Present Over Perfect

I'm one of those few people in the world who is lucky enough to call my school administrator my friend. In the spirit of friendship, he offered this read to me, mentioning that it held great meaning for him and wanted to pass it on. This wonderful book, "Present Over Perfect" by Shauna Niequist, is a must-read for anyone who wants to "Leave Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living."

I'm only half-way through it, and already feeling profoundly affected. I find myself writing page after page of reflection, applying bits and pieces of the wisdom within to my own life. This is one of those books that, while it doesn't fit me exactly to a tee, is full of little pieces of truth that is changing the way I look at the world, and the way I identify my place in it.

If you know me at all, you know I'm a "yes" person. I thrive on moving, constantly, and giving myself and my time to anyone who needs it. I'm not so great at giving to myself. When I do for myself, I feel selfish, and I feel like I'm letting people down. I invent ways I've let people down in my head, even when I haven't. When I'm using an afternoon off for myself instead of calling someone, or catching up, or planning some activity, I feel immensely guilty. I have long defined my value by what I can give to other people.

I think I might use this post as my litmus test for success: a year from now, I'm going to look back at the blog and see how far I've come on some of the goals I've decided to set for myself. The idea of saying "no" to the world and "yes" to ourselves is not a new one...but this book gives a little "how-to" plan that I seem to have been missing. It is difficult to give ourselves permission to turn down invitations for fear of disappointing people, but "to do this, though, you have to give even the people closest to you - maybe especially the people closest to you - realistic expectations for what you can give them. We disappoint people because we're limited. We have to accept the idea of our own limitations in order to accept the idea that we'll disappoint people. I have this much time, I have this much energy. I have this much relational capacity." That paragraph - that one - I have to photocopy it and glue it to my mirror.

So. We're always learning, aren't we? Thank you, Andy...it's exactly what I needed right now.

A Love Letter

In a year that has been difficult and sad, it hasn't been easy to find my cheerful positivity long enough to write anything of real substance. I'm careful not to fill up these pages with too much heartache; I think we'll all remember the tone of this year without too much of that. Our family keeps going, from silly moment to happy moment to crazy moment with a few somber pauses in between as we navigate the absence of the one who held us all together. Joy, the reckless and free kind, has been a little hard to come by, it's true. Mostly I just walk around having a pretend life while I wait for Mom to call.

But a couple weeks ago I found myself in one of those moments of magic; the kind where time stopped and I felt it again; glimpsed the fiery sunshine through the fog and clouds. How do I explain this without sounding ridiculous? I'm not sure I can. You're probably anticipating some major life changing event, right? Well, sort of. I went to a concert. But not JUST a concert.

I went to Church.

See, me and Church, we have this thing. We have this thing where he writes all the songs that tell my life story and then I get to find myself again in all the words. He tells me all about my life; who I was, who I am, who I am becoming. Nobody really gets this about me - except maybe my brother. My brother and Stevie, maybe. I think she probably gets it. But this music is more than music for me, and the concert was a literal return, at least for a few hours, to a carefree happiness I've been missing lately.

So this is my love letter to Church.

{You can laugh - go ahead - take a minute to fully appreciate my return the teenager I used to be and apparently still am, on some level.}

I met Eric Church in 2006 when my brother sent me a three word text: Sinners Like Me. I downloaded the first album promptly. John and I have this connection - I can't really explain it. We speak sparingly; there's no daily phone call or email. But we can sit next to each other in a room and have an entire conversation with each other in complete silence. We're built that way - two sides of a coin - and when he sends me a word or two over the phone, I know what he's telling me without asking. Music filled our childhood, and we both resonate with the same devotion to it, constantly sharing bits and pieces of anything that comes our way and means something to us. I didn't see anything truly profound in Two Pink Lines, which is as far as I got in that album before I got distracted by something else. So it was really in 2009 when Carolina came out that John sent me a link to Those I've Loved and then I was hooked.

Thus begins an eight year love affair with Church. He's so diverse; I'm on top of the world when I have a Drink in My Hand, and feeling like I might never leave the house again when I'm Holdin My Own. I am seventeen years old again during Springsteen and Talladega takes me right back to my best friends in college, remembering a particular road trip to Milwaukee.

So on one gorgeous January Saturday night, I made my way to Sioux Falls for his concert - the first time I've managed to secure tickets. To use one of Cooper's favorite expressions: it was epic. He had no opening act. He played two sets; 37 songs, 3 hours and 39 minutes. The average fan got to sing along to a popular hit about once every four or five songs. Those of us who really know him, though, were treated to deep cuts from every single album sandwiched in between the radio singles.

Music has such a way of pulling us backward into our memories...it was so good to feel lightness of being again, and remember some pieces of my past that I've been missing. It was so special for me, and I have to have a minute to explain just one more reason why. Aaron and I went to this concert together - this is worth noting because he is NOT a country music fan. But he went because this is one of those times where he gets me for real. I think being there under any other circumstance just wouldn't have been right. I wasn't there for the usual concert experience - I wasn't there to be loud and rowdy or to sing along at the top of my lungs. I felt positively reverential, and I wanted to FEEL that, the whole time. Anything else would have kept me from what I really wanted out of my first Church concert. If I couldn't be there with my brother, then Aaron is the next best thing, because he really gets me, and he knew, I think, what it was going to mean for me.

We were surrounded by a heavily intoxicated stadium crowd (South Dakota, remember.) It was loud and it was rowdy and there was a flannel shirt and boots memo that we must have missed. Aaron hates country music, but he loves me. And I know it because he didn't suggest even once that I take someone else with me. (There are plenty of times when I need my friends, and he's usually more than happy to send me off with one of them when he's not all that excited about my plans.) This time, though, he came with me. And then? Then he just let me be...no talking, no dancing, no drinking, even. He listened to the music, watched me have a 14-year-old fangirl moment when Church took the stage, made sure I had a Drink In My Hand at exactly the right time, and when Record Year came along and my heart seized up and stopped beating for three minutes and eleven seconds, he reached across my lap and took my hand. That song has me hard - it's Mom's song. I've never said that out loud - I've never told him that. I guess he just knows.

Between sets, I was texting John and Stevie, sharing heart emojis and song lyrics, and feeling like they were there with me, instead of in Nashville and Philly. I felt the thin golden threads of our connections stretching between us, and it made it feel even more special; like we three have this secret and not even one of the other 12,000 people there could possibly feel it like we feel it.

By the time we were headed home, I felt such a peace, such an exhilaration - it was a bucket-list concert, and I couldn't have asked for it to be any better. The next one will be icing on the cake, and THAT one will be a party.

I think I really needed that.

Now I can return to my very responsible, very busy, 42-year-old self. It should make the long weeks of basketball and gymnastics and play practice a lot more bearable until the sunshine comes back out and Spring finds her way back to Minnesota.

And just so I never forget, (as if!) but anyway, just in case...I'll just leave this right here. 💗