We need each other {CELEBRATE This Week: 213}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

My car stopped at the intersection of Highway 30 and State Road 13. I was at the only stoplight in town, less than 2 miles south of my childhood home. One moment my car was running; then it wasn't. Soon the light was going to turn green and the line of cars behind me would want to go. 

I turned the key. My car refused start. I let out a sigh worthy of sitting in a dead car on Friday afternoon. The light turned green. I turned on my hazard blinkers. Cars went around me. The light turned red.

I didn't want to ask for help.

Andy was a half hour away, plus he was running kids. I called the person you call when you don't want to ask for help: Dad.

He was coming home from driving a patient to the Shriners Children's Hospital in Chicago. "I can be there in about 1 hour and 47 minutes," he said. "Do you want to just sit tight until I get there?"

I might have rolled my eyes. 

The light turned green. Cars honked behind me. I didn't move.

It was a Friday of a week where I felt pathetic. I knew I needed the perspective of a friend, but I was tired of feeling needy. I just wanted to believe I was fine. I didn't want to be a burden.

I know the truth is that everyone is fighting a hard battle. Some of us are more transparent about pressing on and fighting the good fight. I was tired of needing support and encouragement; I was tired of resisting isolating myself.

Now I was sitting at a traffic light in a car that wasn't going to move itself. It didn't really matter that I didn't want to ask for help. I called my mom, even though I knew she couldn't help. "You'll be okay," she said.

I got out of my car.

The passenger window of a white jeep in the turn lane rolled down, and a man leaned out. "Do you need help moving your car?"

I walked closer and smiled. Before I could say yes, the driver said, "What are you doing? We don't have time and you definitely don't need to help her." The woman sneered at me and scowled at him.

"Her car is stopped. It will only take a minute to push it out of the way. She can't do it alone."

The woman glared and said, "You're not getting out of this car. We don't have time." 

The light turned green. "Will you be okay?" he asked.

"No worries," I said as they squealed away.

I walked a few steps back to my car. I chuckled to myself. There are bigger problems than not wanting to ask for help.

A black car, reminiscent of Knight Rider, with the wear of 30 years since the show was on TV, pulled to the side of the road behind me. A man got out and asked, "Do you need some help."

I laughed a little and said, "It seems that way."

"What's the problem?" he asked. 

"It just stopped." 

He waited for me to say more, like he actually cared about the problem. I added, "I'm not sure why it stopped. I just got it a few weeks ago. Everything was fine and it just stopped."

"Try to start it," he said. 

I slid in to the driver's seat and tried to start the car. It wouldn't run.

"Okay, let's get it out of the way."

It didn't matter that I didn't want help. He was there. "I have no idea what to do," I said.

He laughed. "No problem..." and he walked me through each step. In a few seconds, my car was out of the way on the edge of the road.

"Do you have a plan?" he asked, "Or do you need more help?"

"I'll be fine," I said.

"You're sure?" My skills for moving the car out of the way must not have given me much credit as a problem solver.

I smiled. "Thank so much, but I'm okay now that it's out of the way."

He returned to his car and waved as he pulled away. 

I slid back into my car. I just wanted the car to start so I could go on my way. I didn't want to ask for help, even though I could think of a dozen people who I knew would be willing to help me. 

"I'm just so tired of feeling needy," I said out loud.  I looked at the three gas stations taunting me on each corner of the intersection. 

"Did I run out of gas?" I continued talking out loud.

There was a good chance that this was the problem. The gas gauge was a little funky in this car and it didn't ding or flash or do anything noticeable when I reached low fuel. 

I have a bad habit of driving until the ding and then getting gas.

Now I was embarrassed on top of being tired of asking for help. I rested my head against the seat and closed my eyes. The absurdity was clear. I needed gas and there were three gas stations within walking distance. I was going to sit there until I mustered enough spunk to walk to a gas station, buy a gas can, purchase case and walk back to my car.

There was a knock on the window. I looked over. 

There stood a friend of my parents. He was a staple from my childhood. He opened the door.

"Mr. Hartman," I said.

"Ruthie, it seems you have a problem. Do you have gas?"

"I was just sitting here thinking that might be the problem," I said.

"Ron called because your daddy is driving the Shriner van. They told me to come to the north side of the intersection of 30 and 13 because there was some help that needed delivered."

"I could use some help," said.

"Come on," he said. "I have a gas can in my garage."

Ol' Jer took me to his house, found a gas can (with gas) and took me back to my car. He poured it in my tank. Then he followed me to the gas pump. 

"You good, now?" he asked.

"I am," I said. "Thanks Mr. Hartman."

"No thanks needed," he said. "Happy to help." He drove away.

As I put gas in my car, I couldn't help but snicker. It was the end of a week when I was tired of fighting the lies of the enemy. I was weary from believing that I'm a burden as a friend. I wanted to hunker down and isolate myself.

I looked up at the crisp Autumn sky and the white jelly fish clouds. I closed my eyes and imagined a kind God just beyond the blue, smiling down from Heaven. I am not a burden.

We are not made to go at life alone. We are made for friendship. Pretending that I don't need help is as absurd as sitting in the middle of three gas stations and wishing my car to start rather than adding gas to the tank.

Too often we get trapped in isolation. Too often we think it is better to go at it alone. Too often we imagine we are more burdensome than we are.

This week I celebrate the truth -- we are all fighting a hard battle...and we need one another.

Friendship is Impossible {CELEBRATE This Week: 211}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

Interestingly enough, I'm surprised by this post. A few lines in and I wondered if I was actually writing toward celebration. I wrote a little more and wondered if anyone would even want to read these words. I kept going and wondered where this was coming from? Why am writing about these memories? This isn't the kind of thing I planned to write or even typically write. Why are the words stacking up like this? Am I anywhere near celebration?

A few more lines and I wrote "and belonged everywhere and nowhere all at the same time." And just like that -- a slip, slap, loop -- I was reminded of a Maya Angelou quote that I read in Brene Brown's new book.

You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.

I realized I'm writing like Brene. I didn't set out to write like Brene. I didn't even want to write like Brene. But the words were stacking up and I decided to keep going...and push toward celebration. It may or may not be worth the read.

It was worth the writing, though. I'm reminded that sometimes the most important stories are the ones we don't even know we are carrying around with us. I'm reminded that what we read matters to how we write. And, most importantly, I'm reminded that a writing habit is the most important thing about being a writer.

********

I've struggled with friendship. Do we all struggle with friendship sometimes? It's not easy and we can feed ourselves a lie that it's not essential.

Plus it's hard.

Being friendly is not the same as being friends.

I'm good at being friendly. 

Friendship...well, that's another story.

My whole life I've been really good at having friends for a season. Then something shifts and we take different paths. It started in third grade. My best friend decided to get a new best friend.

In 5th grade the bestest friend a kid could want moved into my class. We were a solid pair...until she moved away in seventh grade. 

I was friends with my cheer squad in 8th grade, but didn't make the cut in high school. They stopped being my friends.

I made new friends in high school, they were from the other middle school in our district. We had a lot of fun. One of my high school friends was my roommate our freshman year in college. She missed her boyfriend and went home. The rest of us went to different colleges. It was like different planets.

College brought more solid friends for the road. And graduation led to goodbyes. A new job and new friends. Then I became an instructional coach for the district and belonged everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

We adopted kids from hard places. I didn't have energy to chop fresh vegetables for dinner, let alone keep a friend. I had some super friends. They didn't last through the first year after adopting the girls. I gave up on the idea of friendship, deciding I wasn't a very good friend.

My most consistent friends were the ones who shared their stories each week during Slice of Life. They were splattered around the globe. My writing group formed. We told stories and laughed, and I realized not all women are terrible at friendship.

I wish I knew when, but I don't really remember dates, and I wish I knew how, but life was overwhelming, being a new momma to four -- three of them from hard corners of the foster system -- but somehow I became friends with Becca and at the same time with Jasmine. They were from two different spheres of my life.

For awhile I wondered when our paths would diverge. It always happens with the greatest of friends. We walk closely and then our paths curve away from one another. Rarely is it because of a fault or an argument or a mishap. We simply turn different directions quietly and kindly.

Last week I opened up that kind of happy mail that arrives in the box at the end of my driveway. I found a card...

If this were the 50s, I'd bring you so many casseroles.

And I realized everyone has roads that are kinds of crazy twists and turns. The greatest of friends will have roads that turn away from one another. When that happens, friendship is about shouting across the distance and holding tight when it gets impossible.

Friendship can seem impossible -- but the truth is the best life is impossible without friendship. It is essential to a well-lived life. Throw yourself into being a friend and hold on when it gets impossible.

And maybe, just maybe, make a casserole.

STEADFAST {CELEBRATE This Week: 207}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

I love The Giving Keys. It's a company dedicated to fighting homelessness. They give jobs to people, because a good job is the best way to break the cycle of generational poverty and homelessness. They are a pay it forward company, always looking to make the world a little better through people and their products. 

The first key I bought was for my friend Kim when she retired from education. Kim and I shared a love for kitschy jewelry. We liked things with whimsy and the more offbeat, the better for both of us. Kim was also a realtor. A Giving Key was the perfect gift. I bought her one with INSPIRE imprinted on it because of the inspiration she was to me as a mom, educator and business woman. At the same time I bought myself one with the word LOVE. 

When you get a Giving Key you are encouraged to live your word until you meet someone who needs it more than you do. Then you pay it forward by giving your key to the person who needs it. 

Here's my story of how I gave LOVE away after Kim's funeral.

I gave BELIEVE away last May to Monica, a person who invested in my daughter's life for 9 months. During that time, I was called to BELIEVE healing could happen. Monica was a key person in her healing. I like to think about Monica wearing BELIEVE around her neck and knowing that even though it's hard to bring light to dark places, she is capable of turning the course of lives.

Last week I gave away STEADFAST. If I'm honest, I wasn't planning to give away STEADFAST. It's my word for the year, so I expected to hold on to it. I didn't want to give it away. But when life got hairy and my friend Jasmine needed to cancel our get together, I knew it was time to send STEADFAST out into the world.

I kept wearing STEADFAST around my neck. I like the kitschy-ness of it. I like that it reminds me of Kim and the way she used to shake her key at me when I was wearing mine at the same time. I like the way I pray differently and live out the word when it travels with me all day.

A key gets real heavy around a neck, when you know it's supposed to be passed along and you're holding tight to it instead. I supposed this is true for most things, not just keys.

I saw Jas a few days later. I was beginning to feel like a thief, wearing her key around my neck. It was time to give STEADFAST away. And then I got all embarrassed. 

Why does this happen to me when I'm about to lean into love in a big, bold way? 

I did it anyway, mostly because I don't like the feeling of keeping something that's not mine. Jas knows about The Giving Keys, so there wasn't much explanation needed.

"I'm supposed to give you this. It says STEADFAST," I said passing the key from my neck to Jasmine's palm.

She laughed in her easy way. "God is funny, isn't he?" she said taking the necklace. 

"Wear it until you meet someone who needs it more than you. Then pass it on," I said.

She laughed again. "There's a good chance I'll need this for awhile."

Jasmine is in the middle of fighting the good fight and pressing on through the hard. They just finalized their most recent adoption, creating a forever family of 7.

"What key are you going to get next?" she asked. 

"LET GO," I said. "I'm not sure why, but I know a black LET GO key is definitely the one to order." 

That night, I ordered LET GO and HOPE and BE. Three keys -- I'm going to live them well and then pass them along. Isn't this what life is all about -- living well and making it possible for others to live well, too? 

Small Acts; Big Kindness (CELEBRATE This Week: 204}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

Sometimes it takes longer to wrangle words than I expect. This celebration is an important one to document, but it feels so big that I keep sidestepping the time it takes to put corral some words on the page. I don't have time to write, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Last week I went to a conference with central office administrators, principals, coaches and teacher leaders from our school district. We were a big group and the conference was a long, three day conference. I was torn between being grateful for the new learning alongside school leadership and missing summer alongside my kids.

I was eating breakfast on the last day of the conference, and one of the principals said, "Oh, Ruth, I bought you something."

She sat a brown shopping bag on the table in front of me. I was surprised. Inside the bag was a white tea towel with stamped black words:

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

-- Benjamin Franklin

I was so taken back by this random act of kindness that I didn't know what to say. I blinked  too fast so that the tears pricking the back of my eyes wouldn't escape. 

Cindy, the principal, said, "I saw that and thought of you. I decided you just needed to have it."

I composed myself enough to say, "Thank you. It's a favorite writing quote of mine."

Cindy and I have crossed professional paths for nearly 15 years. I admire her from a  distance, never getting to know her well. She became a principal before it was common for women to be in leadership roles. She navigates the needs of a k-8 building and sticks to her core beliefs. She was Kim's best friend. 

This is what holds the most distinction. I wrote about Kim earlier this year. Her life ended abruptly in a car accident on Christmas day. Her legacy remains: It's all good. I also wrote about the way Kim inspired me to love in big, over-the-top ways, like when I gave love away. 

When Cindy handed me a bag with a gift simply because she thought of me, it meant more to me than an absent-minded gesture. It was Kim in action. 

It was a small act of kindness that reminded me it's all good. 

My towel hangs on the handle of my oven, in an old-fashioned tribute to my mom who loves to showcase favorite dishtowels. More importantly, I am reminded of the power of small acts of kindness in making people feel loved in big ways.

Summer Goals {CELEBRATE This Week: 196}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

This summer I've decided to be completely inspired by Lin Yutang and his words:

“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live”

This is a counter-cultural decision. The world tells us if we're busy, we're living right. 

I don't want to be busy.

I'm discovering it's a battle to find useless afternoons to spend in perfectly useless manners. I'm learning to fight the good fight. 

On Tuesday we were driving home from Steph's softball game and I saw The Sandlot advertised as the Retro Reel for the drive-in movie. My first thought was, It would be fun to get a group of friends to go together. 

Immediately I thought of all the reasons it wouldn't work. I thought of the hassle of arranging schedules. I thought of the risk of melt downs and ungrateful attitudes. I thought of the inevitable embarrassment of rude words and unkind actions that are guaranteed when we are around other families. I thought of the battle that always comes with a late bedtime. 

I thought of the space between what I used to dream for our family and what the reality is for turning darkness to light for kids who come from hard places.

Then I thought about Sam and his buddies. "The Guys" is a fluid group of fun loving kids. They're rare in their joy and their uncanny ability to include rather than exclude others. 

I decided to fight back and find a perfectly useless way to spend an evening. I figured since "The Guys" are awesome, they probably have cool parental units. I sent a text out to 7 moms telling them about the drive-in movie. Anyone in? I asked.

We all have to learn to fight busy.

We ended up with 6 carloads heading to the drive-in to spend an evening in a perfectly useless manner. There was a ragtag game of football and frisbee and kickball. We shared watermelon and Twizzlers and popcorn.

Little did I know we were living out the lessons from The Sandlot, a movie all about the power of perfectly useless afternoons spent in perfectly useless manners. This is where real living happens. 

Just like in the movie the themes of learning to live run deep. Good things happen when you are brave enough invite a new kid to play. You almost always have to leave your house to make friends. Rarely are things what they seem. And don't overthink it -- just keep trying. 

This summer I'm determined to spend more perfectly useless afternoons (or days or nights) in perfectly useless manners. In the end, I think all of the perfectly useless choices of how to spend the summer will turn out to be the wisest investment any of us could make.

Happy summer! I hope you, too, will choose to spend some perfectly useless afternoons in a perfectly useless manner. Here's to living life to the fullest! Share your celebrations below. 

My newest book is getting closer to publication. Check out this free eBook I put together that highlights 7 Leaps of Faith (and 35 Moves to Make) to use with hard-to-reach writers.

Cactus Living {CELEBRATE This Week: 185}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*****

Last year, when things turned grey,  my friend, Becca, gave me a miniature gerber daisy in a tiny pink pot. I love daisies. They are my favorite. This one gave me much hope. It kept blooming -- over and over. It promised hope. 

I kept it alive through the summer. Then something, probably a chipmunk, snagged it off my front porch. 

A few weeks ago, Sam and I came across miniature cacti in a store. They were lined up in tiny pots. No two were the same. "We should get one for the window sill and for Becca," he said.

"I was thinking the same thing," I said.

Sam picked out one with a bright pink bloom. "This one is perfect for Becca," he said. I agreed.

We picked a plain one for our kitchen window. I wondered if it would be hardy enough for my house.

I dropped it while carrying it inside. It survives.

I don't know how much to water it. It survives.

Jordan knocked it over with a renegade fork while doing dishes. It survives.

I realized I might be in a season of cacti living. Hard and hardy. Survival and vitality. Prickly and steadfast.

Then I noticed brown spots, and I wondered if maybe it wasn't surviving. I kept an eye on it and the spots became lumps. I wondered if it contracted a disease. The bumps grew, and I thought maybe it was a fungus. 

I figured the cactus would bite the dust at any moment.

Then the lumps grew a little more. I realized they are buds. I think my cactus might be growing blooms.

Isn't this just how life goes? Just when we think we've come to the end, there's a bud and hope that things will soon bloom. And when that happens, I hope it is better than I could even imagine.

Give LOVE Away {CELEBRATE This Week: 175}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

***

image from The Giving Keys website

I gave LOVE away this week. 

Ever since May, I've been wearing a Giving Key necklace. The Giving Keys is a pay it forward company that helps people move out of homelessness. I bought it at the same time that I bought Kim's retirement gift. (If you missed last week's celebration, click here to read about my friend Kim.)

It was the perfect gift. Kim and I often exchanged kitschy jewelry. The key held an extra meaning because Kim was a realtor. She also believed in supporting organizations that made the world better. She liked companies with a cause. I gave Kim a key stamped with the word INSPIRE. She was a beacon of inspiration for many people.

Personally, Kim inspired me as an educator, momma and business woman by the way she unabashedly loved people. She was over the top in the love department. She never worried about whether it was her place to love people; she just did. So while I was buying Kim a necklace for her retirement gift, I bought one for myself too. Mine was stamped with the word LOVE. 

Kim loved her necklace. (I knew she would.) And she loved that I bought a similar one as a reminder to love without embarrassment. She giggled when she saw me and we were wearing our necklaces. She would lift her key and shake it, saying, "I love this!"

The premise of The Giving Keys is to "embrace your word, then pay it forward to a person you feel needs the message more than you." I've been wearing my necklace and learning to love in bold and unprecedented ways. I was beginning to think maybe I wouldn't be positioned to pass it on. I wasn't sure if I would ever master the message of radical love. Then Kim died suddenly, and I didn't know if I would want to pass on my necklace.

I wore it to the Celebration of Life. Standing in line, there was a teacher who Kim mentored. I do not know the teacher personally, but I know her through Kim's stories. Kim loved the way this young teacher loved children. Kim believed this teacher has much to offer other teachers. Often I would ask about her, much like I asked about Kim's sons. Kim would rattle off a story from her kindergarten classroom, and glow at the way this teacher has developed the art of teaching.

She wept softly as we waited to go into the gym. My heart cracked with sadness. I wanted to hug her, to whisper, "It's all good," and to slip my LOVE necklace over her head. Kim would have liked that. 

Instead I stood silently.

I wore the necklace to the funeral. We remembered Kim for her big love. It was impossible love. No one could possibly love as big and as much as Kim. Yet she did it. The pastor said it was because Kim knew the love of God and passed it on to others.

I knew it was time to give LOVE away, except I felt embarrassed about giving my necklace to someone I barely knew. It took me a few days to muster up the courage. I kept wearing the necklace that began to feel like stolen treasure. No longer was it mine to wear.

I wrote a note to the teacher.

I thought about what to say.

I waited until after school.

I took a deep breath, walked down the hall, through the classroom door and across the room to the teacher.

I leaned into love.

I stumbled over the words. 

I told bits of the story. 

I blinked back tears. 

I pressed LOVE into her hand and said, "This is so you'll always remember how much Kim loved you and how much your love matters to others. Don't grow weary."

I hugged her, a stranger who no longer felt like a stranger, and left the room.

Giving LOVE in a bold way made me feel a little embarrassed. I wished I could have been someone different, someone whom she called friend. I wondered if she would wear the necklace. 

It's all good. It was a wisp from my heart, but I knew it was true.

Today, the teacher stopped by my door to talk. She was wearing LOVE around her neck. It is true, we can't love too much.

It's all good.