Category Archives: friends
the relationships of life
summer style
my friend laura of Hollywood Housewife periodically hosts a brag book link-up – an excuse and license to say “look at me!” without apologies. this time she has challenged her readers to post a picture in their favorite summer outfit. i’ve yet to be disappointed after trying something uncomfortable at laura’s urging, so i decided to participate.
i work from home, so my standard summer uniform is the most comfy shorts and tee i can find, no makeup, hair in a pony or messy bun. i tried the whole get-dolled-up-for-the-home-office thing… it lasted a day. so when i get out of the house, i like to get “dressed,” even if i’m just running to the grocery store.
thanks to a freshly organized closet and bits of creative inspiration on Pinterest, putting together an outfit has been more fun lately. but because it’s been so unbelievably hot this summer, i am drawn to the clothes that have the least contact with my skin: dresses.
this dress is a favorite because 1) it’s so lightweight, 2) it has ruffles 3) it has pockets. i am obsessed with dresses and skirts that have pockets. i never like to be without places to stash my chapstick and scribbled notes-to-self. even my favorite lounge pants and gym shorts have pockets.
confession: it’s not even my dress. my sweet sister loaned it to me for the summer because her baby-baking belly is currently too voluminous to fit into it. three cheers for sisters, unborn nieces, and borrowed threads!
the gold bangles were my mom‘s. they came from lebanon and she wore them with everything. the sound they make when they clang together reminds me of her. i got the necklace on a beach in mexico straight from the artist – it’s hand-blown glass and wire.
i love the look of heels (and my wee 5’2″ frame could use the boost), but i always wear flats. my feet are bare 90% of the time in summer, and they rebel if i try to make them trek all over town on a few extra inches. i usually wear the bag across my body so it doesn’t swing around or fall off my shoulder – but that kinda ruins an outfit pic, ya know? i carry this one almost daily. it came from kohl’s, i think, and it’s sustained some serious use quite beautifully.
well, that was only slightly terrifying. kudos to laura for getting us out of our comfort zones. be sure check out the other brave souls showing off their summer style and give them some love. self-portraits are hard!
earrings: ten thousand villages
ring: lia sophia
belt: um…high school?
tank: volcom
sandals: madden girl
what’s in your go-to summer wardrobe? do you have an outfit that always makes you feel great?
what can i say?
it all started a few months ago when i executed a massive purge of stuff in the house and posted a flurry of ads on craigslist. she responded to one with an friendly note and included the link to her blog in her email signature. the URL compelled me to click-through, and i discovered we have a lot in common. i replied to her email to see if she lived nearby and included my blog address in reciprocation.
i hoped to find a friend to swap recipes and gardening tips with, but God’s plans were farther-reaching. her next email took my breath away.
Can I just tell you that I feel like I was led to you for a reason? A very close friend of mine lost her mom this afternoon to cancer. She’s a strong Christ follower. I don’t know what to say to her. I’ve been praying all evening that God would give me words to say that would comfort her. Is there such a thing? Thank you for replying and for your blog…
making a friend on craigslist was already unexpected, but this completely blindsided me. through my tears i hammered out my genuine first reaction, and sent it with a prayer. i’ve since had the opportunity to offer the same advice in two other situations, and thought maybe i should share it here in case it can be helpful to anyone else.
this was my response to her message.
i began praying for your friend and her family immediately after reading your email. my mother battled the disease for over three years, and while those years were trying, nothing can prepare you for the loss of someone you love so dearly. my family has been leaning heavily on each other, friends, and of course our faith in God’s goodness during the difficult months since her death, but something like this can certainly shake everything you thought was solid.
i don’t know if there are words that can truly bring comfort, but i do know even the insufficient words mean a lot. you may think that “i’m praying for you” and “you can call me anytime” and “just let me know if you need anything” sound lame and hollow compared to how much you want to comfort your friend, but when you’re on the other side, knowing you have the support and prayer of those who love you truly gives strength.
shy away from saying things like “she’s with Jesus now and not suffering anymore,” because as nice as that sounds, right now all your friend can feel is her own hurt, despite knowing her mother is singing in Glory (i assume her mother was a Believer as well). also, try to avoid “it will get better,” because true or not, at first all your friend can comprehend is what she’s feeling in the moment, and it’s excruciating. these sentiments will become more comforting as time passes.
what you can tell her is this: “i know it doesn’t seem to make sense, and it feels unfair and wrong. but remember that it doesn’t change God’s goodness. you can still praise Him for His blessings in your life, even while you feel frustrated and distant from a God who seems different to you now. don’t try to find an answer for all your questions right away. spend time with family and close friends, cry as much as you need to, embrace snippits of laughter and joy, and open your heart to God as much as you can. these things will eventually help you learn to live with purpose and peace in this new reality without your mom.”
another thing you can do is continue to be attentive to your friend’s emotions long after you think the rawness of the pain has worn off. in many ways, the loss won’t be real to her for several months or longer. reality sets in when the shock wears off, and by that time many supportive friends may have stopped thinking about the daily trials of grief. keep offering a listening ear even when it seems healing is well under way. my friends’ continued check-ins have been so helpful to me.
i hope this wasn’t more advice than you were bargaining for. i felt i needed to give you a real and honest answer, but it’s a hard question. i am touched to think that God may have caused our paths to cross so that i could help you minister to your friend through my experience. just the thought of God using these circumstances blesses and encourages me. also, if you think your friend would find it helpful to talk to someone who can relate, you can share my number with her.
i’m not saying that this is the best way to respond to anyone who is grieving; these are just my honest feelings toward the words that hugged my heart, made me cringe, or helped lift me out of the fog. (a note: please know that every gesture is received with gratitude, and i’m always touched when someone offers encouragement, whether it is what i want to hear or not. please do not be afraid to reach out to a hurting friend for fear of “saying the wrong thing.”)
i wish that this advice had no use, but we know that loss will always be prevalent and universal – until He restores all things. 
in the meantime, we get the privilege of watching God work through craigslist.
oh, honestly
HONESTY. the best policy? absolutely. always pretty? don’t count on it.
which is why i tend to believe that the Ugly Truth falls into two diametric categories: required (when it concerns the person in the conversation) and taboo (when it doesn’t).
like when a genuine response to a casual inquiry is, quite simply, a downer. after all, what unsuspecting friendly acquaintance wants an awkward wah-waaaah reply to their greeting? best to put on a happy face.
i feel this way when it comes to writing, too. a while back i read this tweet:
“anyone can write about their darkness and be considered a brave writer for doing so. very few can write joy bravely.”
i disagree. wholeheartedly.
joyful topics flow freely from my keyboard and are a delight to share. the Love Of Laughter series is my favorite to write. (and re-read. and laugh at, of course.) dismal subjects, however, may evoke plenty of written response from me, but nothing that i would ever want to burden an unwitting audience with. it feels selfish to unleash gloom on someone’s otherwise pleasant day?
my darkness remains in the dark, published under a password that no one is privy to.
the sad thing is, while there is certainly joy amidst the sorrow—and those moments come without fail every day—the happy bits seem to get overshadowed when i get contemplative. when i write. and so my feed is silent.
it’s been six months today. so while i continue struggling to wrap my brain around the reality of it, i’m going to give the Ugly Truth a try. and i’m going to bring the joyful pieces to the front—on purpose—when i feel the need to empty words out of my head in writing. for the good of everyone involved.
*photo by haleigh russell
on purpose – card ‘em
as a first step in fulfilling my promise to find purpose in the pain, i resolve to be intentional in a simple, meaningful way. I WILL SEND MORE CARDS.
everyone enjoys getting “real mail” that is not a bill or advertisement, and i’ve always appreciated those who take them time to pull out a pen and a stamp rather than tap out an electronic message. (i’m certainly guilty of the latter, and still believe a note shared online is better than none at all.)
during mom‘s entire tug-of-war with cancer, not a day went by for more than three years that the mail did not deliver multiple cards of encouragement, well-wishes, celebration (with the ups), & promises of fervent prayer (with the downs). the photo above was taken about 6 months in – when we first became cognizant of the magnitude of love-mail flowing in. now there are three baskets to accommodate all the cards.
the card baskets have resided in a prime location, for easy access to an uplifting message when needed. i know mom returned to them again and again in the hard moments. and in the days and weeks following her death, our family found solace, inspiration, and cheer in re-reading these cards.
i have always written a heartfelt card for special occasions (something my parents modeled), but i keep telling myself that i should write more cards for no reason other than to brighten a day, share an inspiring thought, or tell someone i appreciate them. good intentions no more; i’m going to do this on purpose! i even have a tub of handmade cards mom and i created together…how appropriate. i’ve set a personal commitment of number/frequency to get me started (i’m better with solid goals), but hopefully this will become a habitual tendency toward written sentiment.
BONUS:
to kick off my pledge, i’d like to share one card that never got placed back in a basket, because we opened it it so often. i don’t usually go for the cards that play sounds when you open them, because….well, let’s just say it’s not my thing. but this one got me every time. it got to the point that even the anticipation of opening it would pull a slight crimp in the corner of my mouth. give it a listen, and just see if you don’t find yourself dancing a hoe-down like dad and i did every. single. time. (the card only played the first 30 seconds or so of the song.) “here we go!”
memory lane – they’ve done a lot of renovating on this street
i don’t know if it’s amusing, impressive, or scary how easy it is to do a facelift of your personal history. our brains are capable of a makeover so effective that we forget the “before” pictures ever existed and move forward in life with a new reality. i’m not referring to coping with trauma. i’m talking about the details of an event or period of time that we wish were just a little bit different. so often those details get airbrushed in our minds, just enough to take the edge off the awkward, insecure, and embarrassing memories. and then there’s the material evidence. sometimes snapshots of these moments facilitate the fib (“look how happy i am smiling at that <awful> party.”) and sometimes the photos belie the distorted recollection (“wow, that haircut was not quite as flattering i remembered.”)
for the past few weeks i’ve been scanning a lot of my old photos into flickr, to preserve them before they fade or get lost, but also because browsing and organizing my pictures on the computer is a favorite pastime of mine. (life is just too good not to enjoy the high points again and again.) it seems incomprehensible now, but i don’t have to go back many years to arrive at my pre-digital, 35mm photos. (other than a photography course in college, my photographs processed from film are not the admirably artistic kind – we’re talking disposables and point-and shoot models here.)
in some aspects the photos are an annoyingly accurate record-keeper. there’s no denying the bad perm, buck teeth, or gigantic glasses – photoshop is no help there. but other times photographs are a misleading illusion. and i don’t just mean a funny camera angle. i’m talking about the posed moments created especially for the benefit of the camera – a shiny façade glossed on top of the truth. either way, the pictures always bring a jolting rush of emotion. as i viewed each print, i laughed, i gasped, i awwwed, i sighed, i cringed. i felt happy, sad, excited, irritated, nostalgic, nervous, and loved. i felt whatever i had been feeling at the moment the photo was snapped.
for the most part, i love that emotive response to re-living freeze frames from the past – i’ve led a full, charmed, ambrosial 30 years. but occasionally the scenes roused old insecurities that have lain dormant for a long time. i was instantly transformed from a confident, successful adult into a gawky junior high kid again. this phenomenon of being confronted with buried sentiments reminded me of a question recently posed by my friend laura: to reconnect or not to reconnect? she pondered the emotional effects of renewing lost social ties online, and posited that perhaps we’re all just a little too available. i think i’ve found a response to the question of why social media can make grown adults regress back to teenagers.
nearly a year and a half ago there was an article in the new york times titled brave new world of digital intimacy. (you may have to create a free account with NYT to view the entire piece.) in the article, social psychologists compared the advent of incessant online contact to living in a small town where everyone knows your business. now that we never lose touch with old friends, we are always trapped in that community we grew up in.
“Psychologists and sociologists spent years wondering how humanity would adjust to the anonymity of life in the city…a world of lonely people ripped from their social ties. We now have precisely the opposite problem.“
this “ambient awareness,” where every move is observed and shared, is reminiscent of high school. when you’re constantly aware of your friends’ activities, you tend to compare and measure every accomplishment, good fortune, and exciting event against your own. and with everyone trying mightily to paint a beautiful, exotic, auspicious existence to the online world, it’s easy to feel inadequate.
fortunately, my past teenage anxiety doesn’t stay long enough to even shake off the dust, and i welcome the vast majority of memories and reconnections. but it’s still strange to me how a stroll down memory lane can be as mood altering as the original experience.
