If Not Now -- then When

It's been 3 weeks since my last update. Started a new job, yes, even in a sagging economy. With change always comes deep feelings of insecurity. In my heart, I know I am lovely, intelligent, and competent. Yet, there's this shadow that always tells me otherwise. In those moments I remember the precious advice I recieved, and did not entirely adhere to, during our premarital counseling.

There are lots of different approaches to premarital counseling. Many couples prefer to do it through a religious institution where faith is the foundation of a relationship and where admittedly the cost is less than professional counseling.

I recall the best advice our clergy counselor gave us...as we informally chatted around breakfast at an all American diner discussing issues such as finances, "fighting well" and all the traditional topics to cover before engaging in marriage. During that specific meeting he listened for the first time about the death of my mother. He asked me if I had considered professional counseling.

"Do you know how much that costs?!" I asked, aghast that he would suggest that during a season of financial crunch he would suggest I see a professional grief counselor.

"How much did your dress cost?" Was his unsolicited response.

"$250" My proud reaction thinking back to the great deal I found online to the dress of my dreams.

"You mean you would spend $250 without hesitation on a dress you want to make sure is clean and white for your wedding day, but you wouldn't spend that amount to ensure you walk that aisle with a clean soul?"

His words pierced my defenses. "Who is he to judge the state of my soul?" Was my first reaction, followed by, "he's got a point." A secondary reaction.

Now...nearly 3 years later, change still draws back the same stings that made my wedding the best and most painful experience of my life. Change...be it a job, a location, anything brings back hiccups of the same flavor of a pain that accompanied that season. Yet...finances has always been the reason I never reached for a counselor I felt comfortable with.

I titled this post "If Not Now -- then When" after a Tracy Chapman song that served as an epiphany from my engagement days. Back then I believed the numbing agent of time to be an interpretation of healing. But the feelings that surged during that period, were actually a gift, a clear open door to areas in my life that could be worked through, at any cost, before they crystalized in my heart, resurging at vulnerable times.

You can wait 'til morning comes
You can wait for the new day
You can wait and lose this heart
You can wait and soon be sorry
Now love's the only thing that's free
We must take it where it's found
Pretty soon it may be costly
If now now what then
We all must live our lives Always feeling Always thinking
The moment has arrived.
If not now then when...

Learning to Fly

I recently picked up The Shack after scores of recommendations from friends. Within an hour, my cerebrum escaped our cosy apartment into a landscape of lush forests and into an author's unbashfully forthright conversation with God [depicted as a "She"] about the problem of pain and its relationship to love and freedom.

"Consider our friend over here," she began. "Most birds were created to fly. Being grounded for them is a limitation within their ability to fly, not the other way around...Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly...And if left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place." (p. 97)

Reading this simple analogy triggered a universe of fear in loving and potentially losing again. Of unleashing 8-year old clippings on my wings. I had forgotten what it means to love without fear of death or anxiety.

After all, if I loved my mother, provider, protector and friend so dearly and couldn't change the circumstances of her death, am I willing to risk again and love this man who could devastate my heart again if he were to die?

Extreme as such thinking may appear to some, it's common, real and rooted in a fear founded on experience that can't be argued away, even by a fiance. It's the question a bride must ask herself prior to vowing "till death do us part" and it's the question she may ask every snowy night that her husband drives in a car, or every time he shows a sign of sickness.

Your thoughts, comments...?

Mother of the Bride

Would knowing the duties that a mother would traditionally fulfill during engagement and the wedding make planning easier for a motherless bride?

Yes/ no/ Possibly?

Show Me Some Love

I often speak to brides who secretly feel angry. Pinpointing a menial wedding detail or comment from someone in the wedding party may be the immediate target of the frustration...but dig a little deeper and the hurt unravels into a deep ache for having mom there to pick up the pieces of logistics, appointments, and attitudes. To reassure the apple of her eye that "everything will be alright."

Many brides spend so much time and energy compensating for her absence, never truely showing the pain. In Motherless Daughters, Hope Edelman offers a nugget of perspective that I think highlights the importance of having someone close, anyone sensitive to your situation, to know the truth of reason behind your emotions.

As women, we have few adequate models for releasing rage, and we often give in to the impulse to pretend it isn’t there. Which is really an unfortunate consequence, because anger can be our ally, at least for a while. As a first-response emotion, it can protect us from feeling intense sadness until we’ve passed through an intitial adjustment stage. But clinging to anger too long keeps us from addressing the emotions underneath, and those-resentment, desertion, confusion, guilt, love-are the ones on which true mourning is based.

Your thoughts?

Not alone

For one day in her life the average engaged woman is tranformed into a supermodel for her wedding. A cross between an allstar diva and noble princess. On that day, a slew of cameras and videos, bubbles and confetti, follow her every step. Her hair is perfectly pinned, her face adored.

A little while ago it was my birthday. Another day in the year where I secretly expect the paparazzi to show up and make me feel like I'm the most important person to mother earth. In reality, it's usually not mother earth's snapshot of my life I seek, its my mother's gloating over it that I miss.

The emails came in, phonecalls abounded, my husband's card made me cry from joy. For eight years I had practiced choosing to enjoy this day without my mom recieving the credit for making me happen. The plan for the day was laid out, my favorite comfort foods in the fridge, a slew of social events would keep me busy enough to not really think about it. But this year another curve ball came my way.

My father forgot.

Sometimes it doesn't matter how many people remember, it's hard to get over the one person who seemingly forgets, the one person who's absent. An eternal optimist, this was hard to accept at my wedding. Didn't matter how many cameras were clicking or faces smiling, there was one woman in the world I wanted there more than emotions could express. More than my feelings could contain.

In that moment, and in other life moments, I think about my Creator. I listen to that part of my heart that knows there is more to my existence than biological forces shaping atoms and equalizing ions. When I feel surrounded by people yet empty within, longing for my mother's presence, I think about a verse in the Bible that says "When my father and my mother are turned away from me, then the Lord will be my support." (Psalm 27)

On days like these I miss her and I smile and in my heart I kiss her and I realize, God is with me. I am not alone.

Fear of Commitment

Note to self: fear of commitment and mother loss are connected. Check out an excerpt from Buxbaums' riveting novel. Anyone read it?

Blue Dress, Blue Napkin

Remembering random details mid-conversation with friends and relatives may be typical for most brides. Fervently nodding in conversational agreement over microcosmic points of talk that spark monumental inspiration for decorating ideas. Suddenly a friend talking about her new blue dress triggers an idea for blue napkins to be neatly folded underneath the complimentary fusia pink M&M favors.

Taking these random details and thoughts to a "motherly" level can be hard -- to put it mildly. Although I have often heard brides complain of their mother's excessive sharing of wedding preferences in a border-line manipulative way, at least those tastes, opinions and preferences are known.

On and on your friend's "blue dress" conversation continues, while all you can wonder is what color napkins your mom would want? What kind of a dress would she want you to wear?

Would she think my 20s hairdo is hideous? And who will entertain our great aunt and uncle, if not her. Am I responsible to introduce old relatives to the groom's side of the family even though the last time I saw them I was in diapers?

Slowly you feel your "I'm listening to your blue dress story but thinking of something wedding related" nod give way to an unpolished glisten of tears accumulating at the corner of your eye. Taking charge of your tear ducts you hurry a whitty comment that makes both of you laugh. You laugh and laugh till the topic changes from blue to the weather. Your thoughts craving one thing only, a journal.

Photo credit: Kate Nash by Paul Ferrell