What to Write?

I'd like to say that a horrible case of writer's block has kept me from posting. But I'd be lying. In fact, I'm suffering from the opposite problem: writer's abundance. I have so many things I want to say, to write about, to try to work through, that just beginning to get them all down is too daunting. So I'm taking a deep breath and starting with just one ...

Letting Go and Letting God

I have heard this saying for my whole life (probably). But it's only in the past year or so that I've realized that this isn't a one-time act of faith. At least, it's not for me. No, I have this worry habit ... I give things that are worrying me to God, and then I take them right back, mull over them, test the sore spots, roll them around until they've acquired the weight and heft of mountains and feel entirely too heavy to do much of anything with besides shoulder them and carry on. 

It's exhausting! And as I get accustomed to my new life, I've realized that I just don't have the time or energy to waste on so much worry. So I'm trying to give it to God. I'm well aware that He is infinitely more capable of addressing my worries than I am, and yet I find myself giving him the same worries over and over and over again. 

I'd like to say that I have a pretty ending to this post, that I've found the trick to always giving over to God the things that only He can heal, but I haven't. But I am coming to terms with the realization that, for me, letting go and letting God is a day-to-day (and sometimes, a minute-by-minute!) way of life. 

P.S. Have you noticed that I like hand pictures? Yeah, me too! :)

Things I Love About Kansas

Yes, I do have a few. Fall being one of them! I miss fall in my neck of the South, where the trees suddenly seem to pop with the sedate but glorious colors of fall. But fall in the South is usually over entirely too quickly, like a quick gasp of "ahhh" before the flames of summer are extinguished by the nagging damp of winter that makes even young bones ache.

But fall in Kansas (at least, so far) is a season long enough to be enjoyed. This weekend, for example, was beautiful. Crisp, cool air in the mornings that warmed to purely pleasant afternoon temperatures. And, since it's Kansas, there's always a breeze! My 4-year-old and I spent most of our time outside this weekend. The weather was too pretty to spend the whole day running errands and doing chores (which is what usually consumes our weekends), so I let a few things slide so we could enjoy this lovely Kansas fall weather. I know it will eventually give way to a Kansas winter (snow, ug), but today is too pretty to worry about what tomorrow may hold.

Writer's Block

As you may have noticed, my posts around here have been few and far between this year. I've decided to try to remedy that lack this month. I'm not pledging to post every day (I'm being realistic), but I am going to try to get something up a few times a week.

Today, that something is a whole lotta nothing. Which is odd, considering how drama heavy my life has been of late. Apparently, I still need to work on that whole self-editing thing.

On Being Not Southern But Missing the South

I am not a native-born Southerner. My parents were born and raised in Illinois, I was born in Maryland, but I spent all of the life I can remember growing up in the hinterlands of South Carolina. We lived pretty much every definition of a red neck joke that there is: grew up on a dirt road? Check. Truck rusting away in the backyard? Check. Chickens pecking around the yard? Check ... at least for a while, until they became stew. Learned how to use a bolt action rifle? OH check, that one was required learning at my junior high (seriously ... our final took us to a shooting range to shoot skeet). Yes,  yes, I grew up in the red part of the South.

But despite the fact that I can drawl with the best of them when the mood strikes me, I don't consider myself a Southerner, and I never really have. I can't trace my family tree to the Great War of Northern Aggression (to be honest, I don't think my entire family tree was in America yet). I never bothered to learn whether supper or dinner was actually lunch, because isn't that what lunch is for? And football, while I do enjoy watching the occasional game, well, I never felt the need to live, breath and die by the score board at either my local high school or Clemson or USC (that would be the University of South Carolina ... not the other one).

And yet I find myself a thousand miles away from the South and wishing I had deeper Southern roots. I don't know if it's the lack of kudzu draped power lines or the dearth of readily available sweet tea, but I feel adrift here in the great mid-West. When it comes up in conversation that I'm from South Carolina, I'm automatically classified as Southern. I feel as if I'm faking people out, as if I should wear a sign that reads, "Not a REAL Southerner," "Doesn't Really LIKE Grits" or "Never Cooked With Fatback."

What do you think? Should I have my own disclaimer?

On Remembering Who I Am

In two months, I will observe an anniversary I never imagined I would have: the one year anniversary of my divorce.

Despite the fact that my failed marriage is a chapter of my life I'm thankful to have behind me, this anniversary isn't one I'm ready to celebrate. I didn't get married planning to get divorced, and getting divorced wasn't something I wanted to do. It took me seven long years to realize I didn't have a marriage. That the relationship that I was fighting so hard for didn't exist. That the man I promised to love, honor and cherish had never been and never would be.

I continue to be surprised at how hard it is to say good-bye to the dreams I had for my life, to the illusions that kept me bound to someone with whom I could never have a real marriage. There are definitely days when I just want to pull the blankets over my head and let the world whirl along its merry little way while I sit this one out, thank you.

But I'm not. That's not the person I am, or the person I remember myself to be. The dreamer who didn't just dream, but also did. The crafter who finished her projects more often than not. The dancer who didn't care if my arms were flying all over the place because I was having fun, and who cared if I looked silly? The singer. The doodler. The writer for fun, not just money. The many things that I lost through the years because hopes and dreams and fun bleed away against relentless disappointment, frustration, resentment, and the realization that you, the person you are, can never, never, never be enough to make this person happy or satisfied or content.

So I'm starting over. Reconnecting with the person I used to be. Choosing to focus on the blessings that I gained from my marriage. Learning to live with the scars I got there, too, and not shrinking away from their tenderness. Showing up. Pressing that publish button, even when it feels entirely too intimate to put these words out there. Healing my heart. Believing in the blessings of today and the promises of tomorrow. Here's to tomorrow.