Season of Awakening

I started September fresh. Yes, the kids were back in school, but I had made some intentional decisions to make room for what mattered most by removing some of the things that mattered least. He is working in that space I have given Him.

I have realized this is a new season for me & it is a Season of Awakening. I'm not filling every nook and cranny of my time with to-do's but instead with just-be's. I find myself standing at times staring in all directions, "What should I do now?" And with those questions, there are choices: rest, read, be productive, play, invest in relationships, sow into others, meet with Me's; I have the freedom to choose and enjoy each one. I am not wrapped up in have-to's, idol obligation, self-striving, or insignificant distraction, but living in the the gift of now. 

I wish I could recap this last 8 hours of this day in a way that bled truth so vulnerable; so vulnerable you'd share in my heavy eyes but know my full heart that comes only from His love. I fear it may be impossible but I will try. 

It was 7:10am and I felt a gentle shake on my back.  Face planted firmly in the warmth of our bed, I bemoaned morning coming so quickly. I threw my legs over the bed, rubbed my eyes, & swooped my sweater over my shoulders, "Get in gear, Allegra, we're behind for a Monday morning with minions who need breakfast before school," I thought groggily. 

Cheerios. Coffee. Pack Lunches. Shoes on. Backpacks remembered. Out the door. 

7:49am, "Bye, baby, I love you!" I said as I cranked my head to the back seat. I say it because I mean it AND because I want to see my second graders face stare back silently saying, "moooommmm!!!"

I was looking forward to this day! I was thankful for this day. Just give me a cup of coffee and I would KNOW I meant that. 

9:00am, prepare for the dramatic drop off of my pre-schooler. He does not like letting me go. He cries and clings like those who know him wouldn't even believe. My baby.

"Oh, I'm SO lucky to be his mama. I'm so thankful Jesus that I get to be the one who takes him to school and picks him up. Thank you," I pray internally as his tears wet my neck. 

9:18am, I'm on the way to meet my Monday Mama for we are going to indulge in coffee and a mall hour. The sun is high, the leaves on the trees are starting to shift from granny smith to fuji & I turn the worship music on because there's nothing I want more than just to praise this morning:

I need you like the rain 
Come to me and sing again 
I long for your love so much 
I've wanted your pure touch

You are beautiful, beautiful 
You are beautiful, beautiful 
So beautiful, beautiful

I find my right hand reaching up as my left hand holds the wheel: half in heaven, half at the wheel. I lose myself in that worship moment not caring who drives behind or ahead of me wondering if I'm crazy. This moment is mine to be with Jesus & all I want to do is sing each word like I am before Him; He has given me this day, this life, and I am going to thank him for it. I am awakened to His mercy & grace.

11:03am I have found two pairs of pants that fit me in amazing ways & I'm shuffling the GAP sale section with my nearest telling her, "Jesus is REALLY showing me things," not even paying attention to the fact others can hear me. (The conversation is genuine but my volume may have been fueled by caffeine.)

11:30am ....need....deep, aching need creeps in. The smack of real life that steals your breath, makes you incompetent at knowing how to use your phone jolts me. I need HIM & I need him NOW.

I can lose myself in the worship song that starts to play...

Call my name
And I will answer 
All you need
It's here inside my arms
Just breathe
And you'll be safe and sound with me

I hear Ben Rector's song in my mind:

This isn't easy
This isn't clear
And you don't need Jesus
Til you're here
Then confusion and the doubts you had
Up and walk away

I tell Jesus, "I KNOW you! You had me dig my well today so when I was thirsty this afternoon I would KNOW. I would remember I NEED you, God, to love the gifts and mourn the hurt. Thank you for being my Father who loves me, holds me, lifts me up, walks ahead, supports behind, cheers me on, tells me when I'm wrong," and brings me to His chest. 

This season....be with me always....

3:23pm I am tired but I know truth. I am waiting but I know goodness. I'm writing to Jesus: I love you. NOTHING changes You. Thank You. 

The Season of Awakening. 

Housefires says it best for today: 

Oh, I've heard a thousand stories of
what they think you're like

but I've heard the tender whisper of love in the dead of night You tell me that you're pleased and that I'm never alone You're a Good, Good Father It's who you are
I'm waiting Jesus & you know what for. As I wait, I thank you for friends who show up, love that reigns true, & the truth that it is only You who can fix the unfixable. 

Dear Starbucks....

Dear Starbucks, 

This is a story most mom's can tell, but do they?!

I'm writing on behalf of the decaffeinated, the play-date-dream-broken, & the bereaved.

I'm writing for all the moms who have planned the out-of-the-box play date, 

the women who imagined the perfect scenario playing out beside their fellow veteran(s),

& the moms who are constantly reminded of what perfect parents we were....before children.

Like most golden play dates, it begins with YOU, Starbucks.

You're the goal...the reward...nay, you give us purpose, reason & fulfillment just with ONE little cup & one emerald green straw.

Starbucks, this story is for you.

So the story starts like this...

It was a cool, crisp morning in Lake Oswego.

Leila and I were looking forward to sitting river side on the Willamette (damnit!)

The dream included a picnic blanket, beach towels, & shovels

(or kitchen spoons since we're the ultra creative type).

It had been weeks since we had seen each other & the kids kept saying (read: begging relentlessly) to play.

Why NOT try a new park, a new place to roam, an adventure?

We showed up to a serene setting.

We set up camp & threw the spoons to the kids and released them to begin creating clean, organized river dirt castles.

Oh, sweet divinity!

Leila & I would now....finally...warm our hands & bellies with liquid gold: lattes!

Grande, Skinny Vanilla, Lattes! 

(By the way, thank you, Starbucks, for making it such a great drink to order. 

"SKINNY Vanilla latte for Allegra!" the barista shouts over the fans & I'm all too confident & happy to claim it: "That's right! That's MY Skinny drink....and my cake pop...)

This is when things get good.

The kids aren't staying on the river bed...they're quickly approaching the river.

No, wait, they're IN the river.

($&!* . Oh, well. WE have Starbucks!)

Then...the unthinkable!

That cute little, old, pink haired lady with the knee brace & clearly too-much-for-her wet river soaked dog come screaming through OUR imperfectly perfect Mom Moment!

Grande SKINNY lattes & hot chocolate are E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E

Wet river mud has caked not only us but the blanket, the beach towels, and our bodies.

Our jaws drop.

The dog is not just taking a single pass through our space but multiple.

Multiple jumpy, dirty, barky, gross passes through OUR mom moment.

It seems we now have nothing to live for.

Our children are disgusting (more so than before)

Our coffee is gone!

>>>OUR SKINNY VANILLA LATTES ARE GONE!<<<<

That's not just our fuel but it was our hard saved pennies!

That ONE thing that gets to be ours...that one SWEET, expensive, indulgent treat...

it's GONE along with our money.

We are now left with

no apology

confirmed dislike of domesticated pets

no coffee

dirty kids

& we are convinced we are on "Boiling Point"

Oh, Starbucks...you are the reason we manage & the devastation when the cup goes forcibly dry.

You save us from our worst selves...until someone else strips us of our moment.

We may never recover.

(Well, until we save up for the next cup.)

With Love,

Allegra & Leila

The Weight of Hope

Ever felt hope but it seemed to have the weight of a lead vest?
Ever praised but simultaneously felt how closed your heart was?
Ever loved deeply but felt like pushing it all away?
Ever had so many positive intentions but they all seemed so impossible?

I don't mean to be depressing.
I hate what's pouring out of me right now.
But I am really struggling.

I am stepping in the right direction but I find myself in puddles.
I am thinking forward but drowning in things I can't define.
I am praying but feeling like it's a distant voice from my own heart.
I am desiring "okay-ity" but I am soooooo heavy.

I feel different.
I feel "over it" but everything about the weight of my heart, my mind, and my body tell me I'm not and
I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY?

I find myself gazing out of windows forgetting I'm in an office.
I feel my throat close in like I want to cry but there's no specific reason.
I have friends that want to love me but I-just-CAN'T try right now.
I am blessed with a husband who wants to help me take cookies out of the oven and I lose my $&*# because I burned them.

I feel hopeless but I know what hope is.
I guess this could be called depression but this is not what depression has ever been for me- I'm not on a ledge but I am so very incapable of being anything but alone.
I feel prayer-full but my heart is incapable of FEELING the hope of praying.

So many great intentions and yet the very real need to just RUN farther than I can imagine even if I know my troubles will be my kite strings.


{image by Yann Pendaries}

Beauty for Ash(es)

The things that make us who we are.

I'm sure there's a recipe to goodness... Like 10 cups of love, 2 cups of discipline, 2 TBSP rules, and 20 gallons of forgiveness.... I think that's the recipe we're all born with, our ovens just bake us differently.

Born in true purity, we slowly, gradually, both better and spoil. In a world of imperfection and hurting hearts, there isn't room for any of us to get out scott free.

Lately I have been thinking about all of the ingredients that have been added to my original recipe and changed the taste over time-- for sweeter and for bitter. I guess it was yesterdays post that really spurred this on. As I remembered who I swore I'd be: rich, successful, independent, and alone I recalled how I built that dream.

Divorce, abuse, alcohol, drugs, infidelity, custody battles, hate...

Some people take those ingredients and toss them out acknowledging they are bad, others make posters with big red circles and lines through it saying WARNING so they know not to go there, and others let the ingredients sit and define them. I know at times I was the latter but through my college years, I chose the poster method. I decided my major based on how those elements of my life shaped me. I put on my pink gloves and became a Women's Study major in the hopes that I could defend women like my mother, protect children like I wasn't, and crucify the people who wanted to poison goodness. I guess I also chose the latter though because it fired me up when my family didn't understand why I would be a feminist, why I would denounce motherhood and marriage.

I will always have a place in my heart for my pink gloves. I will always champion for women's rights. I will always want to step in and defend children who don't have a voice in the legal system. I am, however, grateful for a heart that has forgiven.

My husband is often patted on the back for the ways that he has changed me, bettered me even. I still get sideways looks of awe when the family who knew me when sees where I am now. While I know my husband is a huge part of the hole that was repaired in my heart, what I wish people would see is that it was Jesus. It was understanding how He loved me that repaired me and prepared me for the love of the man He had set aside for me. If I had not known my God, I could not have accepted my husband's love for me.

So lately, while I struggle with hurts and hang ups, I try to remember how imperfect I am. How I was born in purity but over time I have spoiled in places. While I have a good heart, ugly things can come from it. While I have good intentions, some times my communication is not effective. While I love, I also have the capacity to both be seriously hurt and to cause genuine hurt.

Beauty for Ash(es)....

Where's Me?

It's been a while.

I've felt lost.
I've felt disconnected.
I've felt so...unlike me.
Do you ever miss yourself sometimes?
Wonder why you run around crazy and what you do it for?

Last week was a crazy week.
My Dad made a semi-surprise stop in town after a business trip.
The thing about having my dad visit is...it's completely emotional.
Usually when he leaves, I cry like I'll never see him again.
This time, I didn't cry, I filled the emptiness up with busy-ness.
Now...now I just feel heavy from the running.Remember how I was reading Life's Healing Choices?
I was doing really well and sharing the journey with you.
I hit Choice 4 and I've been on standby ever since.
Pastor Rick Warren said it would be the toughest Choice.
The Choice that most people stop at.
The Choice has kicked my spiritual and emotional asphinctor says what?
(No Wayne's World Fans? Oh well, then it's kicked my @$$)
The Choice itself has not left me heavy...not completing it has.
It's time to move forward and complete the chapter.

So, there's my Dad visiting + the healing I'm working on.
Can we throw Halloween and an early Thanksgiving on top of it?
I seemed to dive right into the deep end of "I'm not feeling this because if I do, I'll implode."
I think I just need a good cry--I can feel the lump in my throat--I just can't let it out.Here's the thing...
a lot of healing I need to do stems from my relationship with my dad.
I didn't have a relationship with him until I was 25.
Before then...well, before then I understood myself only by how I felt defined by how horrendous the "relationship" was.
Now when I see him, I fall apart not wanting him to leave, not wanting to miss another minute.
I feel like I have lost time to make up for.
Scars that need the Neosporin that is his presence.
Our relationship is a constant reminder of the parent I don't want to be and the child in me I want to fix.
Needless to say--
I miss me.
I miss the me that can afford to hear my husband when he speaks,
the me that can hold my son without an ache of sadness that I didn't have what he has,
the me that functions.
I just need a moment.
I just have to cry before I can be ok again.

{pictures from our Halloween and 1st Thanksgiving of the Season}

A Prayer in my Inbox

I added a folder to my inbox the other day called "Prayer"

Recently, I have realized that prayer does not just have to be spoken to someone, it can be written.
Tonight, I saw it written for me...
and I am overwhelmed.
***I have a moment in my mind that I will never forget.
My great grandmother had passed away mere moments after I met my future husband.
I had always wanted her to meet him.
I had always wanted her to do what she had done for family before--
speak her acknowledgment that this man I had met was the one.
In an odd array of circumstance, I found myself sleeping in her home for the last time the eve before her funeral.
In that evening, laying beside my sister and breathing in the last moments I would be a part of her earthly home, I prayed.
I prayed for the man I met because he asked me to.
During that prayer, I was given a vision.
I was given a vision of who this man was in his family and what would unfold for him.
When I returned from her funeral, I told this man I prayed for him and of my vision.
I'll never forget what he said,
"You actually prayed? So many people say they will but they don't."
I did and I felt the vision was my great grandmother's blessing up there in Heaven with God.
***The other day when I said the words for my own heart could not escape my insides
I had warriors praying for me.

My inbox delivered a prayer tonight.
An email from my closest Godly friendship came through in a moment that reminded me...
I AM NOT ALONE.
She reminded me of this amazing vision I had of Jesus standing in her apartment with arms spread open.
She reminded me to see THAT Jesus.
She was going boldly before me into a place that I could not touch.
I cried.
Oh how heavy this earthly body can feel.
Oh how heavenly His presence IS!

We have a self esteem down...

... I repeat, a self esteem is down...

I'm feeling a wee bit like an all around failure lately and I'm having a hard time battling the lies. Normally I'd turn to prayer, but my mind has been so bombarded with the overwhelmingly negative feelings on speed that I can't get a word up to God edgewise.

So I'm trying to figure out what happened....Maybe it started with the champagne dinner date I was supposed to have with my hus while we watched the sunset on a blanket by the ocean. While I planned the meal and had it all set, by the time he was ready to go, all I could say was, "I'm overwhelmed. I don't want to. Can we go somewhere that I won't have to worry about clean up." FAIL.

On Friday I had so many hopes and dreams for what I would do with my son. Early morning barn run to let him play in the hay and feed the goats, playing at the park--something active. I ended up with a trip to Target, a PB&J he wouldn't eat, and a tantrum over withholding the blue raspberry icee I stupidly bought and let him try. Quality time and selfless focus? FAIL.
On Saturday my favorite crafting friend and my twin from another mother was in town and we had big plans for getting our hands dirty and business talk. We had so much fun but we didn't get to accomplish 80% of what we wanted to, I REALLY messed up by shopping at Urban Outfitters with money we don't technically have, and spending zero time with my husband & son. Minimal accomplishment, realization that there's not enough time in a day, & overcharged wit all i wish I could be but FAIL to be perfect at.

On Sunday, I was just in a funk. I wanted to do all of the things I dream of! I wanted to sew and to cook and to clean and to play with my son and to do a photo shoot, and to work on some marketing ideas, and to dream and I was just OFF. I felt sadly convinced that I should not even bother trying. I am wasting my time. There is not enough time. I am using my time unwisely. I sat there and punched myself in the face repeatedly saying, "Give me more."

Hmph.

I have been doing so well and right now I just feel STUCK.
Stuck in my hopes and dreams and the fact that reality beckons me.
I want to be a selfless mother and wife and all I find is a hunger to feed a selfish need to be more than who I am.
a heavy heart today and a mind swirling in darkness just fighting for a prayer to get out there!


images by beth retro

panty raid!

Today I had a little helper with the laundry.It can't be that weird to have your toddler handing you your thongs, right?

(He also handed me my bra this morning when I was getting dressed. It was at this point that I officially acknowledged: he knows more than I think he does)
HAPPY WEEKEND, ALL!
May your underwear be handed to you by more than just your kids.

SCREAM to be FREE

As the tears pooled in my eyes and my chest burned with rage, I was faced with this familiar and strange pain again.

This blog was conceived in a moment of recognition that I could do something great for me and it was born from a moment of force.

All I have ever had are words. In the moments of my youth when all I could think about was ways to leave this life, I could bring a new pencil to a stub. In the moments when I needed to celebrate or deflate the anger, I could find paper. It was stripped from me once half a lifetime ago and again only weeks ago. My old space, christanandallegra, swelled with bitterness. I found passive aggressive ways to break the injury down, and I decided that was not who I want to be. I made the choice to move forward, to better myself, to reclaim what had attempted to be robbed from me. I chose to return myself back to me and here I fell.
I am in the thick of something awkward, something foreign, something I am being told to wait in and work it out within. I'm battling this desire to SCREAM obscenities at those I feel robbed me. I am in a war with Goliath and determined to be David.

This morning my husband and I had a misunderstanding. I moved to make my old blog private, I moved without asking him. I was conflicted and confused as to why he would care. I was able to step back and see the by not communicating with him, I was leaving him without a shield for the inevitable battle. He would receive a call that would question why I had closed the door, why I had shut family out and he would have no idea what they were talking about. While I boiled with rage, he was able to tell me, "I want to know whats going on so these things are our decisions. When we aren't on the same page, that's when family sees us as divided and gives them room to exaggerate their imagination."

He was right. It just didn't take my anger away. WHY had I done this to my husband. WHY had my freedom, my expression become a tool to torment him? WHY had I let them make me run?

But I am standing and I am walking through this awkward fire in a new home. I want to run but I am being told to Be Still. I am having all sorts of ugliness thrown in my face to weaken me, to defeat me but I am fighting for stillness and being forced to depend on His protection. I am being taught to appropriately protect, appropriately harden my heart and my self.
I know I have complained a lot this week about being a mom, but as I choke up right now, I have to tell you, in releasing it freely I have held my son and talked to him and loved him with so much freedom. I've felt FREE to love him. He isn't this mirror of my imperfection, he is this vision of the best of me. Without being totally free to cry it out on my mountaintop here, I would be bogged down with this defeat that has nothing to do with him and everything to do with me. My freedom here has given me back pure love and reckless abandon to smother my son with a mother who is released of burden.

Do I thank those that ran me off? Internally. Do I continue on in hiding? For now. I hate the heartache of this indescribably lonely and painful walk but the truth is, He is so present for me right now because I have been pushed into Him. I run to him and fall in His arms and He just picks me up when I am broken and allow myself to hear him. I don't listen or try as hard to be with Him when I am ok.
So I fall here. I admit that this moment is so unbelievably miserable, but I commit to fight for the heart He wants me to have. I am broken but becoming so FREE!
all images here

Emotional Ghosts

We had my sister and her boyfriend over for dinner the other night.
(a different story in itself)

It was at some point during the evening that she mentioned that she will be going to Disneyland...
with my brother and his girlfriend.

There was a passing wave of, "Really? No one invited me."
And then it was gone.
This was something familiar to me--my skin has become increasingly numb.
This morning, my sweet husband asked me,
"Does it bother you that your brother and sister are going to Disneyland for their birthdays and they didn't ask you?"
It's been sitting on my heart all day.

My husband didn't mean to hurt me.
In fact, he wasn't the one to hurt me at all.
I have become quite accustomed exclusion with my siblings.
It has been a heartache I have grown up with.
The bro and sis are 1 year and 1 week a part...exactly.
Practically twins, there was no room for the big sis.
I am not close with them....and it hurts me profoundly for so many indescribable reasons.

If you ask me, I sacrificed myself for them.
During my parents custody battle (the one over them, not me), I felt like I was their voice.
I nominated myself to be their protection.
My mom says that they learned from my sacrifice what they would never do.
They learned from me how not to be the sacrificial lamb.

There is no way to describe how my siblings and I don't relate.
I had a job at 16. I paid my own rent. I took out student loans. My step dad put the down payment on my first car, but I made the car payments until I owned it.
My siblings...well...that wasn't their life.
We are the only three who could ever know the hell we lived through and yet we are each other's enemies.
Raised to hate each other, to be each other's competition, to sell each other out to protect our self...we have nothing with each other.
Or, maybe it's really that I have nothing with them.

I recently heard that when my sister does get married, I will not even be asked to be a part of it despite the fact that she was my maid of honor--who didn't attend my showers (not bitter).
My brother had nowhere else to go after running away from home back in March--he ended up living with us for one month... in our two bedroom, one bathroom home.

I was not invited to Disneyland.
I am sad.
I could cry 27 years of tears that seem to sit inside me like a well just waiting for the emotional pennies to drop.
It's easier not to face it...even when it's in my face.

It won't be fixed tonight--or ever?
so I will choose to eat my soft taco from the hus' late night Taco Bell run.
This makes me smile.
I survive another emotional ghost and return to reality:
my life is more than absence of invitation.

Snarky

I'm feeling particularly snarky at the moment.
(My word for bitchy when I don't particularly feel like admitting to to being that nasty.)
I'm trying to work something out in my heart that I'm not totally understanding.
I am feeling flustered and overwhelmed and insecure and...
just lots more and's really.
I'm trying to make sense of why the flood gates opened and all it took was my husband getting home from work late to set me off.
All of a sudden I wanted to complain about everything.
I was mad I made dinner.
I was mad I went through the extra work to make his favorite banana bread.
I was mad I cleaned the dishes only to make MORE.
I was tallying up how many times I have taken out the garbage and waited for some sort of sticker on my good wife chart.
I just shut down.
(It's not PMS)
I haven't slept for the last two nights.
Midget has his 4 molars coming in all at once which means lots of late night painful cries.
I'm barely making it to work.
I don't know what the next day holds for me at the office
(you know, economic crisis and all...finally hits my neck of the woods)
I just feel SLAMMED by it all.

I put a bite of the cold dinner I made in my mouth and spit it out.
"I'm not hungry. I need five minutes."
So here I am.
Hus took midge on a walk
(He's got a 30 pound baby strapped to his back in a baby bjorn--I don't even know if that is safe!?)
But I wasn't about to argue with getting some space.
My eyes are barely open and even my biggest dreams feel heavy.

I'm just having that kind of moment.
I really hate these.