Category: jLog

Life is brutiful. It’s beautiful and brutal and everything in between. I show up in this world as a whole person, but sometimes fractured in my roles – professional (Dr. Jennelle), personal (Jennelle), parental (Nelle). I’ve learned to face, accept, and embrace many of the shame gremlins I meet in my professional and personal spaces – I’m comfortably uncomfortably dancing outside the lines of  “I’m not good enough” and “who do I think I am?” in both of those arenas. But parenting? Parenting plays an entirely different shame tape…

“You woke up one day in love with a women raising three young children with her husband. You didn’t prioritize the kids’ best interest. You destroyed a family. And then you had the audacity to call yourself a parent, a mother even. These aren’t your kids. They have a mother and a father. You might have taken on a care-taking role, but that doesn’t make you a mother. You haven’t earned that title. Step-parent, ok, you can have that one. Just remember that being a step-parent means you need to be one-step removed from everything. Don’t be too present, invested too fully, or love them too much. That’s not your role, remember – one-step removed. And really, you’re needed even less than most step-mothers. They have a step-mom in their house with their dad, and their mom in the house with you – why do you even need to be here? What’s your purpose to this family? Right, you’re expendable, so better be a few more steps removed, for everybody’s sake. Don’t discipline, praise, teach, or support. There are enough parents in the mix to take care of that. And you need to stop being so known – parents, teachers, coaches, mentors – they don’t need to know you. You aren’t their real parent. There’s no reason for you to be known. You’re not bringing anything to the table that can’t be brought by someone else here, your input isn’t necessary, valuable, or even wanted. In fact, most of what you contribute is actually making things worse. You make their life harder just by being a part of it. You don’t want that for them, right? Sure, you can love them, but do it from afar. Quietly. So no one can hear you and see you. So you don’t influence them or anyone else. So if/when you’re gone, no one is affected. Because remember, these aren’t your kids. And if you really loved them, you never would have let this situation happen. And at the very least, you would have left a long time ago, at the first sign of any hard. Don’t try to fool yourself, you’re not fooling anybody. You aren’t a good parent, hell – you’re not even a parent at all.”

Here’s the thing about my parenting shame tape – I’m not ashamed of it. It’s the conversation my gremlins are having with me every day. And I fight, every day, to press the stop button. But some days, it plays on. Other days, it seems to getlouder. And on a few precious days, that tape seems to get lost. And I know I’m not the only one who bought this album. Not by a long shot. And I know that the only way I can stop this track from playing on repeat, is to name my shame. These are the gremlins that take me down most days, and I know the only way I’ll ever find reprieve from them, is to get them out of me – to show them the light. And if I’m playing this tape and *not* turning the music up, so that you can say “hey, that’s my song, too”, then I’m also part of the reason for your shame tape. Because every parent, step-parent, mother, and step-mother is part of my tape. Especially those closest to me. And keeping these gremlins close hasn’t made them go away, so maybe sharing them will. If I can release them outside my mind, maybe they’ll stop wreaking so much havoc inside my heart.

I became Nelle 6 1/2 years ago – unexpectedly, unassuming, unaware. I didn’t go looking for this life, these kids, this experience. But I’ve been living it fully since the day it showed up, and I can promise you – I’m doing the best I can. I’m not doing it all right and certainly not doing it all well, but I am trying my best – every damn day. There’s no rule book on parenting. Or step-parenting. Or same-sex step-parenting. But there is research, support, and people showing up and living their truth every day. So I keep showing up too, living my truth, and looking to those doing the same. I keep asking for help, I keep learning more, I keep doing the very best I can. And somehow, someway, I know that’s enough. I know that being Nelle is truly a gift, and never a curse – even in my hardest moments. I know that following this nontraditional path has left me wide open for criticism and ridicule, but I also know enough to only listen to those face-down in the arena with me. And while I may be filled with so much doubt, so often – when I look into their eyes, the ones who know me only as their Nelle – I take my lead from the Indigo Girls and pray *if we ever leave a legacy, it’s that we loved each other well*

I’m a seeker – of knowledge, connection, growth, and peace. I think I’ve always been this way, but this truth about myself started showing up hard when I took my first psychology course in high school. For the first time, I really started listening. I wanted to understand more, about myself and the world around me, and most importantly about humanity. Today people might call this focus personal development or even self-help, something that seems reserved for those precious years after young adulthood. I’ll thank Ms. Hart for giving me a head start when I was just 16.

I read soulful memoirs, wholehearted stories of both personal experience and carefully crafted education. You can find me any day of the week hanging with my girls Glennon Doyle, Brené Brown, Jen Hatmaker, Liz Gilbert, and Oprah. These women are my soul sister mentors, and although I’ve only ever actually hugged one of them, their intimate influence in my life is undeniable. And they are a big part of the reason I am not waiting until I’m 40.

These women have all written and spoken to the coveted “no longer caring” mentality they acquired at 40. That finally they were able to show up and just be who they are, flaws and all, with passionate purpose, loud enough for everyone to hear, even on their quietest days. That 40 was almost some magical milestone where societal pressures are washed away, mainly because you’re just so damn exhausted from the weight after 40 years – you literally just can not (as Jen would say).

Your dirty hair caked with dry shampoo coupled with a Target dress you bought on clearance, becomes your bible. Your unanticipated and wildly unprepared conversations about the hardest parts of life with your children become as routine as rushing around every Monday morning like a crazy person because – btw, it’s trash day, again. The people in your life all hold treasured, tenured space, and sistering becomes your survival tool. You care infinitely about the little things you’ll miss when they’re gone (bath time and hand-holding, mom’s laugh, grandpa’s smell) and stop caring entirely about the latest smash-named couple (buh-bye Benifer). Life is simpler in 1000 moments and painfully complex in 1000 others.

Or so, this is what I’m told.

Because as I’m writing this, I’ve just turned 34. I’ve already graduated college, earned my Masters and PhD, started my own business, became a mother, purchased a house, gotten engaged (twice), gotten married (once), and built a life I’m proud of – but that can also bring me to my knees. I’ve worked for someone else and worked for myself (the latter is disproportionately superior), I’ve loved a man and loved a woman (the latter is disproportionately superior), I’ve struggled financially and been financially secure (ok, you get it), and I’m just now 34. And I’m not waiting another 6 years for that coveted magic.

There are currently 4 cans of dry shampoo under my bathroom sink and I’m wearing a strapless dress with a “size small” tag circa 2015 that I know I could never purchase today. Recently while unpacking the day’s lunchbox remenants, I found myself with a dirty peanut butter’d napkin in hand when our 10-yr-old daughter asked me to explain what the letters in LGBT each stand for. I took the trash out yesterday and gave myself a significant pat on the back for actually breaking down all the cardboard boxes and appropriately fitting them into the recycling bin (never mind the one random trash bag in a can we never use that I couldn’t even lift…there’s always next week). I made plans with a dear friend who is expecting her first child, mostly just to sit and smile at this amazing stage of life she’s in. I look forward to the memories TimeHop plans to share with me tomorrow and admit that the only reason I know anyone remotely famous these days…is if they have a song that’s played in my Zumba class. I am writing this as I sit on the beach, my office for the day…and I lost my sister to suicide in 2016 – simpler and so much more complex.

Maybe I’m ahead of the curve, but I think I might have a handle on this authentic, wholehearted living thing. It’s not that I think my beloved sisters got it wrong, I think they got it so right that they paved the path for us to pay more attention. Because here’s the thing with personal growth – it’s here when you pay attention to it, fleeting when you forget. And mothering, careering, adulting, and just basic living…make us forget. We forget to set aside time to put our phones down and soak up the sun – alone – for healing and clarity. We forget to read that inspiring story or sit down with that friend in transition. We forget to slow down, we forget to show up, we forget to be present. And just like that, 6 years can pass. And just like, you can find yourself at 40.

So I’m staying deliberate and intentional. And if nothing else, I’ll grab my case of the “f$@% its” right now while the getting’s good – just to prove I can, to push myself, to be different, to be nontraditional. I’m taking on the hot loneliness. I’m sitting still on my mat. I’m changing the story I’m telling myself. I’m believing in something bigger than me. I’m loving with everything I have.

This is 34.

 
Now, if I was a die-hard Bachelor fan, I am sure I would have known at least who he was, but even the majority of Bachelor Nation who did know of him were surprised at the choice to make him the next Bachelor. I won’t pretend to understand the elaborate reasoning behind this choice, but let’s just all agree he wasn’t the obvious next guy in line.

Given that, Arie’s season of The Bachelor began with, what seemed to be, little hype and excitement. As with every season, I rolled my eyes and said it looked absurd, but set the DVR to record just the same.

Years ago I learned Glennon Doyle’s principle of holding both – the pain and the joy – all at the same time, in everything we do. It has helped me heal, helped me feel less alone and alienated, and helped me connect with countless others who are in the midst of the highest highs right next to their lowest lows. The pain of loss is always holding hands with the joys we gain. Goodbyes with new beginnings, hurt with growth. But recently I’ve started to question if there are sometimes when holding both can be dangerous.

Can we hold both about a person? Can one person be both the holder of our greatest joy and creator of our greatest pain? I can answer quite simply that yes, one person can be both of those things. But then I wonder, should a person hold that space in our lives?

My sister may be the very first example I ever encountered exhibiting this principle. Four years my senior, I’ve never known this world without her in it. Until November 1st, 2016, the day after she took her own life. At 36, she had been holding both inside herself since she was a little girl. As passionate and intellectual as she was, she was an addict suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. She held both in a way that I will never understand, and that at times I don’t think she was able to understand very well either. And she held both in my life, too.

For years she was my highest highs, my biggest laughs, my greatest joy. She was the breath of fresh air, the rush of excitement, the very best part of being alive. But as we grew up, I was faced with my lowest lows right next to those highs. She’d take her intellect and make her words into daggers, shredding my values and my character. She’d feel her passion and tear me down for feeling differently. She knew just the thing to say to send the tears streaming down my face, to take away my ability to respond. She knew what would hurt me, so she did.

I struggled to understand if having her, holding both this joy and pain, was necessary. If this was something I had to endure, or if there was room for me to walk away. We were family, we had memories that no one else shared, we knew parts of each other no one else knew. I would be losing parts of myself by losing her. But what if my holding both was meant to be the pain of letting go of her while holding on to the joy we were once able to share? What if having her hold that space in my life wasn’t ok for me anymore, what if I didn’t want to be subject to that kind of pain again and again, just so that I could feel that joy with her still? What if I could take the joy with me and walk away from the pain…

Six years ago, that’s exactly what I did. I told myself it wasn’t ok for me to let her hold that space in my life anymore. That as good as the good was, the bad was so much worse. That while I might love our shared laughter, I didn’t want to miss the signal and suddenly be faced with her rage. I wanted to protect myself, for myself. I wanted to be in control of my own joy and my own pain.

That’s a funny thing to say, even as I write it, I wonder if it’s an impossibility – to be in control of our own joy and pain. Certainly we can’t control when either rise up, I suppose we can only control how we respond to those feelings once they are present. But maybe we do have some say on who is responsible for causing us pain and joy, because maybe we shouldn’t allow people to hold the space for both.

I’m starting to believe that just because we have someone who gives us our highest highs, doesn’t mean we have to accept the lowest lows from them. I don’t think that is the equation of love. We work tirelessly on our relationships (because we know that real love takes work), but that work should not inherently equal pain. At some point trying and trying again turns into expecting a different outcome from the same approach, putting a square peg into a round hole, forcing a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit…doesn’t it?

Or, if we stop trying, are we giving up?

I’ve never been able to decide, I still don’t think I can.

With my sister physically gone from this world I can’t help but wonder, as so many do who have lost a loved one, if not letting her hold both in my life meant I was giving up on her. I will never know that now, and it weighs heavy on my heart, affecting the way I approach all of my current and future relationships.

I have always said that when having someone breaks down the very best parts of who we are, that person is not a healthy force in our lives. Yet, the person who challenges us, makes us stop and question even our deepest beliefs, can also be a welcomed source of growth and learning. And so maybe that’s why I hold on, until I literally just can’t anymore.

It’s not a selfless act in any way, and perhaps these relationships are equally parasitic in some respect – we may take as much as we can from each other, trying again and again to see if we can survive as one, until we are both devoid of value, empty, and ultimately alone. And maybe it’s just because we are afraid to walk away until we’ve learned all we can from each other, or maybe it’s because we’re too scared to lose the highest highs.

All I know is that at some point, holding on so tightly to the person that holds both feels like holding on to a trapeze when there’s no net below. We are desperate to make it to safety, barely able to enjoy the flight, and yet hoping we never have to touch the ground.

She sat on their bedroom floor (a floor that would later become ours) and cried, her head in her hands. He sat across from her. I stood by the door, behind them both, paralyzed.

He had told his parents what was happening. That his wife had fallen in love with a woman, a woman they’d met several times, and they were separating.

It was the most real anything had been since the day I broke off my engagement, over 2 months prior. We’d all been scared of this step, none of us knew how it would go, and none of us knew what it meant about how we’d be moving forward. He assured both of us that his family would be ok, and that if they weren’t, he wouldn’t let them speak badly of us. That he was on our side. That as heartbroken as he was, he knew we hadn’t planned this, hadn’t looked for it, hadn’t meant for it to happen. He was on our side, he told us as he hugged us and left the room earlier in the evening to make the call.

That’s how we were back then. The Good Crew, we called ourselves. Trying to figure out this crazy, beautiful mess we’d landed in, one day at a time. Trying to cause as little hurt as we could, trying to help each other heal and grow as best we were able. Knowing that the outside world didn’t understand how we could be so close. Some days, we didn’t understand it either. We put the kids first, always, but we tried to protect each other too. We celebrated birthdays just the three of us. Called on each other in case of emergency, like a flat tire when you’re home alone with no spare. Asked each other questions and actually listened to the answers. Celebrated major milestones, like making partner. We knew that it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to anyone else. And it’s why taking the next step to tell anyone else felt so scary, for all of us.

Reactions from other people always make things more real, they make us question our own choices, consider other perspectives. This was no different. We had found some sort of strange, nontraditional groove in the way we operated in those first two months. It was painful at times and yet full of complete joy at others. We knew bonds were breaking and others were forming and we knew from the outside it seemed like someone wasn’t being honest with themselves. We talked about it endlessly, but we always came up with the same conclusion – we were the only three that understood what was happening between us, under this roof, and for that we had to rely on each other on some fundamental level. So we did.

When it was time to share our story with the next tier of people, it changed everything. We knew that it would, on some level, but you can’t really prepare yourself for what you have no experience with. There wasn’t anger, as so many were waiting for from the start. There was deeper sadness now, as more people’s lives were being affected, more recognition of the hurt our choice was causing. And at the very root of it all, was the loss. We finally had to admit that there were parts we were all losing now, parts we couldn’t get back.

And yet, I remember when his sister told me that she didn’t feel like she was losing a sister-in-law, but rather gaining one, as we sat around talking and watching all the kids play together. I remember hugs from his mother and questions directed at me about what her grandchildren were into these days. I remember feeling a level of gratitude I had not experienced in this lifetime, as our Good Crew was included in a way I never, ever expected. Holidays, birthdays, school events, family experiences. It was better for the kids this way, we all agreed. But no one would have blamed them if they felt otherwise.

And some did, feel otherwise. And we never blamed them. We always recognized that it was their reaction that we anticipated, they were what we thought the norm would be, what we were ready to face. Our explanations for how we ended up in this situation were rarely good enough for them, but that was never our intention anyway. We weren’t looking to win anyone over, we were just trying to move forward in uncharted territory, one day at a time.

When I stood there by the doorway, watching them – her crying, him silent – it felt like in an instant our world was collapsing. He looked at me and motioned to sit next to her, and so we all sat there, not saying much, just holding space for this moment of change. We couldn’t pretend anymore that everything was fine, that this was normal, that we were just figuring it out. And yet, on some level, that’s exactly what it was. I knew those tears were questioning if his family hated her, if she’d ever be able to see them again, if they’d ever want to see her again, if any of this could ever really be ok. We didn’t know then that it would be, we only knew what we knew – that we had been through hell in the past two months and somehow could still sit so close to each other now. So we did, for as long as it felt right, and maybe even a little longer after that.

There were four of us in a cab leaving the city to crash at a friend’s for the night. It was the first “girls night out” since She and I had been outed. We’d had a great night, tons of laughter, good conversation, maybe even a bar-top dance or two, and we were all headed our separate ways after lots of hugs and goodbyes. We had promised to call home to see how the night had gone with the kids before ending the night. Typical conversation when we called home (“how did baths go?” “did they eat enough?” “what time did they go down?”), but this time with an ending I’d never heard. Just as quickly as She started the phone call, I heard her final three words as She hung up – “I love you”. And just like that, the wind was knocked out of me.

When we had parked in the city earlier that night, She took off her wedding ring. It was mid-August, a little less than 3 months into our big change of heart. She had stopped wearing her engagement ring early on, but didn’t take off the wedding ring around the neighborhood. She wasn’t ready to answer the questions from the increasingly curious neighbors who seemed to have their eyes on everything. I’d gotten used to it, as used to living a lie as you can, anyway. But that night we knew we’d be seeing our girl friends, for the first time as a group, since everyone knew what was going on – and without her ex there. She told me it was important that they knew how serious we were, that we were moving forward with our new life.

The night was filled with all the usual catch-ups, old stories, and future plans. There were a handful of awkward moments as a result of our new couple-hood, but mostly harmless comments that we chalked up to it all being ‘so new’ for everyone. Including us. We had never been on a girl’s night out…with our partner, either. We were navigating how “couple-y” to be, if being affectionate was ok, what friends wanted to know, and what should be kept between us. I was anxious about a few friends’ reactions, how they really felt underneath about our choice to change our whole lives and be together. I wanted them to see we weren’t playing around, this was as real as anything, and our decision wasn’t one we made lightly. We weren’t uprooting everything for a fling, we were betting on forever.

And then there, in the cab, with two of our friends next to us, She tells him She loves him.

Every part of me knew why she said it and what it meant. I knew the very basic part of it that was a habit – that it’s how she always ended conversations with him, just like She does with us now. And that it was habit on a deeper level too, that as his wife She would tell him She loved him when they said goodbye, because that’s what you do. And then that She did still love him, in a way. Not in the I want to be your wife and sleep in bed with you kind of way, but in the way She had grown to love him in the nearly 10 years they’d been a couple, sharing and building a life together. I knew it was a complicated undoing, I knew that when She would tell other people that She would always have love for him, it meant that in many ways, for at least a long while, She would still love him, period.

I knew all of that, because I was living it with her everyday. But they didn’t know that. Our friends in the cab with us didn’t know that She could let “I love you” slip out as She was hanging up the phone and it didn’t mean that She didn’t love me, that She wasn’t sure about sharing her life with me, and that She didn’t have regrets about her choice. They heard those three words and immediately wondered if maybe She wasn’t ready to end a marriage, break up a family, and run away with me…

Well, I didn’t know that that’s what they wondered…but when I heard those three words, my heart sank because I wondered if hearing those words come out of her mouth made them wonder. I had felt so confident that we had had a good first “showing” with our friends. Our love, our connection, our thoughtfulness about every choice we were making on full display. And with those three words, it felt like it came completely undone. Now they had doubts, now they had questions, now they wondered how real our love was. Or so I questioned.

I was immediately quiet, She looked at me as soon as the words left her mouth and She closed her phone. She mouthed “I’m sorry” with a look of panic in her eyes. I couldn’t keep her gaze, I just looked down. Our friends were quiet.

As vivid as every moment of that phone call was, I can’t remember how the night continued on after that. I was hurt, I was disappointed, and those emotions were enough to cloud over my memory of what happened next.

I know She didn’t mean for those words to come out that way. I know She had no intention of hurting me or having our friends doubt our relationship. So I didn’t need to say much. I remember feeling like Julia Roberts in the scene from Pretty Woman when she looks at Richard Gere while she’s attempting to leave, standing at the elevator, tears in her eyes, and says “you hurt me” to which he acknowledges “yes” and her response is the only sentiment I needed to convey as well – “don’t do it again.”

She never said “I love you” to him again. Or at least, not that I heard (though I’m pretty sure not at all). She never put her ring on again either. She told me it was more painful to hurt me than it was to let go of those securities from her past. And I knew She meant it, even as scary as it was for her – for both of us.

It’s nearly 5 years later and those 5 minutes still stick with me. I have no idea if our friends remember that cab ride and I haven’t brought it up in years. But just recently I was telling a friend about this experience as she is currently navigating her own brutiful beginning, and I was honestly amazed how immediately I could place myself back in that cab.

The beginning of a big change of heart is both beautiful and brutal and in that beginning was the hardest lesson I am still learning every day. We hold both, always. We hold the past with the present. The love for him and the love for her. The fear of change with the excitement of what’s ahead. The sadness of loss and the joy of new love. And only when we’re ready, we let go of the parts we don’t need anymore.