Bye Bye Nursery {A Transition}

Things are in transition in the Lipford house.

It's actually a pretty challenging time for me, closing doors on the past and preparing for what comes next.

Nine years ago, I was in the biggest transition of my life.  I'd left full-time employment at a bank and brought home a newborn son, becoming a stay-at-home mom overnight.  I couldn't really express all the highs and lows I was going through, and I certainly didn't have anyone to whom I could say these things out loud.

Some days I wanted to go back to work just to talk with my co-workers, women who had served as a sounding board and advised me on so many smaller changes.  I longed for all the pleasant parts of my previous life:  adult conversations and earning a paycheck.  And lunch breaks!!  How I missed those thirty minutes of quiet.

Instead, I was nursing a child who ate round-the-clock (you don't double your birth weight in two months by slacking in this area), adjusting to the constant touch and demands on my person.  I think the hardest part of being an introvert mom is just how much time is spent in the presence of your children.  I wanted to scream, "Leave me alone!  Nobody touch me for the next hour!"

One thing I did enjoy was setting up our new baby's nursery.  We moved into our house when he was six months old, and I painted his new room and bright, cheerful yellow, with soft white curtains on the windows, bright sheets in the crib, and playful pictures on the walls.  It's a small room, 9 feet by 9 feet, and it was just the right size to fit my babies as they came along, 1 2 3.  Each would transition to a big-boy bed when the next baby boy arrived, and I would lovingly fold the tiny clothes and put them away in the dresser.

So much has happened in nine years.  I am no longer ankle-deep in babies and toddlers.  My days no longer consist of an Elmo video, a walk around the neighborhood, home for lunch, and hey! it's nap time!  We have moved on to bike rides and swim lessons and Marvel heroes.  Questions that range from the annoying ("Why did you drive this way?") to the thought-provoking ("Are police the good guys?") to the down-right incomprehensible ("When you are a baby, will I have to change your diaper?").

The crib is gone, the changing table is obsolete, and the tiny clothes are packed away in storage bins. I don't want this time to be over.  (Seriously, if anyone wants to give me a baby, I will take him no questions asked...)  Somedays, I actually miss the life I used to have, the one full of crying infants and spilled drinks and blowout diapers.  I haven't wanted to let it go.

But this week, the time has come to say goodbye.  Our little yellow room no longer works for our family.  So I'm turning it into a purple "Homework Room", with desks and books and educational artwork.

Part of me knows that this is a necessary change, good even.  We have been blessed with three healthy children who are growing up, who are learning to read and add and figure things out for themselves.  It also means new freedoms and opportunities for me, a chance to write and create and remember who I am independent of all of this.

Still...it's hard to close that door.

On Racial Tension

Well, here it goes.  This is my attempt to write about something that has become a very big issue in our country right now, something that I haven't felt able or qualified to write about before (and let's face it, that hasn't changed) for a few reasons.  One is that I'm white.  I've followed the news a little and every time I see an article about white privilege, I find myself nodding along in agreement.  Yep, that's me, someone who has lived her whole life privileged enough not to have to think about race.  I would rather listen to others share their experiences than try to jump on my platform and tell anyone what is going on with race in America.  The other is that this topic is so HUGE.  It is not only what is happening now, how different cities and states and sectors of society are handling issues of race, but it encompasses everything that has led to this moment.  We are reaping the consequences of decisions made by our parents, our grandparents, and so on and so on all the way back to our nation's founders, 16th century conquistadors, Greek philosophers, and Hebrew kings.  People hating other people because of superficial differences in appearance, religious practice, eating habits, or dress code is one of the only constants we can point to in history.  No matter where, no matter when, somebody was prejudiced against somebody else because human beings just love to break complicated issues down into us vs. them.

The truth is, I am a spectator.  I am not involved in much that happens beyond my front yard.  I am a commentator at best, enjoying a good discussion about what is going on without really doing anything about it.  So this is not me taking a stand; quite literally, I am reclined in bed as I type this.  All I am really hoping to accomplish is to make public the words that I have spoken in private, and, if I may be so bold, talk about the future.

It began tonight at dinner.  My husband and I were trying to have a conversation over the children's chatter, and the topic focused on the issue of race.  My husband (and I should perhaps point out that he and I see things differently from time to time, and so I will express my own opinion and please don't ever assume that he speaks for me or that I speak for him unless we explicitly make that claim) said that racism seems to be getting worse lately for some reason.  But I disagree.  I think racism is honestly making a slow but steady loser's retreat.  However, in the past year or so (because the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner occurred last summer), racial tension has increased dramatically. And I see that as progress.

While I am not qualified to speak about race, I am qualified to speak about history, being a long-time student and lover of it.  There is a word that comes up time and time again as we look back, and that word is revolution.  Now here is the thing I find most interesting about revolutions.  Do you know when they happen?  Do you know what precipitates and provides catalyst for them?  You would think it is when things are at their worst, when people are horribly oppressed and voiceless and they just. can't. take. anymore.  But that isn't when revolution happens.  A revolution comes about when things are getting better.  There is futility in being voiceless and oppressed; only when a light begins to shine at some far off point do people seize their weapons and storm the palaces of their oppressors, demanding equality and justice and demanding blood as recompense.

And so I skim the news and I listen to people talk and I can feel the tension building.  There is anger in America right now, there are mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers demanding that their voices be heard and refusing to accept the status quo.  And I feel a revolution coming.  If you disagree, if you think we have gone backwards and black lives don't matter to the ones holding the guns, ask yourself if anyone would have cared if this happened 30 years ago.  Would anyone have known?  And if you think the police are just doing their jobs and this is all being blown out of proportion and media bias and all that, ask yourself if a cop has ever pointed a gun at you.  In my younger, wilder days (which were quite honestly very tame, but I'm a mom now and speeding seems like a thrill ride for a reckless woman) I got pulled over quite a bit.  I was caught speeding or running a red light, and even though my parents taught me to be polite to the police, I really started to get irritated with them.  And one night (let me emphasize that it was completely dark) I was cruising on home (too fast) and got pulled over a block from my house.  Instead of being appropriately contrite with the officer, I got an attitude.  I said something along the lines of "C'mon man, I live right over there, can you go bother someone else?"  And he let me go with a warning.  So you will excuse me when I say that Darren Wilson overstepped his duties when he shot an unarmed teenager dead in the street right in front of his house because the kid gave him a little lip.  In my story, the guy actually saw me break the law, and the conclusion I am forced to draw is that police treat white and black people differently.

So about that coming revolution.  The tension is building, the protestors have taken to the streets, and I say Don't let up.  Because when was the last time a Congressman sat down to meet with his fellow Congressional leaders and said, "Hey guys, apropos of nothing, I think we should give women the right to vote.  It just occurred to me that it's rather silly that we make all the decisions just because we're men and because we've just always done it that way, and you know our wives and daughters and their friends are actually quite smart and probably capable of making an informed decision at the polls."  Rather, it took more than 70 years of suffragettes marching and petitioning and getting arrested (yay Susan B. Anthony, you go girl!) and storming the institutions of government until they got what they wanted.  Similarly, the Supreme Court justices did not meet in an empty chamber and say, "You know what I just thought of?  We have actual laws in this country that prevent homosexual couples from getting married, and yet we don't have anything that prevents consenting adult heterosexual couples from doing it.  Doesn't that strike you as strange, and even a little illegal?  Why, we should just write a ruling now before anyone realizes what's happened so that if any gay dudes want to put a ring on it, they can?"  Of course they didn't!  Change came about because of focused, intentional efforts to promote gay rights as being something that should be equal to straight rights. (Is that a thing? Is that what we call it?  And btw gays, I watched that How to Survive a Plague documentary and may I just say, you guys and ladies practically wrote the book on civil unrest.  Well done.)

Those in power will always uphold the status quo until it becomes unbearable for them to continue doing so.  And pressure and tension and raging against the machine are the only proven ways to make the powerful pay attention.  So media, keep talking about the cases of excessive use of force by police.  Black people, keep your concerns front and center.  Ordinary citizens, keep an eye (and a camera phone) out for injustice.  All lives should matter, but Justice Department investigations have shown that they don't in actual practice.  I see a revolution coming against the institutionalized racism of our police departments and our courts and I welcome it.  I would like to stress, at this point, the importance of nonviolent protest, the success of both Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr (and yes, I realize they both died for what they believed in and Nelson Mandela smuggled weapons into South Africa and lived to a ripe old age but hear me out).  I think we need action and we need tension and we need pressure on those in power, but I don't think we need armed chaos in our streets and in our cities.  I think the message gets diluted when authorities can claim that both sides have blood on their hands, when righteous anger gives way to mindless vengeance.

Let me conclude with a few things that I believe.  I believe in people.  I believe in a better future.  I believe in making the world a better place, in teaching children love rather than hate, peace rather than war.  I believe that light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.  I believe we are better than our prejudices.  I believe our founding fathers gave us the framework to pursue liberty and justice for all, even if they didn't practice it.  I believe that good wins out in the end.

On Memory and Mystery

I was looking through photos on my mom's flash drive the other night. (The full story is that she loaned me the flash drive months ago to print some pictures for Christmas presents, and I promptly lost it, was unable to give the presents at the appropriate time, and my husband just found it the other night while digging through the couch cushions for the TV remote that we lose every other day.  There.)  This is what she takes pictures of: her grandchildren, flowers people send her, scenic views from trips she takes, and her grandchildren.  I was delighted at the photos of my boys spanning several years.  Sometimes I forget in the hustle of our days and the thinning, almost-pre-adolescent faces that they were each babies.  I forget about their wispy blonde hair and chubby cheeks, the stumpy legs and tiny clothes.

New baby, New Daddy March 2007

Matching jammies, Christmas Eve 2010

Elmo's World!

I paused at the pictures of James, the preschool years.  Part of me "aww"-ing over his cute baby face, but part of me remembering.  I was the person who knew this child best, after spending each day with him, but even to me, he was a mystery.  I spent so much time deciphering gestures and hoots and squeals.  I watched him so closely after the doctor gave him the autism diagnosis, searching for any clue that he'd been wrong, and equally wondering if maybe he was right.  Were James' needs met?  I think so.  But I couldn't be sure; even now I'm not certain if I chose well or completely missed the mark. (Maybe he'll tell me one day.  Kiddo, I'm listening, I promise.)

"James is flying!"

My balloon boys, Fall 2010

Dressed as his second favorite food while collecting his third favorite food
Halloween 2013

I know he liked to be outside.  This was evident even when he was a month old.  Something about stepping through the door from the closed-in, warm house into the chilly spring night air calmed him.  I know he liked to watch Elmo.  From the first time I popped an Elmo's World DVD into the player and that high-pitched fur ball began to speak, my son was riveted.  He quickly figured out the symbols on the machine for play, open, skip.  I regretted exposing him to it when I lost the ability to watch my own shows and movies during the day (a right I am just now regaining...everyone has to be quiet and go play somewhere else so Mommy can watch Downton Abbey!).  James was also a fan of simple $1 pleasures.  A small fry from McDonald's...and OH BOY if we didn't stop at any of the four we passed on the way to speech therapy, I heard about it from the backseat.  Not in words (hence the speech therapy), but his point was clear.  A red balloon from the grocery store...how our trips were transformed from short-term family torture to quick and *almost* easy when we tied that balloon to the front of the cart and plunked him down in the seat.  He would stare up at it, pull on the ribbon, watch it float back up.  I can't even remember when we stopped doing that, when he no longer asked for it by halting and gazing longingly behind the floral counter.

I have heard grumblings in the autism community against the use of the puzzle piece to represent the disorder.  I think one of the points is that a puzzle represents children, who only make up a small percentage of people living with autism (clearly people who haven't done a 1000 piece puzzle like the one I helped my parents complete in December).  But mostly I think it's that the metaphor doesn't hold up.  See, when I do a puzzle, I start out with all the pieces, and the goal is to fit them all together correctly.  When that is accomplished, I have a finished puzzle.  I can see the image clearly, and I'm done.  I used to look at James like a puzzle to be solved.  I was flipping them over, searching for edge pieces, grouping the greens and the purples and the reds and the whites.  I rearranged the pieces and changed my seat and sat back with a cup of tea, desperately hoping that a change in perspective would make a difference.  Lately, Autism Speaks has tried to promote this idea that something is "missing" in autistic people, autism research, the elusive autism answer.  If my son was a puzzle, then that would seem likely.  If my son was something to be figured out, if he would someday be a clear and complete picture, then I would agree that some of the pieces must have fallen on the floor or been eaten by the dog.

My boys: Mikey trying to be like his brothers even though his balance is not as good as theirs,
Winston sitting in the middle not needing his parents' touch
James taking refuge in my arms from the heat and the photo session

But I tend to side with the autistics.  I no longer see my son as a puzzle, nor is it my job to solve him. Instead, as I look back through these photos, I think of a mystery.  Isn't every person a certain amount of mystery to those around them?  What secret memories do they hide?  What unfathomable depths form their soul?  What are they thinking when they tap their chin, look out the window, at this very moment?  The best part of any relationship is unraveling the mystery.  And that's what I am doing with my son.  The little boy in those photos has a terribly choppy buzz cut, because he shrieked so loudly and protested so vehemently every time we took him to a hair salon and the lady approached with scissors, that I started cutting it myself.  It would take a long time, sometimes even an hour, but if I perched him on the bathroom sink and let him splash naked in the water, he would hold his head still-ish for me to buzz off the overgrowth of hair.  It wasn't always easy for me, but it was the only solution I could find.  I don't cut his hair anymore.  Now we look through "Going Places" on the iPad and talk about what is going to happen and then we walk into the hair salon and he sits in the chair and plays some version of Angry Birds and holds relatively still for about 10 minutes while the lady quickly cuts and trims.  And after 10 minutes he begins to squirm and slide and removes his cape and tells me "All done Mom" and I tell the lady "Good work, we are finished" whether she thinks she is done or not and we pay and leave.  Oh, and he gets a sucker.  I fully expect that in another five years, hair cuts will look different from now, just as now they look different from five years ago.  Because unlike a puzzle, a mystery has the ability to change.  A mystery is a fluid, ethereal secret.  A mystery has no end date, no final picture, no completion.  As soon as one question is answered, a dozen more need to be asked.  Sometimes we have to just accept that we can't know everything.  But I understand that there is no easy, pleasant bumper sticker picture to accompany calling our loved ones a "mystery".  Maybe a door?  Or an image from the Hubble telescope of space (I know James would like that one)?

College Memories

"Failure. Anyone working toward meaningful change will taste it often. When that happens, the frustration we feel turns inward, and suffocates. Self-loathing and a toxic sludge of shame can follow.

If frustration is the fuel for the engine of change, then grace is coolant that keeps the thing from exploding. When we fail on the path to New, extending grace to ourselves is vital. It is only with grace that we can stand back up and keep walking, smiling and laughing at how we fell."  -"Science" Mike McHargue

Commencement May 2002

I have an uneasy relationship to my alma mater.  I am a college graduate, which makes me proud, but I don't use my degree, which makes me feel bad.  I am an alumni, but not one who is able to make generous financial contributions.  And because I don't have a "job", I don't really need to network or make connections through mixers and alumni events.  But I still read the magazine that comes in the mail and check the emails.  It's how I got this lovely computer that I am typing on.  With that positive experience in the recent past, I decided to accept an invitation to bring my family up to Kent for the annual "Tray Fest" aka sledding down the hilly Front Campus.  This sounded fun.  And since I didn't do social activities when I was actually a student, it would give me the opportunity to create memories with my kids.

But the yucky feelings began as we loaded up the car with gloves and sleds and extra clothes.  I got on the familiar road that I traveled so many times alone, this time with my whole family.  And I felt a sense of dread.  It has been almost 13 years since I graduated, and at least 10 since I've been on the campus.  College was easily the worst few years of my life.  It was a time when I was the least healthy version of myself, when I was chasing all the wrong things and dissatisfied with what resulted.  I lost myself in the crush of brick buildings and well-dressed girls and heavy books and emptiness inside.

Apple Hall girls

Why was my reticence so linked to this place?  I mean, it's not the location that caused my depression or deprived me of friendship.  It's not like anyone actively sought to destroy my happiness and peace of mind.  It was merely the setting, the backdrop of my misery.  I ran through the usual list of regrets, all the things I should have done differently.

Upon arriving, there was a jarring sense of worlds colliding: thirty-something me with kids in tow revisiting where young adult me used to walk.  My irresponsible and immature past overshadowed by the people who depend on me everyday.  And, inexplicably, a fear that no one would talk to me or even say something mean.

Daredevils January 2015

Then my kids worked their magic.  They eagerly climbed aboard their sleds and shrieked and laughed and hollered as they rocketed down a very slippery and very steep hill.  We took turns riding down with them and helping them mount their plastic chariots.  People talked to us, mostly to comment how much fun was being had and how determined and brave the boys were. (They really are. Wow. So proud of these kids.)  By the time our fingers and toes and noses were red and stiff with cold, I was enjoying myself.  I was filled with a sense of nostalgia, remembering the classes I took in the buildings around us.  I found myself wondering if the boys would come back here someday as young men.  I pointed out the places I used to go as we drove around the campus.  I showed them the library and the parking lot that I was only lucky enough to use about four times, as it filled quickly each morning.  We passed the massive gym, "the Rec", and they begged to go inside.  Chris told them they would have to grow older and become students for that to happen.  It didn't fill me with fear for their tender hearts.  I think these kids are going to be okay.  Sure, they will struggle and fail at times, but their struggles and failures will be their own; they won't be mine.

We drove home with french fries and laughter, and I felt my memories reset.  Yes, I could have done things differently...but I know that now, only because of the pain I experienced to learn about myself. Is it fun to be lonely?  NO.  But it helps point me in the direction of healthy relationships.  Is it exciting to feel your mind sink into despair and lose sight of the future?  NO.  But I am grateful for each day since then that has dawned and the life that continues to grow and evolve out of that desperate place.  Is it pleasant to grasp at the pieces of yourself as they disappear and realize that you are left with nothing?  NO.  But sometimes we need to empty ourselves for better thoughts and ideas to take root and grow.  My years in college were miserable, but my college didn't make me miserable.  I was suffering the pains of growing and becoming something new.  And you guys, I love who I have become.  I am so glad to be the woman sledding down the hill with her wonderful boys and laughing with her husband.  I love the friends who surround me and encourage me and redeem all the hurt from toxic relationships in the past.  I'm glad for the distance from who I used to be, and the promise of who I am becoming.

Future student? January 2015

Let me end with a quote from Mikey, who is very eager to plan his future and experience EVERYTHING:  "When my teeth fall out, I get big, and I grow tall, then I can go to the gym and be student at college."

On Temptation

So the hubs and I got a date night this past weekend.  It was glorious to get in the car without having to buckle anyone in, to drive to the movie theater and order popcorn to share, to sit and laugh and talk through the previews without being interrupted.  We watched a (live-action!) movie.  We went out to dinner.  And with a tummy full of good food and giddy with all the freedom of the night, I whipped out my phone and started researching diet cleanses.  Because...well, I'm not really sure why, actually. It was something that we talked about back in July, with the hubs expressing some interest in the idea, which also kind of sounded interesting to me.  We both suck at the whole "healthy eating" thing.  We are both content to drink pop and eat grilled cheese sandwiches with chips, then follow this delicious meal with ice cream.  But lately we've seen the necessity of curbing our excesses in the food department.  It's been tough, let me tell you.  Replacing delicious, sugary treats with say, carrot sticks, is no fun.  Drinking that daily allotment of water (64 oz!) leaves little room for lattes or Cherry Coke.

And somehow, in the heady final moments of our kid-free time, we agreed to try a three day cleanse.  I found some recipes on a women's running website for an 1,800 calorie a day meal plan.  This seemed smarter than a liquid cleanse, since we have grown up responsibilities that require us to not get completely loopy (besides which, we all learned from growing up watching Oprah that weight loss from liquid diets won't stay off).  This plan promised to remove five pounds in the three day time frame, which would be awesome for me and a nice bump for the hubs, who has been steadily losing weight for the past year.  We went to the store and stocked up on veggies and seeds and nuts, which totaled less than our usual weekly trip. Nice!  On Sunday, I began cooking so the hubs could pack his lunch the next morning.  The first problem was when I went to make the Carrot Ginger soup.  I HATE cooked carrots.  They have made me gag every single time I've eaten them, which was quite a few times in childhood, since my mom couldn't take a hint that they were making me barf.  I thought, maybe the other veggies and spices will mask the taste.  Maybe it won't be so bad.  But when lunchtime rolled around on Monday, and I was so hungry after the pitiful breakfast of flaxseeds and almond milk (didn't get the fruit that day, my son swiped it while I was packing lunches), the cooked carrot taste was overwhelming.  Not to mention that what actually gives food FLAVOR, you know, like taste good, that comes from stuff like meat, salt, and sugar.  This diet is lacking those umami elements, if you will allow me to be pretentious and use my limited knowledge from Food Network.

The salad part of the meals was pretty good, especially when I added avocado.  Mmm, I'm a Texas girl deep down, and I love me some avocado!  We are also in the good apple season here, so I enjoyed my afternoon snack of King David apples from our local orchard.  But mostly, I didn't really enjoy the food.  It didn't taste good, it didn't fill me up, and then my caffeine-deprivation headache set in.  All I could think about were meaty, melted cheese sandwiches, thick frosting on yummy cupcakes, salty chips, fizzy pop.  All the food I was going without danced a conga line through my mind non-stop, and my mouth was on perpetual salivation mode.  Which finally brings me to the topic at hand: Temptation.  Oh boy, have I been tempted this week.  I've been tempted to quit the cleanse.  I've been tempted to sneak something while my husband is at work, thinking about going out with the cash in my wallet so he doesn't see a charge to Wendy's pop up in the bank account, the Pringles in the cupboard, even a freaking peanut butter and jelly sandwich when the kids have their afternoon snack.  I have wanted so badly to forego the deprivation and sacrifice, because it's hard, and besides, this whole thing was voluntary (and my idea, says the hubs).

How often in my life have I really resisted temptation?  How often have these mental images flooded my mind and I've powered through and persisted?  I'm thinking not very much.  Because, see, I think of something like drug use, this terrible thing that sinks its claws so deeply into a person's life, this constant temptation, and I say, well I've never done drugs.  But I leave out the part where I've never been tempted to do drugs.  It really doesn't sound very appealing to me.  And it's not like I've spent much time around them or people doing them.  Those are just the facts of my life.  So does that make me some amazing person?  Because I never did something that it never crossed my mind to do?  NO! You know who is amazing?  My son's first mom, who spent her adult life in the throes of one addiction or another, and in just a few weeks she will be celebrating one year of sobriety.  She has fought these urges, these temptations, she has forged new pathways for her brain and her life and how she sees herself and she has become a new person.  That's amazing.  And that's not me.

My vices are more socially acceptable, sure.  People just kind of shrug and don't look too closely when food is your addiction, when emotional upsets send you to the cupboard or the fast-food drive thru, when your weight balloons and your clothes no longer fit (especially if we can offer up the excuse "I've just had a baby!").  But why not?  I mean, food problems can be equally destructive to our health as drug or alcohol abuse.  Food can take control of our lives, our finances, can become a master that we must serve.  And I've been thinking lately about all of this, the food and the temptations and the struggle, and I asked myself, Have I ever had a passing thought about french fries and not immediately driven to Wendy's?  Have I ever been thirsty and reached past the Cherry Coke for a nice, cold water?  I couldn't think of a single time when I've made the good choice, the healthy choice, in the face of temptation.

So now I'm trying.  I am actively engaged in the battle against my food demons.  Some days I want so badly to slip back into the old way, the unconscious, stuff my face way.  But it's not possible once you've woken up to fall so quickly back to sleep.  I think about how many grams of sugar are in my drink.  I remember the healthy foods waiting for me at home as I drive past the restaurants.  I think about what a struggle it is to run when my body is full of saturated fats and salty foods.  Among all the terrible elements of this cleanse, I've actually felt fine energy wise.  I was pretty sleepy the first day and got a long night's sleep without any caffeine or sugar to keep me awake.  But my body feels good.  I finally drank a Pepsi today to get rid of the headache from my withdrawal, and I ate some toast around 1 am so I could fall asleep instead of laying in bed listening to my tummy growl.  Tonight we are allowed to eat meat, and I am so excited.  I'm looking forward to feeling full, and I'm glad the cleanse will be over.  But the hubs and I both agree this has given us some ideas for ways we can integrate more healthy foods into our regular eating habits.  ("The salad is actually pretty good, just leave out the kale," he told me today.  No argument here.)  And tomorrow morning, when the wide world of food is once again open to me, I think I'll have some oatmeal and fruit.  It's a long way from the Snickers and SnoBalls that used to start my day.

Five Minute Friday: NEW

A comfy, well-worn shoe

Well that's a scary word.  NEW?  I am someone who likes old.  I like worn-in.  No change.  New makes me think of tight shoes on the first day of school.

Or, speaking of the first day of school, how about who will I sit by?  Who is in my class?  Will I be able to get from my locker to class on time?  Who are my teachers?  Will they like me?  Will I understand what they are teaching?

Or new jobs.  How do I do this?  How will I know if I'm doing it right, or getting it all horribly, horribly wrong?  What are the guidelines?

New is like uncharted territory.  New is taking a machete to a jungle wall of trees and vines and making a path.  New is unknown obstacles and never-before-faced foes.

New is uncomfortable.  New is saying NO to how it's always been done.  New is potentially life-changing.  But it's scary.  How do we ever come up with the courage to try new?  Is it like that saying, we only try something new when it becomes unbearable to remain the same?  Who's with me?

My brave son on the first day of school (in his new shoes!)