the things we can do

“I could NEVER do that.”

This is typically the first response when I share with someone that Josh & I live together with his parents. They don’t live with us. We don’t live with them. We live together.

Since getting married Josh & I have brewed up dreams of what we wanted our life to look like which have, typically, been pretty different than everyone around us.

I don’t say this to boast or with great pride. In all honest, most of the time I hate the fact that our dreams look so different because that makes us different. 

And different…. Different is lonely.

 

Our first months of marriage were spent living in an RV, to which many people said, “I cold NEVER do that!” But we were starry-eyed & eager to live simply & love the quirky RV community well.

Becoming pregnant shortly after getting married & several other things going down a road we didn’t plan led us out of the RV & to a rental home. Josh loved the whole tiny living situation. I loathed it & felt terribly claustrophobic. This is where we learned that if something wasn’t working for one of us, it didn’t work for both of us. We still lean on that truth when things get sticky & we can’t agree on a big choice.

Living in the RV & building relationships in this mostly Spanish speaking community was our first dream we made together & the first one we watched burn together. In the wake of watching that burn we learned a lot about each other. Prior to marriage, like most humans, we had each tasted heartache; but this was our first taste of heartache as a couple & it was incredibly bitter. You don’t just ache in your own ways, you ache for the other person, too. I felt like such a failure because I was the reason we let those dreams go.

This beginning of our marriage seemed to be the mark of what our marriage would be for years to come: lonely, disappointing, overwhelming, & hard.

On a whim & with a promising job proposal for Josh, we uprooted to Chattanooga, TN with a five month old baby boy. We did some house hunting on the 13 hour drive down & found a rental in an area we were told not to even drive through. Which for us just said, “This is exactly where you want to live to be the hands & feet of Jesus.” So, we rented a home in that neighborhood which is now a super hot spot & the definition of gentrification.  Go figure.

PS, it was a really pleasant & fun neighborhood. We loved living here! 

We knew we wanted to do communal living & anytime a person or family’s need for a place to live arose we offered up our home. It never panned out for that to happen, but we knew it was something we believed in.

We settled in to Chattanooga with super grateful hearts. Heck, it was the first time we could buy groceries without food stamps! 

Fun (okay, more like depressing) fact: When we got married we returned all the gifts that were from Target so that we could get the money back to then buy our groceries.  Soooo, thank you sweet friends who gifted us with groceries our first year of marriage by way of buying us that colander we registered for! Who needs cute picture frames & spoons anyways?!

Josh & Ash 2013

Josh & Ash 2016

Chattanooga has been so much more than I could have dreamed up for us. It’s all the things we love in an amazing city. I will forever count this move here as one of the greatest gifts!

First time climbing at Sunset Rock with a tiny boo bear! 

While Chattanooga had endless opportunities for free adventures on the trails we love, the river, the downtown life, & so on it still rang a bit lonely for me. I really struggled to develop friendships. I was a new wife & a new mom who felt very needy of a girl friend to do this all with.  

We joined a community that looked very different for Josh and me. I can’t count how many times I had a play date with a potential new friend that was cancelled last minute. He had a group of guys that met weekly & actually showed up. I opened our home time & time again for no shows & rare invitations extended in return. I was actually sat down & told that my persistency in inviting women to do things made them feel guilty & I should back down. Over & over again I kept wondering what was wrong with me that all these women would ditch the play date & my wine nights.

 It was lonely & hurtful.

Despite all of that, we pressed into this community & continued showing up. Things got easier & more women joined in & some are now my most dear friends. But those beginning years in Chatt still have a mark of lonely for me.

Then there was the crapstorm of 2015. The list of unfortunate things that happened are truly too much to recall, just trust me when I say it was bizarre how much went sour. I mean, who gets robbed three times in one year?! 

One of the major hard things was our colicky baby girl who never slept. The emotional toll that took on me, on Josh, on our marriage, on friendships was tremendous. I shared, with tears pouring & emotions bleeding out, with our community how much I was struggling. We were leaders in training at the time & I was pulled aside & told that, essentially, leaders shouldn’t be so loud about their pain & struggles.

I hated this photo when Josh took it because I felt like you could see sadness written all over my face. Now, I am glad to have such an honest photo depicting a season we grew through. 

Don't get me wrong. She brought a ton of smiles with all her screaming. Look at that grin. She had no idea! hehe. 

Since that was told to me almost 3 years ago, I have silenced a lot of me. I have allowed every post, every words I share with new friends go through a filter of “don’t be too loud or too honest!” Isn’t that sad?

2016 began a year of hope & healing, or so we imagined. But then 2016 quickly unfolded to be another year of immense struggle, loneliness, darkness, & depression. 

I had health issues that resulted in a surgery, which became several surgeries & bed rest. Josh lost his job. We ventured into a new business start up where we lost what little we had left. Another fun (depressing) fact is that you don't qualify for government assistance like food stamps when you have a home or a car. It just sucked.

The stress these things put on a marriage is enormous.  However, I fell harder in love with Josh. He carried us. Literally, carried me up our stairs after surgeries. He took care of our kids while I was in bed, while trying to find work, pay bills, sort through medical nuances, & juggle the duties of a home. He’s amazing.

Did you know that during that entire period of time I can count on one hand the people that walked up our steps, into our home, & sat with us in it all? We came from a community where we thought to of really established ourselves in other’s lives in their hard seasons. To be in the trenches of a hard season where most people disappear was devastating.

To the people who did show up, I still remember the check you wrote to help pay bills. The friend who helped dress my surgery site, shower me, & change my bed sheets, I remember. The meals that did come, I remember. The friends who live far away & texted/called, I remember. The friend who helped Josh with yard work, I remember. The friends who loaned us an air unit when ours went out, I remember. The friend who came over in the middle of the night to be with our kids as Josh rushed me to the ER, I remember. The friends who brought us bagels every Sunday, I remember. The Seventh Day Adventist Church down the street who brought us a box of groceries multiple times, I remember. That one time a few of you came to quickly pray & leave, I remember.

I remember all of these details & do not discount them & would hate for those who DID show up that year to feel like I don’t take that seriously. I do. I remember that all because you were breath in my lungs. Your generosity was Jesus, peace, love in our darkest… of course I remember.

Our parents showed up, as they always do. They showed up like an umbilical cord keeping a baby alive. They played this exact role in our first year of marriage, too. They have always been our best friends, both sets of parents. I only hope we carry on this legacy of unconditional love & sacrifice to our own children, our own neighbors, our own enemies. Their love is riveting.

How many mother-in-laws sit in bed with you & your puke bowl to play dolls with your baby girl who won't leave your side? Mine does!

I hate to harp on the negative, but it’s just the truth of my story, so here goes…

I also remember the intense loneliness & how majority of our friends never walked up our steps & into our darkest. To the friend who, with tears streaming, apologized for not coming, I remember & am so inspired by your courage to say that & feel that. 

I know it’s unique that I am able to sit with people in their pain. I get that. I get that people don’t know what to say or do & it’s awkward for them. But you have to understand & realize how much that stings… how that sting turns into a deep wound that will take years to heal. Show up, people. You think it’s uncomfortable for you? Imagine being stuck in bed for months on end because of an rectal surgery that went wrong & how coughing, moving, showering caused bleeding & unimaginable pain. That’s uncomfortable. For the sake of love, show up.

We left the church in the midst of that. That community was one we disagreed with on particular topics, but continued to join hands because we know that we can do so much more together than we can alone. It was the accumulation of it all which ushered us out the doors. And, nobody stopped us or asked us to reconsider. It honestly felt more like the doors were held open for us as we walked out.

It’s been years since my heart has felt the pain of a break up… but this felt just like that. Where you are sad because you know that other person will continue on without you. You know you won’t sit at another family meal. You see things that constantly remind you of them & hesitate to go to certain restaurants because it hurts to not be there with them. You stop listening to certain songs. 

I think one of the things that hurts the most about a break up is the crushing of the future you imagined would be. It’s a million deaths over & over.

All of that is real & makes it very hard to dive into a new one. Walls go up. Your heart is mending & space is needed from a lot of things that you once loved.

This has been Josh & I for the past 2 years. Recovering & mending our hearts.

 I feel the judgment when I answer the very southern question, “have you found a church home yet?”  Not from everyone. But from most.

I know that I, too, once put a lot of stock in the “importance” of being apart of a church. I probably asked others that same question before & had a filter of judgment they felt. I am sorry for that.

When you dress someone in judgment for not behaving how you see fit, you dress them in an outfit that will never feel worthy of your church doors. Allow them to be where they are. Trust the process of healing, of grieving, of questioning. It really isn’t ever our place to dress someone in anything but love & acceptance. Dressing another person in shame is incredibly ugly, for the both of you.

This brings be back to, “I could NEVER do THAT!”

When you have limped down the off beaten path through thickets that pierced you & scarred you deeply, you wouldn’t question inviting others in, especially those who do come in.

If Josh’s parents hadn’t agreed to uproot from Dallas to do life with us here in Chattanooga, we would have foreclosed on our home, packed up, & headed to live with one of our parents. We would have watched another dream go up in flames. They helped to preserve a dream we cherish & begin a new one together. I fear sounding dramatic, but we really have lived a lot of nightmares…. So getting to live & embrace this dream is humbling & not for a single second taken for granted.

We have been humbled over & over & over & over & over again. Things have constantly unfolded in ways we never imagined. I bet this is true for most people doing life, but we have yet to meet the couple that has walked our exact path.

 I’ve actually typed all this out several times before… But I never do anything with it because I feel like it will be judged for sharing too much, too little, offend someone, or sound whiney. 

Pain is pain. Lonely is lonely. And this is my story to tell.

I recently heard the quote from Brene Brown about the root of the word courage…

“Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor - the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant "To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart." Over time, this definition has changed, and today, we typically associate courage with heroic and brave deeds. But in my opinion, this definition fails to recognize the inner strength and level of commitment required for us to actually speak honestly and openly about who we are and about our experiences -- good and bad. Speaking from our hearts is what I think of as "ordinary courage.”

I have felt an urge to share a lot of this for years now & haven’t had the courage.

I also share because I want to, hopefully, encourage anyone still reading this mini novel that it’s in the hardest, darkest of seasons that we grow new muscles… You don’t trudge through valleys without some serious gains.

Those “gains” are empathy, compassion, deep joy, unshakeable peace, acceptance, humility, perspective, & love muscles. You grow stronger & able to not just do more for yourself, but do more for others. But, you cannot flex those muscles & use them sitting silent in the corner.

So yes, you could do communal/multi-generational living with your mother-in-law. You can actually do more than that. Will it be challenging? Yep. Will you cry & threaten to move out? Probably at least once.

ANYTIME you say you could never do something you are selling yourself so short. Stop saying that. You can do hard things. We can do hard things.

Love isn’t about being super duper comfortable in out wannabe pinterest homes. Love isn’t about only showing up when it’s a pot luck dinner. Love isn’t about canceling play dates because you’re too introverted. Love isn’t about labeling people in or out based on which church they attend or don’t attend. If it is… if this is what love is, it’s no wonder so many people run far away from it.

Communal living has been a lot of things. I haven’t loved every single second, hour, day, or month even. But it has brought SO much more good into our world than the challenges that come with it. I’m not here to say everyone should invite their family in to live together. As already stated, I know we do things differently. I do think we should take the time, make the space, & begin doing things that make us uncomfortable for the sake of making this world lovelier. 

In conclusion:

Dare to dream up & do bold things. Ignore the critics. It’s okay to grieve when things crash & burn because at some point, they will. Holding in the grief will eat you alive. Rebuild from the rubble with gusto & joy. Trust the process. You are stronger than you think. Don’t take any of this too seriously, except loving God, others, & yourself- take that notion very, very seriously.

Oh. And, go get some chickens. They make life so much better.