Just the Facts, Ma'am

I've been mulling over how to unpack an encounter I had a few weeks ago. I am a huge fan of Friends because, quite frankly, all the cool kids are. There is an episode entitled "The One Where Chandler Crosses the Line." In it, Ross decides to come out of retirement and grace his friends with his keyboard skills.

Before he actually starts playing, he over-explains what he's about to do. Eventually, they just demand that he start playing. The funny part is that he is an awful keyboardist and everyone recognizes this but Phoebe.

So I want to talk about what happened, but I don't know how to preface it. I want to relate the events journalistically, but I also want to give context. So I'm going to rewind a bit to give background, then try to talk about what happened more recently.

Last summer/early fall, I asked Brian if I could take a nap. It used to be a daily thing, but in the past couple of years it's become really rare. I don't remember why I was so tired, but I wanted to lie down. He needed to mow. When he's doing yard work, I'm usually point person for the kids. I run interference until he's done.

We live a block away from our grade school. The school has two playgrounds, one for the primary (K-2) grades, one for secondary (3-5). We don't have a clear line of sight to the playground, but we are close enough that if something happens, someone can run back home without any issue.

All four kids headed over to the park. Doug didn't want to go with the others the secondary playground because his classroom assistant had told him that there were dinosaur bones hidden in the dirt on the primary playground. He had taken his bulldozer and wanted to dig for bones.

(Please note that from here on out, I am telling this story secondhand. I wasn't present for what follows.)

Some time later, Jeremy came home to tell Brian that Brooklyn (our youngest) needed a diaper change. Brian grabbed a clean diaper and went with Jeremy back to the park. As he was returning home (with all four kids in tow), a police cruiser pulled up.

The female police officer started a conversation. She said that someone had called because they saw a boy playing in the park, unattended. Brian told her that we live a block away, we let them play there by themselves all the time.

She then proceeded to tell him that there was someone in Woodstock who had been approaching kids [in an attempt to kidnap them].

(Brian told me later that he felt the officer hoped this piece of info would make Brian feel bad about having let Doug play on his own. Brian has incredible instincts and so I am inclined to believe him.)

Brian immediately asked her for the source of her news.

She didn't take kindly to him pushing back against what she was saying. She told him she was going to have to report us to DCFS.

And that's where it was for about two months. As someone with anxiety and depression, it was not pleasant to have the threat of a visit from DCFS hanging over my head. I felt like crap about myself and my parenting skills.

I don't remember how much time passed, but we eventually received a letter from DCFS that they were investigating us for neglect regarding Doug. They didn't lay out what the basis was for the claim.

The investigator showed up looking tired and overworked. I forget his name (I'm tired), but he told us that he had a bunch of questions to ask us. (The toughest part of the interview was not being sarcastic with our answers. If you know me or my husband, we are telling jokes almost every moment of the day.)

He took us through the questions. When he was done, we asked him the burning question that had been on our mind--why had we been referred to DCFS.

It wasn't just that Doug was playing by himself at the park. Apparently, whoever had observed him at the park by himself watched him walk down [street name redacted] and go into a garage halfway down the block.

It all clicked. Our house is halfway down the block. Someone saw Doug walk down our block and go into our house through the open garage.

Here's the kicker. The social worker had to come from Peoria. The closest DCFS office to us is in Rockford, and they are currently understaffed. So he had to drive up from Peoria to see us. And then he had to drive up again because he had to observe all four kids for 5 minutes. That was actually the toughest thing to wrangle, with all of the kids' activities.

I will insert some commentary here and then unpack what happened a few weeks ago.

The police officer never told us what the person had observed. Had she taken a few minutes to lay out what the witness had seen, we could've explained to her that Doug is autistic and has ADHD. He is obsessed with dinos and will do anything he can to incorporate them into any type of play he engages in. The witness said Doug was muttering to himself and pacing. Yup, that's what he does when he's anxious. She could've mentioned that the witness saw him go into a house halfway down the block. "Yup," we would've said, "he was going home, probably to get more tools for digging."

Doug does not give off an air of neglect. He is chubby, has a lot of language, is bathed regularly. It absolutely kills me that someone had to come up from Peoria to investigate this baseless claim. It was a waste of money and time.

(I will pause here to insert say that recently had a tragedy in our community. A little boy was found to have been murdered by his parents. DCFS was involved with his family at different points during the boys' life. I feel the resources involved in researching the neglect claim for Doug could have been put to better use.)

This series of events was unpleasant. I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone about them. I felt a deep sense of shame that our family had been investigated by DCFS. I felt like it was a referendum on our parenting. I felt like it was a referendum on my fitness as a human being. Brian did his best to help counter these feelings, but it was as if one of my worst fears grew legs and became human.

A couple of weeks ago, Bekah asked if she could go to Indian Prairie park (meaning the playground on school property). Again, it's half a block away from us. I told her it was fine. It was a Monday night. Brian has a regular engagement on Monday night. At 7:15, around the time he was going to leave, I asked him if he could go send Bekah home. He said he could.

At this point in the evening, I had already taken my medicine. It's not sleep medication, but it does have the side effect of making me sleepy and a bit groggy. I was on the verge of going upstairs to bed when I heard a loud banging on the door.

We live in a heavily residential neighborhood. There can sometimes be a steady stream of people knocking on our door to sell goods and/or services. The knocking was more insistent than the normal knocking, so rather than ignore it (as per usual), I got off the couch and went to see who it was.

There was a police officer on my front porch. He asked if he could talk to me. I said, "sure," and went out to be on the stoop with him. Was my husband home? "No," I answered. "He is at [information withheld], at a church on the corner of Haligus and Algonquin."

"Haligus and Algonquin?" He said it with incredulity and as if he didn't believe me. This threw me into a major anxiety attack.

"Well, I'm not sure if it's Haligus, but it's the church right across from the hospital." I stammered, "I'm so sorry, I'm having a hard time coming up with the name of the church, but I know it's across from the hospital."

"Are you okay," he asked me, rather brusquely.

"Actually, I said, I'm not. I'm a little overwhelmed because you're standing here asking me questions and I don't really know what's going on."

"Does your husband drive a tan Toyota, license plate [information redacted]?"

"Yes," I answered, hesitantly.

"We had a phone call from someone that witnessed a man in a tan car approach a girl on a pink bike and then speed off in the opposite direction."

In this time, another officer arrived. The first caught him up on what had happened so far.

"Um, well, my *husband* went to tell my *daughter* to come home. She doesn't have a phone and I wanted her to come home. I didn't want to pack everyone up to go find her, so I figured he could just tell her to come home."

"Would you mind if we talked to your daughter?"

"No,"I said, "but please keep in mind that she may be nervous to talk to the two of you."

I went to retrieve Bekah. As soon as we got to our driveway, the officer said to her, "can you point to the bike you were riding?" She pointed to her bike.

"Was that your dad that talked to you?"

"Yes," Bekah said.

"Did anyone else approach you or try to talk to you at all?"

"No," she answered.

"Okay."

And that was it. Please note, at no point in the interaction did the officers introduce themselves to me. That is something I *might* be able to overlook, but they also didn't introduce themselves to Bekah, even after I explained to them that she might be nervous to talk to them.

In general, I don't feel like the officers treated me like a human. They treated me like I (and by extension, my husband) was a criminal.

I was incredibly shaken by the whole interaction. I posted something about it on FB. One of my neighbors mentioned that the officers had been knocking on doors, asking about a missing girl. It has continued to baffle us how Bekah could be considered missing if we hadn't made that report.

I had a hard time sleeping that night. It bothered me that the officer hadn't introduced himself. It bothered me that he had been condescending and dismissive when I pointed out an error in something he had said. It bothered me that they had initiated a rumor about a missing child, especially in light of recent events.

The thing I couldn't convey a couple of weeks ago was that the previous interaction (last fall) we had with police was still fresh in my mind. I had never really processed it. I was still carrying around a nagging sense that I was a crappy parent. This current interaction reiterated the negative narrative that had been playing in my head for several months.

I made a decision to go talk to someone at the station the next morning. I was nervous and almost in tears as I sat, waiting for the sergeant to emerge. I just wanted to be heard. I wanted him to look at me, to listen to what I had to say and acknowledge my feelings.

The thing that actually happened was about as far away from that as you could possibly imagine.

I prefaced things by apologizing for crying. I told him that I struggled with anxiety and depression. This didn't change his demeanor at all. He had walked in radiating arrogance and didn't soften at all, even when I grabbed a Kleenex as I started crying.

I tried to lay out for him what had happened, at least from my perspective. It was clear that he had pulled up the report from the previous evening. It was laying next to him, face down, on the table.

I laid out my concerns, that the officer had not introduced himself or explained why he was there.

His brusque response was that the officer was not obligated to introduce himself, he was investigating a crime. (As an aside, I will point out that the officer was investigating an *alleged* crime. This seems like I'm being pedantic, but the difference is huge. We live in a country where we are presumed innocent until proven otherwise. The sergeant, in dropping or omitting this word, was asserting that a crime had taken place. To review, there wasn't. It was a misunderstanding.)

I told him that the officer was condescending.

"How was he condescending?" He asked, again very brusquely.

I calmly explained myself.

"That's not condescending," he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It's a simple mistake."

(I am a bit hamstrung to explain the mistake the officer made. I can't name the two organizations that the officer mistook for one another because I can't publicly identify as a member of the organization. It would break my anonymity. Let's just say, it is like I said my husband was going to play Scrabble and the officer said Words with Friends. Fundamentally, they're the same, but really, it's two totally different games. The common layperson shouldn't be expected to know the difference, but I felt like a police officer should be sensitive to the difference between the two. This is magnified by the fact that the court system regularly sends DUI offenders to the one organization. Again, the sergeant dismissed it as a minor mistake--to be clear, that's condescending--but it's not a minor mistake.)

I told him that the officer had told my neighbor that they were searching for a missing child.

"Did you hear the officer actually say that to your neighbor?"

"Well, no, but this is a neighbor I trust--if she says he said it to her, then he said it to her."

"That's hearsay. He never said that. That's hearsay. That's the problem with social media."

I tried to engage the sergeant's sense of empathy, that I was home, alone, with my four kids. A man with a gun knocks on my door. He *looks* like a police officer, but how am I to know what his purpose or his motive is? Can he imagine how that might be intimidating?

Nope.

He was unmoved. He didn't concede one single point to me. I got incredibly emotional, especially as the interaction went on. He kept cutting me off, then accused *me* of not letting *him* finish talking.

In short, it was a disaster. It was like walking into a buzzsaw.

Again, here's where giving a factual account of something is difficult. I have been binge watching Forensic Files. It's a fascinating show. I love science. But one of the things I've learned is that eyewitness testimony is fundamentally flawed. It's notoriously unreliable. People don't always see what they think they are seeing.

I think the same is the case here. There are probably three versions of the story I'm trying to tell--my side, the officer/sergeant's side, and the truth. Maybe if Brian's interaction with the officer last fall had gone more positively, I wouldn't have been so affronted by the officer's behavior. I *do,* in fact, struggle with anxiety and depression. Maybe someone without a history of mental health issues would have been able to let the whole thing roll off their back.

Everything that I've recounted demonstrates my bias about things. I have not published any of the officers names on social media or in any verbal accounts I've given to friends. It's not my intention to assassinate anyone's character. I absolutely understand that everyone has bad days. Being a police officer can be a thankless job. The pay isn't what it ought to be. It's a dangerous job. There are a lot of risks.

I respect all first responders for the hard work that they do for our community. That doesn't mean, however, that I think they should be able to behave without being held accountable. I also feel that policemen and women should be held to a higher standard. The officer last fall was perpetrating a myth. It's almost statistically insignificant how many kids are kidnapped by strangers. The real danger for kids is from those who are known to them (e.g. priests, soccer coaches, Boy Scout leaders, family friends). Having this unspecified "stranger danger" fear thrown over our communities has been a disaster.

I also don't blame the neighbor who spotted the interaction, though if (s)he ever stumbles across this blog post, here's what I want her/him to know.

Police officers investigate crimes. They treat the people they encounter in the gathering of data as criminals. It is not pleasant to be treated like a criminal.

Police officers are not interested in clearing up misunderstandings. That's outside the purview of their job.

Police officers are humans and approach their job with their own biases and prejudices. They tend to react to things like missing children (again, Bekah was never missing) in a way that can be disproportional.

The weekend after this happened, I made homemade cinnamon rolls from scratch. I set up a table, poured water and waved at every car and person that drove by. I still don't know who called the cops, but I want people in my neighborhood to know who I am and who my kids are. I felt like an absolute fool, waving at everyone and offering free baked goods to passerby, but alas, my feelings are not always accurate depictions of reality. I intend to do it again next month. Bekah made a sign that helps advertise that the rolls are absolutely free (I guess it appeared to people as if I was trying to sell them--most people were incredulous that I was giving them away). I am going to have popsicles for the kids and water balloons. This month, I had one or two good friends come by to support me. I met three or four total strangers, one actual neighbor and one random passerby. I almost burst into tears at three separate instances, but was able to hold it together until I got home.

I have to choose kindness because it's all I've got right now. I am not a woman of means and I don't have a voice that broadcasts all over the world. I am a mom with a tiny blog, a pile of unfolded laundry and a wounded heart. In order to heal, I have to forgive. I may not ever be able to face the officers involved again. I may get anxiety every time a cop approaches me for a long while. But I can choose to be kind to everyone. I don't want to hold a grudge or a resentment because I'm the one who ends up getting burned by that.

I need to be able to get my kids out of the house, that's the bottom line. We moved into our house *because* of its close proximity to the school. I get overwhelmed when my kids are in my house 24 hours a day. They get overwhelmed. They are kids. They need to be outside, riding their bikes and climbing the monkey bars. I can't afford to install that in my backyard.

I have started doubting my decisions. Again, this is two small incidences. Maybe I blew them out of proportion (spoiler alert, I've done that before and I'll most likely do it again). I wish, in my heart of hearts, that the sergeant had sat there, listened to me, patted me on the arm and left. Even if he went back to the squad room (or whatever) and lamented to his officers that I'm a crazy lady, I would've walked out feeling like I'd been seen and heard. As it was, I will be reaching out to the city council and seeing how we can proceed with this. I think it's important to hold a mirror up to the department and show them where they can grow. Am I wrong about this? I could be, time will tell.

The bottom line is, I have two boys with autism. Up to this point, I've always wanted to tell them, "if you're in trouble, look for a police officer, they can help you." Based on my own interaction, I worry that the officers may not be able to demonstrate sensitivity to the way my boys communicate and interact. I am very leery of them soliciting help from police officers if they are not well-equipped to handle those kinds of scenarios with care and understanding.

Again, as I've stated, I've not named and don't intend on naming the officers involved in this encounter. I don't hate the police and I don't want the perception to be that I'm bashing the profession or specific humans. Part of me writing this was a) so that I could sort out how I'm feeling and b) so that I can help others see what's on the other end of a "suspicious activity" phone call. Plus, now I've written for three days in a row. And I worked out today. I get to wake up tomorrow and try it all over again.

Do It Anyway

I am beyond exhausted. I am in bed with Brooklyn and Doug. Brooklyn is on her tablet, Doug is watching one more episode of Team Umizoomi.

I would rather be asleep already. I have to be up early-ish tomorrow to check on my parents' dogs. I had all intentions of writing a blog post about my encounter with Crystal Lake's finest a couple of weeks ago. However, I spent a lot of time in the early evening running a taxi service.

It meant I didn't get to eat dinner until close to 8:45, which is less than ideal. After I finally finished my dinner, I wanted a chance to just sit by myself and breathe for a minute.

I had a friend send me an excerpt from a book today. It was very convicting. I am hoping to get my hands on a copy of it. (Meanwhile, I need to get cracking on the pile of unread books on my bookshelf. It's tough to crochet and read at the same time.)

The excerpt referenced the idea I tried to flesh out last night, namely that I am feeling like I'm chasing a feeling I used to have. I'm doing my best to make lists and plans and set expectations for myself. The problem is, I feel like the line is constantly moving. This means that the idea of success becomes quite elusive, like chasing a rainbow. It's always just a little beyond my reach.

It didn't help that I didn't like the number I saw on the scale this morning. Or that I can't seem to break the habit of getting on the scale every morning. I understand that the scale is just one measurement (among many) that can provide a snapshot of how I'm doing. As a wise friend pointed out a couple of weeks ago, the overall trend in my weight is still down.

I also did a lot of things today that I didn't really want to do. I took an extra dog walk. I've been quite busy watching my parents' dogs, so I've hesitated to take on any new walks. I was forced to be outside in the sun.

When I came home from that, I wanted to just sit on the couch. Instead, I did a short workout and lifted some weights.

I know that I shouldn't be measuring the success of the day by the things I've accomplished. That brings me back to this book, The Joy Project by Tony Reinke. The excerpt that my friend sent me says, "what if joy is not found at the end of a to-do list?" I see the logic there, that it creates the situation I described earlier--this philosophy that completing tasks is important to my sense of self-worth.

I think there is a middle ground, though. I mentioned last night that I'm 104 days behind in my Bible-reading plan. I felt guilty about that. Guilt isn't a tool God uses. He uses conviction, which is a nudge about a specific sin or situation. Guilt uses a much broader brush and isn't from God. So while I knew the guilt wasn't coming from God, I used it to push myself to start trying to catch up.

I was reasonable about what I did. Reading 2-3 days' worth of readings per day is a decent amount. I didn't work out for two hours, but I did cardio and some strength training. I drank more water. I made chicken to put on my salads over the next couple of days.

I am writing something. It's not what I set out to write today, but it is still something.

I am not measuring my worth by what I've accomplished, but I do feel like accomplishing something has helped my mental health today. I feel like I'm always on a razor's edge in that struggle. If I rest and take it easy, the house descends into chaos. This, in turn, stresses me out. That leads to higher anxiety. But if I am constantly going, trying to clean, trying to work out, trying to do all the things, I drive myself crazy because of my unrealistic expectations.

One thing I will say is that I have started to push harder on the kids to help out around the house. At the prompting of a friend a few months ago, I had the kids start doing and folding their own laundry. I had to resign myself to the fact that it wasn't going to be done to my exacting standards. To be fair, my exacting standards meant that, frequently, the laundry sat clean (but unfolded) in baskets for about a week. Since handing off the task, laundry gets put away much more quickly.

Today, I outsourced cleaning the bathrooms to the kids. I will probably need to go back and clean a toilet or two and mop the floor, but in all, that's work I didn't have to do. I ask Bekah to help with the dishwasher. I ask Jeremy to take things out to the garbage cans.

It has not been without bumps. I have had to speak rather sternly with all of the kids. I tried to explain to them that a messy house stresses me out. I am not a magician (honestly, this is kind of my mantra) and I can't do all the things on my own. I need their help. They are not always cheerful about helping. They frequently tell me they don't want to. I have had to tell them, firmly but kindly, that I don't always want to cook, clean, take them places and otherwise maintain the household.

I am glad I wrote something tonight. I strive to do the things that are opposite of my nature. It's a good bet that there is something that is good for me to do that I'd prefer not to do. Sometimes, when I am fighting back the depression, just doing one thing opposite of what I want to do can make a big difference.

Here We Go, Again (second verse, same as the first)

It is the middle of June. Summer break started a week and a half ago. I am already mostly ready for school to be back in session.

A lot has happened over the past couple of weeks. I am working on processing all that happened. I need to open a Google doc and start writing some of that down.

I don't even really know how to convey the things I'm feeling right now. Two and a half years ago, I embarked on a journey to lose some extra weight. It was quite a bit extra. In total, I lost 80 pounds.

I cut a lot out of my life. I stopped playing interactive games on my phone (you know, the kind where you virtually do things that you wouldn't normally do, say farming and other of those kinds of things).

I stopped doing those things. I started spending more time in the real world. I actively worked my business. I tried to be more present with my kids.

Over the months, I shed the weight. I got less hung up about what I was eating. Having boundaries with my food made my life so much easier in a lot of ways.

I think that I believed that I would lose the weight, it would stay off, and I would ride off into the sunset.

Over the past six or so months, I've gained back about 20 pounds, give or take. I started to loosen my restrictions about what I put in my body. I started to play games again, though this time, I'm building a city versus farming (which is different in exactly no appreciable way).

I have been feeling very defeated lately. My depression continues to plague me. It is that ever-present itch in the middle of my back, the one I can't quite reach, the one no one else can quite scratch in the right way. It strikes me at odd times and paralyzes me emotionally and even, on occasion, physically.

In addition, I've developed an issue with my IT band. It's making running almost impossible. I need to do more to stretch it out and try to ice it, but meanwhile, one of my cheaper forms of therapy has gone out the window.

Brian's unemployment continues on. That's an entirely declarative statement, no commentary on his effort. He has done absolutely everything in his power to make sure he's working. He's been on several promising interviews, even second interviews. No offers, though.

He has been a trooper, but it's plunged us all into an unregulated chaos. There isn't any regularity to our days. Even when he was working at home, I knew what to expect. I knew when to be gone and when to be at home. Now, time has become an amorphous blob, undefined and messy, kind of a child's abstract scribble.

About a month ago, I made a stand. I decided my weight was going to stop going up. I was going to buckle back down, make a serious go of things again. I pared down the time I was spending building my city.

Here's the thing, though. Whatever magic or voodoo or whatever that defined my previous period of success (success measured here by weight loss) has evaporated. Try as I might, all I can do is gain and lose the same five pounds.

So I added in more workouts. I intensified them. I started using weights. The problem is that I continue to lack regularity. This has something to do with having four kids, an unemployed husband, a cluttered home, a dog-walking business that is regular but irregular, depression, crushing anxiety...the list goes on.

All of that has contributed to a lack of security about myself. I don't want to post pictures of myself on social media. I'm fairly certain that everyone would see one picture of me say, "oh, she gained weight again, what a failure. That stuff she was talking about is obviously all hokum."

I share about my depression, but then I don't want to overshare. Again, I'm afraid people will think I'm a failure. I'm worried that they think I'm morose, Debbie Downer personified.

In short, I have started to pull into myself, a kind of shrinking turtle. I don't like going out because it involves small talk. As it turns out, while I excel at small talk, I also hate it. It's exhausting. The most relaxing time I've had in the past few months has been with a friend, at her house, watching Schitt's Creek and being almost 100% silent. (Well, aside from laughing our asses off--the show is legitimately the funniest I've ever seen.)

But by not going out and hanging with people, I end up feeling so lonely. I don't want to pick up the phone when people call. They text and days go by before I can muster the energy to answer them.

It feels like I'm trying to walk up a down escalator. I don't feel like I can gain any traction with anything lately. At the beginning of the year, I started a reading plan to read the Bible in a year. I am now 104 days behind.

I missed more days of Bible study this year than I could count. I am not showing up in public and lately, I'm not showing up for myself. I'm not writing, even though it's the thing I know is one of the best therapies for me. I'm not running and I'm not working on helping my knee get better. I'm not working my business. I'm not posting about my life (not in a share-every-minute kind of way, but even in a I'm-so-grateful-to-be-alive kind of way).

I hate to keep ending up in this place. I hate to fail, it makes me crazy. I hate to isolate, but the emotional energy it takes to be among other humans is exhausting. I don't know why that is right now. I'm sure it's because I've been in some form of survival mode for a long, long time.

I am hoping that writing tonight will help me sleep well, regroup, and try again tomorrow.

The Myth of Feeling

It has been a long week. My sleep has been very disregulated. The constant level of stress I've been under has wrecked my immune system. I am fighting a cold and low-level feeling of physical yuck.

It's like I'm a hardboiled egg that hasn't been cooked long enough. Someone is trying to peel me, but the shell is only coming off in small chips. The whole process ends up with the egg looking mangled. That's what my immune system looks like and that's how I feel.

Holy Week creates for me an unrealistic level of expectation for myself. I had a conversation with my 10-year-old daughter last night and it sparked inspiration for this post.

My daughter was a middle child for a few years, until my youngest came along. She struggles with feelings of injustice. She is painfully shy and sees everything through a warped lens. Last night, we were chatting about a bevy of things. I talked with her about HALT and how that can impact our feelings.

At 10 years old, but really at any age, feelings can be so tricky. I don't want to dismiss how my daughter is feeling. There's really nothing worse than someone (actually or metaphorically) patting you on the head after you've expressed a feeling. More than once, I've had people ask me (usually when I'm angry) if I'm PMSing. It is condescending and reductive and it drives me nuts.

So I have to acknowledge how she is feeling. I have to tell her that how she is feeling is a valid way to feel. I also have to explain that sometimes, feelings can lie to us. Feelings do not always equal reality.

For years, I did everything I could to NOT feel. I used food, I used alcohol, I used anything I could get my hands on. I lost the privilege to use alcohol because I wasn't good at it. Ultimately, it stopped working in helping me to not feel.

The problem becomes putting feelings in a proper perspective. It is helpful for me to run things by another person who can be objective about reality. This is what I tried to do for my daughter last night.

I don't want to divulge what she and I discussed because she would be mortified. I will say, in general, that I tried to dismantle what she was saying. I tried to hold it up to logic. That's especially tricky with a 10-year-old girl. Logic can be so fixed and the moods of a 10-year-old girl can be as capricious as springtime weather in Chicago.

There is, however, application between how she process emotions and how I process them.

You see, Holy Week carries (for me, I can't speak for other believers) a heavy weight of expectation. I enter into this week carrying a bag full of shoulds. (E.g., I *should* feel contrite, I *should* feel grateful for Jesus' sacrifice, I *should* feel like I'm looking through rose-colored glasses.)

It's a very heavy bag. It ends up weighing my spirit down. I feel battered by the time Good Friday comes along, like I've been actually punching myself (not in the way an older sibling would torture a younger sibling). It takes me farther away from the cross.

The thing is, I end up feeling like I don't even deserve to celebrate the holiday. I feel like there's no way I can prepare myself enough to approach the cross. I've been reading the Bible using a program in the Bible app. I'm behind in the readings (we will read through the Bible in a year), so the point I'm at is where the Lord is explaining all of the different sacrifices and the procedure for each one. It's interesting.

I do feel grateful that I don't have to go through all of the steps laid out in the Old Testament. I feel grateful that Jesus came to be the perfect sacrifice, that stands in place of all of the rituals.

The thing is, just like Bekah, I can't trust my feelings. Even though I feel inadequate and unprepared, that doesn't prevent me from meeting Jesus at the cross. It's not a black-tie optional invitation, it's a come-as-you-are invitation. Yoga pants are completely acceptable. It doesn't matter that I have gained weight (thanks constant stress and depression), don't have a pretty dress to wear or a sense that all is going to be just fine, thank you very much.

I hope this encourages you, if you are someone who celebrates as I do. even if you don't, please just keep in mind that feelings aren't always telling the truth. There is a children's book by Sandra Boynton called "Happy Hippo, Angry Duck." Toward the end of the book, she writes; "and a difficult mood is not here to stay. Everyone moods will change day to day. (Unless you're that duck. He's always this way.)"

Take heart, dear reader. Though there may be cloudiness today, find a friend who's able to help you focus on the bit of sun in the distance. That, in the end, may just end up saving you.

Manager at Large

I wasn't sure I was going to have something to write about today. There are days when I have a very definite idea of what I want to write. Other times, I just have the first thread of an idea. I am not sure what the finished product might look like, but I know what might be incorporated into it.

It's been sunny here in my neck of the woods for the past two days. On the whole, I am emotionally better when there is sun. I try hard to get outside in the sun, even if it's just for a short amount of time. I plan on training for and running a half-marathon in September. The start of training season is just around the corner.

As the temperatures dropped into the negative numbers, my desire to run also dropped. There are a few people in my area whom I've seen running when it's that cold. They have all the gear necessary to ensure they don't freeze their butts off. I, on the other hand, do not.

I love running. I didn't intend to end up as a long-distance runner, but it turns out I prefer running 13.1 miles quite a bit. I have run in three full marathons. I also love that distance, but as a busy mom of 4 kids, it's tough to incorporate the midweek longer runs. I am perfectly content with running 13.1 miles and knowing my limits.

In preparation for the formal start of training, I have been tackling hills. There is a sledding hill attached to the back of the kids' grade school. I met my friend there a couple of weeks ago and we just walked up and down.

Since then, I've been ramping it up. I've been pushing myself. I stopped weighing myself a few weeks ago because it was negatively impacting my mental health. I do, however, still have some weight to lose. I also want to improve my resting heart rate. In addition to the weight loss, rigorous cardio is going to help me achieve that goal.

Running helps, but I know that it isn't giving my heart the workout it needs. I tend to run an even pace and I know that, after a while, my heart rate doesn't get into the right zones to achieve the goals I want.

In any case, I've been trying to get outside. It helps me.

I talked with a girlfriend yesterday about my depression. On the whole, I'm better. I'm more focused, I'm able to complete tasks, I'm getting caught up on the housework. My house is not spotless and my to-do lists haven't been completely vanquished, but it's a vast improvement.

What happens for me is that, as the afternoon wears on into the evening, I find myself getting low. In speaking with this friend, she indicated that it could be a function of me just getting worn out. I can see that. I think I tend to start my day strong, meaning I hit the ground running. I try hard not to take a lengthy nap (anything longer than like an hour negatively impacts my nighttime sleep), so I have to do what I can while I have the energy. After school is done, it gets crazy in the house.

It's a lot to manage--four kids, a husband who works part-time in the evenings, activities, etc. I am not someone who excels at keeping a schedule. It's a point of contention with Brian and has caused a strain. I have come a long way, but there are still days that I struggle to know where someone should be at what time. If it's Nutcracker season, then it gets even more hectic.

There is logistics and then there are emotions. Scheduling and executing a schedule is pretty cut and dried. There usually isn't a lot of emotion attached to it.

On the other hand, trying to navigate the world of tween, autism and sensory emotions is much more amorphous and foggy. It requires more finesse. It's not just a matter of packing the kids in the van (which honestly is a monumental task some days) and driving them somewhere and dropping them off.

It's trying to figure out how to settle arguments. It becomes quite Solomnic. I've learned that however I settle a dispute, one of the parties is going to feel offended. From either perspective, I'm playing favorites. It is tricky.

I'll give a for example.

Jeremy, my oldest, loves his sister, Rebekah. He always has. They are only like 16 months apart in age, so they are adjacent in grade to one another. When Bekah started kindergarten, Jeremy was ecstatic that they were in the same school. For years, when he would see her in the hallway, he'd greet her enthusiastically.

Over the years, we've had to navigate that. On the one hand, it seems like a small thing that Jeremy wants to be able to hug his sister or say "I love you" across the hallway. Bekah, though, has a lot of anxiety about looking and appearing like every other fourth-grader. She doesn't want to have attention drawn to her by her brother. She knows her brother is different. Her classmates titter about Jeremy calling out to her, which causes her anguish.

So what do I do? I have to teach my son that it's okay for people to set boundaries. That's a tough lesson in general, but when you add in autism, it's even more difficult. He doesn't always get subtlety in social settings. He's aware of people not thinking he's cool, but on the whole, he seems okay with it. But having his sister say she wants him to ignore her? That's really hard to explain.

I also have to teach my daughter that her brother loves her tremendously. I have pointed to my own relationship with my little brother. He annoyed me for years on end, but he has turned into a wonderful friend. He has helped my family out of some tight spots. He has provided babysitting and lots of laughs. But if you would have told 11-year-old Sue that someday she'd be close with her little brother? Yeah, exactly.

I have done my best to teach my kids that everyone's brain is different. Everyone processes information differently. Everyone sees the world differently.

(As an aside, yes, Bekah's classmates shouldn't laugh at Jeremy, but look. Kids have a lot going on. They aren't always assholes and they aren't always saints. Like most people, laughter can be a coping mechanism for dealing with awkward situations. This isn't about how kids are mean. In broad strokes, the kids in my daughter's class are good eggs.)

So we've reached a point where Jeremy is allowed to wave. He no longer yells out to her, he doesn't hug her spontaneously, he doesn't call her his princess (yes, that was actually a thing). In the end, neither party is 100% happy. Jeremy doesn't understand why he can't express himself to his sister. Bekah continues to petition to be an only child.

And this is why I end my evenings feeling drained, depressed and hopeless. I am empathetic by nature, but handling that many emotions for that long is just too much. In the past, I've seen a therapist regularly. With Brian's current job situation, it's not a feasible option.

What I've tried to do is adopt healthier habits. I continue to abstain from sugar (not as strictly as I once did, but I've found a balance that works for me). I drink enough water every day. I have a set bedtime that I adhere to every night, even on the weekends. I stay away from movies, shows, documentaries that get me emotionally involved.

It's a lot of work, trying to maintain my own sanity while also trying to manage and help my kids grow into the people God wants them to be. I enjoy the brief moments where all four kids are playing together (even if it ends up with someone crying, which has happened).

I know it won't be too long before the older ones will be off to college or trade school or whatever. They will start to carve out their own lives. I do my best to treasure the moments I have with them. That doesn't mean, though, that it isn't also a lot to manage at once.

Developing Talents

I have been beating myself up for not being more disciplined with my writing. For the past few weeks, I've met with a friend to develop weekly goals. We both needed the accountability and structure.

Every week, I've put a goal of writing something every day. Of course, the fact that I have issues with scale have meant that if I'm not blogging every day, I'm failing at the goal. I'm reading the Bible in a year in the Bible app. I am behind (more self-flagellation), but the readings this week have been about talents we are given.

There is the classic parable of the men who were given talents. The men had three different reactions when given the talents (a talent, in this context, was a unit of money). One man multiplied the talents aggressively, one man was less aggressive and one buried his talent.

I spend a lot of time thinking that I want to be given a lot. I have this recurring fantasy of opening my front door and seeing a large sack with dollar bills sticking out of it. I'm very sad to report that as of the writing of this post, I've yet to encounter said sack.

More recently, as we've been in a season of unemployment for Brian, we've encountered blessings from God that are much smaller in size. At the same time, they have made a huge impact on our situation. More importantly, they've made a huge impact on our faith. Every time we receive an unexpected windfall or some kind of assistance comes through, it's a reminder that though we don't know where the path is leading us, we do know that God is guiding our steps.

But I digress.

I have this idea that I should (that it is reasonable and, therefore, mandatory) be able to sit down every day and write a blog post. I confess that some days, I let small things like my phone and mindless activities crowd out the more important things. On other days, though, I am unable to carve out the time necessary to sit down and write down several paragraphs at a time.

Up until today, I spent a lot of time criticizing myself. I figured it was some sort of moral failing, a lack of discipline. At church, though, it occurred to me that I have, in fact, been writing every day. It may not always be a blog post, but I have been texting with a friend who struggles in many of the same ways I do. I am realizing that in texting her, I am uncovering God's truth about my own situation.

I feel like I need to work harder to quiet the distractions and dedicate myself to my craft. I mention the parable about the talents because I think it's evolved into a meaning of actual talents (or spiritual gifts). If I am not honing my skills, if I am not building my writing muscles, I am like the servant who buried his talent in the ground.

I firmly believe that God has gifted me tremendous talent when it comes to writing and even public speaking. I don't mean that in an arrogant way. I know that I have blessed people and helped people as a result of either blog posts or lengthy Facebook posts. I have tried hard to be transparent and vulnerable about my struggles with depression and anxiety. Many people have encouraged me to continue sharing because I won't even know who all is being impacted.

In the end, the important thing is that when I do receive compliments or accolades, that I throw that glory right back up to God. I may be the one typing, but he is the one who sometimes speaks through me. (I will readily admit that I am equally as irrational and filled with fear as I am rational and hopeful. I don't want to pretend to be someone I'm not and I don't want people to think it's all sunshine and rainbows. I'm just as likely to think my headache is a malignant brain tumor as I am that the right job is just around the corner for Brian. That's the beauty of being a woman--I can hold multiple feelings and thoughts in my head at the same time.)

I'm also happy to report that we decided to hit the pause button on potty training Brooklyn. For anyone who has ever had to potty train a child, you know that the process can be frustrating and draining. Jeremy took forever to potty train (which we found out later was directly related to his sensory processing issues). Bekah was pretty easy. Doug was older than Jeremy when he potty trained, but our experience with Jeremy taught us that it's no use to fight a toddler's will.

Our ordeal started on Friday. She is not keen on wearing underwear. (As a reminder, she wore the same sneakers religiously, even to the beach over the previous summer. We were worried that her feet would become deformed as we continued to cram them into the sneakers. It was nothing short of a miracle that she finally acquiesced and started wearing a different pair. Now we've even gotten her to wear a pair of sandals!) We have been trying to sell the idea of potty training for a few months. She has shown interest at times. She hides when she has a BM. She is able to undress herself.

It would be easy to conclude, then, that she's ready. Our experience on Friday showed us differently. She asked for a diaper on several occasions. We said no. She peed in about four pairs of underwear, peed on the floor three or four different times and even refused to pee on the potty (but instead stand in the doorway to the bathroom and pee on the floor, right in front of me).

This is one of those times that I want to go head-to-head with a toddler and prove my intelligence. It comes down to the idea posited in War Games, though. The only way to win that game is not to play. Toddlers, by their very nature, are not ruled by logic and thoughtfulness. Brooklyn is currently terrorized by something she calls "spiders." Are they actual spiders? Nope. So far, the most we've been able to ascertain is that they resemble spiders but are actually dust bunnies (or dust elephants, more like).

She insists on using a fork to eat, even if the food shouldn't require a fork. (Jeremy, who is reading over my shoulder as I write, has encouraged me to share that she used a fork to eat a donut this morning at church.) She likes to carry around random assortments of objects, each of which have significance to her.

We decided that given her stubborn nature (not sure where she inherited that), we will take up the task again at a later date. We are blessed with the gift of time, in that she isn't required to be potty trained until September.

I'm hopeful that this is the week I will be posting more blog posts, but I'm also going to be okay if the most I'm able to do is share my experience, hope and strength with someone via text or Messenger.

Starting Over....Again

It's been a week or so since I've been able to sit down and write. I have developed the habit of meeting with a friend on Saturday mornings. We sit down together and physically (pen and paper) write down goals for the coming week. It has been helpful for me. It helps set the tone for the upcoming week. It also helps me look back and realize the things I was able to accomplish in the previous week.

I continue to battle my weight. I have reached a point where the cardio I'm doing (walking dogs) is not intense enough to maintain my weight or help me lose weight. After Brian lost his job, well, really before that, I lost some of the previous discipline I had regarding food.

The simple reason is that Brian is not home every night. This means that there isn't always an adult with me at the end of dinner. If there is an adult with me, then it is easy to close the kitchen. I can put away leftovers, load the dishwasher, etc. If there isn't, then I have to leave the leftovers out for when Brian gets home. I am alone fielding the multiple requests from each child, trying to negotiate terms with one or two of them about their amount of screen time, or signing homework slips or the like.

The stress wears on me. And in the best circumstances, when the stress hits, I can take a quiet time or write something or do some deep breathing.

If I have no one around who can run interference, then it becomes tricky to set a physical boundary between me and the food.

Back when I started this journey, I set a rule for myself that I stopped eating at 8 PM. Over the past couple of months, I relaxed the rule and then struggled to set that boundary again. The picture I have in my head is of a herd of sheep being let out of their pen. I'm positive, though I've not experienced it firsthand, that herding all the sheep back into the pen is not easy.

Similarly, it has been tough to set that boundary for myself again.

I've also reached a point where the dog walking is not strenuous enough activity. I am racking up the steps on a regular basis, but my heart rate isn't getting into the right zone. I've been threatening to start strength training for several weeks. As usual, I've been overthinking it. It's tough to have to to start over again.

Meanwhile, I've also decided to stop weighing myself. I had developed the habit of weighing myself every morning. It was not serving me well.

I've written about that number before. It's a fixed point in time. It is a snapshot of where you are, but it's really only one of several factors when discussing health. So instead of obsessing over one of those factors, I'm going to focus on my measurements. I am going to ask a friend to help me take my measurements. I am also going to mark my watch band and take pictures of myself. I will then set all of that aside for a month. After 30 days, I will pull the scale out, but I will also check my measurements, see how my watch is fitting and look at my before and after pictures.

There's no point, when I am just coming out of a major depressive episode, to measure something that will end up weighing me down and possibly dump me back into the morass. I won't lie, it's going to be difficult. Breaking old habits and trying to develop new ones is exhausting. Our brains are malleable things, capable of a great many things.

We all have pathways in our brains. Each pathway represents a learned behavior. Some of them are more important than we realize. Take going to the bathroom. It's seldom that we stop and consider all the steps involved in doing that. Our brains figure out how to do simple things like that and then it becomes second nature. It becomes a deep pathway in our brain, like a well-worn path in a forest preserve.

The problem becomes when that pathway is no longer good. Think about a path in the forest preserve that gets flooded. If we try to take the same path we've always taken, we'll drown. We need to find a new path, but it will mean getting through underbrush, fighting off brambles, etc. It's not for everyone. Quite frankly, most would probably just turn around and go back. But when you know what's at the end of the trail, it can be enough to propel you through all of the yuck.

For me, I'm not looking for a specific number, clothing size, etc. I'm looking to be fit. I want to be more muscular. I want my resting heart rate to be lower. I want less body fat.

I will continue to meet with my friend every week. I'm going to try to make small, manageable goals. I am optimistic that even if I don't transform into the person I've always wanted to be by next month, God will have shown me what the goal should be instead.

(I apologize if this post is rambling. Usually, I write them all in one sitting. I'm trying to write everyday so I started yesterday, but got too tired to continue. I don't feel like it flowed as well as usual. On the flip side, I did write yesterday and today, so I'm counting it as a win.)