#myproject41 12/365: Barely Coherent Ramblings of a Woman Being Disciplined

This is hard. 

Trying to carve out the time to write each day is hard. With two girls home, finding a quiet hour is dang near impossible. And while I write in just an hour, it takes me another one or two to edit and find pics and put everything all together. I know the results don't yet show that effort, but it's true.

This isn't something I want to do during the day anyway because my time with my girls is limited. I mean honestly, I know I am blessed to be able to stay home with them...yet I find myself irritatedly waving my girls away so I can have quiet and focus. I ignore their sad eyes as they turn back around. 

Mama is too busy to play. 

I keep thinking that this will be easier to do once Quinleigh is in kindergarten...and then I am ashamed for wishing that would hurry up because why would I want to hurry up to spend less time with her? Is me being a writer more important than being a mom?

It can't be.

But still. Those thoughts bounce around in my head. It's hard not to be distracted even when I'm being super intentional with my sweet girls.

So I write at night. Which should be my time with my son, who is gone for 12 hours a day. Or with my husband who has to go to bed early because he gets up so early for work. And then I feel like I'm neglecting everyone and everything because "Mama has to write". And Quinleigh will just not go to bed properly this week. So then I'm up until 2am.

I'm only like 12 days in and already feeling so frustrated. Feeling like a failure. 

I keep meaning to get up early to write in the quiet, but so far...unsuccessful. Still trying to find my groove here. 

I suppose creating any new habit is hard. Breaking old ones certainly are.

And through this writing project, I'm doing both.

Breaking the habit of *not* doing what I don't FEEL like doing. 

Or maybe better said, doing what I don't feel like doing. 

Did that even make sense?

Because most of the time, I don't feel like writing. The times when I do feel like writing are completely satisfying to me. But this season of writing every day to build the habit? Of writing because I said I would? Of writing for the purpose of "showing up"? 

Not at all satisfying.

I'm not to the point yet - again, I know, I'm less than 2 weeks in, not even technically long enough to count as a formed habit which is like 21 days or something - where I'm enjoying this journey.

I've never considered myself a "go getter." I might be Type A in some respects, but on a regular basis I'm not the kind who hustles or gets all the things done or runs a successful home-based business or climbs any ladders or busts out glass ceilings because all of my life I've basically allowed my feelings to dictate my actions.

Feelings of being tired. Afraid. Not ready. Ashamed. Anxious. Meh.

To be honest, I can handle a major, out-of-my-control life crisis far better than I can the smaller demands of my every day.

Know where that's gotten me?

I'm 100 pounds overweight. I'm learning to eat better but daily exercise is not a part of my schedule.

I have a zillion unfulfilled dreams, including the one where I'm a professional writer.

I have an angry ex-husband that seems to hate my guts and I still deal with the consequences of following my feelings 14 years ago on a near daily basis.

I have kids who have been hurt deeply by other people's reactions to me following my feelings 14 years ago. 

I have lost friends by saying what I was feeling without thinking first.

I am surrounded by unfinished house projects and things that need to be cleaned.

I have done things I swore I would never, ever do.

But truth be told, I'm living the exact life I have chosen. Because choice by choice, I have created my own mess and decided to stay in it. I am not a victim.

And for a long time, I've allowed my feelings of failure and all the other ugly ones convince me that there's no point in me trying anymore, because it won't do any good anyway.

But the cool thing about following Jesus is that He loves me too much to let me stay in my mess. The cool thing about believing in and loving the One who created all of us is I know I don't have to do any of this much-needed life change in my own strength.

The cool thing is, I have a heavenly Father who disciplines me.

I had a huge spiritual breakthrough last year and now, I believe I'm in a season of the Lord being quiet because I need to learn to do the things asked of me whether I have feelings about the things or not. But oh my heart. Him being quiet while I am struggling is oh.so.painful. 

And I don't like it. Not one bit.

But I'm grateful for it. Because I know that the Lord disciplines His children whom He loves. Because I know mastering this skill will only serve me well. Because I know that He is still here with me, even if I don't feel Him. 

But I'm also battling shame that I'm 41 and just now truly embarking on this journey. Lots of wishing thoughts in my head. I wish I would've listened sooner. I wish I had learned this younger. I wish I didn't have to do this with my kids and anyone else watching. And I already know wishing only works in Disney movies. Which my life is not.

  

Wishes are lies. These voices in my head lie. Liar liar pants on fire. But they do it so often and are so good at it that sometimes, I forget they are not truth. They overwhelm me, drown me, cause me to feel powerless against them. And so I begin to believe again what they say and stay there.

"You are lazy," they say. As if that is who I am.

"You are fat, which makes you ugly," they say. As if my body is my worth.

"No one wants to read what you've written. You're not any good anyway. Especially compared to *insert anyone else's name here*," they mock me. As if needing to be liked by every other human is the purpose of me writing. 

"You are less than," they say, which makes zero sense in light of one of the previous confessions. 

As if Jesus didn't die for me, too.

Sometimes I panic in the shower. I think I do my best writing in the shower, which is a pity because to my knowledge, no one has yet invented a machine I can get my hands on that will translate my thoughts directly to the page. Without coming out of my mouth first. Because for some reason, I cannot get my thoughts out through my mouth the same way I can through my fingers.

This morning I panicked. My head and heart began writing painfully honest confessions of ways I've sinned, ways I've hurt others, ways I've made mistakes and by the end of it all I was being washed by as many tears as hot water.

I don't want fear to be the reason I'm not honest.

To be honest, I've spent much of my life as a liar.

But that is a post for another day. 

But thinking about sharing things that I've never shared with people before, for the sake of...what? What is my goal in doing that?

To get things off my chest? To challenge people to see who my real friends are? To encourage others to be honest, too? To show that the Lord uses our ugliness and sin and makes all things beautiful?

All of the things? Share all of the things? I know I need to find that balance between being honest and being wise. 

And clearly, I don't have much of a track record of either.

And the lies start in again.

"If anyone *really* knew you, they wouldn't love you. They wouldn't want to listen to a word you have to say."

Lies.

Because my Father, who knows me better than anyone, loves me anyway.

And He tells me I have power over my ugly thoughts. I have power over my feelings. They are not the same as truth. They were meant to be a gift to enhance my life, not to direct it.

This is where choosing to believe that He has good for me is crucial. Because if He's calling me to do a thing or go through a thing, I have to choose to believe He loves me. I have to choose to trust Him.

And then I have to sit down and write.

Whether I feel like it or not.

Xoxo.

#myproject41 11/365: Lies, A Tattoo and A Proposal

It's funny how different people cope with grief.

Not like, funny haha. But funny interesting.

By the time July rolled around, Eric was living here with his folks and we all spent a lot of time together as a family. Even though the kids and I weren't technically family yet.

That could be tricky sometimes. I felt Greg's folks start to pull the kids and I back in some, but I still really struggled with my role in the family. Especially because with Eric in town, emotions were high for all of us, all of the time.

I remember one evening we were all over at Pat and Carol's for dinner. It was a little chaotic as we each had different jobs prepping for dinner, and little almost-5-year-old Teiley asked Eric something. Instinctively, he responded to her with a, "Go ask your Aunt Kristie," and suddenly, time stopped.

I hadn't even noticed, really, over all the commotion. But one second everyone was fine and the next Eric was sobbing in the laundry room, realizing he'd replied to Teiley as if she were Madigan, and then we were all in tears.

Once we recovered, we sat down and prayed together - always emotional - and ate dinner. I remember feeling so very aware suddenly of my kids' behavior. Little things - kids being kids - that I would've let slide in the past were now causing me a lot of anxiety. I could feel my blood pressure rise with every complaint that came out of Tei's mouth, every burp Jasper let fly. I knew what I was feeling was completely inappropriate for the actual situation, but I started to get physically agitated from the stress.

A sneaky little voice in my head whispered, "Look at those kids. They are awful! No manners! You're a terrible mother! And everyone here wishes they were dead instead of Liam and Madigan."

*gasp*

Thoughts like this plagued me during these months. Maybe it was a bizarre version of survivor's guilt...I don't know. But I know who was responsible, and it makes me furious.

But at some point, it all got to be too much. So to add to my stress-eating, I decided to get a tattoo. I already had some, but this was a big one, for me. I think I needed to channel my pain into something beautiful. And I think I needed to show the family I was all in, I was committed.

A friend of mine was training to be a tattoo artist, and around this time she was also trying to raise money for her upcoming missions trip. So one afternoon in early July 2011, I sat in her chair for 5 straight hours. Well, I say "straight" hours, but I had to stop her a couple times so I didn't pass out. I knew I had to finish the piece that same day or I'd never come back. This wasn't my first tattoo, but it was my first with color and shading, and by far the most painful. And with it on my back, I wasn't able to watch it like I had the ones before it, which somehow made the pain even more intense for me. After 5 torturous hours, it was done.

I chose wings for two reasons: Eric often referred to his kids as his angels, and as you've seen, large angel wings surround their graves. But I wanted these to be more bird-like, to represent how we were all going to be able to move above and past this tragedy.

I was nervous to show everyone. Only Greg knew I was getting it. Again, those voices told me I had no right to insert myself into their pain like this. But I did it anyway. 

I showed back up at the house and revealed the new ink. There were a lot of tears all around. Not sure that Pat and Carol approved, exactly, haha, but they were touched. Eric hugged me.

That night I carefully tried to sleep with plastic wrap stuck to my back. It shifted in the night and the next morning, my shirt was stuck to one of the wings. Getting my shirt wet didn't even occur to me, so I just carefully peeled my shirt off...and a lot of skin came with it.

To this day, the left wing is scarred along the top. And I actually think it's perfect that way. Fitting. These wings can fly but they'll never be the same again.

Some people eat. Some people get tattoos. Eric is covered in them now. And some people shop.

That July, Jasper and Teiley were spoiled rotten by the Murphy's for their birthdays. Christmas was more of the same for all of us. A blessing and a curse, I think. Because being spoiled like that is fun, but when you know pain is attached to it, it makes it sad.

That season was hard on my relationship with Greg.

Shortly after the kids were killed, he quit his job to go on a road trip with his brother and sister, as Eric moved from Colorado to Washington. They took their time and bonded and had a good trip together.

When he came back, he didn't feel like he could just go back to work in the shop where we'd met. He needed something different, so he called up an old boss he used to wire for, and got some travel gigs.  

Greg would be gone in California and Connecticut for 3, 4, 6 weeks at a time. I hated him being gone and we'd often end up fighting on the phone when we could connect. 

When he was in town, little 5-year-old-pitbull Teiley had turned super protective of me and while she liked Greg, she didn't want him anywhere near me. If he so much as looked at me too long or sat next to me on the couch, she would force herself between us and start throwing a huge fit. There were definitely a few months towards the end of 2011 when Greg and I didn't think we'd make it as a couple because of Teiley's interference. 

I found out later that didn't stop Greg from calling my mom from Connecticut one night to ask her if he could marry me. Apparently, her "She's a very special girl," reply was in the tone of, "Are you sure you wanna marry her? She's...different." Haha! 

Thanks, Mom.

Greg decided he'd take his chances. 

But there was still the matter of Teiley.

At the time, we all attended an evening service on Sundays. Greg had been at our house for the day, and as we all started getting in our prospective cars to head to church (because Greg would head straight home after that), Teiley declared, "I'm going to church with Greggy Pants!" 

Greg and I looked at each other, eyes wide. This had never happened before. Teiley had never wanted to go with Greg like that. He grinned and put her car seat in his car and we all met at church.

Turned out, that's the breakthrough he'd been waiting for.

Not too long after that, on my birthday, Greg showed up at my work one day during his lunch break. I was on the phone when he came in so gave him a distracted wave and barely noticed the balloon and flowers with him. When I hung up and turned around, he was behind me, on one knee, holding out a ring.

I totally did the girly thing and gasped in surprise, hands clapped to my mouth.

I don't remember what he said, other than Jasper had picked out the ring. An amethyst, my birth stone...

We'd been talking about getting married for months and months, and we more or less had our wedding planned by this point, so of course I said yes! But I couldn't get Greg to commit to a date just yet...

You already know I like dates. I get attached to them. So I really wanted to get married on our one year anniversary, which was rapidly approaching. Do you wanna know how I finally talked Greg into it?

I'd been hounding him via text all day. He was back working at the shop temporarily and I was in the office, going into crazy-girl mode. We were texting back and forth about a date and he kept pushing back my March 24th idea.

"What are you scared of?" I asked him, super compassionately, lovingly.

No reply.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease?" came my text again.

*pause*

*pause*

*pause*

"Fine."

Yes! He committed!

But I had to make for sure for sure.

"So, can I like, Facebook it? Cuz once I do that there's no turning back."

*pause*

*pause*

"Ok. Yes."

He's so lucky to have me.

Turns out the long pauses were (mostly) because he was elbow deep in grease under a hood and had to take his gloves off every time his phone buzzed.

He's since thanked me for pushing him into marrying me. (Hey. My Mom tried to warn him!)

Xoxo.

#myproject41 10/365: Missing Liam & Madigan (Greg Part 5)

Eric hit it off instantly with Jasper and Tei. 

  

They absolutely adore their Uncle Eric. Everyone who has known Liam and Madigan *and* Jasper and Teiley have actually been a little freaked out at their similarities. Not just in age (Jasper was 7 months older than Liam, and Madigan was about 16 months older than Tei), but in their personalities, mannerisms, likes, etc.

Both the girls were big into gymnastics, and sassy as heck, I'm told. Both Liam and Jasper were the sweet ones - thoughtful, kind, eager to please. And at the time, both boys were into martial arts.

Liam loved the movie Cars. (For Jasper, it's Planes.) To this day our family still watches it on his birthday, or on the anniversary of the kids' death. 

I've always left it up to Greg how to acknowledge those days each year - or I did until a couple years ago. For the first couple of years the whole Murphy family would go to the kids' favorite restaurant to remember them: Red Robin. 

Can I be real honest? I came to dread those dinners. 

When gathered all together, we're a large family. So we'd go to Red Robin (or one time, Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse), order a large amount of food, and we probably looked like a normal family just enjoying each other's company.

Inevitably, the unsuspecting waiter or waitress would always show up halfway through the meal and ask, "So, what are we celebrating tonight?"

*insert real awkward silence*

Suddenly we're all quiet, choking back the tears. Finally, one of us will gather the courage to vaguely share we're celebrating a birthday.

"Oh, fun! Whose birthday is it?!" always comes the reply from the kind waitperson.

*more silence*

How do you even answer a question like that in this situation? It almost seems unfair to me to put that on the poor guy or gal who is just doing their best to earn a good tip. Just bring us fries and run away, please! Finally, again, someone - usually Pat - will reply that we're celebrating the birthday of someone no longer with us.

You can see the waiter's face fall and change color some. This is always the part where I wish the earth would open up and just swallow us all whole. I can feel that person's confusion and shock. I can feel the pain of every person around me. He or she will mumble a sincere "I'm sorry", ask if we need more fries, and then quickly make their way back to where they came from.

It seems so wrong after that to eat any fries.

But after a couple years, after Eric moved back to Colorado, we stopped gathering as a family to acknowledge the big days. For a couple more years, Greg thought he wanted to just move along and not acknowledge them. Especially not the May date. I was more than happy to accommodate no longer suffering through the Red Robin fiasco. 

But approaching every March - Madigan's birthday...

...every May - their death...

...every November - Liam's birthday...

...a cloud would start to hover over my normally jovial husband. 

I wish I could say that I always had these dates in mind and was ready to help my husband through them with grace and love and compassion. But in truth, it always took me a week or more to stop being frustrated with his sudden frequent bursts of anger and impatience with myself and our kiddos.

And then it always hits us. 

OH. 

It's almost her birthday, or his birthday, or the anniversary of the day our family changed forever. 

Moving on after someone has passed away - especially in a terrible story like this one - doesn't always feel very right.

I'm certain that's a billion percent more true for Eric than it ever will be for me. And for Greg. It turns out he needed to keep acknowledging those days even when he didn't think he did. So last year we bought balloons in the kids' favorite colors and wrote messages to the kids on them, and then let them go from our front yard.

Greg thanked me for helping him put words to his pain. We're a good team like that. He takes good care of me in ways he's able, and I do the same for him.

And we still watch Cars on Liam's birthday. We still try to do something animal-related on Madigan's. 

I've always struggled with my feelings about Liam and Madigan. I often hear these voices in my head that tell me I have no right to have feelings about these kiddos I never met, that I am selfish for having any kind of feelings about the whole situation when I didn't "lose" the kids the way everyone else did. 

I believe these voices to be from the enemy of my soul, who is on the constant hunt for any areas of weakness where he can sneak in and try to separate me from those I love. So I talk about these feelings. I pray about these feelings. And my kind husband assures me my feelings are valid. My kind heavenly Father reminds me He is always with me and that He grieves when we do.

For me, the deaths of Liam and Madigan are *only* sad and tragic. Not that they are anything other than that for anyone else...but I never got to meet the kids. So when the family starts reminiscing about the good times with the kiddos, it only breaks my heart. When I look around and see their pictures that never age, or the sweet memorials in various places...they only hurt me. I don't have the sweet memories of them to buffer the pain of losing them. It took me about 5 years to work up the courage to watch the memorial video their Aunt Kristie made of them. And as Eric and Greg cried and giggled together, I could only silently sob.

I mean, their deaths, as cold as this seems to say, didn't change my day-to-day at all. But I believe it changed the future I was picturing. And when I think about what good friends Liam and Jasper could've been...when I close my eyes and imagine the sweet cousin sleepovers and summer visits that Teiley and Madigan could've had...well, this is where it's hard for me not to get angry. Sometimes, when I think of it - which is admittedly less and less as time goes on - I feel robbed. I feel like my kids got robbed. I know Eric was robbed. And Greg - he was an amazing uncle and so close to Liam and Madigan. I know Kristie was robbed. I know Pat and Carol were robbed.

It is so hard to make sense of a tragedy like this. And by that I mean, it doesn't make *any* kind of sense. Not to us humans at all. 

The best I've been able to come up with is this was the Lord protecting Liam and Madigan from what I assume would've been a very difficult life on this earth, with a mother as sick and selfish as theirs became. I tell myself this to stay a little more sane. But it's probably arrogant of me to even consider I have a clue why the Lord allowed this. 

All I really know is, the kids are in heaven and they are good now. They are celebrating and partying with Jesus. It's only hard for the rest of us. Only the rest of us suffer. 

This kind of event is where my faith in God is tested and tried, and I have to just repeat to myself over and over that the Lord has plans and I don't need to understand them. I am not promised I will understand His ways, but I am promised that His ways are not mine (Isaiah 55:8).

So in my suffering, I can choose to stay angry. Or I can choose to believe that everything He allows is for our good and His glory. And I choose to believe this because His very words tell me so, and because in other situations, I've actually seen this to be true. 

And later, Greg and I would see this horrible situation as preparation for another one.

Xoxo.

#myproject41 9/365: My Uncle Joey

I have an uncle who is younger than me. 

Growing up I was the oldest of the grand kids on my mom's side, followed by my brother Shayne, cousin Donnie, brother Aaron, and finally, little Uncle Joey. Until I was 17, I was the only girl.

Left to right: Shayne, Aaron, Uncle Gary, Donnie, Uncle Joey.

The family joke is that my Mom was pregnant, then my aunt got pregnant, and my Grammy (who also goes by Grams and Gibby) felt left out, so she she got pregnant too. 

We've never called him Uncle Joey seriously, though. Only when we're being hilarious.

Though Joey was the youngest of 6 kids (my mom is the oldest), the age gap between he and his next sibling is so big that Joey was raised as an only child. I spent a lot of time with my Grammy as a child, which meant that once Joey came along, I spent a lot of time with him, too. 

I lived with my Grammy for large chunks of time, from what I remember. Summers, I think, and lots of other visits. I took piano lessons and Joey would want to suddenly touch the piano because I was. We'd watch Annie for hours and hours and hours and knew every single word by heart. We'd play Rainbow Brite and My Little Ponies (the cool original ones, not the creepy new ones!) and with our Cabbage Patch Kids (to this day I still have both of them somewhere). 

Joey and my cousin Donnie were as close as brothers to me. As we grew up, we grew apart. It was hard for me, getting older, when the boys all started getting mixed up in activities I didn't want to be a part of. I became the annoying goody-two-shoes, the only girl so naturally the family favorite and that attitude that was passed down from the adults in our family became a real source of contention between all the boys and I. It was unfair, to be sure, the amount of positive attention I was paid compared to my brothers, and I felt that pain from them and from my mom as well. I wore the label of "good girl" like a heavy blanket.

So, like the rest of the boys, Joey had experienced a rebellious youth and quite frankly, grew into the youngest grouchy old man I've ever known. So I think our whole family was pretty excited when, after life and heartbreak, Joey finally found a woman who could handle and challenge him.

In June 2011, Joey and Lindsey got married in Eastern Washington. I was a groomsman (but in a pretty dress!), my kids were both in the wedding, and this was going to be the first time Greg was going to meet all of my family.

But it was barely a month since his niece and nephew had been killed, and he wasn't exactly in a partying mood. 

He's a good man, though, so he went anyway. He pasted a smile on his face, met my large, loud, crazy, family, and endured the nonstop looks of concern and sadness that he was inevitably greeted with. And then he slept for much of the day in the car.

At least that's how I remember it. And I've seen zero pics of him at that wedding, so I know I must be right.

We don't actually get to see Joey and Lindsey that often since they live on the other side of the mountains and we're all just busy.

But just 9 months after our Quinleigh was born, they had Camden, who is just a doll. We all spent the past Thanksgiving together and Quinleigh and Camden were inseparable.

Watching Joey grow and mature into a husband and then a Daddy has been really special to me. In areas he was selfish before, now he's giving and generous. He's beyond patient with Camden, even as a work-from-home-Dad, and it was kind of fun to commiserate about the joys and hardships of being an at-home-parent. He's a fantastic cook, too, and it's a joy to watch him work. He made a ridiculously delicious gravy this past year, and the brined turkey was insane.

Joey is still a grouchy old man, but I adore him.

Xoxo.