Cyndi arrived at my door looking a bit like a determined traveling salesperson, carrying cases and bags of various sewing equipment. But she wasn’t there to sell me something, she was there to rescue me.

She sat down at my dining room table, strewn with frayed turquoise fabric, threads, stray pins, and chaotic piles of pattern pieces, and began studying the directions for the mermaid costume pattern. Cyndi, the expert seamstress, looked up at me and said, “No wonder you were having trouble!”

Then, as she readied herself to get to work, Cyndi, who has spent the past eight or so months fighting cancer, looked up again. “Do you mind if I take off my wig?”

Relief flooded me. Not only does Cyndi know how to sew, she knows how to survive. She knows what matters. She has perspective. Of course I didn’t mind. Let’s all discard our wigs and get to work.

I had approached Cyndi after church that morning, out of sheer desperation. We don’t know each other well, but her sewing skills are widely known in our church. I didn’t beat around the bush as I told her about my experience the day before, when I had come as close as I have ever been to knowing what a nervous breakdown is. (I’ve always wondered…)

In case you’ve always wondered, too, from what I can tell it’s a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back moment. I’ve been carrying around all this weight for two months now—buying and trying to sell houses, the chaos of moving, two spring yards to care for, a cloud of financial and parenting stress, and more client deadlines than I’ve had in years. Then, on Saturday morning, I sat down to face my task for the day: sewing a mermaid costume.

I had made the mistake of assuming the director of my daughter’s play would choose a simple mermaid pattern. I mean, who, in this day and age, would expect all moms to be expert seamstresses? So I sat down, determined, and began unfolding the pile of thin, tissue paper pieces, trying to sort which ones I needed and which ones I didn’t. Then, with the pattern pieces mounded up in front of me, I spread out the instructions to get my bearings. And I snapped. I mean, I really snapped. (Ask Jason.)

I’ve done some sewing back in the day, when I was maybe 14 and my mom was right there to assist with all the tricky parts, but this pattern? It’s geared toward wedding dress makers, and grandmas who’ve been sewing for 60 years and have empty days’ worth of time on her hands. It’s a pattern designed specifically to challenge the advanced-Ninja seamstress. I felt like I was stumbling through a dangerous dream, trying to read ten foreign languages while deciphering 100 crinkly, crumbling maps that would never again be neatly folded and tucked away.

Somehow—by the grace of God, I can only assume—I stopped sobbing and started pinning, cutting, pressing, and sewing. Some of my sewing skills came back to me, but for the most part I was just winging it, half following the directions and half making it up as I went, skipping the boning (boning!) and lining and other things I didn’t understand. By the end of the day I had held myself together as long as I could, and I had done as much sewing as I could. There were still not one but TWO zippers, a fitted yoke for the top of the skirt/tail, hems, and some other finishing work to do. I was completely spent. And the costume was “due” Monday.

This is where Cyndi came in.

She was at my house Sunday afternoon for three or four hours, basting in zippers, laughing at the indecipherable pattern instructions, and chatting away about her grown sons, the graduate program she’s in, and her plans to ditch the wig and dye her new hair red. We worked in tandem. While one of us was at the sewing machine, the other was a the ironing board or pinning pieces of slippery blue fabric in place, then we switched.

When it was all said and done, Cyndi gave me a lot that day. She gave not just skilled help and instruction, but also moral support. She even gave me freedom from guilt, as she said more than once how much fun it is to sew with someone, and how happy she was to be done writing papers and to have something fun to work on. We got to know each other in a way we haven’t had a chance to in the past. And I was able to set aside all that’s been weighing on me, because I was able to see how insignificant it all is, in the scope of things. I was able to see that I’m not alone, even in the most unexpected of moments and ways.

After I began writing this post, I realized it’s the first week of the month—time for a One Word Update. (My word for 2013 is “openness.”) I generally don’t like shoe-horning an idea into an existing form, after the fact, but then I realized how much this experience really is about openness. From my ability to let go of my pride and ask for help from someone I didn’t know well, to Cyndi’s openness to take off her wig and give of her time and skills, we were open together, and that openness gave us both gifts.

Oh, and a pretty-darn-awesome mermaid costume, too. All I can say is it better be awesome.

Photo by krossbow

I’ll never forget when, as a child, I first really heard a prayer of confession that included the concept of asking forgiveness not just for hurtful things said and done, but also for the things left un-said and un-done.

“What isn’t can be just as important as what is,” I thought, astonished by this revelation.

As a culture, we’re hyper-focused on what is—on what’s real and right in front of us, those objects and moments that can be pointed to and documented. It’s almost as if what’s missing isn’t real, and therefore can’t affect us.

The irony (because there often is one, where humans are involved) is that all those things we buy and make and do are motivated by the holes in our lives—by what’s missing. As people of action and quick gratification, we tend to focus right away on filling the hole, rather than looking around in it to identify what’s missing.

Sometimes the empty space gets filled unintentionally by the busyness of life, precluding any real reflection on what isn’t there. What’s missing quickly becomes buried under the ever-growing pile of what’s there.

My life, these past several weeks, has been all about what’s there, right in front of me. In fact, I’m gradually becoming buried under all that’s in my life, piling up and filling the holes in awkward, unsuitable ways. My life feels anything but empty, with two houses to clean and lots of stuff to pack in one and unpack in the other (we’re in the process of moving), client deadlines and work travel, and parenting responsibilities and challenges.

And yet today, suddenly, I’m painfully aware of what’s missing.

What’s missing, right now, are huge pieces of my identity: open spaces in my days to think, reflect, and be inspired; moments to connect with Jason and truly share life; opportunities to start and sustain meaningful conversations with the people in my life; the freedom to set aside my work to take a long walk and pray; time to devote to my own writing and other creative acts that make me feel whole—connected to my community and world.

Considering the current state of my life, I may not be able to simply reclaim what’s missing, in an instant. But I can definitely work to create small spaces in each day for more of what I need and love. And just recognizing what’s missing helps me connect with those things, in an abstract way that proclaims, “This is who I am and what I need.” That, alone, makes me feel more grounded.

What’s missing in your life right now? What’s filling the holes and keeping you from recognizing what you need?

I’ve been feeling a general inner restlessness lately. It’s like there’s a cavernous, empty space in me that some annoying little creature is frantically bouncing around in, trying to fill.

Part of this feeling comes from being suspended in a neither-here-nor-there space. For the past week we’ve been the owners of two houses, and it feels like we’re not fully living in either one—like we have two houses and no home.

I want to move things over to the new house and start nesting—I want to hang artwork and curtains, and put mugs in cupboards and my coffee pot on the counter. I want to be planting pansies in the pots we placed on either side of our new front door, and I want to sit by the new fireplace with a cup of tea and the sweater I’m knitting.

But it’s complicated, with the old house being shown by realtors every couple of days. My energies need to be focused there, doing whatever cleaning and fixing and tweaking it will take to make someone fall in love and extend an offer. And my client work keeps demanding my attention, and my children’s lives are just as complicated and busy as ever. Rather than settling and enjoying, I’m in constant motion, bouncing around this in-between space.

Just today I realized there’s a second reason for my restlessness: At least part of this feeling comes from being too busy to blog.

I miss my blog the way I miss close friends who live far away. In fact, it’s a longing for many of the same things that make me long for my friends—for time to contemplate, to put ideas into words, to listen and understand, and to be understood. Writing my blog, and connecting with people here, helps to center me, and put things in perspective. After spending time here, I feel light, energized, and more capable of moving toward whatever is next. Being too tired and busy to reflect here only compounds the general anxiety I feel, triggering a vicious cycle.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not complaining about the state I’m in or the circumstances that have triggered it. A new house and an abundance of freelance work are cause for lots of celebration. I know we will be moved and settled soon enough, and I have hope that our old house will sell soon. Each day I check a few more things off my to-do list, and I know there will be gardening and napping and socializing ahead. In the meantime, thanks for sticking by me in this in-between space.

* * * * *

Just in case you’ve missed me, too, I want to point you to some posts I’ve recently written for other blogs and sites:

“Let us keep the feast,” a post for Jennifer Luitwieler about tables and faith, and the powerful phrase “Come to the table”

“Tomorrow is a new day,” a post about parenting and grace for the “One Good Phrase” series at Mama Monk’s blog

“How to deal with stress—the right way,” a post at Relevant that includes a story about the time I kicked a hole in the wall (and no, that isn’t an example of the right way to deal stress!)

Photo by Klearchos Kapoutsis

I hope you’ll excuse me while I whine for a sentence or two.

I don’t like my One Word any more! It won’t stop getting right in my face, looking me in the eyes and making me uncomfortable!

OK, I feel a bit better having said that.

In January, I chose “openness” as the One Word I hoped would inspire and challenge me throughout the year. It’s the same word I chose for 2012, but that year, when the word started getting on my nerves, I just abandoned it—as if we had never even started a relationship.

This year I went and made a whole plan for how I would stick with it, centered on writing an update on my blog the first Monday of every month (yes, I know this isn’t Monday). I even built in accountability with several of my blogging friends, who are also writing monthly about how things are going with their One Word. (Be sure to check out the updates from Jen, Sonny, Katie, Kari, and Brenna.)

For those who are still with me, I guess I should explain why I’m resenting my word right now. Here’s the short version: I’m resenting “openness” because it seems so completely impossible. I have spent the past month in a state of anxiety (with a touch of fear) as I face big life changes and various challenges that feel completely out of my control (from buying a house today and trying to sell ours, to dealing with parenting challenges and far too many client deadlines in my freelance business). I’m generally overwhelmed and at a loss, and it seems like the only thing I can do to protect myself is the exact opposite of openness: grip things tighter, close myself off, regard God with suspicion, and race around like a manic bundle of nerves as I desperately try to keep so many balls in the air.

In other words, things are getting real. And as far as my One Word is concerned, this is where the rubber meets the road. It’s one thing to like the idea of openness, or to succeed at openness when life is carefree and easy, and openness comes naturally. It’s another thing to give yourself over to it when everything in you is in fight-or-flight mode.

Here I am in the moment when openness counts more than ever, and I can’t do it. It might not even be that I can’t so much as I won’t. I don’t trust it enough to give myself over to it. (Now that I think of it, openness is closely related to one of those words most of us don’t like much: submit. It’s the good side of submission, but it’s still scary.)

And yet, something drew me to the idea of being more open, so I have to believe it’s something important, and worth exploring. As I wrote back in January about why I chose openness, “I wanted (and still want) to be more open to good things that might emerge as a result of something difficult or frustrating. I wanted (and still want) to be more open to possibility, and less constricted by worry and fear.”

It’s almost like I knew where I was headed and what I would need a few months down the road. Now the challenge is to get from here to there. Right now, perhaps the only shred of openness I’m expressing is just this, here: sharing my fear of openness with you, and my failure to trust it. I may not like the fact that openness has been looking me straight in the face, but at least I’m looking back at it, willing to engage and think about how to let it in.

Photo by 1wan

I confess, I’m prone to falling into the either-or trap. So often, I seem to think I have to choose, and to sacrifice something in the process.

When I look at an evening that lies ahead of me, I ask, “Do I want a fun evening, a relaxing evening, or a productive one?”

Parenting philosophies often seem to be either-or, as well. Do I want to communicate compassion or firmness as I parent my child through this situation?

And then there’s the never-ending debate about how to go about this thing we call “work,” which consumes about half of our waking hours. Do I want creative freedom and financial uncertainty, or financial certainty and less satisfying work?

Before I met Jason, when I was a single mom of two young children, I was absolutely certain I’d have to prioritize and sacrifice my list of ideal traits in a man. Here’s how I described my perceived predicament in an essay I wrote for the anthology Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On.

I began to systematically think through which dream-man requirements I could do without. Maybe a Christian guy who’s not a whole-heck-of-a-lot-of-fun? Someone who’s smart and fun, but agnostic? Or smart and successful, but scared to death of kids? Handsome and great with kids, but not too bright? I didn’t want to sacrifice anything, but I just knew I’d be forced to, in light of my limiting circumstances.

In other words, I certainly couldn’t expect to “have it all.” “Too good to be true” seemed like wise words of caution. The world, I had discovered, was a rough place, not a dreamland. And I, as I also discovered, wasn’t so special. I didn’t deserve any Get Out of Jail Free cards—I was going to have to “make the best of things,” just like everyone else.

Yes, the world gives us all those well-worn phrases I used in the previous paragraph. They’re phrases meant to put us in our place. They keep us from hoping too much and falling too hard when things inevitably fall apart. And I have bought into them, to some extent.

But I read an article last week that jolted me back into another reality I’ve known. At first glance, the article doesn’t seem to have anything to do with any of this. Titled “What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Success,” I was drawn to the article simply because I care about the education system and am always wondering what is needed to make it better. What I read there, however, surprised me, sparking a whole new line of thinking: “The Scandinavian country is an education superpower because it values equality more than excellence.”

Immediately upon reading that, this thought entered my mind: The world, when it’s at its best, functioning in the way it was created to function, is not an either-or world, it’s a both-and world. It’s a place where doing what’s right—valuing equality—puts everything back in balance in a way that allows everyone to benefit and thrive, to be their best. It’s a world where some don’t have to be left behind in order for others to get ahead.

Now, this thought (like most thoughts that arrive in my mind like the delivery of a parcel all tied up with string) is more guttural than intellectual. I haven’t run it through multiple scenarios, testing it out in various realms of life before presenting it to you. But I do believe, in my heart and soul, that there’s another way to experience this world, where we don’t have to accept either-or as the foundational format. The both-and world is just as real.

I can say it’s just as real, because I’ve experienced it in my life—in fact, I’ve experienced it in every one of the scenarios I shared at the beginning of this post. Even though I have lost hope and bought into an either-or way of thinking more times than I can count, I have also been presented with this other way the world can work, when I’m feeling enough courage and faith to open myself up to the possibility. I have seen how the best approaches to parenting combine compassion and firmness in ways that my daughters respond to—when it’s done right, they both learn more about life and feel more loved by me. I’ve watched how my writing career, as a freelancer, can simultaneously engage me creatively and support me financially. And then there’s Jason, my life’s biggest and best reminder that I don’t have to sacrifice what’s right and best, that I don’t have to accept a world of either-or.

Yes, this world is broken, and it demonstrates that brokenness to us at every turn. And yes, we can’t understand how God works—why we are given these tastes of heaven on earth in some moments, and not in others. But I believe God designed the world to be a both-and world, where we can work together to achieve goodness and balance and beauty for everyone. Can we think of this together, as we move through the week toward Good Friday and Easter? After all, Easter is the ultimate story of God’s love at work in a both-and world, broken yet full of promise.

This morning I found myself thinking about little things—about how often I sweep them aside, without giving them respect.

At first I thought it was ironic that I’m thinking about little things when I’m smack in the middle of a great big thing—selling a house, buying a house, and moving. But maybe it makes a lot of sense.

On one hand, little things can get lost in the whirlwind of big things, so you have to be more deliberate about them, and handle them with more care. I need to smile at my daughters and say good morning before hurriedly reminding them to pick up their clothes and make their beds, in case someone comes to see the house. I need to calm my racing mind long enough to remember friends who are in the middle of their own stressful situations, and send a text or an email to check in and say “I’m thinking about you.” These are little things, but in some ways they matter more now, than ever.

Another thing I’ve noticed, when I’m feeling overwhelmed by a big thing, is that I cling to little things because I can have some control over them. I can’t will the future buyers of our house to come see it today and make an offer, but I can wipe down the counters and sweep the stairs. I can do little things that bring little results, not obsessing over them, but simply celebrating them for what they are. Claiming these little things helps me admit my lack of control over the big things, without falling into a state of utter helplessness.

* * * * *

This morning, as I was ordering my coffee from a favorite barista, I extended an ultimate little thing: a bit of small talk. To be honest, when I asked if she had any fun plans for the weekend I mostly expected her to tell me she was working one of her two jobs. I was prepared to commiserate. Instead, as she told me what she was doing this weekend, I learned a dozen really interesting things about her (and about baby goats and bee hives and the geography of Southern Illinois). As I carried my Americano to my table, I thought, “Small talk is not necessarily so small.” And it can only grow if you give it a chance—if you take the little thing and put it out there in the world. (Yes—insert seed metaphor here.)

As I think back on the week and its swirl of big, busy stress, it’s these little things that stand out as spots of peace and rest, like stepping stones across a stream. Maybe they feel like that because God loves little things, and wants them to be gifts in this overwhelming world.

A smile directed at a stranger on a grey day.

The offering of a small word, “sorry,” to my husband.

Noticing—and pausing to admire—the bright green buds bursting on a neighbor’s tree.

Opening my hands and saying a small prayer—even one with no words.

It seems like everyone is talking about introvertism and extrovertism these days. It might have something to do with the surge of books on the topic: There are books about introverts in the church, about why introverts should be valued more in our extrovert-driven world, and about how introverts can tap their “hidden power”.

Even the good old Myers-Briggs test seems to suddenly be getting its second wind—every time I turn around, someone on Twitter or in a blog post is mentioning their “type,” if it seems relevant. (I’m a ENFP, in case you’re wondering—the E stands for extrovert.)

I happen to be hyper-aware of all of this, because it’s a topic I’m extremely interested in and have written about a lot. My extrovertism—and my ability to understand and accept it—seems to be at play in every aspect of my life: in my divorce and my marriage; in how I perceive myself and my relationship with my parents; in practical matters and creative matters; and in my social life, spiritual life, and work life.

Being an extrovert who spends all day alone, working on my writing, has been an ongoing challenge and blessing for me. Writing, after all, is by nature a very solitary activity, but there are many collaborative career options out there. The first 10 years of my writing career were spent working for newspapers, communications firms and design firms, so I was always with people—interviewing them, brainstorming with them, or trying to shut them out long enough to focus on the writing itself.

When I decided, in 2002, to take the leap into full-time freelancing, it was the thought of working alone that worried me most. Making it work has been a matter of finding a happy medium: I’ve learned to love being alone more than I ever imagined I would, and I’ve also learned to build as much community, interaction, and collaboration into my days as possible. Social media and blogging have been such important parts of that connectedness. (Here’s a post I wrote about this last year: Living stories together, writing alone.)

But I still feel isolated, more than I’d like. My longing to connect with others, as a writer, is a bit like having this itch I can’t scratch. It was when I started going to conferences that I felt satisfied—filled up with the goodness of shared ideas and encouragement and understanding that I needed to settle back into my freelance life for a while. After a couple of four-day sessions at the Festival of Faith & Writing (2010 and 2012), a week at a Glen Workshop, and a few days at STORY Chicago last fall, I began to always think in terms of “When’s my next conference?”

Right now, the answer to that question is May 24-26—the Renew and Refine Retreat for Writers. I’m especially excited about this particular retreat, because it’s built around a vision Ed Cyzewski and I developed after having been at a couple of conferences together in 2012. Part of what I love most about the format for the weekend is how perfectly it meets the needs of both introverts and extroverts alike (which apparently isn’t the case at most conferences, according to several introverts I know). :) It focuses less on what we need as individuals, and more on meeting somewhere in the middle—making space for everyone to be who they are, and to thrive there together. And yet, our individual needs will be met in the process. I think that’s because our plans for this venture happened in the most organic of ways—when an extrovert (me) and an introvert (Ed) met together in the middle to plan something that would ultimately be a “dream retreat” for both of us. Here’s where we landed (this is just an excerpt from our website):

As writers, we each have unique challenges and goals, but there are certain things we all need: Access to inspiration and creativity; rhythms and structures to keep us motivated and on track; guidance for setting goals and navigating roadblocks; a balanced sense of who we are as intellectual, emotional and spiritual beings; and the support and encouragement of a community who understands the rewards and challenges of the writing life.

Whether you’re an extrovert or an introvert, I hope you’ll check out the retreat website and consider joining us! Don’t miss some of the great details, like the gorgeous lodge setting (a fireplace, deck, lake, and wooded trails!); sessions with Lisa Colon Delay, the wonderful spiritual director who will be joining us for the weekend; and the amazing food we’ll be eating, created by my husband, Jason (if you’re on Instagram you can glimpse many of his past food creations—he’s @jason_berg).

Photo by Dino ahmad ali

Certain moments and opportunities just seem right. No doubt about it.

If I take a closer look, often those feelings of rightness go hand-in-hand with feelings of ease and safety and certainty. The more doable something is, the more right it often feels.

Not surprisingly, the opposite is true, too. When we get that feeling that something isn’t right, that thing is often accompanied by a slew of unknowns and uncertainty. The decision or situation usually involves steps that feel scary, which can make moving in that direction feel wrong. Fear is an important protector from danger, both known and unknown.

But every so often, something feels right and scary all at once. Somehow, the rightness isn’t apart from the fear, or in spite of it. Instead, it seems to be more right because of the fear—because, by its very nature, it’s intertwined with unknowns and risk.

And when rightness and fear become one entity like that, the feeling of right intensifies—it feels even more right.

That’s how buying a house has felt to me, both when I bought our current home in 2005 and when Jason and I took a leap of faith on Wednesday, putting an offer on a bigger house that’s better suited for our family of five. (If you’ve been wondering why I was MIA all week, now you know! I’ll probably be somewhat scarce around here for the next month or two, as well…)

Taking out a massive loan is, in itself, scary. But to be honest, the financial part has also always been a bit abstract for me. I think the real fear I feel at these moments has more to do with meaning than money. What does this leap, this move, represent? What does it mean to our life? How will it shape how I see myself, my family and community, our future?

Those questions—and the answers—were huge when I was deciding to buy our current house, as a single mom. Between 2003 (when my first marriage ended) and 2005 (when I bought the house), I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to pull UP roots—how to get out of Central Illinois and the town I never wanted to move my family to in the first place. I was wounded and on the defensive, fighting everything that would symbolically or actually keep me rooted here. Buying a house was at the top of that list.

But all that struggling and fighting against things? It was exhausting. Everything in my life felt like a struggle. Eventually, I decided to stop fighting the state of my life—where I was not just physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. That decision to unclench my fists was at a turning point, and, as I wrote in one of my first-ever blog posts, that turning point hinged on the big, scary act of buying a house. As soon as I took that leap, all kinds of good things started happening.

The house we will be closing on in April, if all goes according to plan, carries with it different fears and different dreams. It marks a different kind of turning point in our lives, too, but it’s still very much a moment when what’s scary and what’s right seem to be doing this beautiful, frightening, yet irresistible dance before us. We’re ready to join in.

A couple of evenings ago, as my daughters and I decorated dozens of heart-shaped butter cookies, the 12- and 15-year-olds informed me that Valentine’s Day is one of their favorite holidays.

“It’s all about LOVE!” they said, indignant that I dared to ask why they liked it so much. “And it’s the only holiday that happens on a school day, when we can be with our friends.”

This morning there was extra excitement and drama in the air as they added Valentine touches to their freshly painted fingernails and wrapped up cookies to take to friends and teachers. Let’s just say there was a lot of pink going on. I observed the scene with some fascination, vaguely beginning to remember when Valentine’s Day meant more to me, too.

Now, of course, it isn’t cool to make much of the “Hallmark holiday.” It’s been two decades since I secretly hoped for flowers on the 14th, and although Jason and I did make a bit of a deal celebrating our first Valentine’s Day together (it was 2006, and we had only been officially dating for about a month), we haven’t made a habit of it. We’d rather spend the money going out for a nice dinner on an “off” night, without all the hoopla and the crowds—the awkward aura of couples trying too hard to conjure up extra meaning out of an ordinary day.

This year Jason is out of town for Valentine’s Day, which of course doesn’t matter since we don’t really do anything to celebrate anyway. Right?

Well, sort of.

To be honest, there’s a part of me that’s feeling a tiny bit sorry for the woman whose love is off in New York spending Valentine’s Day with clients. I’ve been feeling those twinges of self pity all week, and I’m not a fan of self pity. I am, however, a fan of how I’ve responded to the twinges: Rather than swatting them away, trying to pretend that February 14 has no broad, cultural significance, I’ve embraced Valentine’s Day more than ever, thinking up ways to celebrate the love I feel for a variety of people in my life who aren’t my husband. It was an excuse to invite a friend to dinner, to make plans to have lunch with someone I haven’t caught up with in months, to have a phone date with a dear friend who lives in another state, and to write a couple of emails to people I’ve been thinking about. All of those connections this week brought me (and hopefully them, too) a lot of joy.

Just as I was really getting into the spirit of spreading all this love, a small collection of Facebook and Twitter statuses almost ruined it for me. Some were just the typical, hipster, anti-Hallmark-holiday sentiments that I’ve heard variations of for many years, but others had more bite. Yesterday, which was Ash Wednesday, I saw a Tweet from someone who wondered how many Christians were spending more time thinking about Valentine’s Day than Ash Wednesday. I felt a stab of guilt—obviously we had made Valentine’s cookies, not Ash Wednesday cookies (whatever those might be), and I had mailed a Valentine’s Day card to my grandmother, not a “Happy Lent” card.

But then I felt myself growing angry (the way I often do shortly after feeling guilty about something I shouldn’t feel guilty about). Lent is personal, while Valentine’s Day is communal. Lent calls us to turn inward, while Valentine’s Day is about turning outward. Both days are capable of inspiring deep, powerful meaning, just as they are capable of prompting shallow, empty, rote behaviors.

Most importantly, God is not asking me to weigh my Ash Wednesday observances against my Valentine’s Day observances. God is calling me to love, and love is a very complex thing, fed as much by a season of inner examination as by outward practices of caring for others.

In fact, when I look at my week as a whole, it seems completely fitting that it was a week that held both Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day. For me, it has been a week of brokenness, loneliness and tears, as well as a week of connection, understanding, and time devoted to people I love. It’s been a week of cookie cutters and frosting, of a messy kitchen and laughter around the table. I have felt the heaviness of a worried Mama’s heart balanced by the lightness that comes from conversations that make you feel heard and loved.

In other words, it was a week of brokenness and love. Call the holidays what you will—arbitrary, symbolic, sacred, silly, whatever. They are just days on a calendar, waiting for us to animate them with meaning through how we choose to live our lives.

Photo by Hey Paul Studio

First the dog didn’t do her business in her usual prompt morning fashion. That meant I was standing there in the morning cold with just a fleece, knowing that my soft boiled eggs on the stove were on their way to becoming hard boiled.

Back inside, I realized I couldn’t eat my egg, anyway—it was time to take our oldest daughter to school. By the time I had fought my way home again, through the crazy morning drop-off traffic in the heart of campus, I had a 10-minute window for eating my cold egg, drinking my reheated coffee, and helping our youngest daughter find something for her lunch. After tearing apart the Tupperware drawer looking for a suitably-sized container with a matching lid, I spent five minutes trying to fix the broken toaster that was cruelly keeping me from redeeming my sad breakfast.

Finally, after one last emphatic slam of the toaster on the counter, I just stood there and cried. Jason is out of town, and I had woken up so determined to be upbeat and organized—to start the day right.

I couldn’t go back in time and delete what had taken place, so I would have to do the next best thing: Revise the story of my morning.

* * * * *

Revising my life story has been a talent of mine since childhood. It isn’t a matter of altering facts or inserting untruths; the writing of any true story, after all, is as much a matter of what you choose to leave out as what you include. And I’ve always been good at leaving out the ugly.

The stories I regaled my mom with after days spent navigating my elementary school playground highlighted the funny and dramatic, leaving out the hurt feelings and anything dull and inconsequential. My memories of family vacations and holidays are rich and bright, as if they’ve been run through a filter designed to catch all the mishaps and disappointments. And when a mishap can’t be ignored—when it’s at the heart of the story—my revisions have always relied heavily on humor and self deprecation. They are true tellings, but with the advantage of some time passing, which allows the tears to be transformed into laughter.

After my divorce a decade ago, my stories shifted darkly toward realism. Life was hard. My story was an unhappy one with an unhappy ending, in spite of all the revising I had frantically done throughout my marriage, desperate to convince myself and my community otherwise. Not only was I determined to tell the hard, cold truths of my own story, I began to look down my nose at any stories that smacked of bright optimism or Disney endings.

* * * * *

Today, I’m a third of the way through writing my memoir, and thankfully my storytelling techniques seem to fall somewhere between the two extremes. I still question, in a healthy way, how I’m revising my story: Am I being real? Am I being as true as possible to what really happened? Do my “revisions” move me closer to the core truths or further  from them?

But I’m no longer hostile and suspicious toward this wonderful ability we have to revise our true stories. In fact, according to this fascinating post at one of my favorite sites, it is a gift with an official-sounding name: “the adaptive optimism bias of the human brain.” In essence, our brains adapt to receive more good news—or not, depending on how we shape our stories. The article, How to Stay Sane: The Art of Revising Your Inner Storytelling (I love the title!), explains that “learning to reframe our interpretations of reality is key to our experience of life.” (The Brain Pickings post is based on the book How to Stay Sane by Phillipa Perry.)

Our stories give shape to our inchoate, disparate, fleeting impressions of everyday life. They bring together the past and the future into the present to provide us with structures for working towards our goals. They give us a sense of identity and, most importantly, serve to integrate the feelings of our right brain with the language of our left. …

The meanings you find, and the stories you hear, will have an impact on how optimistic you are: it’s how we evolved. … If you do not know how to draw positive meaning from what happens in life, the neural pathways you need to appreciate good news will never fire up.

Wow. That kind of blows me away. And it takes me back to this morning, with its broken toaster and cold egg, and how I was able to move from tears toward a sense of humor. The errors were revised into a comedy of errors. I can’t completely rewrite my morning, but how I frame my morning—the meaning I choose to draw from it—is completely up to me. And it matters. Choosing to spin the truth of my life with optimism will help keep me sane—and I need all the help I can get.