Facing the Sun

A few years ago, I signed up for a daily inspirational email to be sent to me from a website called The Brave Girls Club. My coworker Megan told me about it, and as soon as I signed up, I was hooked because they are not preachy religious inspirational, but rather a bit silly and cute, and they always come with a greeting such as Dear Marvelous Girl. Some days, I don’t even read them, but I save them all, and when I am bored, I will sometimes read those I have saved all at once. Other times, I do open them daily, many times, I find it so surprising that the day’s topic often addresses something that is weighing on my mind and heart. Yesterday’s message was one of those. I haven’t looked at them for well over a week, and yesterday morning when I checked my email, I opened it. This is part of what it said:

It’s no fun to go through a stretch of yuck in your path. So make it as fun as you can. Keep your face toward the sun. Keep your heart safe. Nurture your soul. Feed yourself good stuff.

I loved it. Especially the “feed yourself good stuff” part.

That message reminded me of why I started writing this blog nearly three years ago…to live well in spite of whatever crappy thing is going on in my life. I don’t always follow my original mission of “dancing in the rain,” but I do keep the thought of it in the back of my mind at all times, even times that I find myself overwhelmed with…well…shit. I wish I was better…so much better…at looking on the bright side of everything as I should, and I feel like such a failure at times. Yet, I have somehow managed to accumulate a few readers of my lowly blog, women who write at times to tell me that I have inspired them to find more joy in the grind of daily life, and while I think that is great, I don’t feel like much of an inspiration most days. A part of me is kind of saddened by that too, because those who say that don’t really “know” me; they don’t know of the things I struggle with in life. In a nutshell, I sometimes feel like a fraud, like I’m not really “living” the way others think I do.

That all said, back to the topic at hand. Reading that passage from The Brave Girls Club yesterday made me feel okay about what I write here. I feel okay about being somewhat inspiring even though my life is often chaotic and in turmoil. I realized as I read yesterday’s message that what is important is for the most part, I DO try to make my life “fun,” and most days, I DO keep my face toward the sun. (Most days is good enough, right?) I do things every day to nurture my soul and feed myself good stuff. I do at least one soul-nurturing thing every day, even days when all I really want to do is crawl under a quilt or get in my car and drive somewhere far away where I can hide out.

I have been feeding my soul good stuff lately and keeping my face toward the sun. I’ve tried some new cookie recipes. I make a new homemade ice cream recipe at least once a week. I am growing herbs in pots on my deck that I have been enjoying using when I cook. (I made my first ever batch of pesto and my favorite bread recipe is so much better when I can go out to my deck and snip a few sprigs of Rosemary rather than dumping it out of a jar.) I painted my rocking chairs a beachy shade of aqua, and every morning, I enjoy my coffee on the porch. I went to a local orchard and picked blueberries that I made into jam. I take early morning walks with the dog. I have tackled many small projects around the house. Every day, I am thankful that I have things I enjoy doing that occupy my mind and hands and nurture my soul because I don’t know where I would be without those things. Those things are completely necessary to my well-being right now.

Also good for my well-being is a trip we took to Ft. Worth last week to visit Justin. Before we left, I was looking forward to it yet dreading it at the same time. I was looking forward to it  for a couple of reasons, the most important one being that we were going to spend three whole days  with Justin. When he was home in May, I barely saw him during the two weeks of his visit as he was so busy running around and hanging out with his friends. Three days without having to “share” him with anyone was something I was really looking forward to. Also, my niece Jean drove up from San Antonio, and I was very excited to see her. I hadn’t seen her since last summer, and I hadn’t yet met her little Annabelle, who is almost 8 months old.

I was also dreading the trip because I know that Justin isn’t happy in Texas, and while it’s hard enough talking to him on the phone and hearing the unhappiness in his voice, I wasn’t sure  how I would handle it when I saw and talked to him in person. I’m not very good at keeping my emotions in check these days, and I worried that I would be a puddle of tears. The last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of Justin or Tony.

Well, I am happy to report that the weekend was wonderful. Justin was so happy to see us. So happy in fact that he tried to stay awake all night so that he could meet us at our hotel when we arrived at 4 AM. While I know that he is not happy down there, he reassured me that he is making the best of his situation. He has joined a gym and works out every day with a new friend; he has met a girl that he seems to really like, and he spends a lot of time on his days  and evenings off exploring the Dallas Ft. Worth area. One night, just the two of us were sitting by the pool. It was the only time I was alone with him the entire weekend, and I could see that he had been trying to put up a good front for Tony—he does not want Tony to know that he is not all that happy with what he is doing or where he is at since Tony was so unsupportive of his decision to join the Navy. I flat out asked Justin if he was happy, or if he regretted joining the Navy, and I told him he could be honest, that I wouldn’t tell his dad what we talk about. He assured me that he does not regret joining the Navy, but he doesn’t like living in Ft. Worth, and he doesn’t really like his job all that much. He did say that he is still learning, and he thinks he will eventually get used to it and like it. He said that it has all been a bit of a shock—when he was in boot camp, everyone was on the same level, and when he was in school in Pensacola, everyone was new and on the same level. Now, he is on a real base, working a real job, and he is part of the lowest of the low at a rank of E1. He is having a hard time adjusting to that. He said that he knows that will get better, that it is just part of being in the military, but he doesn’t like it. LOL

Then, he said something that did make me cry, but fortunately, it was dark, and I don’t think he knew I was crying. He said to me, “Mom, life isn’t always easy, and sometimes, you do what you have to do to make the best of it.” That’s not what brought on the tears though. What made me cry was when he went on to say that he knows life hasn’t been easy for our family for a while now, but that “you always make the best of everything and if you can do it, so can I.”

Quite honestly, I couldn’t believe those words were coming from my 19 year old son. It boggles my mind that he picked that up from me, and it makes all that I do to “dance in the rain” totally worth the effort it sometimes takes. It made me realize that I must do a better job of being positive and making the best of difficult situations than I realize.

That wasn’t the only awesome thing about our weekend with Justin, and on more than one occasion, I felt my heart go pitter patter. I already mentioned that Jean was driving up to spend Friday-Sunday with us. None of us had met her sweet little baby girl, and we were all so excited. Jean is like another of my children because she spent so much time with us when she was a young girl/teenager, and she even lived with us for a few months after her high school graduation. My kids grew up spending summers with her, and they were just as excited to meet Annabelle as I was. Justin, though, was over the top. When he knew she was getting close to the hotel, he waited for her outside on a bench. He grabbed Annabelle out of her car seat before they even made it into the hotel from the parking lot, and he did everything he could to not let anyone else hold her the entire weekend. He carried her around on his shoulders, put silly hats and sunglasses on her when we were out shopping; he held her in restaurants when he was finished eating, he played with her in the pool, and he asked me numerous times to take a picture of him with her. He pushed her around in her stroller. It was so much fun watching him interact with her, and I got a glimpse of him as an adult with his own kids. Not that I am in any hurry for that, mind you! Yesterday, Jean texted me and said that Justin texted her to say how much he missed her and Annabelle.

 It is hard to put into words how bittersweet this past weekend was. He has grown up and changed so much in the past year—he carries himself differently, more confidently; he has put on weight and has bulked up. I know he is not a kid anymore, but it is hard for me to look at him as not a kid. While I saw glimpses this weekend of the man he is becoming, and that was wonderful, I’m not going to lie, it is hard, so hard, having him so far away. Sunday morning when we were all hugging and saying goodbye, he didn’t let go for a long time.

In the theme of keeping my face to the sun…while the last year has been a bit of a challenge with both of the boys leaving home and joining the Navy, this weekend, for the first time I saw what may be ahead in the future. I saw that no matter what may be wrong in my life, no matter what mistakes I have made and will continue to make, I have raised some awesome kids who I am so proud of. What better reason than that can there be for always dancing in the rain and keeping my face to the sun?