Author: Bethany

1Aug

eHarmony Would So Not Approve This

He has his version of Irish music; I have mine.

He piles spicy peppers on his breakfast eggs; I once licked a jalapeño, The End.

He likes his beer as red as his beard was when we met; I’ll always reach for the pale ale (unless there’s a mojito on the table, in which case all bets are off).

He once spent a semester tutoring me in math so I could in turn teach it to my SAT students without crying; I once spent a semester tutoring him in English so he could pass an exam marry me.

He runs marathons for fun; I have a vastly different understanding of the word “fun.” (Of course, I would consider getting buried alive in a library fun, so maybe we can just agree to politely mock each other’s definitions ‘til death do us part.)

His 6’2” ≠ my 5’6”.

He relaxes after work by getting together with friends; I relax by getting as antisocial as possible.

He keeps his t-shirt collection in circulation year-round; I burrow under duvets in August.

He grew up speaking Venetian; I grew up speaking Christianese.

He appreciates a lively discussion; I would rather run a marathon while doing tongue trigonometry with habaneros than debate politics.

He prefers to work out our disagreements face to face in the honesty of the moment; I prefer to work them out with the solitude of my journal and the perspective of elapsed time.

As the saying goes, opposites attract.

During those warm Texas nights when we’d sneak away from campus to talk for hours, uninterrupted, until night turned to morning around us and our reputations began to register as lost causes, we saw only the shared wavelength of our thoughts. I still count our minds’ chemistry among the most precious gifts of my life. But eight years (and twenty-seven days, if you want to get all precise up in here) of marriage have given our differences their fair share of stage time, and I’m a little amazed that I ever thought of us as birds of a feather.

Of course, we have a few things in common now that we didn’t have back then. When we tiptoe into our little girls’ bedroom every night to rescue covers from a tangle of sleep-flung limbs, the smile we share on the way out is uniquely ours. The way our bodies interlock as we hug, molded to each other over eight years and twenty-seven days of babies and marathons and travels and sharing a bed, transcends any others’ touch.  Our joint account holds the memories of our first five homes together (plus the two that weren’t really ours), the course changes we’ve seen each other through, and the dreams that have grown up alongside of us.

We still hear each other through the noise of life, and I pray never to take our soul-compatibility for granted. But truth be told, I don’t think I would be writing this today if not for a partner who consistently introduces me to new experiences, keeps me social despite myself, pulls me out of hiding time and time again, and manages to surprise me every time I’m sure I’ve got him all figured out. I’d even venture to say, poor math skills notwithstanding, that he + I = just right.

(Plus, it turns out we do agree on one or two definitions of fun…)

 

 

30Jul

Breaking the Rules

I’m sitting halfway out of an open window, bare feet double-dipped in sunlight, espresso and milk on the rocks in my favorite mug. It’s just what I needed after a week of sulking weather and self-doubt. It’s also the first time in awhile I’ve been able to sit and corral all the little thought-bytes sifting around my soul, and seeing the bigger picture of what I’ve been processing piecemeal lately is its own kind of sunlight therapy.

Here’s the thing—

If traditional, commonly-accepted Christian interpretations of the Bible are true, then I am a better parent than God is (even when I’m grumpy).
The “good news” is just one facet of the worst news imaginable.
Free will is a test designed to fail.
There is no such thing as unconditional love.
The end justifies pretty much any means.
Jesus was a terrible evangelist.
It really is all up to me.

I have done enough mucking around in my soul over the last decade to say this with absolute certainty: If traditional, commonly-accepted Christian interpretations of the Bible are true, then I want nothing to do with God.

Nothing.

My philosophy professor in college taught that we are only motivated by a desire for truth, and I want to argue with him as strongly now as I did at my desk nine years ago. The idea that a God whose master plan involves eternal torture for most of humankind might really be truth is the thought that sends my spirituality into hiding the most quickly. If it’s true, then I’m damned anyway because I cannot—and would not, even if I could—love the orchestrator of infinite cruelty.

The spin on all of this is that I have felt God. I’ve looked miracles full in the face. I know the thrill of a nudged heart, the mystery of peace replacing panic, and the deep-rooted sparkle of love breaking rules, and the rule it’s breaking down right now is that I have to choose between my own conscience and truth… or at least other people’s version of truth.

Here in the sunlight, this statement doesn’t seem to carry the weight of all its sleepless nights and shadowed days, but I’ll say it anyway: I believe in God. This belief isn’t a thing I can dismiss any more than I can will away cloudy Julys or untannable skin or a questioning mind, but I’ve come to recognize it requires sacrifice on my part. I have to give up the notion that any of the seven translations of Bibles on our bookshelf is a perfect, untouched directive straight from divine lips. I have to let go of the mental hierarchy we make of religious leaders/teachers/authors with us laypersons on the rung marked “Irrelevant.” I have to say goodbye to my reputation as a good Christian and welcome labels like “heretic,” “apostate,” and “disturber of the peace.”

In essence, I have to give up the three things much of Christianity is built on—Bible worship, traditional teachings, and the appearance of holiness. I would never have imagined sacrifice for the sake of my beliefs looking like this. (Avoiding miniskirts and cigarettes? Well duh. Martyrdom? Sure. But voluntarily free-falling off the edge of orthodoxy? Uh… no.) However, if my path lies somewhere outside of traditional, commonly-accepted Christian interpretations of the Bible,
and if Jesus was a glimpse of the true God,
and if the heart-nudges I’ve felt are merely previews,
and if unconditional love matters, wins, is
then I’m willing to give up everything I’ve ever stood for—and then some—to find out where this belief will take me.

If I’m not mistaken, this is what they call faith.

 

26Jul

Mrs. Bean

It’s summer break!

…Or at least that’s the word on the street. “Summer” implies a certain temperature range which this soggy gray July is failing to reach, while “break” seems to indicate time off, and oh my goodness gracious. I can remember times of my life in which I must have been busier, surely, but my here-and-now has a competitive streak and refuses to concede the Most Likely to Drop Own Skull While Juggling Schedule award to any former time period.

This is the first summer that I’ve worked in addition to having the girls home from school, and I’m basically feeling like Mr. Bean on both fronts. My children have to call “Mommy!” in a steady crescendo for an average of four minutes before I hear them because I’m too busy making lesson plans or translating, and my bosses have to accommodate babysitter dashes and my awkwardly-sized schedule openings. Ideally, I just wouldn’t work over the summer, but our family has some big adjustments coming up, and every chance to bolster our bank account eases a bit of stress.

As with 95% of the things I worry over, the Mr. Bean routine probably shouldn’t register as a big deal. After all, most of the other moms I know also work. However, they also tend to have nannies (or willing grandmas) and housecleaners (or extra-willing grandmas), and summer camps siphon off their children’s excess energy quite nicely. Here is where I start to feel [rightfully] ashamed of my first-world problems, because my outlook keeps boiling down to Waaaa, I want a nanny! Waaaa, I want a housecleaner! Waaaa, I want an investor to cover my children’s summer camp expenses for life so I don’t have to keep agonizing over their lack of organized fun! Good grief.

What I really want is to feel sure that I’m meeting my family’s needs in the right way, and please tell—Does any mother ever feel truly, completely certain that she has found the right balance between parenthood, finances, and good old-fashioned sanity? If so, I could use her secret before parenting or working morale drops any lower around here.

Sanity has left the building (Sanity, as you can see, has already left the building.)

 

20Jul

Mt. Grampie

Sweet, honest Natalie.

We had a bit of turbulence throughout our morning today. No gales or typhoons, mind you, but enough rough patches that I ended up expressing my displeasure in a rather loud way that may or may not have involved yelling into a pillow. The girls convened with each other in whispers and then tiptoed into the other room, emerging several minutes later with the above letter held in front of them like a shield. There were giggles, kisses, and plenty of “I’m sorry”s nuzzled into forgiving ears, and the girls cheerfully got back to their day. I, on the other hand, spent the next hour in mental self-flagellation.

I have never been not frustrated as long as I can remember. I don’t know how much of this is my personality and how much of it is from growing up in an environment where perfection was expected with the understanding that I would never be good enough to attain it. I still don’t get how a too-heavy sense of responsibility can coexist with utter helplessness, but the mix has stewed under my shoulder blades for nearly all of my life.

Most of the time, it’s just sort of there, not doing anything worse than fogging up my sunglasses. Other times though—for instance, if I’m tired or hungry or, God save us, both, or if I have to call any form of customer service, or if (hypothetically) it’s the second morning of post-vacation summer break and the girls and I can’t remember how to occupy the same house without sounding like screech owls—in times like those, the simmering mess bursts like lava up my throat, and the only way I can find to direct it is out.  Thus the mistreated pillows and the formal requests from my kindergartners to please not be so grumpy.

There have been some Conversations around here lately about my similarity to Vesuvius, and while I’d be happy to cut back on the lava eruptions, I simply don’t know how. My coping arsenal consists of two strategies: 1) remove self from the frustrating situation, and 2) put a lid on it. The problem is that #1 is rarely an option—I often feel helpless in the face of existence, and there aren’t many socially acceptable ways to take a breather from that—and #2 usually just results in the lid rocketing out with the rest of the molten angst. All new frustration! Now with projectiles! Hard hats recommended!

Ergo my question: Which direction besides downward or outward do you channel chronic frustration?

Revised question upon realizing that you probably don’t have a stratum of helpless negativity simmering somewhere south of your clavicle: How do you deal with turbulent mornings without earning a cease and desist letter from your six-year-old?

 

19Jul

A Clumsy Apology

Hello there, neglected little blog.
Hello there, neglected friends.
Hello there, neglected pages, fingertips, heart.

We’re home from a rather dizzying eight countries in three weeks, and I’m still stumbling around on disoriented feet, tripping over an unpacked suitcase here or there. Not having written in even longer, my sense of direction is totally shot. Everything feels unfamiliar… fingers on the keys, the transference of inklings into ink, even (wince of pain) Facebook.

I’ve had to do more on-the-fly prioritizing the last few months than ever before in my life, and of all the mosaic tiles that make up my days, writing feels the most expendable. Make an appearance in the blogosphere or accept the translation project? Work on my half-finished book or run the weekly errand gamut? Journal or attend the girls’ school dinner? Respond to emails or clean up our natural disaster of a kitchen? Even during our vacation, I made a daily decision against snuggling up with my laptop and instead ventured out to experience new places with my family. I wouldn’t have chosen any other way.

But damned if I don’t miss this.

(This being my neglected little blog, my neglected friendships, the neglected passageways from my heart-tips to my fingertips, and the simple pleasure of snuggling up with my laptop despite the kitchen’s resemblance to Mount St. Helens.)

Please to forgive? And to stick around until I regain my footing again?

P.S. – No time or energy for a birthday list this year… but if I can show up around here a little more often [than my current trend of never], I’ll consider every moment of it a gift. Ribbons optional.

 

15Jun

Present Perfect

My head is full up to here. Lesson plans, present perfect study guides, proper British spellings, and would they translate it as cinema or theatre in the UK? Dust clusters, cheese baked onto forks, a weekend filling up fast. Blank pages staying blank, clock face a blur, heart applying whiteout with a heavy hand. Lists like a rolling sea and the tide coming in.

We leave to camp our way across Europe in just over a week, but the days are still picking up speed, and I’m bracing myself for the almighty impact of vacation… or rather, the night before vacation when we’re playing Trunk Tetris with the car and my eyes are only half open and I still have half the kitchen to pack. Being a detail person generally works well for me, but I do have a habit of drowning in my own practicality—especially, say, when we’re T-9 days from an epic camping trip with pretty close to nothing planned. We haven’t even figured out which country we’re going to spend the last week of it in. That would be more than enough to overwhelm my head if there were any space whatsoever left in it right now.

But seeing as there’s not, I can’t manage to work up a good panic, and truth be told, involuntary oblivion is kind of nice. I guess all that really matters is that four of us leave home together and come home together, even if I forget to pack the kitchen sink and/or we accidentally detour through remote Slovenia. (Come to think of it, that could be fun…)

I’m grateful for these spastic little glimpses into the brain clutter reminding me that yep, it’s pretty full in there, no room to worry about the future, and hey what do you know, we’re all surviving. What’s more, we’re all happy to be here right now, and I suspect that two weeks from now when the unknown is our new right now, we’ll still be glad to be living it. However, if there were room in my head for the kitchen sink, I wouldn’t complain. Just saying.

25May

Untethered

I don’t know where to start writing about this, even just for myself. It’s too big for me, too heavy, and my soul just wants to stretch out on a beach chair in some blissfully deserted part of the world and fall asleep to the sound of waves. How do I write through where I am now without coming across as fickle or, as more than one person has suggested, deluded?

It’s true—my perspective was warped by years of religious brainwashing and abuse in God’s name—but if nothing else, growing up with people who swallowed someone else’s ideology taught me not to do the same. I refuse to adopt a belief system just because others tell me to, and that applies to Christianity as well. Have I ever believed in God because my own story and experiences led me there? Have I ever even had that option?

I once thought that every good thing that happened to me was an act of divine benevolence. Scholarships, job offers, relationships, fast recoveries, relationships—each a personalized stamp of God’s approval and generosity.  What does that mean for my friends who had to work their way through college though? What of my friends living off of unemployment? What of those who didn’t meet Mr. Right or never recovered or had their homes destroyed by a natural disaster or went bankrupt or lost a child? Where I used to see God’s puppet strings, I now see coincidence because I can’t deal with the implications of an all-powerful benefactor playing favorites.

It doesn’t mean God isn’t good. Rachel Held Evans wrote about the same internal debate, and I’m relieved to know that the struggle isn’t confined to my own head and that others have found other ways of measuring God’s goodness. In nature, for instance, I can’t help seeing the beauty of its blueprint… but I don’t see perfection, and I don’t see personal intention. Whether the sky cooperates for someone’s outdoor wedding or a hurricane devastates thousands of families, I simply see a flawed universe set to random.

And I understand now more than ever why some Christians I know cling to their beliefs at the expense of everything else in their lives, even peace of mind. Coming untethered from a doctrinal picket line is a frightening experience, and there is only a hairline difference between feeling liberated and feeling lost (I tend to vacillate between the two). I can’t turn off my questions any more than I can turn off my instinct to breathe, but I wish I could. Some days, I am absolutely certain I would choose unthinking acceptance over this mind that tracks down holes more easily than it does happiness.

I have problems with a lot of people who claim to take their marching orders directly from God, and this casts doubt on the whole notion of a converted life (at least a life converted from assholery). I have even bigger problems with the Bible, questions that I fear have no answers aside from churchy platitudes, and as much as I might want to, I cannot sincerely subscribe to the whole traditional Christianity package. I cannot accept that a loving God created people for heaven and then set their defaults to hell. I cannot believe that a Jesus who taught turning the other cheek represents the same deity who went around wiping out heathen nations in the Old Testament. I cannot see my way past the violence or the inconsistencies or the staggering injustice of what some call the “Good News.” I just can’t.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where this leaves me. I’m not rejecting faith, but I can’t flash a denominational membership card either, and even the space just beyond the old tether’s radius is unfamiliar territory. My biggest hope is that God isn’t tied to the picket line either and that my uncertain journey forward will bring us face to face, maybe in an open-air café without closing hours where he can answer every question I’ve ever penned in my journal or posed to uncomprehending pastors or sensed without being able to articulate. More than anything, I want God to be real and different than I was always told, and I think this longing counts as faith for me right now. And if I am simply deluded, I  pray I’ll eventually stumble across that beach chair.

 

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