first the storm, then the rainbow

May 28, 2014

Tonight is the last night that I will sleep in the house that has been our home for the past 3 years and 9 months. Sure I should be packing right now but instead I am writing this blog because I guess in a way, it’s my way of saying goodbye.

We have moved a lot. This will be our ninth move in eleven years of marriage to be exact. However, there are three places that always stand out more than the rest when I think back on those nine moves…1. Our condo on Lakeview in Stillwater where we were newlyweds 2. Our house in Churchill park which was our very first home, our very first building project with my dad, and the place where I became a mother 3. This house. The place where my children grew. The place where my marriage grew. The place where I grew. The place that I realized that after the storm, you get to experience the beauty of the rainbow.

Four years ago when my husband told me to get the house we were living in at the time ready to sell, I felt uncertainty wash over me. We had just had our third baby in under four years. His dad had just lost his battle to cancer. My twenty-nine year old husband was trying to work full-time and run his dad’s company on the side. When I looked into his eyes I feared that taking on another building project would be too much for him and that it might set our family right over the edge. Yet somehow, I looked at my husband and I realized that all he really needed me to do in that moment was follow him and give him my full support even though I didn’t understand, even though I thought the timing was terrible, even though I was scared. He needed me to let him grieve in the way that he needed to, which is the same way that so many men do…by staying so completely and utterly busy that the grief that threatens to overcome them somehow seems a little bit easier to deal with. So we started a journey that my husband began out of pain, but little did I know, it was a journey that I needed to walk through for myself as well.

I look back at the 30 year old woman who moved into this house and two words define me at that place in my journey: FEAR and ANXIETY. I was afraid of disapproval. I wanted everyone to like me all the time. I was afraid of saying no. I was afraid of people being mad at me if I said no. I was afraid of change. I was afraid of loss. I was afraid of things that were out of my control, of things that I could not fix. I was afraid that if someone said I was bad or disapproved of who I was or choices that I made, then I was in fact bad. I was afraid of failing. I was afraid of my past. Most of all, I was afraid of going on a journey toward addressing these fears and anxieties and making necessary changes that would stop allowing them to control my life and the way I lived it.

During this journey I began a book by Shauna Niesquist. At this point I was still confused and searching. This book gave me a vision through this passage that allowed me some clarity I desperately needed at that point in my journey.

“I learned about waves when I was little, swimming in Lake Michigan in navy blue water under a clear sky, and the most important thing I learned was this: if you try to stand and face the wave, it will smash you to bits, but if you trust the water and let it carry you, there’s nothing sweeter. And a couple decades later, that’s what I’m learning to be true about life, too. If you dig in and fight the change you’re facing, it will indeed smash you to bits. It will hold you under, drag you across the rough sand, scare and confuse you.”

Perhaps this passage resonated with me so deeply because when I read it I envisioned myself as the woman who moved into this house, a frightened and anxious girl grasping to the sand on the beach and being smashed to bits by the waves hitting me in the face over and over again. I saw myself fighting desperately, struggling with all my might to hold onto that beach because it was what was familiar, it was what I knew and I was so very scared to let go of it. So instead I dug in a little deeper to that sand and the waves smashed against me with even more force, but still I didn’t succumb to their power because my fear of letting go was too great. I just fought harder, all the while struggling for breath and fighting not to drown when all I really needed to do to finally experience peace was lay back, relax, and let the amazing power of the waves, which is controlled by a force that is so much greater than anything I could ever grasp, carry my body peacefully along, to the place that I was supposed to be.

That is who I was when I moved into this house, a young woman fighting the waves. Tonight, as I reflect on my last night here, I realize that I am different. I am changed. I have so much work to do still but I know that I am trying to be a woman who trusts the waves. What does that look like for me? It means that I know myself better. I know that my identity is found deep within myself and I am not defined by what someone else thinks or says about me. I know that I am happiest when I am creating, whether that be behind a camera or designing cards in front of my computer or cooking in the kitchen or building a house or writing. I surround myself with people who love me for who I am and who breathe life into me and encourage me. I try to do the same for them. I set boundaries because they are a beautiful thing that only make our relationships healthier. I say no when I need to so that I have the energy to say yes when I am supposed to. Although part of me will always be a preacher’s daughter who wants everyone to like and approve of her, I’m ok now with people not liking me because to be honest, I like myself and realize what a ridiculous and unattainable goal it is to “always have everyone like you.” I no longer find my identity in someone else’s approval of me. I know that I struggle with anxiety and I now accept that. I am thankful for the people who know me, love me, and embrace me in spite of my flaws. I am working on forgiving myself for my flaws and I try not to beat myself up for them. I realize that the only true failure is the mistake you choose not to learn from and therefore keep repeating. Perhaps my struggle with anxiety will be a lifelong battle. Perhaps it is just the way I’m wired. Perhaps it started when a little ten year old girl realized that nightmares do come true because a bad man hid in the back of her mom’s mini van and stabbed her repeatedly, leaving her to bleed to death on the side of the road. Perhaps it was because that man was never found and I use to lay awake in my bed and wonder if he was going to come through my window or come after my mom or my family again. Perhaps it was because it was a really dark time where everything felt utterly out of my control and I felt completely incapable of fixing anything. Perhaps that is why I feel so scared when something happens in my life that makes me feel those same things… fear, loss, loss of control, change, inability to fix it. It all takes me back to a place where a little girl sits alone in a dark room and feels those same things, except she doesn’t know how to deal with any of them because she is scared and too young to know how to cope with the reality of what she is going through. Does it really matter though? No. It doesn’t matter how or when or why or where it started. It just matters that I decided to fight it. And it was in this house that I decided to start that fight.

So tonight I say goodbye to a house that will forever be burned into my memory. Why? Because it is the place where I started a battle toward being a healthier me. It is a place where I experienced pain and loss and change and hurt and honestly things that I still don’t understand to this day. Yet it is also the place where I learned that the most beautiful things in life often grow out of a place that begins with pain. You have to experience the pain of childbirth before you can experience the beauty and joy and overwhelming love of holding a newborn baby in your arms. You have to see the sunset and be in complete darkness before you can experience the breathtaking beauty and awe of the sunrise. You have to cut back and prune the tree before you can see the green buds of new life burst forth. You have to get smashed by the waves and nearly drown before you can truly appreciate the beauty of basking in their peaceful flow and letting them take you where you are supposed to go. You have to walk through the storm before you can see the beautiful promise of a rainbow.

In this house I learned to walk through the storm and trust that when I get to the other side, there will be a rainbow waiting for me.

And how beautiful that rainbow is….

There are so many things that I want to remember about this house. Dance parties and popsicles on the back porch. Cookouts with friends with 30 kids running around our house playing hide and go seek. Countless hours spent in the art room with Emmy creating together while we listened to Taylor Swift. Reading together in the art room. Dress up parties and modeling shows. How when we moved in they were all “babies” who needed to be dressed and fed and when we moved out, they were three independent big kids who dress themselves every morning {even though that usually involves some terrible orange on orange or lime green on lime green as you will see in the pictures) and can even pour their own cereal. I also want to remember how special it was to build this house with my dad, our final and greatest project together. We broke ground in February and decided to enter it in the Parade of Homes as the first P&E Properties house ever to be in the Parade of Homes. It was crazy. Some said we wouldn’t make it, but we did it…together. It will always be so special to drive by this house and be able to tell my kids and even their kids that we built it with their Grandpa Paul in four months flat. Thank you dad for sharing your talents and skills with us and leaving us such an amazing legacy that we will share with your grandkids. Thank you mom for sharing your husband with us on this project.
And just for a little walk down memory lane…here is what my babies looked like 3 years and 9 months ago when we moved in.

first the storm, then the rainbow

JOIN THE LIST