Turns Out, You're Amazing

Tonight my mind is spinning as I sit down to write, weighing a hundred different paths to take on the blank page.

I could tell you about graduation and how it felt when my gorgeous daughter all grown up and ready to fly, still looked for me in the crowd to make sure I was watching. Don’t worry, love, I’m always watching.

I could tell you about how I redid my third podcast three times this week before I published it and then still worried myself sick that it wasn’t good enough. Good enough for what, I wonder.

I could tell you how my husband turned 47 and how he is the easiest person in the world to love. He even makes loving me look easy which is utterly impossible. I know from experience.

I could tell you about how I had to teach Relief Society yesterday and how almost none of it went like I thought it should. And as I have an assignment to speak for two days at a youth conference later this week, I am now beating back the self-doubt demons at a near-constant rate. I really need an automatic weapon of some kind.

But what I want to tell you instead is that you are amazing.

And despite everything I just wrote, I am too.

No matter who we are, no matter what we are doing, no matter how hard we have tried, no matter how much we try to measure up, we are all equally terrified and also absolutely certain that something is wrong with us. Fundamentally. Irreversibly. Irredeemably.

You see? You are not alone.

Tonight we watched the documentary on Fred Rogers, Won’t You Be My Neighbor. At one point in the film, the creators of the documentary shared one of the many memos that Mister Rogers wrote to himself. It read in part: “Am I kidding myself that I’m able to write a script again? … After all these years, it’s just as bad as ever.”

We all have doubts. And they never go away. We are all worried about the ways we fall short and can’t possibly measure up.

What I want you to know for sure is that the idea that we are fundamentally flawed is a lie. It is also part and parcel of the human condition. When our spirits were put inside a human body with a human brain programmed for survival, we started to worry and compare and judge. Ourselves. Which only led us to look around and worry and compare and judge others. Mostly just for reassurance: “See, we’re okay,” we try to tell ourselves.

But living like this is just as painful as knowing deep down that there’s something wrong with us.

We hate ourselves. And then we hate others.

Which feels as horrible as it sounds.

Henri J. M. Nouwen wrote: “In a world that constantly compares people, ranking them as more or less intelligent, more or less attractive, more or less successful, it is not easy to really believe in a [divine] love that does not do the same. When I hear someone praised, it is hard not to think of myself as less praiseworthy; when I read about the goodness and kindness of other people, it is hard not to wonder whether I myself am as good and kind as they; and when I see trophies, rewards, and prizes being handed out to special people, I cannot avoid asking myself why that didn’t happen to me.”

See, the problem is that when there is the idea of “better” there is also the idea of “worse.” If we can be better, then we can be worse. And so can everyone around us. This is a seriously slippery slope of ranking and reranking that involves a lot of scrabbling and fighting for the top. Which, again, feels as horrible as it sounds.

Last weekend we rewatched the documentary, Free Solo. (Does it seem like I’m watching too many documentaries given the depth and breadth of my to-do list? I’m totally okay with you judging me for spending so much time in front of the screen. Don’t worry, I have thoroughly judged myself before giving you the chance to judge me first.) But this time, I was struck as Alex Honnold talked about how he thought life was about excellence and how if he could accomplish this thing—climbing El Capitan without ropes or gear or any kind—then he would have done something amazing. And that would mean that he would finally be enough and able to be proud of himself.

Heartbreakingly, you could see when he got to the top of this impossible climb, that he was surprised to find that he was still the same person. Alex Honnold had gone 3600 feet into the air without ropes or safety gear, accomplishing the impossible, and it hadn’t changed who he was or how he saw himself at all.

The problem is that your human brain is never going to let what you do be enough.

Which is why it’s high time to just ignore it.

It’s misinformed.

You have always been enough.

Last fall when I went to Spokane, my coach gave me this thought: I’m okay with being 100% awesome. I say it to myself nearly every day. Some days I believe it. Some days I don’t. But I keep saying it.

And I’m giving you permission to think the exact same thing about yourself exactly as you are right now. 100% awesome. 100% whole. 100% lovable. Right now. As you are.

I’m not saying it’s easy. You can see from how I started this post that I still have my fear and worries. I still battle my natural tendency to doubt my worth and my worthiness nearly every day.

The difference is now I know none of what my brain is telling me is true. It is the veil and nothing more. It is the curtain of mortality drawn over my mind. And when I really try, I can see the truth on the other side, I can see things as they really are: I’m amazing. And so are you.

Just thought you should know.

Error Code

I finished reading the Book of Mormon again last week and then promptly started over.

I don’t know if it’s just what I’m going through right now in my own life, but it seemed like there was a lot of talk of errors at the end and beginning of the book. The prophets at the end of the book apologized for any mistakes and acknowledged that if there are any errors in the text, they are theirs alone.

Nephi does the same thing at the beginning of the book, noting that they are weak in writing and that if they had been able to write in Hebrew, then it could have been perfect, but they were using reformed Egyptian and he felt there were consequently going to be flaws in his account.

I feel for these men. As a writer and as a human. I feel for them and the inadequacy and deficiency they surely felt to keep the records accurately for their entire people and to acceptably express the workings and instructions of their God. No pressure.

This week, my sister’s book was published. The first copies are already in people’s hands. I have spent the last seven months helping her with the manuscript and checking it for errors. I have read it dozens of times. She has read it many times as well. We’ve had other people read it. She hired a professional proofreader who read the manuscript and whose job it is to find the errors we didn’t.

And after all that, yesterday I got two notes from people who helpfully told me they had each found a typo. Two separate errors.

The worst part is that I know there will be more. There are over 60,000 words in my sister’s book. If we’re being honest, there is the chance that there will be many, many more. As hard as we tried, we couldn’t find them all. It kind of breaks my heart a little.

It reminds me of when Caleb was auditioning for music school with the Wieniawski Concerto. As he practiced for months, I remember thinking there must be hundreds of thousands of notes in that one piece of music and that also meant there were a hundred thousand ways to mess up and make a mistake. It seemed like an utterly impossible task.

As I sat in sacrament meeting today, I thought about how many possible errors there are available to me in my life. When I think of all the days and all the thoughts and all the interactions and all the moments where I come up short and don’t show up in love the way I want to, it breaks my heart more than a little. I am overwhelmed by my power to get it wrong. Most of the time.

What I want to say is that I know there are errors.

I also want to say that I know there are errors I don’t even know about.

Wo is me.

I have wanted to curl up in a little shame ball and die after finding out about the typos in my sister’s book. And these are the tiniest of errors in comparison with the mess that is my life. It’s enough to make me want to give up completely. But did you notice how Nephi and Mormon and Moroni, just did their work anyway, even in the face of their errors and inadequacy? Yes, they said, it’s far from perfect, but the errors are ours and here is what we have to offer anyway. They gave their gift the best way they knew how.

This is what I’m trying out this week too. Here is what I have: My whole life is a crappy first draft. It’s full of errors and mistakes, confusing plot twists that don’t belong, and far too many adjectives and passive verbs. But it is what I have to give. You’re going to find an error if you look. I’m going to find an error everywhere I look. And yet, I’m here to try and I’m in for all of it anyway.

We are all doing our best. It’s just that there are so many ways to screw it up. 60,000 words in a book; 100,000 notes in a concerto; 39,420,000 minutes in a lifetime. There’s gonna be an error or two. Maybe even more than 39 million.

And even then, I’m telling you, it’s totally going to be okay.

Make no mistake about it.

Burning Love

I was so tired yesterday. 

(I blame the car-lag or the travel-logue or the abrupt change from mountain air to desert air or something besides me.)  

I yawned most of the way through the day and then last night I started nodding off at 8:30.  By nine o'clock I was gone. 

David came in and laid on top of me.   Disappointed.

"You're going to sleep?" 

(Did I ever tell you about the time we were in bed kissing and the bed actually caught fire?  This was not one of those times.) 

I got up momentarily to put the croissants in the oven for the next morning, but I set the oven 100 degrees higher than I should have.  An easy to mistake to make when you're sleep walking.

The fire alarm went off early this morning. 

Good morning, it said. 

But I just rolled over and told David that someone was whistling in my dream.  And then went back to sleep. 

David got up, put the fire out, and sent Caleb on is way, with a prayer and a kiss and a charcoal croissant.

I am practically Martha Stewart.

The Solution to All Your Problems

You know what's really great?

Adele turned twenty-one and she came out with a new album.

It will make you deliriously happy.

Even if all you are getting these days is bad news.

It is so good that when she is singing and your husband is kissing you so deep and so hard, reality and entropy and unemployment and certain disaster and all their horrid cousins will magically disappear.  Your brains and your worries and your anxieties and the part of you that knows better will melt together and be sucked right out, leaving only a hot, throbbing joy pumping through your veins.

It will make you remember all the good parts of life.

Even if your husband starts crying on the way to the post office because he only wants to go back to work instead of running errands with you.

It is so good that it will make you forget that life can be hard, and instead make you start to dream that the future is as bright as resurrection morning. 

Even if the bad news only got worse this week, and you find yourself sitting across the couch from your one and only trying to calmly list your dwindling options and sort your priorities.  A roof.  Food on the table.  

It is so good it will make you want to throw a garden party with giant bowls of pasta salad and individual glass lemonade bottles and paper lanterns strung up in the trees.

Even if you are running out of time and after watching the last six months drag impossibly slow, you are now in a race with the calendar that is moving surely and swiftly towards summer, when everything will come apart for sure.

It is so good it will make you believe that anything is possible.

And that is only track 1.  Just wait till you get to the second half.  You will swear salvation is at hand.

Turn it up.

A Post In Which I Bless Your Life Again

I am making steady, wondrous progress on my "before-school's-out" list. 

The swim cupboard is accessible (no small feat) and pleasing to the eye.  The school file boxes have been readied.  The ironing has been completely caught up.  (A gasp and three cheers are in order here, should you feel so inclined.)  I have made summer pillows and bought the fabric to recover the cushions in the girls' room.  I've made cookies twice, for no reason at all except pleasure.

On Saturday afternoon I bought a round table on Craigslist (oh joyful day!) and I have begun sanding my kitchen chairs so that I can stain them to match.  (I'll take before and after pictures and save them for another post, because, as you know, there is nothing I like quite so much as bragging.)

In short, I am a domestic goddess.

And so that you might be too, (I find most people want to be like me...that's what happens when you're amazing) here are a few things to help you on your way:

1.  This Book

My lovely and talented Aunt Jill wrote this book and it is gorgeous and drool-worthy for several reasons:

1. There are lots of pictures of me in it (reason enough right there to buy it).  There are also lots of pictures of lots of people who are related to me and who happen to look EXACTLY like me as well, so if you like pictures of me (and who doesn't?) this is the book for you.
2. It is FULL of beautiful quilt patterns (really beautiful quilt patterns) that you can do with a group (if you have lots of domestic goddess friends to hang out with) or by yourself (if you are into making everybody else jealous of how amazing you are).
3. So many other cute projects like pincushions and notebook covers made from selvages.  Just yum!
4. Speaking of yum, it also has some favorite recipes. 
5. I wrote the foreword.  And some people have told me that it made them cry.  And I think even if it doesn't make you cry, it will make you want to call all the women in your life and tell them that you love them.  And even if it doesn't do either, it may be the one and only time I am ever legitimately published and so get it while it's hot.

2.  Bamboo Sheets

A long while back I heard Martha Stewart say that she only sleeps on bamboo sheets and I thought, "Egyptian Cotton is out?  When did that happen?"  A few weeks ago I put the summer sheets on the bed only to find that they were worn out and threadbare and needed to be replaced.  I went to Tuesday Morning (where I always go to buy sheets, because I love quality sheets, but I refuse to pay for them.  See how that works?)  Anyway, they had a set of bamboo sheets and my inner Martha was delighted.

It's been a couple of weeks now, and I've got to say, for the record, that there is a reason she is Martha Stewart.  And she was absolutely correct about the bamboo sheets.  They are so soft they are almost more like leather than fabric.  Even though that sounds a little weird.  (Probably especially to Kelly.  You'll have to trust me.)  I told David these are the sheets that Adam and Eve slept on to populate the world.  They are that good.  And cooler than cotton too, which is a delightful characteristic in your summer sheet set.

3.  I am recovering my kitchen chair cushions after I re-stain the wood and so I have been looking through upholstery fabric swatches.  Talk about joy!  (There are times when I am completely my mother's daughter...this is one of those times.  She used to carry swatches around in her purse for months.  I am just now discovering that she did this just for the fun of it.)  Anyway, I found these lovely designs from Thomas Paul.  (The two owl prints at the bottom are Alexander Henry.)  You have my permission to drool, and then find something to recover.  I think I will do the piano bench while I am at it.  Perhaps Aviary in Tangerine.  Be still my heart.

Show and Tell

Our reading assignment for class this week was all about the difference between "showing" and "telling."  I think I get it.

First I have something to show you.

The last three Fridays I've gone to Christine's house to quilt.  We've been working on this.

I know.  I'm in love with it too.

And now I have something to tell you.  Particularly if you live in Utah Valley.

Rachel and I are taking the show on the road again.

We are teaching our fireside on body image,

More Precious Than Rubies: Truths About Body Image in a World Full of Lies

this Sunday, January 31st, at the Grove Creek Stake Center in Pleasant Grove, Utah

1176 North 730 East (in Pleasant Grove) at 6:30 p.m. 

and you are cordially invited.

I hope you come and I hope that it will bless your life.  Better than that, we will finally get to meet.

Which, I'm telling you, will be delightful.

Oh, To Be As Brilliant As She!

First some news, some anxieties, and then I'll do my best to bless your life.

First news.

Last week I was asked by a real-life editor to write a foreword for a new, soon-to-be-published book.  I know.  You can bet I did a little jig of happiness.

Which leads us, already, to the anxieties part.

I worked on it this morning.  I think parts of it were just shy of brilliant, or at least good.  Not sure about the rest of it though.  I emailed it off to him today with my heart in my throat and my ego on my sleeve.  Gulp.  We'll see.

After the first draft I left the house to get away from it a bit before I edited it.  I have to get a little space before I can start killing and maiming my babies, see?  I went to the college to get my student ID and my parking pass.  The student ID they gave me has my maiden name on it, as the computer refused to believe that I had gotten married.  I told David this morning in the shower that I needed to get a ring between now and next Tuesday just in case some other boy wants to ask me out.  He just smiled.  ("What?" I said, "I was very popular in college."  At which, his smile broadened.)

Anyway, while I was there I went to the bookstore for my required books (can I tell you what a little thrill that was?) and saw that one of the requireds is a book I already own, a book already sitting on my writing table, on top of the stack even!, a book I've already read and tried to learn from.  And I had the brief and horrible thought that what I might need is not more information (i.e. this class I've registered for) but more talent (i.e. no professor can help you there).  And the dream nearly died right there on the bookstore linoleum.

But then RIM raised her voice over CIM's freaking out and I pulled myself together.  That is, until I got home and murdered my forward, gave birth to a new version, and sent it through cyberspace to be critiqued and analyzed by a real-life editor.

Good night, what am I thinking?

There's no help for it.  Best move on to the part where I bless you life.

Last week I went to to lunch with my brother who was in town just briefly, and my sister who lives here all the time but whom I never see enough.  We had a delicious conversation over sandwiches and fries and water with lemon.  Near the end, my brother mentioned a masterful talk he had heard at church that had blessed his life.  I looked it up and now it has blessed mine as well.

So here it is.  It is by Sister Julie B. Beck--the B. stands for Brilliant by the way, and that is always how I refer to her in our house, Sister Julie Brilliant Beck.  I think you'll agree.

And, you're welcome. 

(P.S.  I know some of you might be sorely tempted to leave an encouraging comment about my "brilliant" writing, but honestly I can't bear it today.  I am restricting all comments to agreements about the gorgeous and wise, Julie Brilliant Beck, and to those of you who think it is entirely plausible that I could indeed get asked out my some cute boy in my class next week.)