Breaking Cycles Through Books

 I have read many books over the last few years about revisiting the past, making amends, righting wrongs done to others, etc. I wonder if this generation is breaking cycles through books.

So many of my age, and the ages of the authors writing these books, grew up with the toxically selfish parents of the 1980s. The ones who regularly declared, "Do as I say, not as I do," and built our relationships on fear and hypocrisy. As our generation has been more vocal about mental health and our childhoods, as we've been more likely to go to therapy and work through things, we are becoming cycle breakers. And this generation of writers is showing that in their books.

We have writers creating characters who apologize for their wrongs and try to make amends, and not always on their deathbeds. They have characters like Hannah in The Summer Pact, who evaluated her family and her fiance and determined they all needed to go because their toxic narcissism was ruining her life. They are taking responsibility for their actions. And because books have to have happy endings, things are resolved, but they also lead you to believe that things could have gone the other way and maybe not had forgiveness granted.

I realized that I have been devouring these stories because they are mine. In trying to break my own toxic childhood cycle, I have hurt my children in other ways, and I am actively working to repair those parts of our relationship. I have also stood up for myself and removed cancerous people from my life through boundaries of varying degrees based on their level of toxicity. Seeing someone like me on the page gives me hope, reassurance, and validation that I am doing the right things.

As we move through the new year and all the new it is bringing to our lives and our communities, maybe we can use these characters as inspiration to be better.

A Well-Trained Wife

 I just finished reading Tia Levings's intense memoir, A Well-Trained Wife, and I need to write a review for it, but I'm having a hard time putting things into words. This one hit extremely close to home, and I think I am fearful of putting that all on paper and out into the world.

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This woman grew up in church being taught the exact same things I was during my youth group years and into college. She was in a stricter church, a more fundamentalist church, but the teachings were essentially the same. Now, every person translates and understands their own way, but within the church, the teachings about women are only taught with one perspective, across the board, with the loudest voice: women are nothing without men, and we are only here to serve them. Some places and people find a healthy balance to this teaching, but many others within the evangelical church do not. Tia's husband and social group did not find that healthy balance; theirs was extreme, toxic, and abusive. Her husband's requirements of her as a biblically submissive wife nearly killed her.

My husband sees us as partners; there was never any expectation of me other than doing what was essential to care for our home and our children, and since I was a stay-at-home mom, he trusted my judgment on what that looked like. But that was not always my life. I grew up in a toxic, mentally abusive household. Many things that Tia experienced from her husband with mental and emotional manipulation I experienced with my parents. Many of her experiences with her pastors and fellow church members, her friends, I experienced with mine as well. She and I read the same books--encouraged by the church--about marriage, parenting, and managing a household. And those books did more damage to us as we tried to follow the teachings so that we would have the perfect Christian home.

As I said, my husband was completely different than hers, and after nine years of marriage, parenting, and overbearing church life, we walked away from all things church related. That decision has saved my sanity and possibly my marriage. But things were not an instant fix. Even now, twelve years later, I still struggle with the expectations I perceive. Our parents and some siblings don't understand, nor do they try to understand, why we left and will never go back. These are the same people who enforced, encouraged, and carried out toxic and abusive behaviors. They see this choice as being disobedient to their teachings and expectations. They want us to submit to their requests of going to visit them so that they can try to manipulate me again. They get angry that I won't do as they ask. Some days are harder than others.

Having a good and supportive husband helps with healing and forward movement. But Tia's story will forever be the story of some women, and I worry for those women. Some will get out like she and I did, but most won't. Instead, they will live like robots forever. Some will even die like Tia feared she would.

This book tore open my heart and soul, reopening wounds I thought had closed forever. It made me angry, and I cried a lot while reading it. But it also helped me heal those old wounds. It cleared debris still hiding in the corners of my mind that was continuing to torment me. So, while it destroyed me, it also helped me see just how far I've come in my healing journey and not fear the next stage of it.

The Healthy Freedom of Time

 Four and a half years ago, I made a Facebook post about the world shutting down. At the time, everything seemed daunting and overwhelming. The rest of that year proved to be scary in many ways. It was a year filled with grief, stress, frustration, and more. But looking back, I also see it as one of the best years I have ever had.

2020 was, despite everything, the healthiest year of my life. Mentally, physically, emotionally, and even financially, it was the healthiest I have ever been. 

Knowing that everything was on my timetable and by my choosing released a freedom inside of me that I had never had before. My husband was home. My kids could entertain and do for themselves. There were no visitors. I could walk for hours or seclude myself with a book without feeling like I was neglecting my family. Even housework was less because we were home to deal with it at the moment instead of scrambling from one activity to another.

I do not miss the fear of catching Covid. I do not miss the turmoil of dividing lines with our family members (which are still frigidly but infrequently crossed). But I do miss the way that year healed me, the way that year supported me. I miss the feeling of loving all of me and my life. I miss feeling happy, safe, and healthy in my skin and in my mind.

I realized earlier this year that I had been searching for that feeling again. It is probably one of the strongest motivators for finding myself back working from home. Four years ago, I saw what a happy, satisfied me looked like. Now that the kids are even older and more independent, that freedom to take care of me is coming back, and I am ready to seize it and see what else I can do with it to make my life happy and healthy again.

Untamed part 2

 I regularly come across a quote that suggests thinking about all the books you have, like a wine collection, instead of a to-read list. You choose the right one for the moment of life that you are in and enjoy it. I never felt so connected to this quote as I did while reading Untamed. I know that I shared my review of Untamed by Glennon Doyle a few weeks ago, but I have so many thoughts on this book, and they keep fueling my writing.

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When I started reading Untamed, it had been on my bookshelf for almost 10 months. I meant to get to it, but it didn't happen. Noticing that a local book club I was considering joining was reading it finally got me to take it off the shelf and dive into it. And dive, I did.

Oh my word, I was in tears by the book's second section. I cannot connect with poetry for my life, but she reprinted a poem that hit me deep in my soul. This was the perfect time for my soul, heart, and mind to read this book.

I have been diligently trying to follow all of the green flags the universe has been sending me this year. By consciously choosing to follow the signs and my gut, I have repeatedly been rewarded with "atta girl" signs from the universe. Untamed being read when I did was one of those signs. Not only is the late-stage life transformation of acknowledging, accepting, and nurturing your authentic self something resonating through my soul like a gong, but the book format is something I have been talking about lately.

It is a memoir in short essays, and each bit is just a couple of powerful pages. This format is fairly new to me but fits my writing style perfectly. I had been actively considering writing this style and project for weeks before reading this book. The kicker is that I had zero idea that this was the format until I got into it.

I also cannot ignore the mathematical coincidence, either. I had owned this book for around 40 weeks before reading it. I finally picked it up at the beginning stages of making some radical and rebirthingesque changes to parts of my life. This book could not have been read at a more fitting time when I needed an encouraging woman to reassure me of my new life choices.

Renewed Fears

 

I am trying not to cry. I am tired of crying. I feel unstable. The world feels unstable. I have moments of strength, but they are overshadowed by moments of weakness. The weak moments feel more powerful than the strong ones. 

Nothing is the same as it was. Nothing will ever be the same again. I am afraid to go anywhere. Fearful of any building that is not my house. And now there is rain coming down, along with thunder and some wind that makes me fearful, too.

I am so tired of being afraid. I'm tired of being uncertain and unstable. I'm tired of being tired, which is its own problem. I'm barely sleeping, and when I do, it isn't good sleep. My brain needs rest, and I can't seem to get any.

I wrote all of those words above in the early days of the pandemic. The world had been shut down for about two weeks at the time when I wrote all of those words in my journal. Little did I know just how much those words would follow me through the rest of that year.

As we move into the new election season, I feel these same things creeping back into my life and brain. My fear and anxiety for our nation and our future are increasing daily. This time, though, I am not afraid of a virus that we didn't understand; this time, it is about a virus that we do understand: people.

People are complicated, but we all want the same basic thing: to be treated kindly no matter who we are, how we worship, who we love, or our ethnic heritage. My fear is that regardless of the November election outcome, people will become meaner instead of nicer, and mean people are destructive people. Mean people destroy souls, families, and anything that they see as contrary to their (always right) opinions. 

I know that no matter who wins the presidential election, there will not be unity, even within their own party. But I do know that one side cares more about the people who make up this nation, and the other side just wants to win a trophy. So, while I don't typically do this, I urge you to remember how you felt four years ago regarding the state of our nation, and then I urge you to vote in a way that calms your fears and encourages the future you want the next generations to be proud of.

Writer's Conference Block

 I have been in a funk, a rut, a hole of sorts. I spent days unable to find motivation for anything productive. I came home from a writing conference and was repelled by the idea of writing anything. I could only describe it like being in front of an electric fence; I'm not going through it but I couldn't figure out how to find the off switch. Yesterday, I spent some time organizing my life and my thoughts. That action alone helped me to see where my obstacle was coming from.

We had a speaker at the writer's conference who was wonderful...for a group. I had the chance to talk with this person one-on-one, and their goal was to tell everyone that their writing projects were awful. As I talked with them about an upcoming project, they interrupted me and said, "This sounds like a book about mental health." While I'm sure mental health will play a role, it is not the focus, nor did I say anything about writing a book.

I am also one of many who had this experience with this conference speaker. Everyone I talked to who had a chance at a one-on-one with them had the exact same experience. They were interrupted, and their writing visions were talked about in ways that they never described. So, while many pieces of advice from this person were great for promoting our work, I absolutely would not approach them for help with publishing my writing.

Yesterday, while organizing, I finally realized that my recent mood had been caused by that conversation at the conference. It was like the conversations I have had with so many in my lifetime, which always seem to have the same message: you might not be good enough, so why even try? The irony is that I was struggling with those ghost voices of the past while preparing to go to the conference, and then I found one there, too! Why always do the people who should be encouraging you constructively decide to be destructive? 

Now that I have realized why I have been so malaised about writing, I am doing my best to ignore the ghosts and listen to the ones who are actually cheering me on. Maybe with enough cheering, I will be able to evict the ghosts. 

A Weekend for Me and my Career

 I took a weekend entirely away from home. I spent all weekend alone in a hotel at a writer's conference. All of that is just odd. I haven't gone anywhere alone that wasn't to take care of family things since I was in high school.

But here I am, channeling my inner Hemingway, drinking cocktails at the hotel bar with my pens and paper. 

In reality, I am trying to make sense of my mental overload of information, ideas, and imposter syndrome. And as I say, an idea for a writing project pops into my head. Go figure.

I just want to find a cohesive way to integrate all the things that I enjoy—writing, reading, yoga, travel, wine—into something that helps to counter the expenses of those hobbies. Even $100 a month for a writing project would cover a book, book club wine, and at least two yoga sessions in that same month. 

Now I need to take the time to reverse engineer that goal and find the ways to do it. And that is the hardest part of all.