News: I am an official grown up. I am in a book club. I write a lot, I talk even more but being still enough to read is HARD for me. I am a picky reader too. The book must have a strong female character that I can connect to or I won’t make it past page 10.

I read in the church bulletin that the Epiphany Parents were having a Women’s Book Club to read “Carry On Warrior” by Glennon Melton. I have really wanted to read this book but I hardly have time to shave my legs and am mostly too tired to read at the end of the day. But a book club was the motivation I needed. An invitation to drink a little wine and socialize with other grown ups is normally all I need for motivation. So I bought the book and read 27 pages (yesterday) so I could hang out today! Then I got there and remembered this is not a light book. I mean I knew about Glennon and momastery.com for some time, so the depth of sharing was no surprise and exactly what I needed.

And in most places and spaces in my life there is deep conversation.

Is that normal? Or is that a therapist/woman/over analyzer thing?

This post is a LOOONG time coming. I have had a lot of very intense conversations recently. I had taken a hiatus for a few months. Mostly because I was not interested in the work it takes to be deep. I found myself feeling disconnected and disengaged. So off I went to begin reconciliation  with friends, family, colleagues. It seems that where people are plagued with small talk I am turning every corner and digging deep with someone else. This truly is an honor and sometimes exhausting. Being trusted and relied on and really given the opportunity to be real and ask answer hard questions is a gift.

There was a hard conversation with a good friend who’d I lost touch with. It really was over nothing big, but small things piled up and unprocessed can lead to hurt feelings. It was a scary moment to make that call. And with a deep breath I word vomited about my hurt feelings and where I was afraid I had hurt back. Having hard conversations with me generally includes ALOT of verbal processing. So its quite the dance. Anyone who can stay in it with me deserves a reward. I have 2 MO’s: 1. Fix it and fuggetaboutit 2. Process, process, reflect, validate, reframe (aka all the therapizing). This conversation was more of a 2. I don’t think I solved all the problems of the world but I think I made a dent in disconnect. I was honest and real; so was she.

I think conflict is what demonstrates a strength of a relationship. I am not promoting adversary but honest breakdowns can lead to breakthroughs. I told this friend she was worth the call and there was no intent to blame or shame but just to clear the air. There was the hint of grownup I was talking about. NO ONE  has to be “wrong” we can just both know there are things we can do better next time around the circle. The real apology is to say “sorry I didn’t call sooner.”

This book, this book is really prompting me to self-reflect. Being real. Matching my outsides to my insides. In that, I have a lot of work to do.

I will continue to process the “tough conversations” to make sense of them. There are still more to come.

Foster parent update: The kids are alright. They have their first soccer game on Saturday. Meg and I are the team “soccer moms” (I swear our life should be a reality TV show). Bio mom will be there. I will bring treats for after the game and mimosas in a flask for during. Bless my own heart as I always seem to put us in weird situations and see how we function. Mostly, bless Megs heart. She is so kind and genuine; she holds my hand while I slam the gas of this roller coaster. Tonight someone told me they were considering fostering. I really have to work on my answer. It was something like this:

“The system sucks, prepare to have your heart broken. You have kids? Thats good because you have the kid stuff already. Its hard. Way harder than I thought, but parenting is hard. Its temporary, prepare to have kids ripped from you with no notice. Its so important and kids deserve safe and loving homes.”

Lets review, there was no question asked to me. I blame the vulnerable prompt by Glennon. 

So yea, maybe tomorrow someone will just talk to me about the weather.