Stress and then some.

Aaaand it's been a while.  I really need to be better about posting.  I'd love to develop a bigger following, although, I'm not really sure why.  I don't think I have amazing writing skills or awesome stories, but I do like to be social and this is certainly a way that I socialize.  Ahh, I think maybe only a stay at home mom would consider blogging socializing!  Ha! 

As some of you know, this has been the craziest month for my sweet little family.  Jason had knee surgery April 30th, Ava had issues with her expander and had to have it removed May 2nd. So we took an unexpected trip to Boston Children's.   Jason ended up having blood clots in his leg, they sent him home on blood thinners and we went back to the ER a few days later and he was admitted to the hospital with a pulmonary embolism.  Scary stuff.  Very scary.  He was in the hospital for 6 days, home and ended up going back in the hospital on May 26th.

I've coped.  Maybe not so well.  Like in most severe times in my life...I stuff it.  It leaks out much faster than it  used to though.  I remember odd things.  Unimportant things, but things that I can control.  Jason is on the mend, but once again, we find ourselves in the middle of uncertain times. 

We have orders.  We have amazing orders.   I have been so happy since we got our orders.  And ironically, we actually got our hard copy, in our hot little hand orders, while Jason was in the hospital.  Which leads me to now, there is a very good possibility that they may revoke or suspend our orders.   And I am trying and failing not to stress about it.  Although today, I came to the true realization that no matter whether I understand it or not, God is at work in this situation.  His fingerprints are all over it.  And yet, even having that thought and calming way down, I am still hopeful that God wants us to go to San Diego as regularly scheduled. 

We meet with the powers that be next week.  We're hopeful that we'll be given the green light as Jason won't leave here until August, he has a school until Thanksgiving and then checks in at his new command, which will bring him to the 6 month mark where he will no longer be on Blood thinners and will be deployable again.  So, just pray for us.  For peace, for patience (that's my issue!), for wisdom and for confirmation.    Being in limbo is hard for me. 

Ava is doing great.  The twinkles are amazing and Levi is almost 3.  That should make you all shudder.  Or laugh.  Depending on where you are in your walk with Motherhood.  Anywho, I promise to try and get on my blog more.  Make it a happy, welcoming place.  Love to you all!

The Rahab Resemblance

Ok, so sometimes I am really S-L-O-W.  I mean turtle-esque, no sloth slow.  Yeah, sloth slow.  Apparently I am also not a good listener.  I need to work on that.  I feel like the shower is a place where I get my best thinking in...I also feel that God talks to me in the shower.  That seems to be the place where people and issues get placed on my heart.  It seems random, but I know that I know that it isn't.

The last few showers I've had the pleasure of taking (I love living in the era of indoor plumbing!)I have just thought of Rahab's story. (You can read it in Joshua 2:1; 6:17-25; Matthew 1:5; Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25)  I've felt drawn to her for a long time, I feel a kinship with her.  And initially I couldn't understand why I could relate so well to a prostitute.  I mean, I was like, really God?  I have parallel personality traits to a hooker?  Works wonders for my self esteem. 

In the bible she is most often called a Harlot, which would mean a woman of loose morals.  I read somewhere that she yielded herself indiscriminately to every man who approached her.   Nice, right? 

But somewhere in the latest shower moments, I've really been thinking.  We've all of us got some Rahab in us.  Maybe we don't indiscriminately offer our bodies to anyone who asks, maybe we yield our morals or our inner selves  to fit in, or we rationalize the yielding we do.  We rationalize over eating, over spending, gossiping, lying, stealing, etc.  What area of your life do you experience Rahab resemblance?

I can think of so many times I channeled my inner Rahab.  She was a thrill seeker, high spirited and independent.  Gee, ok, now I see some resemblance!  I always feel exposed, shamed and uncomfortable sharing certain parts of my life, as Rahab must have felt when she hid the spies.  But it is part of my life experience, part of my testimony.  I was a lot like Rahab in my early 20s.  It   took me a long time to realize you can't find love and respect in sex.  It's not there.  And it eats away at your soul.  One indiscriminate act at a time. 

And then, of course, for me, is the Rahabing of over eating.  I took to that as a way to stuff feelings inside, to give myself a temporary high.  I could rationalize eating too much or too many bad things like a champ.  I still can.  But I am working on my Rahab: The Redeemed years.

There is victory over our Rahab Resemblance.  She ends up marrying one of the spies of Judah she saved!  A prince of Judah!  Grace erased her former life of shame and  her name became sanctified and ennobled.  She is in the genealogy of Jesus himself.  Yeah, that's right.  Jesus has a hooker in his family tree. 

Grace from God takes away our shame, our sin, our guilt.  Rahab's story shows us a life full of grace.  Her courage in hiding the spies was Faith in practice.  And this was before she was saved!  She felt God's calling on her and she believed. Faith changed her heart, her life, her legacy. 

So, now I will purposefully channel my Rahab Resemblance.   My sin, my shame, my fears are covered by God's grace.  Rahab means fierceness and I intend to live my life fiercely.  With a heart full of concern for others and a Faith that saves lives. 

I want to leave a legacy of bravery, faith, courage, and love.  I want that to be my Rahab Resemblance.  

Identity Crisis- My Messy Beautiful

Identity Crisis- My messy beautiful!
 

I'm 35.  At this point in my life, I thought I would know who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.  Turns out, as I've been wondering what to do, who to be, Life happened.  And sometimes it happened in BIG BOLD CAPITAL LETTERS. 

I feel like somewhere in the past, when asked the question "Who are you?"  I would have had a laundry list of ways in which to describe myself.  Ask me that question today, and I kind of sputter, and stutter and panic.  What else am I besides a mom?  Don't get me wrong, I love being a mom.  My kids are awesome and strange, annoying and lovely, entertaining and exhausting...the list could go on and on.  I love them.  I would give my very life to protect them. 

But where have I gone?  Where is Trish?  What does she like?  What are her skills?  Where are her hopes and dreams?

Maybe I am the only mom who has ever felt her identity has been lost.  Maybe we all do at times.  Maybe, just maybe it's a good sign that I am having a identity crisis.  It could be signaling a new era in my life. 

I think in order to go forward in this, we first have to go back to before I became a mother.

In 2005, the world was my oyster.  I was 26, getting ready to marry the most amazing man and had a career that completely satisfied me.  I felt loved, valuable, vital, necessary.   I had great friends, a loving family.  Yes, I had my fair share of drama and pain in my life, but life was good.  I was good.   Content. 

I ended up pregnant very soon after the wedding (well, there went the let's wait a year idea!) I ended up finishing out my enlistment in the Army and moved to be with my husband.  A week after I moved to Ohio where he worked in Navy Recruiting, we welcomed our first children, TWINS!  Early.  Too early.  15 weeks early to be exact.  I was petrified.  We were out of town.  Alone.  Scared.  Stressed. Hopeful. Sad.  And added to all those emotions, I felt guilty.  How could I have not felt this coming?  How could my body fail me?  How could it fail my babies?  And in those first two weeks of the NICU, my confidence in self disappeared. 

Ava and Sophia, my beautiful babies, in constant struggle for life because of my failure.  At least, that is how I felt.  When Sophia passed away at 2 weeks, I feel I took all those things that made me uniquely me and locked them away, deep inside.  As If I was not worthy enough of having good things.  I floundered.  I flopped.  I flummoxed.  I simply couldn't deal with it.  And I had Ava in the NICU and she needed me.  My grief took second seat.  I zipped it up and put it away. 

Ava came home from the NICU after 3 months and  I told myself I should be thankful, grateful for Ava and I was, boy was I ever.  But a part of me was sad.  I was supposed to come home with 2 babies and I felt a piece  of me was missing, a piece of my family was missing. Again, I didn't let myself feel the pain. 

We'll fast forward here, I went on to have twins again, with some scares along the way, a month NICU, and then a cross country move.  I stayed busy!  A 2 year old and twinfants.  Decided to have one more baby and FINALLY, figured out how to have just one (thank you Jesus!)  And our family was complete.  As complete as it ever will be on earth.  Now my youngest is  2.5 and the feelings I have stuffed inside for so long are literally spilling out through any and every crack and crevice it can find.  And I find myself wishing I didn't have to deal with it all.

I know that I have to take that pain out and face it head on.  But it hurts.  It hurts so badly, it feels like I am back in the NICU rocking my baby as she takes her last breath all over again.  I want to run away from the pain.  I don't want to face it again.  But I didn't really face it before, I stuffed it down and secretly blamed myself. 

In my head, I know, logically, I am not to blame.  I took care of myself, I was under medical supervision and none of us saw this coming.  In my heart, my mother's heart, I started my motherhood journey feeling like a failure. 

I've come to realize that I can let tragedy, circumstance, life as it happens, define me.  But it also comes down to who I want to identify myself as being.  I can live in a place of sadness, I could become known as "the lady who lost her daughter." Or I can make peace with that part of my life.  There is no reason that would ever be acceptable to me that would make losing Sophia any easier and she will always be a part of me, my identity, my life, my family.  I'll always be her mother.  But I am also Ava, Tessa, Elijah and Levi's mom.  I'm Jason's wife.  Toni's sister.  Beth's friend.  I'm learning that my identity includes good, bad and sad parts.  I'm the sum of many parts.  And each tragedy, joy, tear, and laugh has made me into who I am today.

I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, I still don't have an answer when someone asks me what type of hobbies I'd enjoy.  But I do know that I am worth it.  I'm worth the good things.  We all are.  We are brave and scared.  We are sad and happy.  We are timid and bold.  We are beautiful and messy.  We are brutiful, just as life is brutiful. 

 

Be known. Be loved. Be well.

I think I know what it is people need.  What people want.  People want to be known.  They want to be known and loved anyway.  It is a need in their soul. 

I think about this a lot.  I know being known is a major need for me.  Deep seated.  If I feel like people don't know me and I have no connection, I feel lost.  Sad.  Depressed.  Angry. 

Having people know you and love you, it's like a balm for the soul.  For your soul.  People need connection.  I know some people out there are far more solitary than I am.  I am an EXTROVERT in all CAPS with lots of !!!!!  It's true.  Being quiet is not relaxing for me.  I feel stressed in  alone times.  But yet, what I am saying here isn't that you need to be around lots of people (even though I like that) what I am saying is that people need people. 

Somehow, we as a society, have gotten into a weird worldview of not needing people, not needing help, being offended and insulted when someone tries to help.  I wish we could turn that thought on its head.  I know I feel the most contentment  when I feel known.  Validated.  Understood.  Loved. 

When I think of the people I know and see as the most happy, most content, most joyful, most well loved, I am always blown away by what those people have overcome.  The tragedy.  The pain.  The sadness.  The obstacles.  "The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths." ~Elisabeth Kubler- Ross. 

And what got them through in every situation? I am willing to bet it all on faith and other people.  Friends, families, a random act or word from a stranger.  We have to be vulnerable enough to say I need help!  I need love!  I need you! 

So even if we are capable of making it through alone, let's just let other people love us through their actions.  Let's love others through our actions.  It's hard.  But we can do hard things. 

 

 

So excited.

I'm so stoked.  As long as my delayed entry isn't a problem ( I missed the email cause it was around Ava's surgery) I will be getting to link my blog on Momastery! {https://momastery.com/}
I was invited to be part of the Messy Beautiful Warrior project!!  Squeal!!!  So excited!!! Now I just need to figure out what I should blog about...Something in my testimony of life.  I guess I'll be praying about it and seeing what feels right. 

This is totally how excited I am:

Seriously, now I feel nervous. Please no writers block!!

Definition by numbers, No more. Hidden by numbers, no more.

As I sit down to write this, I have to tell you...I don't want to.  I don't want to be open and honest about all that is going on in my head.  I don't want to know someone will read this and judge me or mock me or simply not understand where I am coming from. I don't want to look at it myself. 

I'm on a journey.  One I haven't been all out in the open about.  It's one I need to take the most.  But the one I don't want to do and think that I can't do.  But as I do it, I'm learning can't/want/need are all just words in my brain, not indications of success or failure.

My journey is one of health and wellness and weight.  Can't leave that last little jewel out.  Weight.  When I say that word it makes me cringe.  Seriously, my eyes squint and my lips turn downward and my face just scrunches up on itself.  I want to say something here.  And I say it for myself more than anyone else, but I hope it helps you too.  My weight does not define me.  My weight is, at the most basic, how much my body weighs.  Not who I am.  Can it describe me?  Sure, but it does not DEFINE me.  And I am learning, I have let it define me too long, and for me personally, I have let it define me intentionally. 

I'm a food addict.  I turn to it in happiness, sadness, worthlessness, apathy, anger and so on.  On this journey, I am not only changing my eating, but I am attacking, yes, attacking my emotional and mental health as well.  I've never been a skinny person, but I was never fat either until about 8 years ago.  We'll come back to this momentarily.

As I have been losing weight and digging deeper into my physche about food, I've been using a book called 'Made to Crave.'  It is a book by a Christian author, but for my "not-yet-believing" friends, if you feel like you can relate to this blog in anyway, I suggest checking it out.  It's been eye opening to me.  The first 2 chapters made me realize I would be digging deeper and dealing with hurts that I have been stuffing down for so long, what I've actually been doing is burying them under fat.  Quite literally.  Layers and layers of subcutaneous fat.

This blog could be like heaven for a psychologist, oh what gems they could learn about me.  And let's say, I am not unaware of them.  Let's deal with my core issue here.  I feel unworthy. 

Yes, unworthy. 

I feel unworthy of the good things in life.  Health, wealth, happiness.  But I crave them.  I know that all core issues have roots.  Mine started rooting as a child when my dad left.  I can't remember anything, but I am sure that I thought "what did I do?"  "Why am I not enough?" "If I had just been _____ enough"  (fill in the blank) 

But I was lucky.  Even having had these thoughts, I had a family that was amazing and I knew without a doubt that they loved me.  But there is a void that is left, no matter how small.  That void has a voice that is easily activated. 

So we'll fast forward through some stuff, readers digest version: developing earlier than all the other girls, it made me curvy, not fat.  I didn't know the difference.  Never having a serious boyfriend when I was younger led me to think I wasn't attractive, that something was wrong with me, physically.  Which led me to a cycle of using my body in ways that were not kind to myself and never led to love.  Which is what I as craving.  Fell in love (twice) with great guys who were incredible friends to me, but again no romantic relationship...so again, what is it that I am missing?  What am I missing?  A question that chased me up until my husband.  And yet, even he deals with my baggage- which is a different blog entirely.  So, we'll stay on point.  Joined the Army!  Hooah!  I belonged.  I loved my time in the Army.  I love my fellow soldiers, I love my country.  I love the identity it gave me.  Married Jase (hooray!)  Got pregnant, got out of the Army.  And then, 8 years ago, became a mom. 

Remember how I said we'd get back to 8 years ago?  Well, we're there.  As I have been attacking my emotional issues with food, I believe this is the root.  No, not becoming a mom.  But becoming one so tragically.  I was never the type who wanted to grow up, get married and have kids right away.  I wanted to go and see and be!  And I did.  And then I wanted to be a mom, but there was time for that.  And then, I missed my period.  Ready or not, here motherhood comes. 

Then the news: Twins!  Holy cow.  What on earth do I know about being a mom?  And yet there was this bond, this incredible bond between my unborn children and I.  Oh the dreams I had for them.  The expectations of being a mom, having healthy, happy babies.  Well, that wasn't to be my story. 

Ava and Sophia, sweet little babes.  They were in hurry, much like their mama usually is and came too soon.  Ava survived and Sophia did not.  Grieving for one, while desperately praying and willing one to survive is a dance I was terribly poor at...

Ava came home.  I was ecstatic.  And yet, I started gaining weight and more and more and more.  60 pounds on my body, in less than 3 months.  Depression, I'm sure was the culprit. 

But the real culprit?  My own unkind thoughts to myself.  What my food issues really come down to is that I feel I don't deserve it.  I don't deserve health and wellness.  Why?  In my own warped way, my mind decided that I failed at  the ONE thing I was created for, physically.  I failed at having a baby.  Now, I know that some people will start scoffing here or being offended and I don't intend it, this is just how I know I feel.  God made me to have babies and I failed at it.  Yes, I know I have four children.  And I know I am blessed.  I also know that I have to work at getting myself to a point where I know what happened wasn't my fault, in my head I believe this.  In my heart, I blame myself.  But the truth, the ugly, vulnerable, brutal truth is that I believe I failed Sophia.  And it cost her life.  That's something I can never change. 

Logically, I know that there was nothing I could do.  I didn't cause it, or wish for it or make it occur in any way.  But my body betrayed me and it betrayed her.  And for 8 years, I've been punishing it and myself. 

That hurts me to say.  I sit here crying and I hate knowing that.  I've been denied the pleasure of her and my mind didn't think that was enough, so I've been punishing my body too.  I don't know where to go from here with that.  I just know it IS.  I have given over my hurt to God and to you, my friends and the healing will come from there. 

I choose to believe each time I am kind to myself, make good choices for myself that I make Sophia proud.  And not just her, but my living blessings.  Ava, Tessa, Elijah and Levi deserve a happy, healthy mom.  One who shows them hard things can be done, hard choices can be made, happiness deserved.  For all of us. 

Each pound has it's own story.  Each person has their own story.  I can no longer hide behind the fat that I have used to punish and protect me.  I am not a number.  I'm a girl who has finally decided to take over her thoughts and actions and prove that I am worth it.  We all are. 

Having Vitality in Vulnerability.

I know I'm not always the best at blogging frequently, I want to.  My heart is in it...sometimes my brain just can't keep up.  I've been doing some thinking in my time away from here (yes, I can hear you my friends, rolling your eyes and commenting how dangerous that is!)

I wouldn't say I have ever coasted along in life.  I've worked hard.  In school.  At my jobs.  As a Soldier.  As a mom.  I've been blessed to have many helping hands along the way.  I haven't been pushed down and held back by anyone.  Anyone other than myself that is. 

When I look back and see how I was, I simply smile.  Yes, I have issues from my childhood, everyone does.  But when I look back, I see a happy, friendly, outgoing, lover of people.  I'm still those things today, but not like a shiny new penny as I was then.  I've got some dirt, grime, dings, dents and shadows to me these days. 

I've recently embarked on a lifestyle change.  It's hard.  I hate it.  I love it.  I'm encouraged.  I'm overwhelmed.  I started thinking about how I wanted to be shiny again.  And I realized, I can still shine with the dirt and dents I've picked up along the way.  I had to realize that the dings and dents and dirt don't make me any less worthy of shine. 

It's going to be a struggle for me to keep up the hard work that accompanies change.  And that seriously makes me mad and shocked all at the same time.  I am a hard worker.  I like to do.  I like to be and I really like to be in charge.  So why is it I've neglected being in charge of myself? 

I know.  Or at least I am coming to know.  And a lot of it goes back to becoming a parent.  I am in NO way saying my kids caused me to neglect myself, although having twin infants really does cause that for a short amount of time.  My foray into the world of parenting was fraught with trauma, sadness, and joy.  Miracles and messes. 

I've always struggled with my worth.  We could get into the psychology of it all, and maybe one day I will, as I love that stuff.  But for now, we'll just suffice it to say that I know where that struggle is rooted.  But I kept it in check. 

And then life happened.  In a dark way and it broke that hold I had on keeping unworthiness in check.  Only I was too broken to see that.  And my focus had shifted.  Ava was here and still alive and she needed me.  So, I've stuffed everything inside and been a mom.  And I LOVE being a mom.  I wouldn't trade it for anything.  But I lost the part of Trisha that isn't a mom.  And as my kids have gotten older and less "need-me-to-survive"...the feelings I've stuffed into a box in the back corner of my mind have been busting out. 

It's painful to go through some of the hurts I've buried.  It's also liberating at times.  Other times, I want to run away from it. 

I've always felt as a former Soldier and now as a military spouse I was good with change.  And to a certain point, I am.  But I'm afraid of the changes I need to make in me.  Will people still like me?  Will the people I trust with my vulnerabilities encourage me or crush me?

I guess part of the journey is not knowing.  And not giving up or losing faith when I fail.  When others fail me.  You can't reach a destination without a few bumps or detours.

"When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up, we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability...to be alive is to be vulnerable." ~Madeleine L'engle.

Well, friends, I'm feeling very grown up lately.  And maybe, that's what it's all about.

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/vulnerability.html#ZjjaHFrUqqcOTs7L.99

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/vulnerability.html#ZjjaHFrUqqcOTs7L.99

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/vulnerability.html#ZjjaHFrUqqcOTs7L.99

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/vulnerability.html#ZjjaHFrUqqcOTs7L.99

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/vulnerability.html#ZjjaHFrUqqcOTs7L.99