Tag: hanson

The Ocean is Calling

I’m home this week in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. I love being near the ocean again. After a long stint in Southern California, my grown-up home is currently Chattanooga, Tennessee, a place with no ocean, but lots of charm, friendly people and a river that does the job for now. Chattanooga is home, but my childhood home will always be the beaches of South Carolina.

My brother, Bobby and I go to the beach in the mornings. He fishes and I surf, while trying to avoid his fishing line!

I love being home not just for the beach, but to hang out with my family; cooking for my mom, taking my niece surfing, and getting cuddles from Benny Boy, the family corgi. It’s part of the reason we left California, to not be quite so far away from family. The older I get the more I realize how much time I want to spend with family. In high school I was pretty much ready to get as far away as possible, and I did for a while, but over the last year I’ve been inching my way back closer to the east coast, at least in driving distance to my parents.

Chattanooga is close enough to Pawleys to drive down on the weekend, and far away enough that we still need a heads up if any family is planning on coming over. At this age, it’s the perfect distance. Who knows, as I get older it may feel too far, just as California started to feel once I hit mid-thirties, but for now, Chattanooga works.

My sister visiting me in Chattanooga! Visits happen more frequently on this side of the country!

I’ve loved getting to hang out with my mom. Her humor is sharper than ever and I can see more and more where I get my sense of humor from. It’s funny how her wit has been in front of me my whole life and it wasn’t until I started doing comedy later in life that I realized just how clever and comedic my mother was.

We’ve spent the days at the beach and the evenings watching Little House on The Prairie. Mom has quite the crush on Pa Ingalls. In last night’s episode, someone was sneaking around in the middle of the night outside of the Ingalls house. Pa ran out in a long nightgown holding a rifle. “There he is, Mom,” I said, “in his nightgown, ooooo!” Mom smiled, “yeaaaa, I wanna get me a nightgown… one with a Pa Ingalls in it!”

I literally laughed out loud… I do a lot with my mom.

For as much as I love coming home, it’s also bittersweet. When my parents divorced nearly 10 years ago they sold the family home and moved into separate condos. The four of us kids divide our time trying to figure out what night to eat dinner where… it’s not the end of the world, it’s a new normal we are fully adjusted to. But sometimes when I’m not trying so hard to be a grown up, it’s still a little hard.

Every time I come back to Pawleys Island, I drive by our old home, the house I grew up in and came home from college to. The house where I celebrated every birthday and Christmas as a kid, had sleepovers in middle school, and brought the boys I loved to meet my parents, as well as dumped the one I didn’t.

I loved that house, I had an entirely purple room… purple walls and purple carpet. I eventually covered the walls with so many Hanson posters, you couldn’t see a spec of purple. Some might have called it a shrine. I called it glorious.

Not a single square inch of wall space was spared.

The house pretty much sits empty now. It serves as a second home to some folks up north who only come down on occasion in the summer. They ripped the shutters off and painted the once beige colored house a dark navy blue. It looks different and yet the same.

I sat in the car and stared at the porch, a place I sat often, whether listening to music, praying to God, or hoping a cute boy would ride by on his bike. It’s weird how life seemed to take so long as a kid, thinking adulthood and relationships and everything I thought I wanted was so far away. At thirty-eight, as I looked at the porch that used to be mine, I realized it all went by in a blip.

The Barrows kids in high school: Bobby, JJ, Bonnie, Betsy, and Biscuit!

No one told me I’d grow up one day. I mean, they did, but they didn’t. It’s an assumed part of life, we all know we’re going to grow up. But I don’t think we really know what that means or what it will look like. We don’t realize that not only will we get older, but we will look old, and we won’t be the cool ones anymore, let alone the young ones. No one told me there would always be people younger than me, reminding me how old I’m getting, calling me ma’am when I check out at the grocery store.

No one told me, I suppose, because they were busy going through it themselves, realizing how fast time goes and how short life is. Each generation adjusting as they go along, entering each new decade they reach for the first time.

As an enneagram 4, I’m prone to dwelling in the land of nostalgia, wishing for things to be the way they were, even if I don’t recall them as being that great… the mere fact that something is a memory often makes it great for me. Perhaps that’s why I drive by the old house, an attempt to remember and relive our family all hanging out together.

And with that, I drove to the beach and jumped in the ocean to wash it all off. The ocean reminds me that everything really is okay. And it is, I’m truly, truly grateful for the beautiful life I have. I’m even grateful for the the memories I get to relive even if just for a moment when I drive by my old house.

I’ll head back to my own home in Tennessee soon, a home I’ve been enjoying creating new memories in with my husband, Josh. But for now, the ocean is calling…. my home away from home, my happy place, with or without the big family house.

Better than any house, this is my happy place!

BraveheART!

Happy March, friends! Here’s a video update from February with some more art news, words of encouragement and a glimpse into my little beach community… it’s one with a whole lot of heART!

May we all have a little more braveheART to share! Being brave isn’t easy, but it’s worth the freedom that comes with it!

puffy yellow jackets

I remember being in the 7th grade and someone pointing out a Roxy model in a Seventeen magazine. There was a group of us eating breakfast at Hardee’s before school… I think it was someone’s attempt to start a “Bible study” before school started, but I don’t remember it lasting past that one early morning. When the Bible study was over and the breakfast sandwiches had been eaten, one of the girls pulled out her Seventeen magazine. “Jennie, this looks like you when you get older,” she said. The girl she pointed at was a short-haired brunette who was clearly a tomboy. She didn’t look like the other models, but she was still a model and she was cute in a tomboy-kind-of-way. It was the first compliment I remember getting as a middle schooler. Like most middle schoolers, I was awkward and underdeveloped, but without the obvious potential that other girls had to be high-school heartthrobs.

For example, I didn’t make the cheerleading team, so I borrowed a cheerleading uniform from a girl who did and I had my mom take cheerleading photos in our front yard, as evidenced by the mud-pit behind me…

cheer

I was approached by boys, but only to talk to my friends for them. Advice to middle school boys, or boys in general who are interested in girls: talk to the girl yourself, it will score you mad points not only with the girl, but also her friends, who you will more than likely have to impress more than the girl.

That being said, in 7th grade I got my first compliment regarding my looks, or my potential looks… one day, just maybe one day, way after high-school, I might look like a 90s tomboy model.

I was excited at the thought and wondered how long I would have to wait. One of the boys who overheard the comment being made about my future self walked over and asked if he could see the picture. “Wow, yea, I could see that,” he said, and my excitement grew… until he kept talking, “if that’s true, call me then, but not before.”

Excitement dwindled and the reality of my present self came crashing down on my two-minute long dream of becoming a 90s tomboy model. Everyone laughed, so naturally I laughed too, because that’s what you do when you’re in middle school and you don’t want to let on that you’ve been hurt. Except that it’s not what you should do. Never on your behalf or the behalf of others should you silence your voice and laugh with the crowd for the sake of fitting in. But in middle school I didn’t know that, and truth be told, sometimes I still forget it… because it feels good to fit in, even when it hurts. While it was clear I wasn’t going to be “asked out” anytime soon, I made peace with it by falling in love with the brothers that are Hanson and swearing my love, life and devotion to them. I think most middle school girls devoted themselves to Hanson in the 90s, and those who didn’t were clearly delusional… or so I thought until much too late in life (ahem, last week).

I MMMBopped my way through ninth grade when my five-year relationship with braces ended. I remember the day I got my braces off. I couldn’t stop licking my teeth, they felt so slimy and perfect. It was the first time something on me ever felt perfect. I went to youth group that night and a boy pointed out that I had gotten my braces off. The sun was setting and there was a chill in the springtime air. Everyone was outside scattered on the field in front of the church for that week’s game of dodgeball. Huffing and puffing while trying to dodge a big red rubber ball, a boy ran up to me, “you… you… you got your braces off!” followed by deep breaths. “Yea,” I smiled, not moving so as not to mess up my smile or get slime on my mouth. “It looks good,” he said, followed by the loud smack of being hit in the head with a big red rubber ball. “YOU’RE OUT!” a kid yelled at the boy who was distracted by my smile, and I wanted to attack the kid for interrupting my first compliment from a boy.

“Thank you,” I said to the boy as he walked off the field. “Are you cold?” he asked as he started to take off his puffy yellow jacket and walk back towards me. “A little bit,” I lied given the slightest possibility that a boy might offer me his jacket. “GET OFF THE FEILD, YOU’RE OUT!” the kid yelled again at the boy with the puffy yellow jacket who liked my slimy smile. “HE IS!” I turned and yelled, “HE’S GIVING ME HIS JACKET! I’M COLD!” I lied with confidence and a death stare seemingly from satan because the kid looked terrified. Don’t mess with an awkward girl on the outskirts of middle school when she is getting her first compliment and clothing offer from a boy. She may not be good at using her voice, but when you try to short her on her first interaction with a boy who might like her, she’ll find her voice real quick and verbally rip your head off.

He handed me his jacket, me still uncertain of why he offered it, but mostly certain it was because of my teeth. I went home that night and wrote a thank you card to my orthodontist. Seriously. I have believed in thank you cards for as long as I can remember. Dr. Ross Orthodontics knows what I’m talking about.

All of this to say, to my present self (because I’m forgetful) and anyone willing to listen, be nice to people. With love as the lenses with which you look through, speak truth over people about who they will become, but also speak truth to them about who they are now. Tell people they don’t have to wait to be great one day, tell them they are great now, growing into someone greater. Life is hard and middle school is harder. Kids need to be told they are smart and funny and beautiful and brilliant and fully capable of thinking for themselves and of voicing their truths.

Kids grow up, all of them, even the awkward ones, and they remember. They remember who picked on them and they remember who was nice to them. They remember the boy who wanted the girl to call him one day if she grew up pretty and they remember the boy who risked getting smacked in the head by a big red rubber ball so he could tell the girl he liked her smile. Nine times out of ten the girl never calls the first boy, but she still smiles and licks her slimy teeth when she sees puffy yellow jackets.

Take risks, not by jumping off cliffs or out of airplanes (though sure, do that too), take risks by being nice to people, even if you get nothing in return. Live a story worth telling by breathing life into other people and be amazed by the life it will breathe back into you. There are plenty of mean words out there to stereotype any sort of person you dislike or feel threatened by, but challenge yourself to look for something good, and say something even better. Where I live I always hear people say “send good vibes,” and yes do that, but don’t just leave it at sending good vibes in thought, speak them out. There is power in the spoken word and I think we would all stand a little more amazed at the end of each day if we spoke kind words to even just one person who might not even know how badly they need it.

Kindness matters. It is the fruit of love and it will nourish not only the recipient of it but also the giver. It’s not always easy… kindness, or love for that matter, but it’s worth it. If you don’t know where to start, start with a thank you card. There is always something for which you can be thankful… always… even if it’s your orthodontist from your entire middle school career, start there, and keep going!