The other day, someone asked me if I worried about how people react to what I post on my blog. I said, “No.”
I was lying.
Here’s what I should have said:
When I decided to start a blog I read a lot of advice. Hours of advice, daily, for weeks. One of my main takeaways was that in order to be “successful” (read: read) a blog needs to provide something useful to it’s readers. It needs to provide tips, or recipes, or humor, or entertainment. Something. Because, lets face it, no one wants to read about your boring life and your cute kids. Well, unless the cute kids say “Fuck” in preschool. Because, well, funny, hello.
So, I’ve tried to do that. I avoid writing about how long it takes to get shoes on five little people, because no one cares unless I’ve worked out a way to do it in .5 seconds. (I haven’t, by the way.) I avoid writing about how much harder it is to keep my house clean than it was when we lived with one bathroom in 1700 square feet. BORING. In short, I avoid writing about anything that I can’t make funny, or relatable, or… better.
What that’s meant lately, is that I avoid writing.
Right now my life is not funny, or relatable, and I’ve got no idea how to make it better. But it’s all I’ve got to work with.
So, I’m going to write about it, real quick like. I’m going to rip the bandage back, give it a little air, so that I can move on next week to more useful topics like: How to Tell Your Mother That You Are Pregnant…Again, and How Not to Buy a House.
But for now, I’m right here. I’m scared, I’m confused, and I keep trying to tell myself that everything will work out, but I’m beginning to think that I’m a red hot liar.
For the last ten years my husband has been the theatre director at a small private school. He loved it. He loved his coworkers, the students, the families, the facility. Everyday he woke up grateful. And that was a good thing. It almost made up for living on a teacher’s salary. I taught a studio full of piano students to fill in the gaps.
On paper, our budget looked impossible, but actually living it was like experiencing Hanukah everyday. The oil always lasted just long enough. I had the general sense that we couldn’t continue like this forever, but good things were always popping up and so I became conditioned to expect that things would continue to improve. Our investment in our little bitty house on the “bad side of town” paid off and we moved to a much larger house that could accommodate our family, now 7 people strong. Our eldest children started attending Mike’s school.
About two years ago, little things started to go awry. There was a change in leadership at the school. People got fired. People quit. There was another change in leadership. More people got fired. The culture of the school shifted from supportive to suspicious. I realized that the people that sold us the beautiful big house had been less than honest about its flaws. Both cars bit the dust within one week. I started losing my hair. Mike’s summer camp was dissolved and restructured. He had to fight his first administrative battle in 12 years in order to be paid what he’d been promised. I was sick to my stomach everyday. Breakfast was out of the question.
Here we are, now. Everything is a wreck. Mike dreads his job. He wakes up feeling defeated. I’m overwhelmed by the big house, both the maintenance and the mortgage. I’m sick. A year or so of chronic gastro issues has led to multiple severe vitamin deficiencies. Despite being able to eat very little, I’ve gained 25 pounds in just a few months. I have to wrap a rubber band around my pony tail six times to get it to hold. All of my bones hurt, especially my hip, knee, and knuckles. I have a strange rash that covers my face. I’m seeing a general practitioner, an endocrinologist, a nutritionist, a therapist, and a fitness coach, and so far, here’s what they’re saying: stress is literally killing me. Where other people have blood, I have cortisol.
Something has to change. Maybe everything has to change. Mike has decided that, after 13 years, he will leave his school at the end of this academic year. For what, we’ve no idea. It’s a little bit exciting. After all, anything is possible. Maybe we will no longer have to live on a teacher’s salary. Maybe I can go the dentist and afford organic strawberries.
But what will he do… what do people who’ve spent their career in arts education do if they decide to get out? He can’t just run down the street and into the office with the sign on the door saying: Help Wanted. Looking for hard-working, quick learner who is able to port extensive experience in education, artistic-directing, set-building, light-hanging, script-writing, camp-building into lucrative new career.
But he can’t stay where he is either. He’s lost faith. He’s taken to heart the pervasive disregard for the arts, and he feels like he’s been wasting his time for the last decade. Making a fool of himself. He’s been asking himself why he cares so much, if other people care so little. He believes them.
And it breaks my heart.
Because, here’s the truth: Mike is the real deal. He’s Mr. Holland’s Opus and Dead Poet’s Society and Lean on Me, all rolled into one and dressed in black. Why in the hell else would I have put up with living on so little for so long? But his faith was what was keeping the lamps burning. Now, without it, things are falling apart faster than I can put them back together. It’s getting very dark around here.
I have no idea where we are headed. I don’t know whether to paint or pack. I don’t know how to help. I set out to Google homeschool curriculum and end up searching for career counselors. In the middle of making lunch I find myself scanning real estate on Ocracoke Island. We eat later and later. It’s as if someone said, “Ok, you’ve got 365 days to create a completely new life. Go,” and hit a timer. I’m usually such an action-oriented girl, but now I’m paralyzed. I can’t help just staring at the clock in horror. I’m living on a bomb in the middle of a lightning storm, wondering which is going to get us first.
It is very, very hard to relax up here. It’s hard to be funny. It’s hard to be useful. So, I guess today, maybe all I can do is show up and be honest. Try to breathe deeply. Try get my claws out of the mess, trust, and not tell any more lies.
Mary Clayton
I am so sorry you are so unwell and your life is unpredictable at this point. I can only hope that your husband gets recruited for an amazing position that values him almost as much as you do.
People love your blog because they love your humanity. You are genuine and relatable. If we wanted only sugar we would read some other generic mommy blog but we read yours because you are hilarious, interesting, and someone who has opinions that are provocative or reflect our own. We do not want you to be someone you are not. We want you. The whole beautiful you, thorns and all. Don’t stop writing unless you feel you want to. We can handle it.
Melissa
I just found your blog and it has been an enormous encouragement – thank you! We are going through an expensive season and the grocery bill can almost always yield a little, so I’m squeezing the daylights out of it. You have reminded me of some important truths. Personally, change always seems scary to me even though some wonderful things have come from it. I am hoping wonderful things come from the changes in your life too.
Viv
Precisely, Jen. Reality makes you relatable because the Lord knows none of our lives are beautiful works of art, masterfully carved. They are all built out of junkyard pieces melded together and when you step back– way, way, way back– it becomes strangely beautiful. Not being real makes you another snobby, bitchy blogger and *that* is exactly what I don’t want to read: the blog of yet another Pinterest-perfect mom.
Christy
Love you, friend. Looking forward to seeing you at preschool again. Maybe one day while our littles are at school we can paint a room in your house. Just for the heck of it (At first I accidentally typed “just for the wreck of it”…..heh…..)
Kathy
Thank you, thank you for sharing the gift of your honesty! In these times I feel technology goads us into living in such odd, performative ways…thanks for being real. I can identify with your stress of daily living, of making a home and keeping a family, on just plain “not-enough,” and moms are so vulnerable to that–keep it going. I have a wonderful friend whose family was in a similar situation as yours. Very similar. Things worked out. In such an amazing, miraculous, yet ordinary way; it’s still one of those circumstances that makes me believe humbly in a guiding spirit. Dang, change is incredibly hard. Impossibly hard. Always. Thanks for being real. Someone said to me a while back, “Being countercultural is exhausting.” I don’t feel countercultural, but I so often feel at odds with the culture around me. So I guess it fits. You remind us that other real people are out there. With each breath, hang in there! You’re as much a gift to others as your awesome kids are to you!
Marla
I found you this morning during a google search for how to feed a large families. The budget part was just a huge (and necessary) bonus. I don’t read blogs but I had to read more of you after the winter and summer menus. You are a talented writer (which I am definately not), but you are me. You are funnier and have one less kid and say the f word more frequently (unless you count the times behind the bedroom door). But you are me, and where I am right now surrounded by friends with two kids each and twice the income, I take comfort in someone sharing in my struggle. With that being said, I actually am sorry that you are going through this difficult time (assuming that since you posted your life and future hasn’t become crystal clear). In 2008 my life got real crazy when my hubby suddenly ran out of work (housing market), I went to work ft at the drop of a hat to try to keep from losing basically everything, and two weeks later I found out I was pregnant with baby #4. No maternity insurance. And then I got fifth’s disease which could kill the baby if not mean the possibility of super complicated pregnancy. Then a teen ran across the road in front of my van (just a couple fractures), but all that to say it was a tough year. I ran to God and cried and learned more than I had in the five years prior. Jill Briscoe said it is impossible to worry and pray at the same time. So I prayed a lot, and even though I wasn’t assured that “Everything is going to work out okay” (how can they give me false assurance? Have they read the book of Job?) I found that crazy year to be absolutely pivotal in my faith walk. I wish you well in your journey this year. And I’ll stay posted.
Jen
Thank you. I keep thinking all this craziness must be good for me SOMEHOW.
Becca
I have nothing particularly useful to say. But I wanted you to know that you have a support system that you may not realize. We readers are cheering you on and hoping and praying for you. And sometimes that matters. I hope things get figured out, and that it ends up giving you a major health boost as well. Hang in there, hon. And know that we are rooting for you.
Jen
Thank you Becca. Reader support is high up there among the reasons I get out of bed these days. 2, 4, 6, 8, who do I appreciate?
You.
Diana W
Jen, I have to say that I love your blog. My friend and I were just talking about how social media is so frustrating to us. Everyone post the perfect moments. Look how great my kid is… Look how handsome me and my husband look in Hawaii… Look how wonderful our new remodel is… It is exhausting. I find myself being discontent with what I have when I have so much compared to so many. My friend and I thought we should start a movement of posting “Real Life” on social media and here I have found you who has already begun. You are sharing real life, the ups and downs, and hilarity in the midst of anxiety. Keep it up and don’t give a dang what others think.
Jen
Thank you so much. It took me a long time to figure out that you were supposed to only talk about the happy moments. Of course, by that time, it was much too late. 😉 Social media can be either a great platform for connection, or an unmoderated HGTV reality series. Here’s so keeping it real, even if real is just the slightest bit (okay, incredibly) whiny. Your encouragement means the world to me.