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Nannying Has Ruined Me For Motherhood

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As a nanny, I:

  • arrive half an hour early to sit in a carpool lane
  • drive across town to pick up dance recital outfits
  • stock my car with snacks
  • say things like, “you’re hearing, but you’re not listening”
  • pretend to enjoy their every new interest
  • spend hours sitting through their events and practices

In a lot of ways, I’m learning how to be a mom.  And while I absolutely adore the kids that I nanny, this does not make me excited to be a mom.  Why?  Because I get paid!  All the boring parenting stuff?  Comes with a paycheck.  Real moms and dads do not get paid for all the work they do, which I think is appalling.  Whenever I have kids, I’m going to keep track of my hourly rate and retroactively charge them for my care when they’re grown and making money.

Or, put another way, I have a lot of respect for moms and dads who invest so fully in their children without getting paid.

Thank You, Dallas Theological Seminary

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I am a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary!  Three years of reading, writing, and learning, and I am a Master of Biblical Counseling.  I am so relieved to have a brain break, but I admit that part of me is sad to leave the school behind.

IMG_4416DTS is not a perfect place because it is full of Christians.  But despite my occasional rages against the more conservative leanings of the school, I am so grateful to have attended.  My faith blossomed at DTS as I learned to see truth everywhere–in psychology textbooks, in the Bible, in nature.  I learned to trust in a God bigger than I’d ever considered, a God who cannot be fathomed except that He made Himself known.  I learned to stop putting so much of my identity in my GPA, to value knowledge for its own sake rather than for a grade.  And more than that, I learned to put knowledge into practice, because what’s the point of having wisdom if it doesn’t affect the way you live and love other people?

Most of all, DTS taught me to appreciate grace.  I live so often by the law of karma, demanding good for the good things I do and expecting bad when I do something wrong.  I learned, by teaching and by experience, that God throws cause and effect out of the window.  I learned to delight in a God who gives and gives and gives, who held out His arms to His people no matter how many times they ran away from Him.  Continue reading →

Celebrating Summer in April

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Although I’m two weeks away from my graduation, all coursework is turned in and my brain is free!  There is still a nagging fear that I ought to be reading a book on eschatology or writing a 12-page paper, but I’m starting to shout “NOPE,” at my anxieties a little more quickly.  It helped that Saturday was a beautifully sunny 80 degree day, so Lindsay and I celebrated an early start to summer.

The most significant transition of summer living is, of course, when women start shaving above their knees after long months of jeans-covered freedom.  Exposing all that new skin to the world can disorient those around you, especially since my Scottish skin veritably glows with paleness.  Continue reading →

A Fully Realized Christian Hope Counteracts the Cynicism of Postmodernism and Legalism

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I grew up in two worlds: the postmodern culture of my public education and the isolationist culture of my church. Although I was not consciously aware of the secular culture in which I grew up, it influenced me all the same, both implicitly shaping me and as I explicitly reacted against it. On the positive side, postmodernism taught me to value individual experiences and to look on the world with wonder at the multitudes of cultures and belief systems around the world. On the negative side, I internalized a belief that I could never fully be sure of anything. This applied to friendships, family members, and truth. I became a cynical person who doubted people’s love and wondered if I had any purpose in life. Although I was a loud-and-proud Christian at my public school, the theology I parroted rarely took root on an emotional level to counteract these fears.

In fact, although my church tried to offer hope in the face of a “sinful” culture, the theology I learned only exacerbated the loneliness and detachment of postmodernism.  I was taught a theology that was centered upon the cross in hope of a future in heaven. I learned about the depth of love Jesus had for us by dying a horrific death in atonement for our sins. I had a guilt-based relationship with God in which I feared every new sin I committed would crucify Jesus all over again. The only hope, I believed, was in heaven. This world was entirely awful, and I certainly was not capable of making things better. Therefore, I looked forward to the day when I would be dead and blissfully happy in heaven, a nebulous place of whites and golds where I knew my sin-stained self would be able to see Jesus face-to-face. Continue reading →

Why I Love Moving

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I’m a planner, so although I’m two months away from moving to Peoria from Dallas, I have already started thinking about packing.  Which, and I know this might make me extremely weird, genuinely excites me.  I love packing!  I love moving!  And I think it all comes down to simplicity.

The physical and psychological weight of clutter depresses me.  I like to have a few things I love very much (my cat and my books), and the rest is cycled in and out of my life.  It’s too easy to accumulate junk when you live in a full-sized house for year after year.  The more you have, the less meaningful individual things are.

In addition to the relief of having less, there is something very cleansing about starting over.  I love routine, but only to a point.  Eventually I grow tired of these things always being in this place, and assuming that this item can only fit here.  Moving into a new room in a new house offers a chance for creativity.  You get to see your favorite possessions in a new light, because they’re featured in a new space.  Old things feel new again.

Moving can be stressful.  But there’s a reason I’ve lived in four places in the last five years.  I love getting to de-clutter and start over!

Leaving Friends

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During my last semester in college, I shrank away from friends and became an almost-recluse.  I was anticipating leaving the people I loved, and the fearful part of myself thought it would hurt less if I left them emotionally before I left them physically.  Thankfully, my best friend called me out on my actions and made me aware of the fact that, although it might help me, it was hurting her.

In the last ten years, I have moved five times (I’m jumping forward to include my move to Greece in a few months).  Each time I left people that I loved deeply and considered family.  There is still a part of me that wants to avoid getting close to people for fear of inevitably being separated.  But I’ve learned that there is a particular kind of bravery that allows a person to keep opening their heart to joy and pain.  I’ve learned that I want to fling myself into loving people, experiencing the heights of friendships and depths of loneliness.  Continue reading →

4 Guilty Pleasures

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Whenever I feel guilty or ashamed about liking something, my coping strategy goes like this:  casually mention it in a way disassociated from myself.  Bring it up again, with a little humor added.  Talk about it ALL THE TIME ALWAYS until people beg me to shut up.  Write a blog post about it.

Although I have grown in self-confidence and I don’t quite care as much what people think about me or my opinions, my guilty pleasures are still pleasures that make me feel guilty, as though I am too old, too mature, too whatever to like the things that I like.  I will probably always have the spectre of Other People’s Judgments hanging over my head, but today I’m saying “I don’t care!” by fangirling real hard about the dumb things that I love.  Continue reading →

Find Out Why You’re Single With Myers-Briggs!

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My friend sent me a link to this article, “Here’s Why You’re Still Single Based on Your Myers-Briggs Personality Type” which I immediately knew would be up my alley.  Singleness?  Personality tests?  Self-awareness?  Yes please to everything.

I scrolled down to INFJ….and barked a surprised laugh before staring open-mouthed at my phone.  Continue reading →

Looking Back: Well That’s Embarrassing

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I’ve always fallen hard for male singers who can rock a falsetto, so it’s no surprise that I loved Darren Hayes’s Insatiable when it came out in 2002.  I never owned the song, but I distinctly remember shrieking with joy every Sunday morning it cracked the Top 40 on the radio.  I would dance around my room, singing every word as I got ready for church.

Ten years later, idly searching for new songs to buy on iTunes, Insatiable came to mind.  I bought it, downloaded it, and listened to it.  My mouth dropped open and my face grew beet red.  I imagined myself singing the lyrics on Sunday morning, one door down from my mom getting ready for church.  Had she listened to me sing this?

Look, okay, here’s the song.  Continue reading →

Bizarre Celebrations with My Fatick Family

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Nearly five years ago, I created this dance video while I was living in Senegal.  Today, I am traveling to Tennessee to visit a whole bunch of people who lent their groove thangs to the making of this work of art.

There’s so much I love about this video.  There are, of course, my hilarious and beautiful friends awkwardly dancing in restaurants, grocery stores, and on rooftops.  There are the “oh no, how do I fill this space?” moments where I single-handedly address the camera.  But mostly, I love how so much of my Senegal experience is captured in these tiny moments.

That’s the school room where Liz and I taught English and practiced the Kochibama skit with high school students.  That’s the rooftop where we sang hymns until the sun set and I couldn’t see anyone’s faces.  Those are the birthday decorations for Liz and Kim’s combined birthday party, hosted in the guest house in Dakar where I once had horrifying food sickness.  That’s my tiny bed with the mosquito netting I used regularly after hearing about a lizard snuggling into someone’s pillow.  Those are the pictures of friends I brought, assuming I would be paralyzed by home-sickness, only to find a new family in Fatick.

My Fatick family.  I shared life with them for five months, and that could have been the end.  But I love them, and five years later, I never want to stop hanging out with them.

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