Wow! I can’t believe the day has finally come!! This has been a years long process in the making!
KINDA FUNNY: Stories by A Full-Time Comedian (with Four Part-Time Jobs) is now available on Amazon!!
This comedy-club-meets-therapy-session collection of stories is a mix of laughs, tears, heavy thoughts and awkward moments. I definitely revealed more of who I am in this book, so I’m a mix of excited and nervous to share it. You can read the stories at random or read straight through to the grand finale! 💜🎉
If you’ve ever enjoyed my comedy, art or writing, please consider sharing this video with people you may know who’d enjoy some kinda funny content! And don’t forget to get your own copy TODAY!! YAY!!!
JJ takes her stories from the comedic stage to the comedic page in this comedy-club-meets-therapy-session collection. From aging parents, awkward first dates, and avoiding the dentist to traversing the difficulties of eating disorders, wrestling with faith and depression, and yet still stumbling into love after looking for thirty-five years in very odd places, JJ uses her experiences to reveal her understandings of humor, faith, mental health, and what it means to finally “grow up,” if that’s even something we ever actually do.
You’ll find stories that are kinda funny, kinda deep, kinda awkward, and even kinda spiritual, giving readers a place to go, offering comfort, sanity, and little to no answers about how to live a better life, but certainly a place to feel a little less alone and a little more entertained.
KINDA FUNNY reveals the freedom a quippy sense of humor can unleash in all of us by bringing levity to those gritty moments.
I’m not sure I have any business writing about this, but the news hit me deep and I feel lost within its reality. In many ways I lack the words to express how I feel, and yet writing seems to be the only way I know how to process it. It’s an awkward tension.
On a recent trip to my hometown I was notified that a friend of mine had passed away. I say “friend of mine” and yet I hadn’t seen her in about six years. Even then, it was a grocery store passing, a quick hug and life update. I hadn’t been an active part of her life, nor she mine, in nearly 20 years. How does time go by that fast?
Truth be told, I don’t know if I thought of her as a “friend” when I knew her best, which was in my teens and 20s, only because she wasn’t just a friend, she was my (former) boyfriend’s mom. When I first met her at 14, I didn’t know kids and parents could be friends. She was definitely one of the cool parents, but that was as close as teen/parent relationships got in the late 90s/early 2000s, at least with other people’s parents- they were either cool or not cool.
My parents were pastors, so I’m not sure the other kids thought of them as cool, especially since we never had the good snacks, or cable. My boyfriend on the other hand, his parents were cool, they had the good snacks, cable and a boat. Though they were cool, I was nervous to meet his parents for the first time, especially his mom, girls are always nervous to meet the mom. Despite being so young, I remember very vividly Mrs. Lisa’s smile and her laugh- it was a good hearty laugh that made you want to think of a joke just to make her laugh again.
I dated her son from the time I was 14 until just before I turned 21, and seeing as I spent half of my time at his house, she was, in fact, more than a friend, she was like a second mom to me in those formative years of life. Despite being young and “in love,” unaware at the time that high school romances didn’t have the best success rate, she only ever made me feel like a permanent fixture in her family.
High school is an odd enough time, trying to navigate it is confusing and awkward. All I ever wanted (for whatever reason) was to fit in. I wanted what I think most people want, to be loved and accepted. When my high school boyfriend first showed interest in me, I was shocked. I was not “eye-catching,” I wore sweater vests and braces and was too self-conscious to have developed much of a personality at 14, so I really didn’t know what he “saw,” but when we met, something clicked instantly. This was at a time when parents still drove their kids to the movies and usually sat three rows back. Two curious 14 year olds in a dark movie theater with no supervision? “Yea right,” my dad would say.
Essentially we grew up together, sweet 16s, driver’s permits and licenses, high school graduation, college acceptances and tailgate parties, sharing time at each other’s house with each other’s parents. Despite being young, my parents loved him, so much so that they bent the “no dating till 16” rule. I not only loved him, I loved his parents, and they loved me too. I know this because I felt it, and if there’s one thing a teenager knows, it’s their feelings and how other people make them feel.
His family lived in a beautiful house on the Black River in Georgetown, SC. It was a 30 minute drive exactly from my house to his, which at such a young age felt like an eternity, but it was always worth the drive. I was greeted first by the dogs in the driveway, and then, with a smile on her face, Mrs. Lisa. She didn’t wait inside for me to make my way to the door, she’d always come out to say hello, give me a hug, and immediately I felt welcomed. Did I want a snack or anything to drink? How was my momma?
At the time, her greeting and questions seemed normal, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that not as many people are so quick to make such an effort to make you feel welcomed into their home. It’s actually an art, so much so that someone wrote a book about it, The Art of Gathering. I remember reading “when hosting a gathering and people come to your home, don’t just stay busy in the kitchen and expect them to come find you, be the first person to welcome them in and show them you are glad they are there.” That was Mrs. Lisa, whether there was a gathering or not, she was there to welcome you in.
I was an odd mix of outgoing and shy in high school. I was prone to express myself while simultaneously getting caught up in the opinions of others, stifling any sort of self expression I had stirring within me. With parents around I would usually get quiet in social situations, but when I felt like no one was expecting me to behave, I’d be the one dancing, doing impressions and taking any dare that came my way— jump in the pool with my clothes on? Of course! Eat an entire stick of butter? Sure, why not? I was reserved and outlandish at the same time.
While I always wanted to behave properly in front of my boyfriend’s mom, Mrs. Lisa knew I had a wild side, if for no other reason than she attended nearly every high school basketball game I had played in (her daughter also being on the team). So despite my “nice girl” image, she saw me foul out nearly every single game, often getting a technical called because I’d get so aggressive. Truly, I was a horrible human when I played basketball, nicknamed the Tasmanian Devil for just how chaotic I could get. And yet, Mrs. Lisa never once brought up my behavior on the court, she just loved on me and remained a safe space for me to keep growing up around.
For almost seven years we spent birthdays and holidays together. Every year for Christmas Mrs. Lisa got me a new pair of pajamas, which was always one of my favorite gifts. They weren’t just any random pair of pajamas, they were perfect for me, they were intentional. Mrs. Lisa’s pajamas were pajamas I would have picked out for myself if I could have afforded them. My most favorite were a pair of purple leopard print pajamas, I wore them so long (well after her son and I broke up) that the purple eventually faded into grey.
With any breakup there comes a time when you let go of (get rid of) all the things that remind you of the other person. That’s never been easy for me, I’m a story person who loves memories, not to mention I’ve dated some pretty good gift-givers, the best of which was my high-school-sweetheart, and his mother. Pajamas from Mrs. Lisa were the last item I still owned long after that high-school-sweetheart relationship ended and we’d both moved on. I justified keeping them because they were from Mrs. Lisa, not from my ex.
Truth be told, I’m not entirely sure I handled that break up well (I’m also not entirely sure how one does handle a break up well). I was so confused, but who isn’t when they’re almost 21, about to graduate college and still unsure of who they are and what they believe? There was a period of time, as with any breakup, where we were still seeing each other on occasion, along with each other’s families. But when things were “officially over,” that was the unexpected hit, losing the family that had become my own. No one prepares you for that.
If felt unfair that I had grown up with these people, Mrs. Lisa and Mr. Perry, who I’d come to love as family and just like that, they weren’t a part of my life anymore. I remember writing a letter to Mrs. Lisa that I still loved her and missed her. I think in a fit of grief I ripped it up, and must of calmed down at some point because I taped it back together and eventually gave it to her, in person, explaining I had ripped it up and taped it back together (who does that?). She hugged me and thanked me and said she still loved me, which meant a lot knowing her allegiance was to her son (rightfully so). I had more closure with her than I did with the ending of my relationship, but I felt at peace knowing she didn’t hate me.
From time to time when I would come home on visits I would run into Mrs. Lisa at the beach or in the grocery store, always a hug, a smile, and a few times, tears in our eyes. It was odd seeing someone you loved so much, who you had history with, knowing you only had a brief moment with them before things went back to them not being a part of your life anymore. I always wanted to linger but never knew how.
And that was the last time I saw her, one of those moments in the grocery store with tears in our eyes, long past the season of life in which we knew each other. I’m happily married now, and I can honestly say I’ve often still hoped to run into her again when visiting home. There’s been plenty of times I’ve kept my eyes peeled for her in the grocery store or at a restaurant in Georgetown, thirsty for one more hug from her, a mom who saw me through all of high school up through college, still wanting her to be proud of me.
That’s the kind of person Mrs. Lisa was, so kind-hearted and good-natured that nearly 20 years have gone by since I’ve been a part of her life and she mine, and yet I feel like I’ve lost a good friend. I’ve been caught off guard by just how hard it hit me, like I shouldn’t be so affected. The only thing I can attribute it to is who Mrs. Lisa was. She leaves that kind of an impact, whether you knew her for an afternoon or the entirety of your life, she made you feel so loved and so seen that there’s a void in her absence.
Despite having moved away long ago, now being back I feel a shift in atmosphere in Georgetown County knowing it lacks her presence. I simply cannot wrap my head around it. I have read her obituary so many times just to be sure it’s real. I keep thinking one of these times I will check again and it won’t be there, it shouldn’t be there. And yet there it is, her name next to the word “obituary,” a brief commentary on the beautiful life she lived and the heart she had for people, especially her family.
Two nights ago I laid in bed and for the first time in years, I talked to her. I cried and I said all the things I had perhaps wanted to say (but didn’t know how) when I was either too young or too unsure if it was “appropriate.” I said all the things I didn’t have time to say in the grocery store or passing by on the beach. I said goodbye, again, and I thanked her for loving me when I was young and at my most vulnerable. I thanked her for not just being a mom in my life, but being a friend. I’ve always missed her, so this feeling of missing her isn’t new, but it feels more final, at least on this side of eternity, and that part is hard to stomach. I’m grateful we shared a faith in which we believe in an afterlife and therefore no death is final, but I’ll be honest, it doesn’t lessen the pain or make it any easier.
I do believe in celebrating one’s life, but I also believe in grieving loss, and the loss of Mrs. Lisa’s life is certainly worth grieving over. For the last 20 years it’s always been possible that I run into her on a visit home, perhaps less likely as time went on, but possible. The last few days I’ve found myself still looking for her. A few times I even thought someone looked like her and I started to perk up, only to realize it’s impossible, completely baffled that this time it is in fact, impossible.
I will continue to miss her laugh and her smile, choosing to take some comfort in the fact that I will see her again, without all the confines of human relationships and rules about breakups. And if I still know anything about Mrs. Lisa, I bet she’ll be one of the first to welcome people home when they get there. Whether it’s her arms you’re looking for or your own momma’s, she’ll hold the door open for us with a smile, I just know it.
Well, I’m trying to think of a more eloquent way to put it, but all that comes to mind is, “we did it!”
By “it,” I mean performing for 10,000 women at The Women of Joy Conference in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee last weekend. I was told there’d be 9,000 women at the event, which was already enough to make me squirm a little, but upon arrival I was corrected, “it’s actually about 10,000 women, only about a 1,000 more, so no big deal!” 😂.
When I first walked in and saw the venue space, I could not wrap my head around it, the chairs spread so far and so wide that not even a picture could capture it all. Surely the whole place won’t be full, I thought, but I thought wrong. The whole place packed out, women from all over the southeast and midwest, hungry for a girls’ weekend, a spiritual encounter and hopefully, a few laughs.
So that’s the “it” that we did: a show that size, for an hour, laughing all the way. And when I say “we,” I mean I absolutely could not have done it alone. We did it. First, my husband, Josh, who was with me every step of the way from the booking process to the week leading up to as I tried to prepare mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. After all, it takes a lot of work to make it look easy on stage!
Along with Josh goes a handful of people like my sister, Betsy, who joined us for the whole weekend, helped at the merch table and provided an overall sense of fun in the midst of what felt like a lot of pressure. She loved meeting all the ladies and by the end of the night she was signing copies of my book 🤣.
I’d never seen anything like it before, women and girls of all ages waited in line to get a copy of my book signed, grab a picture or just thank me for the laughter. Some waited more than an hour, many of whom met Josh and Betsy and enjoyed their company while waiting. By the time women reached me for a signature, Betsy and Josh had both signed the inside front cover… it was like signing a yearbook with some of my favorite people.
People kept thanking me for staying around, but I was the one who was grateful people would even want to wait to talk to me, let alone get a picture with me. My middle school self was thriving! “See kiddo,” I whispered back to her, “you’ll be alright, middle school is tough, hang in there!” The show ended at 9:30pm and we didn’t leave the venue until 11:45pm when the last person left. I was absolutely floored.
We went back the next day to sell more books and meet more people, we spent another four hours just talking with women and girls from all over, each with their own stories; some of struggle, some of triumph, all grateful to have had a break from it all just to laugh. “You inspire me to be myself,” one girl said, and that right there was worth it all.
Along with Betsy and Josh was my mom, who had been praying for me everyday since she first found out about me performing at Women of Joy. “I’m praying twice a day now, and so are my girls,” she said the week of the show (her girls are the ladies she prays with), “see, it’s not so bad to be on a southern lady’s prayer chain!” It was a clever jab at one of my jokes about prayer chains being a righteous way to gossip.
Other friends and family members joined in with encouragement and prayer as well. My dad and my mother-in-law often sent messages of encouragement or GIFS of love. Friends sent me voice memos and videos with words of support. Debbie, the woman who booked me and organized the whole weekend encouraged me like no other event planner/booker I’ve encountered. She cared, and she wanted me there, which made all the difference in the world for any amount of anxiety or nerves I might have felt leading up to it… I belonged there, and starting from a place of belonging versus trying to fit in is a game changer.
It’s not to say other comedy shows, producers and organizers haven’t been great, many have, but the spiritual piece is not something I’ve often encountered in the comedy world. I am neither a church comedian nor a club comic. I enjoy parts of both, but don’t fully resonate with either. I’m still in the middle of both my spiritual journey and my comedy journey. Social Media traps people into thinking they can’t grow any more, at least not in a public space. People think they need to find their audience and present their stance on everything they’ve “figured out.” While Comedy requires an audience, my goal in life is not to have an audience, and I certainly don’t have it all figured out. It’s an odd place to be… to still be growing, especially in public.
In some ways I still have a lot of healing to do from the church, unfortunately many people do, but unlike a number of “90s Christians” who’ve had some kind of awakening and decide to throw the baby out with the bath water, I simply can’t throw it all out. The church is still a wound for me, but I also still ache for the heart of Jesus and how He loves us. I still look for Him… in clubs, in churches, in theaters and bars… I’ve seen Him in all of the above, sometimes in the most unassuming of places. I’ve also wondered where He was, sometimes especially in the church.
Are you there, God? It’s me, JJ!
I’ve been welcomed into churches and welcomed into clubs. I’ve also been “not a favorite” at churches and “not a favorite” at clubs. That’s life, some people will get ya, and some people won’t, and it’s okay. Even in my attempts to look for one, I’ve always had a hard time “finding my audience,” I just enjoy making people laugh, I don’t care who they are (I am a marketer’s worst nightmare). But, whether making fun of my own insecurities, oddities about the church, or just overall awkwardness of life, it’s like my sister Betsy said after my weekend with Women of Joy, “well, looks like you found your audience: 10,000 recovering Baptist women!”
The best part was I never went looking for that particular audience. Through the ebb and flow of life we all just found ourselves there, relating to each other, perhaps not about everything, but enough to see the good and enjoy each other’s company.
And so, another part of the “we” would have to be all the women who were there at Women of Joy (not all of whom were Baptist, I loved hearing one woman claim her Catholicism while able to jokingly add, “who else was going to bring the crippling guilt?” 🤣🤣. People who can laugh at themselves, I guess that’s my audience.
Hearing that many women laugh in unison was electric, almost unworldly. It was the first time it ever occurred to me that I hope Heaven has a comedy club. Maybe I will actually get to see Robin Williams perform one day, Gilda Radner too. I’m still unlearning a lot about church and relearning a lot about God, so I can’t claim to know much, but I do know that God has a sense of humor, and I think He gave me a dash of it, or at least lets me use it from time to time.
Even if I never get to experience anything like this past weekend again, I will forever be grateful that I got to experience it on this side of life.
“Thank you, God,” is something I mutter from time to time, whether as a sigh of relief or finally finding a parking spot. But as the last (not least) part of my “we,” I mean it sincerely when I say, thank you, God, that I did not go it alone, nor did I lose my sense of self, in the vastness of it all.
I thought the blog could use a little update and what better place to start than here- ground zero.
After half a year spent working on my latest book proposal, a month for the right time to pitch and another 6-8 weeks to wait to hear back from publishers, the verdict is in…
PASS.
I have to admit, at first I wasn’t surprised. I stopped getting excited about “what could be” shortly after the third time life plans were canceled during the Covid era. I was in Pasadena, CA when I was delivered the news of a “no-go” on my book proposal while getting ready for a show that night. I tried not to let it rattle me mentally, but the truth is, it did. All I could hear over and over again was “See, nobody cares. See, you’re a nobody. See, you’re not good enough.”
I wanted to crawl back in bed, and for a little while, I did. I felt anxious all day, and tired from battling the anxiety with daily affirmations that seemed to stop working somewhere in between “I’m good enough” and “doggone it, people like me!” When I can’t think of my own affirmations, I just steal some from Stuart Smalley.
When I got to the venue that night I knew ticket sales were down. As an opener or a feature that never bothers me, I’m not the reason to buy tickets. But as the headliner, the supposed “why” people buy tickets to a show, I felt like a failure. I introduced myself to the feature and asked if he wanted to trade spots, “check back after I drink a little more and maybe I will,” he said. A few minutes before show time I checked back in, “how’s the drinking going?” I asked with a little elbow nudge. He laughed, assuming I was joking, and so I laughed as if to say, “Of course I’m joking!”
The feature started in, clearly a club comic with the 10 second formula, which is to get a laugh every 10 seconds. As a storyteller comic, that formula never worked for me. Could I afford to get to the punchline faster? In some cases, yes, but I also know my style and it’s not to be a one liner comic.
This has happened to me before where the feature comic’s style is so drastically different from mine that it starts to mess with my head, at least if the feature is killing it, which this feature was. I started to second guess myself and why I was even headlining. I was about to go on in 10 minutes while I was mentally trying to talk myself down off the edge of walking out the door.
Remember the movie Little Giants with Rick Moranis and Ed O’Neil about the pee wee football players who weren’t “good enough” to make the team? I felt like a little giant, capable, but in a league where she didn’t belong. I’m no comedian! I thought, I’m kinda funny, sure, but comedian!?! I kept hearing that one kid say over and over again, “football is 80% mental and 40% physical.” I’m only now realizing how horribly wrong that math was, but the same is true for stand up comedy, in essence, it’s mostly mental.
As the feature proceeded to make fun of religion and rip into politics, not unusual for a California show, I watched the audience keel over in laughter. Great, I thought, and now here comes the recovering preacher’s kid with a cleaner mouth and a penchant for therapy. I know that not everybody is going to like me, but it’s really hard to be okay with that when you’re onstage in front of 200 strangers, “just being yourself,” and the reaction is mostly crickets.
To be fair, my show wasn’t crickets, at least not this time. I found the audience members who were relieved for my sense of humor, and I did a “great job,” but it didn’t feel great. When you have shows where you really kill it, it makes it hard not to compare every show to that and think none are as good. Again, this is a head game, you can’t spend the rest of your career comparing all your shows to each other, or to anyone else’s, so I know it’s not going to help me by comparing, I’m just saying sometimes I can’t help but compare and shame myself accordingly.
I was relieved when the show was over, as I know as least two other ladies in the audience were who gave me NOTHING the entire time I was onstage. It felt like they wanted to make sure I knew I wasn’t funny and sat stone cold where they once keeled over in laughter as the guy before added to the masses of making everything political.
I don’t do political comedy, nor do I have any desire to go there, but I know as soon as a political comedian starts in on either side and the crowd is loving it, I’m in trouble. I’m a little too liberal for conservative audiences and a little too conservative for liberal audiences. Constantly unsure of where I fit, I find the people who jive with me most are people in neither extreme camp, but who are also just awkwardly figuring out how to navigate life. It’s the absolute slowest way to grow your audience, I guarantee it. Nothing sells faster than hatred, and I really try to steer clear. If I make fun of anyone, I make fun of myself, which doesn’t always land…
The weird thing with comedy is you can have a whole room laughing and be zero-ed in on those two frowning faces. I’ve gotten better at not focusing on them, but that night, between low ticket sales, a slower pace to the punchline and those two frowning faces, all coupled with the passes on my book proposal because I was “unknown” and “really, why would people care?” I was ripe for mental self destruction.
I can just as easily sit here now, removed from the situation and say, “it really wasn’t that bad, JJ,” at least not the show. But I can also recall how it felt in the moment, and in the moment is when the self doubt is the hardest to battle.
As for the publishing companies, they aren’t wrong. In this day and age of social media, a market so saturated with content that we’re losing our ability to engage in human interaction, why would people care who I am or what I have to say? Especially without 500K followers to “vouch for me”? They don’t want to take a risk on someone who doesn’t already have a large platform in a niche market where they know the book will sell. I get it.
Low risk, high reward, that’s what publishers want… Instagram influencers who don’t have much to say but a lot of people to say it to. Bravo, y’all.
And there goes my negativity creeping back in. Apologies. I guess instead of sitting in my room, pouting and swiping and comparing myself to everyone else on social media, I’m just going to keep writing, keep showing up for shows, keep trying to be myself.
I’ll be here, sharing the journey along the way: the stand up shows that are horror stories and the ones that went a little smoother. I want to share more about mental health and what it looks like in the comedy industry, at least for me, instead of faking it till I make it and struggling in silence.
Obviously, if you follow along here or on Instagram or join my email list, my heart would leap above and beyond with gratitude. But comedy is subjective, and I totally get it if I’m not your cup of tea… No worries (and by that I mean, I’ll for sure worry nonstop and eventually slap myself out of it after a good pep talk).
I’ll share more about my book soon, Kinda Funny, stories by a full-time comedian with four part-time jobs, so stay tuned! Until then, thanks for being here!
My younger sister, Betsy, just left to head back to Washington, DC. She came to visit me in Chattanooga for the weekend to celebrate her 37th birthday. It’s crazy when your younger sibling turns 37. Not only do I keep thinking I’m 37, I feel more like 27. Funny how the mind needs to be convinced that the body is not what it once was. I wake up with cricks in my neck, not from a night out of dancing, but from sitting on the couch in a slightly different manner than my usual lounge posture.
With my husband out of town for the week and a freezer full of pre-made dinners, I had plenty of time on my hands to prepare for her arrival. She’s been living alone since the beginning of the pandemic, and while she is the strong one in the family, I know it’s been really hard on her, if for no other reason than she often feels like she has to be the strong one. Being that I’m the middle child, I often had no problem flailing my emotions about, making it very clear I needed attention. I have since grown out of it, for the most part, but I still have my moments.
I was 28 years old before I realized that being a MIDDLE child meant I had a YOUNGER sister… meaning I wasn’t just a middle child, I was a big sister, with some one to look after other than myself. It was groundbreaking. We’ve been close ever since.
I set my intentions ahead of time, I had recently read the Art of Gathering and I learned that a good gathering isn’t just about the decor or the food, but about the intention you have for the gathering and how well you carry it out. My intention for her time at my house was to create a space for her to feel celebrated, but more so, loved and special; knowing this helped me think through what might make Betsy feel that way.
Since she lives a busy life in DC, she doesn’t often have time to do the things she’d like to do: cook, decorate, take a bath. Living alone means she’d probably even more so like to be on the receiving end of someone cooking for her, someone decorating her space, and… well, the bath she can do on her own.
I spent the week preparing for her arrival, from making the decorations and hanging them, to making the cake and the cake topper…
Though Josh and I have been living in Chattanooga since November, we have to yet to find a kitchen table we like… partly because Josh keeps saying he is going to make one, but we’re going on month four of that not happening, so I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, I went down to Wal-Mart and grabbed a cheap folding table to cover up.
Betsy and I used the table once the whole weekend and spent the rest of the time eating at the kitchen counter or on the couch. I guess it’s true that decor is a mere addition, take it or leave it, compared to the over all purpose of the gathering and being together.
The day she flew in she had already spent an extra three hours in the DC airport due to delayed flights. She was getting in much later than planned and I knew she’d be tired, not just from the flight, but the work week she had just come off of. I wouldn’t be able to fix her energy levels, but I could certainly make her feel welcome, and hopefully get her laughing after a long day.
I dressed for the occasion and awkwardly waited for her to come down the escalator in the Chattanooga Airport…
After waiting a while, enduring stares and little girls saying “Mommy, look” while pointing at me, Betsy finally started to come down the escalator. As soon as I saw her I began playing the Sisters song from White Christmas, you know how it goes…
And in no time, though tired from travel, delayed flights and a DC work week, she laughed out loud as I continued to sing and act out the song until she reached me.
“Welcome to your birthday weekend!” I yelled, and proceeded to keep playing and singing the song until we reached the car. I may have overdone it a little, but I’m still a middle child, sometimes I can’t help myself.
When she got in the car I had snacks and an itinerary for the weekend, letting her know she didn’t have to think about or plan a thing, it was all taken care of, all she had to do was enjoy it.
I’m not sharing all this to say “look at all I did!” (Maaaaybe the middle child part is saying that), I’m sharing it to say, it took me 38 years to do something like this for someone who’s been a part of my life all 38 years. It was long overdue and I’m grateful I was allowed the space in time to make it happen for her. I’m sharing it to say, I realized it’s never too late to make someone feel loved and special.
I played Hanson when we walked in the door, our childhood obsession. With the house decorated at each corner, she’d let out a little scream as she’d see something new. I had snacks at the ready while I finished making dinner.
After dinner she took a bath, an often daily ritual for her until pipes in her apartment burst and she hadn’t been able to take a bath for weeks. We joked about how anxious she must be since she’s only been able to take a shower, “yea,” she laughed, “sometimes I take two baths a day!” I suppose that’s what happens when you live and work in Washington, DC… you take two baths a day, not just to relax but to wash all the politics off!
She thanked me for everything and turned in early. I knew she was tired, but there almost seemed to be a sadness about her, not a heavy sadness, just a sense I had that she couldn’t fully express excitement. Times before I may have asked what was wrong, but this time I had a feeling she just needed to be where she was at, and I didn’t need to take any of it personally, wondering if she expected more or if I got the right kind of cheese. It wasn’t about me and so I let her go to bed, telling her I’d have homemade cinnamon rolls ready by 9am.
On the day of Betsy’s birthday I woke up early to prepare breakfast. Hot yoga was scheduled for 10am so I figured she’d be up much earlier to have time to drink coffee and eat. At 9:20am I still didn’t hear any stirring upstairs so I started to text her. Just before I hit send I heard her bedroom door open and her slowly walking toward the stairs, “ow, ow, ow,” she said, “I think I need help.” I ran over to the stairs, “what the heck happened?” She was slowly trying to maneuver her way down and began laughing when she couldn’t make it.
“It might be from sitting all day, but just before I went to bed last night, I felt a pinched nerve and I couldn’t go to sleep, I just laid there in the happy baby position.” We both started laughing. “What do you need?” I asked, “want to get back in bed and I’ll bring you coffee?”
“I think just water,” she said, “I’m going to take a bath and see if that helps.” I was pretty sure her taking a bath meant we were going to miss yoga, but she managed to make it in-and-out in time for us to go, stretching her hamstrings out before getting in the car, “ow, ow, ow.”
“Welcome to your late thirties!” I said.
After yoga we went and got smoothies, returned home and Betsy decided to take another bath. We both laid down for a nap, her having been up late with a pinched nerve and me having been up early making cinnamon rolls. Wow, I thought to myself, baths and nap time, we really are getting older.
I took her to get a pedicure at 1:30, during which she fell asleep and upon returning home again she took nap number two, after which she took bath number three. I guess that’s how she celebrates her birthday, I thought, lots of baths! To each their own.
After all the baths and naps, we got dressed up and went out to dinner downtown. We talked about previous birthdays, what our family looks like now and if she had an ideal man, what would he be like. “I don’t really have a type,” she said, “I’ve dated a South African, an Israeli, and a 50 year old. I’m open to any type of person, I only have two requirements: that he be emotionally intelligent AND available, and that we share the same spiritual beliefs. I’ve loved people who haven’t shared my beliefs, and in the grand scheme of things, it’s just too hard on the relationship to differ on your core beliefs.”
We were home by 9:30 pm and dressed for bed shortly there after. I had her blow out her birthday candles, being too tired and full, she passed on having a piece of cake. She opened the present I made her, a corgi birthday crown in honor of our family corgi (who she is obsessed with), Benny Boy.
After she went up to bed I sat on the couch with my own piece of cake and small glass of champagne. Josh called to say goodnight and we talked for a while. I told him I knew Betsy was glad to be here, I knew she was enjoying it, but it didn’t feel like she was. I wasn’t getting this excited reaction I would assume one would get when they’ve done everything I did.
Josh reminded me that sometimes people just need a safe place to be themselves no matter how they are feeling. “She might not be able to express it right now,” Josh said, “but you know she loves being there.” “I know,” I said, “I guess in some selfish way, I just want to feel it!” I knew doing things for her wasn’t about getting a specific reaction from her, and that if it were, I’d end up transferring my disappointment onto her, creating an uncomfortable environment to be in, all because I wanted more recognition. “Let her be where she is at and keep loving her there,” Josh said, “you’re so good at that.”
The next morning I had a Dollywood mug with her name on it and a Dolly Parton card sitting by the coffee maker. I wanted to set the tone for the day that this was it… the day we go to Dollywood!
Now that I live in Tennessee, Dollywood is my happy place. I’ve been three times since moving here four months ago- that’s about how many times I went to Hollywood living in Southern California for eight years! The week before Betsy’s visit, I went to Dollywood for Passholder’s day (Yes, getting a season pass was one of the first things I did as a Tennessean), and unbeknownst to everyone, DOLLY PARTON WAS ACTUALLY THERE! She waved at me when she saw one of my homemade Dolly crowns and I momentarily forgot to keep breathing.
Before coming, Betsy had said the one thing she for sure wanted to do was go to Dollywood. Piece of cake.
I was laying in bed drinking my coffee when I heard a knock on my door. Betsy popped her head in, “I LOVE MY MUG!” she said and she scurried over to sit on the end of my bed. We sat there talking for hours, there she is, I thought to myself, not because she expressed something I wanted to hear, but because she was finally expressing herself, talking, asking questions, laughing, the Betsy I know when she’s not weighted down by work, family drama, or living alone.
Had I made a comment like “oh you finally decided to show up,” or “nice to see you finally being expressive,” I think it would have killed the moment. A comment like that would have shamed her for simply being tired or worn out from life, making her feel unsafe to feel however she feels. Unnecessary commentary is what I am learning to discern, and I knew making a comment about her suddenly seeming lively would have made her feel bad about the days prior; something she didn’t need to feel bad about because there was nothing wrong with the days prior.
We drove two hours to Dollywood and spent the rest of the day there feeling like kids all over again. We both wore our crowns that donned our favorite things, hers, a corgi and mine, Dolly.
We drove the two hours back to Chattanooga listening to Dolly Parton’s America Podcast the whole way. Betsy had not only officially caught the Dolly bug, but she had finally felt rested and able to enjoy herself. “Next time I’m gonna take a vacation before my vacation so I don’t feel so tired on the vacation,” she said. We laughed and I was relieved I never made an issue of what I perceived to be her lack of enthusiasm. We had another day and a half together, relaxed and fully enjoying each other’s company.
By the time I took her to the airport she started crying, “I had such a good time,” she said, “I don’t really want to leave.” I made some stupid comment I read off of Pinterest in response, “Oh, don’t cry cause it’s over, smile cause it happened.” It kinda makes me gag now, especially when she responded while still crying, “well, I can do both.”
I laughed, “yes, you can.” She was right. And that’s what makes her the strong one, not an avoidance of emotion, but realizing she can be sad and grateful at the same time. She can be tired and lonely and worn out AND still enjoy herself and every opportunity she is given. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that life is a mix; a mix of emotions, not always compartmentalized by seasons, but often times experienced simultaneously.
Perhaps Betsy wanted her birthday to happen at a different time, when she felt more rested and had more time to enjoy it, but life just happens, without asking if we are ready, rested, or prepared. She turned 37 when she did, and I could either meet her there and love her, or I could complain that she wasn’t acting as happy as I’d like her to be.
When I returned home she left a note on her bed, thanking me for the whole weekend, for every thought and detail that didn’t go unnoticed. “I will never forget this weekend,” she said, “you made ME feel loved and special…
Okay, wait, before I go there, let me first say… I am no Biblical scholar nor even an aggressive reader of Scripture, but having grown up in the church, spending time both loving and hating it, I have a few cliff notes that have stuck with me along the way. (There’s a pun in there somewhere because my grandad’s name was Cliff and he certainly served us earfuls of Bible verses, but until I can figure it out, onward!)
Without googling the verse so I can give you exacts and impress someone without much scripture I can recall by google, I’m just gonna go with go with what I can recall by memory and see how well that goes (or even how well some of it has stuck over the years). I don’t know chapters and numbers, but I know there are a lot stories in which Jesus and his disciples are hanging out and going over the basics of being a good human. The disciples are his closest friends and they commit their lives to doing whatever it takes for Jesus and His message of Love to be known by all (they don’t always do the best job of standing by His side, but, you know, He’s Jesus, so he gets it and He still loves them).
In this one particular story, the boys are talking about some of Jesus’ teachings, which, really, if you look at them, are radical, not just for back then, but for now… LOVE YOUR ENEMY? FORGIVE PEOPLE WHO’VE WRONGED YOU!? Naturally, one of the disciples wants Jesus to expound on some stuff, “soooo… about this forgiveness thing” (I’m paraphrasing, incase that needed to be stated), “like how many times are we supposed to forgive someone, maybe seven times?”
Jesus answered his question with a math equation “not just seven times, seventy times seven,” and seeing as math was never my strong suit, I always dismissed His answer. Some large number is what I chalked it up to. When I got a little older and would again hear this passage, I decided to figure it out. I pulled out my TI-83 calculator… 490. Okay, maybe He meant for us to forgive so many times that it’s too hard to keep track. Throw in different translations of scripture, some of which Jesus says to forgive 77 times, and I never got a clear understanding, only that I was suppose to forgive a lot!
You can find plenty of blogs (as can I, so please don’t feel the need to send them to me) with Bible scholars breaking down this scripture and helping us understand the symbolic meaning of these numbers (somehow they represent God’s eternal forgiveness extended to us). As someone who has had scripture thrown at her as pad answers and bandaids with no real meaning for how they were helpful to her personally, I’m not here to break down scripture to be used as a blanket formula for all.
These days, I tread lightly when it comes to referencing the Bible, mostly because I’ve seen the ways people use it to back up they own views (most of which are political), and while I claim the same God as the Christian Faith, the God I know is very different from the one seen on Fox News and CNN. God is in both and neither camp at the same time, and way less political than everyone thinks (also less religious but that’s for another day).
So this is a “personal understanding” story more so than a dissecting of what the Bible means. It’s my coming of age to understanding just one of the many passages I’ve read or heard since childhood, and 38 years later finally saying “ohhhhh, I think I get it.”
While I don’t know much, I know that holding onto anger hurts me way more than the person I’m angry at. I’ve let anger eat me alive before, stuffing it deep down and reaching for anything else to distract me from the pain caused by someone else. In more recent years I’ve felt the healthiest I’ve ever been, having let go of past hurts and choosing to forgive both myself and others for things done wrong.
There’s this one situation that often revisits my mind, I feel anger start to bubble up as soon as I think about it. I feel how it felt all over again to be hurt by this one person, almost annoyed that I forgave them because it feels so good (in the moment) to be angry at them. I can see why we hang onto anger, it’s so much easier, it feels a lot better to feel justified in our anger than to “let go,” “move on,” or “forgive.” Laaaaame. Where’s my pitchfork!?
I’ve forgiven this person so many times, in my head, in my heart, in my journal. I’ve “let go and let God,” I’ve “chosen Joy,” I’ve forgiven at least 76 times, perhaps having only one time left in me. I was talking to my mom about it who has become quite a place of refuge for me in our later years of life… this was not always the case when I was growing up. I relayed that I felt something must be wrong with me if I can’t seem to forgive them, “it still comes up,” I told her, “and when it does, I still feel angry! Do I not mean it when I say I’ve forgiven them? Why won’t the feeling go away?”
As my mother started to reference this 70×7 passage, I could feel my eyes rolling in the back of my head, here we go, I thought, and I interrupted her… “but I’ve done that! As much as I understand forgiveness, I’ve forgiven them! And yet I randomly still think about it, and I still get mad, and I feel like I have to start all over and forgive them again!”
“That’s the beautiful and hard thing about it,” my mom said, “70×7 means you keep making the choice to forgive, no matter how many times it comes back up. It’s not that you didn’t forgive them before, it’s that you have to remind yourself, again and again, that you already chose to forgive them.” My eye roll settled a little and I noticed my heart react as she kept talking, “life is too hard for us to go undisturbed by things that have hurt us. Feeling the hurt doesn’t make you weak in emotion or in faith, it makes you human.”
Perhaps you’ve been well aware of this for a long time, which is awesome if you have, I’m sure it does wonders for mental health, but it was the first time I realized that forgiveness isn’t a one-time job. The harm may have been done once, but the damage it can cause can last a long time, if not a lifetime. The work is not to get to a place of no longer feeling it, the work is the constant choosing to forgive no matter how many times it comes up and I feel it.
I’ll admit, this both freed me and depressed me. I want the easy one-and-done “I no longer feel it” kind of experience. The trouble is, you’ll wait your whole life for it to feel done, for the pain to no longer be an issue. While I do think you can absolutely be less affected by the pain, and live a beautiful healthy life, I think life will always catch us off guard. You never know what might trigger the memory of a past hurt, no matter how long it’s been.
So it’s depressing to me, or maybe exhausting, to think I may have to keep forgiving for a long time. But it’s freeing to realize something isn’t wrong with me just because a past hurt rears its head and still affects me.
When that trigger happens, I don’t have to add to it by assuming I must not being doing as well as I thought, or I didn’t really let it go or forgive… I can acknowledge it for what it is- a trigger, a reminder, a reaction, and I can do what I need to remind myself I am currently okay; and I can once again chose to forgive, to not let it dictate how I live my life or treat other people.
I realized I’ve been doing the work this whole time, forgiving time and time again, or at least reminding myself that that’s what I’ve chosen… forgiveness. Sometimes I need to remind myself I’ve chosen to forgive myself, and sometimes it’s someone else. Maybe one day I won’t need to, maybe one day I won’t even think about it… maybe, maybe not. All I know is, evidence of a healthy life is not one that is undisturbed by past or present hurts. Evidence of a healthy life is feeling all that life has to offer, even when it disturbs us, finding the balance between neither avoiding the pain nor being consumed by it.
I’ll admit, sometimes I still need to hide under the covers and not be so “on,” and sometimes I need to just suck it up and get a move on. There’s no blanket formulas, every day is different, and I’m learning more and more to choose to show up in that day… just as I am… forgiven and able to forgive.
Aunt Jackie did a double take in the middle of her generic hello when she clearly realized it was my mom, “WELL HEY! Oh my goodness, it’s so good to see you!” My mom pointed to herself, “it’s Lydia,” she said. “I know it’s you,” Aunt Jackie quipped like how dare you think I don’t know.
“And this is JJ!” My mom pointed to me and I pulled my face mask down for her to see. “JJ!” She yelled, “JJ! WHOOO look at you, JJ! Great Scott!” I remember Aunt Jackie saying “Great Scott!” long before I ever heard Doc Brown say it on Back To The Future. She repeated back to us what we said to her, so we still weren’t entirely sure if she fully knew who she was talking to, after all, it had been three years since we’d last seen her, and things were getting more “fuzzy” back then.
The three of us sat silently for a moment all looking at each other, the Golden Girls still playing in the background. Aunt Jackie put her hand on my mom’s knee, “Pawleys Island,” she said with her slow Southern draw. My mom and I looked at each other as if to say she knows! We both got emotional. Our hometown of Pawleys Island was Aunt Jackie’s favorite place to visit. She loved the ocean and made annual trips with her own group of golden girls to soak up the sun and salt water. “That’s right,” Mom said, trying not to cry. “You lucky birds,” Aunt Jackie said.
I told her we had just come from Pawleys Island, “don’t say it too loud,” she said, “people might get jealous.” Already she was off to making us laugh. “Did you get in the water?” she asked. “Yes, JJ did, she went surfing,” Mom said. “She went to what?”
“Surfing, she went surfing,” Mom said, and I added, “in the ocean.” Aunt Jackie sat back in her wheelchair, raised her eyebrows as if she finally processed what we had just said, “that’s an ugggly thing for you to saaaay in front of me!” We both laughed and she asked if the water was cold, “it was freezing,” I said. “Oh!” Aunt Jackie took a sip of her coffee, “then I won’t feel so bad, ah ha haha!”
Aunt Jackie’s laugh is just as classic as her Southern accent, a much more sophisticated Phyllis Diller type laugh (and more enjoyable to listen to, in my biased opinion, but it has tones of the Diller cackle in it). As an old school Southern woman of devout faith, Aunt Jackie would die if she knew I compared anything about her to Phyllis Diller.
“So what have you been up to?” Mom asked. “What have I been up to?” Aunt Jackie repeated back as if it was obvious, “this!” she said, “this is what I’ve been up to… sometimes I move over there, or over there” and she pointed to different spots in the sitting area, “but mostly I just sit here and they roll me around wherever I need to go.” We laughed at her sense of humor about it, but also knew it must be hard to live confined within the walls of a place you can’t leave.
“It’s okay though,” she said, “most people just sit around here until the end, but not me, I’m busting out of here soon.” She nodded her head as if to say you know what I mean? and took a sip of her coffee. We laughed at the thought of Aunt Jackie busting out of assisted living. “Well if anyone can do it, you can,” I said.
“Yea,” she agreed as she nodded, “there’s a two-way highway right out front of this building. The only problem is, once I get there, I can’t figure out which way to go!” Mom and I were rolling in laughter. “Well tell me about the children,” Aunt Jackie said, “there’s one of the children right there,” and she pointed to me. Mom told her all about the kids being grown up, some married, some dating, one with a dog. The dog is what most excited Aunt Jackie, “Ohhhh, tell me about the dog! Now, what kind of poochy!?” We told her all about my brother’s corgi and she responded with “ooooh how cute” to each detail. She told us she had a dog but could’t remember her name. “Claudette,” mom said. “Who?” Aunt Jackie asked. “Claudette, that was the name of your dog.” It didn’t seem to ring a bell, Aunt Jackie shrugged, “well if you say so!”
I later found out the dog’s name was Tallulah, so both Mom and Aunt Jackie had a little memory slip there, but at least Aunt Jackie remembered what her dog’s name wasn’t. She told us about her horse, Solomon, who died 20 years ago but she seemed to think it just happened. “I think they did something to him,” she said, convinced that someone had prematurely put her horse down. This was where her memory was “fuzzy,” she clearly remembered things, but the order of events was disoriented. “I remember Solomon,” I said, “we used to ride him with you.” She looked surprised so I pulled up an old picture I had saved on my phone of my sister and I riding Solomon, Aunt Jackie standing beside us. Aunt Jackie gasped, “Oh! there he is,” and she began to mimic kissing the picture, “mwah mwah mwah, oh I love him so much.”
“I think they did something to him, you know?” and she sat silently for a moment as she thought about it. We weren’t sure who she meant by “they,” but it was clear that though the memory was fuzzy, it left an impression. After talking about Solomon for a while she asked about the children again. Mom went through and told her about each of us again, a little less detail than the time before, but included the part about the dog. “Ohhh, tell me about the poochy, what kind of dog!?”
The longer we stayed the more obvious her lack of memory became. She was sharp in that she could remember stories from her childhood, stories from our childhood, and pretty much anything we would remind her of, but where her memory failed was by the time we finished talking about a topic, she’d have forgotten we talked about it.
Aunt Jackie pretty much helped raise my dad, who’s own parents were always traveling as music evangelists with Billy Graham, America’s Preacher back in the day. Generations now don’t really know him, but any generation my mom’s age or older tend to have an idea of who he is. He prayed with every America president from Harry Truman to Barack Obama, my grandad always at his side.
Aunt Jackie started as my Granddad’s secretary, but quickly became a caregiver to the five children who grew up with a dad the whole world knew, who’s own children barely knew him. That’s another topic in and of itself, and there’s been peace and resolve made about that. I only bring it up to say, Aunt Jackie was just as a vital role to the family as a parent or grandparent to all of us. With all my grandparents now passed, she’s the closest thing I have left to a grandmother. She’d never accept the title grandmother though, “it sounds too old,” she’d say, so much like my dad called her when he was growing up, we’ve always called her Aunt Jackie (despite her being the same age as my grandmother).
I showed her all the pictures from when she worked with my granddad and Billy Graham, she remembered all of them and gasped with delight at each picture. I got to a picture of Billy Graham kissing me on the cheek, “this was at Nana’s funeral,” I said. “Who’s funeral?” she asked. “My Nana, Bille Barrows.” She sat back with a look of shock, clearly remembering who but not quite remembering that she passed. “Where was I?” she asked. “You were there,” mom said. “I was?” She asked with a sigh of relief, “okay good.”
It didn’t dawn on me that with the order of events being fuzzy, it might overwhelm her to know who of her friend group wasn’t around anymore. Aunt Jackie is one of the last ones left from the generation of friends who poured into our family over the years, having long outlived her husband, but she didn’t seem to notice. Probably a blessing and a curse, to not remember, there’s a sadness in the sweet memories not being there, yet a gratitude to not relive the pain all over again.
“Well what else can you tell me?” Aunt Jackie would ask, trying to think if there was any news she hadn’t heard yet. “Well what do you want to tell us?” Mom asked. “What do I want to tell you?” Aunt Jackie asked, “about what?” “About life,” Mom said, “if there’s something you’ve learned about life that you’d want us to know, what would it be?”
Aunt Jackie paused, “now I’m thinking, which is dangerous, but I gotta think.” She looked around the room and then looked at my mom and I, “don’t take life too seriously. Everything doesn’t have to be serious all the time. Just enjoy it,” she said. We agreed that life should be enjoyed more, which was humbling coming from a woman in a wheelchair at an assisted living facility.
“Do you want to tell her about your comedy?” Mom asked me. I proceeded to tell her I was a Stand Up Comedian, “Oh I love it!” She said. I explained to her that my sets included stories about her, “I always tell people about Aunt Jackie!” She laughed, “Ohh, don’t tell them everything!” I proceeded to show her my clip from Dry Bar Comedy where I tell everyone about my great Aunt Jackie. She needed me to repeat the punchline, “what’d she say?” when she heard the audience laugh. I retold her what she had said to me so long ago about how to be an artist when I grew up, “just get married and then you can doodle all day long!” She laughed hard at her own advice, “you can,” she said.
I recorded most of our time with her, and my mom recorded me showing her my Stand Up clip. It’s footage I’ll treasure for a long time.
Before we left she made one last declaration, “As for me and my house,” I was certain she was getting ready to quote scripture, “I’mma blow this pad first thing, you know!” We all laughed and she looked at my mom, “ain’t that right?”
I don’t have resolve for this post. We left on a happy, high note. I was so glad we had decided to make the trip. But it’s never as simple as leaving the facility and moving on with your life, well, it is and it isn’t. I still think about her being in there, alone in the sense of not with family or friends anymore. She had a whole life that looked so different than where she is now, all of it changed merely by the aging process.
I think about my own parents and what the aging process will look like for all of us one day. I even think about my own 98 year old self, wondering where I’ll be and if I’ll even make it that long. I hope to remember my husband, and yet I can’t imagine living without him should I surpass him. He knows, however, that if I die before him, he’s getting in the casket. “You coming with me,” I joke.
I over processed the whole visit on our drive home. I’ve thought about it for days after. Yesterday I re-watched the footage while laying on the couch and I heard Aunt Jackie say again, “don’t take life so seriously, just enjoy it.”
I sat my phone down, got up and put on my shoes to leave. “Where are you going?” My husband asked as I headed for the door. “I’ve been sitting around long enough, I’mma blow this pad!”
I went for a walk in the cold air, warmed by the sun, and I simply enjoyed it.
In the same way that movies have deleted scenes, so do books have deleted pages and passages that got rifled out through the editing process. I want to occasionally share some thoughts that lingered for a while in between the pages of my book “it’s called a spade,” but for one reason or another, didn’t quite make it to publication.
Today’s passage is about my childhood home, and while I was able to process some of it in my book, I think perhaps I found a better way to say it than this original copy that felt more like being much too old for pouting. Perhaps that’s okay though, perhaps now that I’m five years older, I can let my younger self have the permission she felt she needed to pout… even if that younger self was actually 32.
I think we’re always in the process of growing, even once we’re “grown up,” and I think that’s okay as life throws us curve balls we aren’t always prepared for. I think 2020 is a great example of a curve ball for which none of us were prepared for.
For now, a deleted page that remains a memory I am finally at peace with.
The Barrows Bunch (Please note the matching tee shirts! Ahh to be naive again!)
It feels like my childhood home is being ripped right out from under me. It is only now at 32 that I am beginning to accept I won’t get my childhood back. I’ve realized it long before now, but accepting it is a whole different ballgame I wasn’t prepared to play. In many ways I don’t want my childhood back, perhaps parts of it, like the innocence, the pizza parties, the beach games and make believe worlds in the woods behind our house, but other parts of it I’m quite glad I don’t have to relive. And even though I know time travel to be as silly as Kanye being president, part of me deep down has always hoped I could go back and do things differently.
“If only I had known then what I know now,” who hasn’t thought this? I’m sure there’s a country song or jazz ditty with this line in it. I’ve held onto this thought so tightly that for quite some time I have always thought things were going to be different. I’ve always thought I would get a second chance, not realizing adulthood was my second chance. I pay my own bills and drive my own car and complain about the government and do all the things that adults do now, but outside of engaging in those adult responsibilities, I don’t feel like an adult. I don’t know what an adult is supposed to feel like. It is safe to say that up until this morning I have been functioning very much like a child, waiting for everything to turn out right, wanting someone else to do everything for me and hoping for a better ending to the story.
I’m helping my mother pack up the place we called home for over 30 years and it dawned on me this morning as I laid on the couch that we weren’t playing pretend and we weren’t going to get our house back. Much like my childhood, the place I called home for so long is going to be a thing of the past.
Perhaps I only just now realized I wasn’t going to get my second chance at doing things all over again because my house was the last thing left from my childhood still lingering in the present. I knew I could always go back home no matter where I was or how hard things got, and home was the physical location of the house I grew up in.
Some people and plaques say that home is where the heart is, or where you park it, or where you make it. Some people say home isn’t a place but a people. I agree with all of those things, sort of, but mostly because I know it in my head to be true, not because I feel it. Home has always been the house at the end of Gray Mans Loop in Pawleys Island, SC because it is the only home I have ever lived in. And while it might be the people inside the house who make up the home, what do you do when the people split up and go live different places?
My siblings all grew up and moved away, which is to be expected of siblings, but when my mother and father split up after 30 years of marriage, my family didn’t feel like home anymore, mostly because none of it was familiar to me. The only thing that remained stable after my parents split was the house I grew up in, and so it remained home even after the people in it came and went.
Even though I moved out of the house after high school, it was always there, always an option, always a safe place to retreat to. I could always run home. Knowing it would always be there also meant I never actually went there. It was more of a last resort, especially after my parents split up. It’s weird to walk into a familiar place with a new vibe. It’s confusing to look around and recognize everything but feel nothing. It’s confusing to be at home and not feel at home no matter where you go.
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To be honest, that was as far as I got in that thought process, and I’m still not sure I have resolve for it. I am at peace with it, but I don’t necessarily have any more answers now than I did then.
Time has allowed me to adjust to my new normal and it no longer hurts the way it used to. There are still moments that sting from time to time, but I’ve realized that’s okay. Nothing in this world is as it was intended to be and sometimes we will feel the sting of it… some worse than others. I have no remedies or how-to solutions. I have no motivational quotes for you or I to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. Perhaps there’s a time for that, I honestly don’t know. I just know that sometimes life kinda sucks. It’s still beautiful, but it doesn’t always feel that way.
Today, I’m good (I think I’m technically supposed to say “well,” but I like using “good,” I hate when people correct that!). And I suppose that’s all I need for right now. My hope is that you are good too, and that you recognize that simple state of being good as a gift.
And if you aren’t, I hope good times are ahead… trust that they are. This life isn’t all bad (even if it feels that way sometimes).
As I was about to post a recent update, I realized I never posted some of the most important life-changing updates. This week I’ll be keeping y’all up to date with some of the big stuff that happened this year.
Let’s start with Iceland Part 2, where everything changed…
There is a tension of dark and light, dust and divine breath.
There is a tension of good and bad, heartache and humor, deep sorrow and overwhelming joy.
There is a tension where I feel I don’t belong because there are no answers or quick fixes, no boxes or formulas, no way of knowing if I’ll ever make it out.
There is a tension everyone either wants to resolve, avoid or deny exists and yet it is in that very tension where life in all of its fullness is found.
It is okay to be both sad and happy, lost and found, hurt and hopeful.
We try to be one or the other and fix both ourselves and others if bent too close to the sadness. We function in the safety of our emotional comfort zone and expect others to function in theirs, meanwhile dismissing their pain and only prolonging the process of their feeling too stuck, too sad, or too lost to continue on this journey.
Life is messy, being a human is hard. I say that hand in hand with the belief that life is good, and being a human to be a gift. But some days, I totally forget. I forget the goodness, I forget the gift, and I struggle.
I struggle in the unknown of pain and sorrow that isn’t even circumstantial, just present, and I don’t know why, which makes it seem even worse. When there’s nothing to pinpoint your pain to, it feels hopeless.
It’s when we think the hopelessness is our ultimate reality, our final truth, the end of our story that we consider giving up. What’s the point anyway? If no person, place or thing can fix this and I will always feel this way somewhere deep down inside no matter how many accolades, awards and acknowledgments I receive, what’s the point? There will always be a void and I can’t avoid it.
The truth is, sometimes I still don’t know. Even as someone who believes in a Higher Power and the gift of life and purpose in the pain and God in the details, some days I still just don’t get it. “Only God can fill the void,” they say. “I know,” I say, and I do know, but I still just don’t get this God I believe in and this Life that He “gifted” us with. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like a gift at all.
I don’t need pad answers, I don’t need declarations of holding on and Jesus loving me. I know the answers in my head no matter how much they disconnect with my heart. I need to live in the tension of life being hard and good, I need to affirm to myself and others who feel the same way that we are not crazy, or too lacking in faith, or lost causes. We’re human and there’s not only grace for our humanity but also love for it… love for our human selves no matter what state we find ourselves functioning in.
I have to admit, sometimes saying “hold on” isn’t enough, but I can at least say, “you are not as alone as you think you are… not in how you feel or in what you think.” Sometimes it just takes one person to voice their struggle for someone else to say, “Oh my God, me too,” and in that small spec of commonality is a glimmer of hope in the connection of our humanity.
It’s often in our isolated hopelessness that we go to extreme measures to rid ourselves of it by numbing out or checking out, not knowing the pain and sorrow we are leaving in our wake, hurting those we’ve left behind and out of the process, leaving them to figure out the pain on their own while we took the easier road of self destruction. Self destruction never seems easier in the moment, but it is always easier than dealing with the pain that life holds, having to be awake for it, alert for it, and gritty enough to actually work through it.
Today I do no feel gritty. I do not feel like making the choice to live in way that life matters. I feel like disappearing into the darkness that is my room and numbing out to Netflix, no bad thing in and of itself, but if I continue to make small choices to numb out every time something seems hard, I will have practiced living the kind of life that gives up when things get too hard.
And so, with that said, I acknowledge the tough day, I say hi and I sit with it for a bit. I live in the tension of feeling dark inside while the sun shines outside of my window. I sit just long enough to own my feelings, to sort though my thoughts, to figure out what is me and what is a lie I’m believing. Some of it I write out, as I’m doing here. And then, when I feel a little more free to be me, not me the entertainer who everyone expects to make them laugh, but me on an off day when I myself don’t feel like smiling, I set about to go outside and take in life in other places… grass, flowers, trees… there is evidence of life everywhere.
What better example of living in the tension than the flowers and trees that have to break though the darkness of the soil to get to the light and grow till tall.
With that said, it’s time for me to go outside.
To those who are struggling, you are not alone, I grieve with you. And to those who are doing well, that’s great too, I celebrate with you. Both are okay.
May you live in the tension of the fullness of life today, feeling neither like you have to fix everything, nor like you have to give up.
Life is hard and good, and you are more okay than you think you are.
jj barrows 