Oh, Facebook. You really like to make things tough sometimes, don’t you??  I love Facebook for so many reasons – one being the way it keeps me connected to all the different people in my life – but it can also be the fastest route to a downward spiral for me.  I’m pretty sure I’m not alone on this one.  It’s a wonderful thing to hear about the professional successes of my talented friends…and I do want to give credit where credit is due.  If you’re thriving in the theatre world after all these years you really do deserve all the accolades and applause your success is giving you.  I really do mean that.  It’s a tough, tough business, and definitely not for the faint of heart.  But for the other 98% of us, I wonder if my former beloved professors and acting coaches would drop the same praise on my wall for my job as a Mom.  You know, the one I’ve been working at for 4.5 years?  I wonder if it would look something like this: “Your children are beautiful!  Congrats on keeping them from killing each other, the cat, and yourself!” “So proud of you!  You are the master at answering 20 questions in the span of 5 minutes!” “Way to go!  You really make tea parties and playing “movie theatre” look so easy!” Maybe it’s watching too much “Smash” or the fact that my girls pull my monologue collections and Shakespeare Folio books off the shelves to “play library” – but I’ve never felt further away from my old “career”.  It really does feel like a past life and when people ask me if “I’d go back to acting after my kids are in school”…I just don’t know.  What was once a bright star has faded a bit with the diapers, chicken nuggets and Minnie Mouse jammies.  I’d like to think that that fearless performer is still in me somewhere – being kept alive by my love for language and reading and classical theatre – and that I can grab that star when my time during the day becomes my own again, a few years down the road.  But I really don’t know.  I don’t know if I can face the rejection of being told “no” again.  And it pains me in my deepest being to think that maybe, I just didn’t have the stomach for it and that 2% of my theatre buds did – and still do.  And so, good for them.  Honestly.  I guess I just wish that there would be something said for those of us who are working our asses off at a different career.  I guess sometimes I’d like a little praise heaped on me for making it through each day as the co-leader of my home, Mom extraordinaire, woman with 200 hats at any given time. I’ve decided to walk away from my work-from-home writing gig – it was an awesome experience but as it turns out – well, for me it was just too hard to balance deadlines with a very active 4 year old and a loving handful of a 2 year old.  And it also made me realize what I want to be writing about the most… My life, my family, my heart. Note to self: Figure out how to do that.

What is it about a trip to the dressing room – be it to try on a swimsuit, a bra, a pair of jeans – that ignites such fear and trepidation in the heart of a woman?  Must it always be an experience we dread? I went downtown today to shop.  I needed two things: a dress for a party we’re going to and some new Spanx to wear under said dress.  I’ve been doing my Paleo diet now since the end of February and quite honestly, I’ve never felt better.  I’m sleeping so soundly I’m not hearing any children waking up in the middle of the night (which maybe is a good thing?), I haven’t had any dizzy spells since I’ve cut gluten and grains out of my diet (which I was having quite a bit before), I feel less bloated and more clear-headed – and yes, OF course – there’s the whole inches lost thing.  So you would think that I would be in a good self-esteem place right now, right?  Some new clothes, compliments from friends and my loving husband…I’ve even bought some – gasp – shorts.  Shorts, which I would never have felt comfortable in before.  What, exactly, is the problem? I read this very interesting article on Forbes.com today.  Working moms vs. Stay-at-home-moms…the perceptions, the assumptions we gather from each other just by the clothes that we wear to our jobs.  Working moms?  Dressed up in a suit or otherwise sharply pressed outfit.  Stay-at-home-mom: yoga pants…more specifically Lululemon yoga pants, of the $98 variety.  Now, I’m not knocking my dear friend Lulu.  In fact, if you know me you know I might have a teensy problem when it comes to their delicious clothes.  However, it got me thinking.  As I go about my day and see the various women in my life, am I to assume that each and every one of them is thrilled and unbelievably happy with their bodies?  What are my perceptions, and what is reality?  Do they see flaws?  Are they thinking I wish I had bigger boobs.  I bet she never has to worry about filling out a fantastic little black dress. I wish I had a flatter stomach.  I bet she doesn’t need to wear Spanx. I wish I had arms like her.  I bet she spends hours in the gym to look like that. I wish I didn’t have cellulite.  I bet she doesn’t have cellulite. I think if we are honest with ourselves, we’ve all had thoughts just like these.  And I’ll also bet that the girls you’re wondering about are thinking the exact same things about other girls, or – gasp – you?  It’s a vicious cycle that will probably go on and on.  And maybe, just maybe – they’re not thinking of you at all.  They’re so wrapped up in the noise of their own stuff they haven’t ever noticed that maybe your thighs do touch and maybe your boobs are a little saggy after breastfeeding two babies.  Maybe you do have a constellation of stretch marks across your stomach.  But, do they really see?  And do they really care?  Maybe they’re worried about what you see when you look at them.  I’d venture to say it’s probably the latter.  So maybe we should give each other, and ourselves a break.  Maybe if we’d all stop thinking about our flaws at the exact same time we’d all be having a lot more fun.  So, back to the dress I tried on.  It was darling.  Right up my alley.  Made my legs look fantastic.  But I couldn’t get past how un-Madonna my arms looked in it.  So I went back home with my new Spanx and no dress to wear over them, hanging my head in defeat and this close to climbing up out of my shame spiral via a big fat bag of pretzel M & M’s. Don’t worry.  I didn’t cave.  But I’m still feeling kinda down in the dumps about the whole thing.  And that stinks. I’d like to get to a place in my life where a visit to the dressing room doesn’t ruin my whole day.  Here’s hoping.  Let’s all end the day with a nice, gentle, loving thought about ourselves, shall we? I will do the same.  Or, try to, at least.   

It’s not easy putting it all out there, and Lord knows it’s often better to stuff it all down and pretend like everything is fine.  But sometimes, maybe giving voice to an issue in your heart is the greatest medicine. If you know anything about me, you know that I had a tumultuous childhood.  A lot of moving, a lot of instability – and I know that my parents did the best they could – but I went to three different high schools – the last being when I was 17.  A junior.  When everyone had established their friendships and grown up together.  I was coming in at the end.  Thankfully college came soon after, and thank God for it because it was just transient enough that I had the opportunity to meet lots of different kinds of people.  I was no longer the outsider.  And really, that’s what college was about for me – despite spending 90% of my time in the theatre building, I was blessed to have friendships of every kind, because everyone was beginning again.  I still call some of those people my oldest and dearest friends.  And, if you really are blessed with those old friendships, you can pick right back up from where you left off.  As my dear friend and kindred spirit Michelle reminds me, we shouldn’t be “hustling” our relationships all the time.  At some point, we have to stop working so hard and just be ourselves and trust that those people we call friends really and truly do want to spend time with us. And I think she hit the nail on the head.  I wonder, if because I had such instability in my childhood and teenage years that I just don’t feel like I deserve to have rich friendships with women.  Maybe, sub-consciously, my 14 year old self is telling me not to get too close.  Maybe it’s an issue of self-protection?  I have an amazing husband who tells me every day what a gift I am to him.  I love that I live with my greatest fan, and whenever I need that pep talk he is more than ready to give it to me.  But I find when it comes to the topic of women friendships – it’s just so much more complicated, isn’t it? I’m in the middle of reading Beth Moore’s “So Long, Insecurity” (HIGHLY recommend, by the way) and I highlighted one sentence in particular: “[Rejection is] insecurity with a serious fever.” Oooh.  Ever been there?  Have you ever fretted over something you’ve said, or wrote, so much so that it kept you up at night?  Have you ever had too many drinks and wanted to call an old friend just to tell them you miss them more than they could possibly know, and then not remember what you said the next day, terrified you made a total fool out of yourself?  Have you ever “hustled” a relationship?  Really and truly worked hard at getting someone to like you? Oh, friends.  I have done all of these things, many times. And Facebook?  You know where I’m going with this – how many times have your feelings been hurt because you weren’t invited/weren’t asked/weren’t approached/weren’t included?  I think we can all relate to that one. I feel like sometimes I mourn the fact I don’t have that one “go-to” friend – like just one person needs to fill all of those needs – because instead I have many different friends who fill all kinds of different roles in my life – and maybe I just need to recognize how wonderful that is in its own right.  Because who loves it when I’m mired in defeat – convinced that no one really wants to spend time with me or feels I bring something fabulous to the party?  One guess. The devil rejoices in it.  He loves that I can’t find my way out of this muck.  He relishes in those feelings of rejection and feeds them – gives them life, gives them a name.  James 1:16-18 says, “Don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters.  Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God the Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.  He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.  He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word.  And we, out of all creation, became His prized possession.” Oh, to truly and completely believe this and live it out in my life!  To have freedom – to know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that there is someone who thinks I bring many, many fabulous things to the party.  In fact, He thinks I’m so precious that He’s planning a party for me when it’s my time to leave this world.  A royal soiree, given by the sovereign King.  Thrown for me, His greatest and most beloved creation. Why, when I have such unbelievable power above me, am I still prey to such darkness?  I must know, deep inside, that this kind of decay is not of my Heavenly Father?  And so I will try to put this burden down each and every day.  When I’m feeling lonely, or sad, or rejected – or simply unloved.  Because the TRUTH of my life is that all of those things are LIES.  And so I challenge all of you who struggle with similar feelings – you are not alone.  I’m right there with you.  And the best thing that we can do is to recognize the lies and live in the truth of our great God’s loving embrace.  Because He is Good.  He is Loving.  He will always have a place for you at His table. He is your greatest fan, and friend – if you’ll let Him be.