands of my here-and-nows to try to avoid one or two probably-nevers. what an easy payout for satan. i locked myself right up for him.

but in the opposite but equal way, beautiful things can steal our lives too. instead of living for the purpose of avoiding a single event, moment, or image, we can go the other way and mortgage our minds in seeking something that is just as fleeting or unlikely. 

just as much as i really couldnt stop someone from hurting me if they truly wanted to, i also can never be that effortlessly beautiful, perfectly photographed, impeccably styled mom that i see on a blog. because the reality is that A: thats just not who i am and B: it's probably not who she truly is 90% of the time either. 

when all we see is a slice, a picture, a post, a story, clip, we should be careful not to project it onto all of the stuff behind the scenes of that person nor onto ourselves. media (social and otherwise) is tricky because it reports and glorifies the exception. 

if i watch the news nonstop and look at pinterest all day i will see a ton of crime and gobs of really beautiful, relaxed, confident women. my dumb ass will instantly project this out in 2 opposite vectors: one of comparison, "how terrible! that could totally happen to me," and one of contrast--"how beautiful! but i will never be as XYZ as that," until i am some freak hanging by my mental fingernails onto sanity and unhappily convinced that i am just some ugly, frazzled, future murder victim.

WHAAAAA?!?! how did i get here!?

i have read some of the popular rants against certain kinds of pins or blogs. they typically say that these "supermoms"  make we the "normal moms" look and feel bad about ourselves because we dont concoct homemade, organic, pokemon-shaped lunches for our kids everyday and look like meg ryan (in the 90's) doing it.  

while i am all for, dont be so hard on yourself, i feel like we are missing an opportunity for introspection if we make it "their fault." no picture, post, or story can MAKE you feel anything.  but they can bring something across your radar that snags on a piece of your brokenness.

it seems to me that that's what we need to be exploring...not if that certain blogger's picture  is photoshopped or saying things like, "yeah well i bet her husband cant stand her."

this is like 1st grade sociology: the tearing down of others to build ourselves up. spoiler alert:: it doesnt work.

why does a picture of a woman with hot legs and a thick head of hair eating a picnic of carrot charizards and cucumber squirtles in a wooded vale with her 7 adoring children (3 of them adopted!) and disney-prince husband make me feel less? did the pixel-synthesizer (official term) in that camera  require a chunk of my security to create the picture?  um, i doubt it. and is it the woman's fault? hell no! she isnt trying to make a statement about what a mom in 2013 should be, she probably just wanted to look pretty and create and capture a picturesque moment for her family..

so rather than putting up my deflector shield about these things and blaming someone else for my insecurity, or rather than just giving in and drowning in the fear, i have really tried to lean into the pain that arises for me in these situations and to figure out where it is coming from within. to discern where the cracks and wounds and brokenness are in my own life that somehow have me NOT believing jesus and what he says about my life and who i am.

he says i am awesome. he says i am enough. he says my hope is built on him. he says he loves me. 

we are commanded to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn (rom 12:15). there is some sneaky evil going on in my life that makes my first reaction sniping about or cutting down others and feeling less about myself when i see my peers rejoicing (succeeding, looking good, being happy), and fearing for myself and drawing away ("i wont LET that happen to us...everyone to the bunker!") when i see others mourning. 

i really want to press in to the biblical formula for rejoicing and mourning and ditch this stupid backward one that steals joy and maturity on both sides of the coin. i want to live wholeheartedly, to explode love and joy and encouragement onto others when they are up and to walk with them in the sewers when the shit comes pouring in. 

the capitalist accountant in me says that is a fast way to have nothing left over for myself on the balance sheet, but thankfully i have bought into the upside down, backward, magic awesome economics of jesus which say that giving always leaves you with more of what counts and holding back leaves you with less. (remember his tricks with the 2 fish and the hoarded manna?...yeah, he's for real on this.)

17 comments:

  1. Awesome words and so encouraging!

    ReplyDelete
  2. i really loved this. You are absolutely right that we see so much of the exception, and so little of the normal. I have been very aware of that with beautiful/perfect things on pinterest and blogs, but never thought about it on the opposite spectrum like the news. I really battle with letting my thoughts be consumed with worry/fear about possible tragedy. For me, this has increased so much since having babies. But, you said it so well...that is "mortgaging the here-and-now".

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bring it girrrl! That was awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Those were some God-given words right thur!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Loved every word.
    Thank you.
    For the insight, and the "other" pictures.
    That we ALL have computer drives FULL of.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel. - Steven Furtick

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yes and yes. Fear = rape-and-pillager of Life. And yes, putting up boundaries against is what you said: GRUELING, but worth it. Working on this intensely right now myself, in my own favorite areas of fearfulness.

    Have you read the "kairos" blog from Momastery? You probably have. It kind of changed my life when it comes to thinking about motherhood, and how we integrate these picturesque moments of bliss into the reality of everyday. How we put these beautiful moments out there without worrying about putting some kind of "fake" image of ourselves into the world. And, how we avoid judging others who do this. I love how she says they are BOTH reality - the "Kairos" moments, like that first picture up there when the whole world just seems to stop in the presence of such beauty, AND the rest of our lives, 98%+ of which is the mundane helter skelter of parenting little people. http://momastery.com/blog/2012/01/04/2011-lesson-2-dont-carpe-diem/

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes and yes. Fear = rape-and-pillager of Life. And yes, putting up boundaries against is what you said: GRUELING, but worth it. Working on this intensely right now myself, in my own favorite areas of fearfulness.

    Have you read the "kairos" blog from Momastery? You probably have. It kind of changed my life when it comes to thinking about motherhood, and how we integrate these picturesque moments of bliss into the reality of everyday. How we put these beautiful moments out there without worrying about putting some kind of "fake" image of ourselves into the world. And, how we avoid judging others who do this. I love how she says they are BOTH reality - the "Kairos" moments, like that first picture up there when the whole world just seems to stop in the presence of such beauty, AND the rest of our lives, 98%+ of which is the mundane helter skelter of parenting little people. http://momastery.com/blog/2012/01/04/2011-lesson-2-dont-carpe-diem/

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wonderfully blessed by this post. Soul-feeding truth.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wonderfully blessed by this post. Soul-feeding truth.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Needed this, so much truth. I think I like you. xo!!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I love this post. The biblical perspective on rejoicing and mourning is perfectly applicable to blog land. I always wonder why we judge bloggers for posting only happy/funny/cute posts. To a lot of people blogging is like scrap-booking. We'd never look through a family's year end scrapbook and comment that they are fake because there's only pictures of happy memories in there. Why isn't the same true for blogging? Great post-you're awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  13. This awesome, eloquent post made me think of this article (http://www.mamamia.com.au/style/model-looks-arent-everything/)and the super awesome embedded ted talks by a model who speaks of the very same thing. Let's keep deconstructing 'beauty' and 'ugliness' and remember image is constructed.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Fabulous, truth telling post. Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Dangggg that was good. There's so much here to ponder...I've never heard anyone explain all of those issues so well. Bookmarking this post; thanks for your honesty!

    ReplyDelete