Monday Musings – I Miss Writing

I miss writing.

Over the years, a handful of worthwhile endeavors have quietly stolen time away from my true passion; endeavors like creating a nonprofit and renovating a farm for my disabled son or necessary obligations like marketing and social media, or fun “let’s stretch Jess a bit” type of activities such as hosting a podcast, speaking engagements, or creating a documentary. Good endeavors, life-giving endeavors, but not THE endeavor that makes my heart sing. Not writing.

I resigned from teaching for the same reason. Teaching was a stable, worthwhile endeavor but not my endeavor and teaching left little time for writing. Life is full of complicated choices that involve either this or that and the choice must be made because otherwise neither this nor that can be done very well.

All I ever wanted to be was an author. As a young girl, I poured over Hemingway, Faulkner, and Graham Greene while my friends competed in sports and played spin the bottle. I was always a bit of a complicated soul who resonated with the likes of Sylvia Plath or Emily Dickinson; tormented writers, although my life was far too normal and suburban to be all that tormented.

Instead of living vicariously through small squares on Instagram, I lived vicariously through characters. Books provided an education to my naïve homeschooled life; an education about the world and human behavior including intimacy, sex, and desire. Yes, mom, I read smut by the light of the moon.

I penned my first poem at age 9 entitled When God Created the World and wrote Missy May, my first work of fiction, around 11. I KNEW they were brilliant, but no one else seemed all that impressed. In fact, my younger brother, the one who would become an attorney, he received most of the accolades when it came to writing, or intelligence, for that matter.

I didn’t care. The misguided affections simply lent credence to my theory that I was a tormented writer whom no one understood.

In 1999 I excitedly enrolled in college eager to enter the world of higher education which I was sure would affirm my talent, and again, no one had much to say about what I wrote. My professors often stated something to the effect of “There is so much potential here; however, you need to slow down and develop the content.”

Slow down.

Develop the content.

The Devil, most certainly, is in the details.

I am very much a “good enough” person. Good enough has gotten me far enough in many situations, and good enough was good enough at that stage of my life. I enjoyed the free time that the Bs allotted. I enjoyed not having to work so hard for A’s, and then there came a day when I had to give a speech.

My first speech ever.

It was called “All of my Heroes have Died,” a story of courage and valor, a story that retold the Columbine tragedy which had occurred only a few months prior. I read detailed notes as I clutched the podium, and then as I read the last sentence, I exhaled to calm my racing heart. I lifted my head and nervously looked out onto the room and met the gaze of approximately 20 faces and saw that most of them were wiping away tears.

And then I understood. Storytelling just might be my sweet spot.

That’s where I did enjoy the details.

That same year I showed up at an ex-boyfriend’s house and flung a bunch of poems at him – poems sharing the agony of my broken heart, poems like a bird stuck in a cage and chewed up gum under my shoe, overly dramatic hormonal ridiculousness. There’s no other way to describe it, but I do experience a smidgin of glee when I let my imagination run wild and allow myself to become a New York Times best-selling author. I imagine that maybe he still has those poems, and I wonder what he’d do if he realized that I had become famous. Or as famous as an author can be.

Another time I shared my poetry with a skeezy older guy I met at the gym, and the next day he asked if I was ok. I said then, (as I say now) yes, I’m fine. The thing is, I’m observant. Most of what I write is not about me. Most…

After college, I married Jason, a man I met at that gym, and we built our dream house for our dream life which included a third-story attic (my dream) where I would pen the great American novel, or so I thought. I occasionally sauntered up the stairs to put pen to paper, but then the birth of babies and special needs and brain cancer took over, and my manuscript gathered dust. I did write late into the evenings as I shared personal stories on my blog while my husband labored to breathe in the next room over.

Jason died in 2010, and a year later I packed up that dream house that had been built for a dream life that was no longer viable. I stuffed a pile of notebooks with half-written stories into a crate and began a new dream with my husband Ryan and our 7 children. I resumed a graduate program that I had begun years earlier, and on the last day, I handed in my final assignment; a paper that had become intimately intertwined with my own grief. Day after day I listened as the discussion dissected the hardships that many of the characters had endured; eerily familiar hardships like mine. I whispered an opinion a time or two but slowly let my voice fade when it faltered and then resigned to simply listening. For the final assignment, I wrote The Whiteman Road, one of the most deeply personal essays I’ve ever written, and the feedback I received agreed, “this paper is easily among the best, if not the best, in the class.” This admission made my heart soar, and I realized I still had words to write.

Our crew eventually moved to rural TN where I lived many of my stories and where I was asked to write my first real book Sunlight Burning at Midnight! I almost DIED of joy – a publisher wanted my story! That book was released, and I was asked to write another on blended life which I did in the middle of a global pandemic and then a poem went viral and reached millions of people, and that’s when I understood that not everyone was going to appreciate what I had to say. In fact, my truth might trigger responses in somewhere they would wish me dead. That was a hard lesson to learn. But my skin toughened up, as most skins do with scars that eventually heal, and I was asked to write another book, a book on marriage, but a nonsugar-coated book, which was just my specialty. My philosophy is “tell the truth or don’t waste your breath.” Nobody’s life is changed by reading sugar-coated spam, and if I agreed to write a marriage book, it would expose our scars. Healed over scars but deeply forgiven wounds, nevertheless.

I wrote that book, Lovin’ with Grit & Grace, and now we wait.

Ryan and I expectedly await your reaction.

And as we wait, I return to my first joy, my passion, writing.

These shall be called my Monday Musings, and they will arrive in your inbox weekly. They will hopefully be spirit led but sometimes the ego gets in the way too – that’s how it is with these human suits of ours. Some musings might be brilliant and some might be “good enough” but I hope they inspire you to lean into life, love deeply, be present, face hard things, make changes when necessary, and pursue joy above all else.

Just keep livin.

Pre-order Lovin’ here.

I Know.

As a caregiver to a child with intense and profound special needs, I know that my voice is relevant in this space because of my experiences.

I know that I sigh deeply when people who have no experience with autism offer suggestions on behavior modification.

I know that I want to throttle well meaning folks when they say to “hire help” when there is very little help to be hired or the available help comes at a hefty price tag that a family of ten can not easily afford.

I know that I want to scream when people suggest that we “take him with us – he’ll be fine” knowing he won’t be fine and will instead holler “ALL DONE!” until we agree to leave.

I know that it broke my heart as we tried different medications to thwart the aggressive behavior that resulted after the abrupt ending to Luke’s school year.

I know that it drives me bonkers when my experience with Luke is compared to raising a toddler. No, it’s not the same. A two year old kicking and screaming – kind of cute. A fifteen year old violently thrashing and screaming, not so cute.

I know that my heart often races as passive guilt is heaped upon my already heavy shoulders when we decline an invitation because of finances or weariness or just plain lack of giddy up.

I know that the gossip whispered about time spent away from my children – frequent getaways in order to be a somewhat sane mother who is able to do this exhausting endeavor day after day, hurts.

I know that I could weep every time I think about Luke’s future, my future, – fearful of what opportunities or resources await or don’t await us after 18.

I know what it’s like to be a caregiver of a teenage son with profound and complex and difficult needs. I know that my voice matters. My vulnerability matters. My experience matters as I speak into this space.

I hope and pray that my voice will be a part of many voices that will create change that is desperately needed in America.

However –

I do not know what it’s like to be black and so I will quiet my voice, quiet my judgmental thoughts, quiet my preconceived ideas and opinions, and I will listen. I will listen to the voices of wisdom who can teach me. I will listen to their experiences and their stories, and I will learn.

This I know.

To learn more about how you can help caregivers please visit www.thelucasproject.org

A Holy Shift

I descended the stairs, immediately irritated by what was awaiting me with each scream originating from my 15-year-old son. Great, I muttered as the uninvited stench rose to greet my nose. Luke, my son with profound special needs, required yet another diaper change – a chore that was becoming increasingly able to grate my very last nerve over the past few weeks as his father recovered from shoulder surgery – a recovery period that did not allow for diaper changes.

I opened the door slightly and held my breath. The third of the day so far. My least favorite job in the whole world.

I did what was necessary – cleaned my big 15-year-old man child, and as I prepared to leave, he reached for my face, met my eyes and sang in his sweet jumbled way,

Oh God you are my God, and I will ever praise you.

Continue reading “A Holy Shift”

A Resurrection Only Occurs After A Death.

When Ryan and I met in 2010 we were in a season of death with the passing of our spouses, & this death included a burial of lifelong dreams and expectations.

The next few years we enjoyed a resurrection as our lives merged and birthed new realities: our marriage & family, a simple life in rural America, the birth of a book, a teaching career, a non profit & another child. Lots of growth & beauty.

We now find ourselves back in a season of decay; broken bodies over the past year: Ryan’s, mine, and Luke’s; broken ideals and dreams as we restructure & determine how we’ll proceed, lots of unanswered questions and concerns & the burial of systems that no longer serve us emotionally or spiritually, and we wait because we know. We know because we’ve been here before – this is familiar soil, deep & dark & rich soil where we’ve been planted and now we await our reemergence into the light.

We wait for our resurrection.

And we are confident that it will arrive in due time because that’s how life works.

Everything remains in motion; a continuous movement of death and resurrection, waves upon waves washing away the brokenness and moving what remains to the shore – natural disasters and coronavirus and despair not excluded – it’s all involved, collectively and individually; ashes to beauty and back to ashes again, circular movements until the maestro sweeps his baton for the last time & bows his head in holy reverence, that moment when his beloved creation leans into the finality & releases a labored breath – bursting through the birth canal into an everlasting resurrection.

And until then?

We just keep livin.