Cast of Characters

I consider myself a relationship-oriented person.  On personality inventories, I max out the scale for Extroverted.  People are my bread and butter.  I'm who I am because of the incredible people I've gotten to spend time with.

I used to feel worried about this.  Somewhere along the way I heard that mature, confident people enjoy quiet times of solitude.  And I assumed I hated solitude because I hated the person I was left alone with.  Actually, as I type this I recall a grad school professor who based my grade solely on the amount of time I could spend in silence.  Somehow, I passed that course.  And while I'm not known for my silence, I do hope I've gotten better at listening.  But not at being alone.  Even in my alone moments (which, don't happen often--see below) I invite people into that space through music or books.  Despite incredible mentors and research touting the power of "being still" and meditation, it's just not how I roll.  I'm just beginning to trust it's because of my love affair with humans and NOT because insecurities in myself.

So, if you stick around for any portion of this journey, you'll hear about my people.  Because their stories leave footprints on my stories, you'll hear about them.  Because their stories are not my stories, I'll place a high priority on privacy.   So, I thought a little intro to my "inner circle" seems appropriate.  May I introduce:

Partner
Wow.  Partner and I crossed paths several times in high school & we both thought the other was out of our league.  I like to think our opinions of ourselves grew enough to take the risk at a relationship with each other.  We dated for years.  The hopeless romantic tone of this time period is captured in our song.   We married in 2007.  It might have been sooner, but Partner wanted to be a Pastor.  And there was a lot of arguing soul-searching that took place before I could reconcile a future as a Pastor's wife.  True to form, it wasn't a conclusion I came to in a self-reflective moment of meditation.  It was a conclusion I came to when I stopped talking and started listening and I heard Partner say "I am just as committed to being a therapist's husband as I'm hoping you want to be as a pastor's wife."  So we said yes.  Partner is a pastor.  Partner is the most patient person I know.  Partner brings me back to center.  Partner has seen the best and worst versions of me and keeps showing up.  I have too much to lose to question his motives.    

Kiddo 1.0
Kiddo 1.0 came into my life in 2009.  Medical complications on her birth day made it the scariest day of my life.  The silver lining is our relationship has steadily improved from that point.  Kiddo 1.0 opened my eyes and heart to the emotional roller coaster that is parenting a creature without a fully developed frontal lobe (newsflash--this is the case with any human under the age of 21).  Kiddo 1.0 is cautiously independent, brilliant, and spends her free time creating legos and marking days off her calendar.

Kiddo 2.0
Kiddo 2.0 entered the scene in 2012.  During my pregnancy, I was terrified.  During her birth, I was empowered and strong and really proud of rewriting history after Kiddo 1.0's birth.  Kiddo 2.0 struggled early on with respiratory and weight gain.  Enough to completely stress us out and trigger my mama shame, but not enough to trigger any residual results.  By 1 month old, she was on target and full steam ahead.  As a toddler, she desperately wants to do things herself and desperately hates being alone.  This makes life very, very complicated.  Kiddo 2.0 has a great sense of humor, is brazenly independent, and will be attending toilet-training boot camp this weekend.  She spends her free time coloring on herself with markers and displacing vital items like nail clippers and cell phones in secret locations around the house.

And So It Starts......

I'm historically misjudged for my age.  On the one hand, I have an immature sense of humor, playful personality, use a purple backpack as my work bag, and look pretty young for my age.  On the other hand, I have two kids, own a small business, and have a knack with words that makes me sound a lot smarter than I am.  So people are either
(1) in shock that I'm old enough to drink and responsibly procreate
or
(2) unnerved that I'm not yet 30 and was in high school on September 11th.

So, sometimes I get confused.  And I generally go through life "adulting."  Adulting (v) means to do grown up things that you don't feel like doing or probably don't have enough experience or street cred to be doing.  Examples of adulting include:
--Paying money to go to the dentist.  I hated the dentist as a kid.  Paying for it myself just makes me hate it more.
--Having a child.  Actually, age is irrelevant.  One can never have enough street cred to be truly competent at this.
--Making important decisions.  About everything from finances to groceries to people's feelings.

However, I am closing in on 30.  And despite feeling too young to be doing 95% of the things I'm doing, I found a gray hair this month.  And that aforementioned dentist?  He had to replace a filling because he said sometimes they wear out after 20 years.  So, ready or not, I'm old enough to start taking myself seriously.  Well, seriously enough to start putting my thoughts to print for you all to laugh at  learn from.

That's where this "Fumbling Faithfully" starts.  Because I fumble.  A lot.  And regardless of the situation, the fumble comes with an astronomical level of faith.  Faith that (1) things will be ok and (2) I will fumble again.

I hope a piece of my story somewhere along the way speaks truth to yours.  That you can laugh.  Or learn from my fumbles.  Or have a little more faith in the journey you find yourself on.