A Vulnerable Grown Ass Woman Remix

It has been three and a half months almost since I last wrote. So much has happened that I am in the thick of writers block as I attempt to process everything. So I thought I would go back and grab one of my previous blogs to share with you. It is incredibly relevant as this week I was introduced to Dr. Brené Brown and this video for the first time on "The Power of Vulnerability" maybe you've seen it, maybe you haven't. I encourage you to take the time to at some point. 

As I was reflecting on "the power of vulnerability" I was reminded of this post I wrote a year ago August 24th! Read to the end, to find out just how powerful this vulnerability turned out to be. 

a time to "grow up"-Originally posted August 24th, 2012

It has been a little over nine months since I last posted, but here I am. I hope you enjoy!

It happened all of a sudden.

I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't looking for it, but in the middle of an apple orchard in Wisconsin (Harvest Time), God hit me over the head and said:

"You are a GROWN ASS WOMAN".

Some of you are looking down your noses at me and thinking "did God say ass?"
That's what I heard.
I'm sure God said ass when conversing with Balaam, so I'm not gonna get too broken up about it, hopefully you won't either, and "spoiler alert" I'm going to reference it a few more times.

It all started with our "Weekend of Weddings".

Three.

In one weekend.

And maybe because I like to torture myself, or because I ADORE weddings. I was coordinating the one on Friday night.

The Friday night wedding went splendidly! It was beautiful, it was fun, I danced and laughed joyfully with members of the church we have been sent out to plant from, Church of the Redeemer .

Then on Saturday, Nate and I split up. He headed to a wedding in Highland Park, and I hitched a ride to our wedding in Wisconsin, where Nate would later meet me for the reception.

The wedding in Wisconsin was David's, a dear childhood friend of mine, to his precious bride Audrey.

The ceremony was beautiful both aesthetically and spiritually.

One of the best things about the wedding, was getting to spend time with my bosom friend Lindsay (you can read more about our antics here). As we descended the steps from eating Apple Cider Shakes, (yes apple cider shakes, yum, yimmy, yum, yimmy, yay) I was sharing with Lindsay how I was feeling insecure at this wedding. Why? Well my ten year high school reunion is coming up in October and this wedding was a bit of a "pre-gamer" if you will. While David and I went to high school together, we were more friends because we were from the same neighborhood, and his other friends at school were those I would classify as the "cool kids". I never felt up to snuff with them, I never felt cool enough, pretty enough, (pick a trite "not enough" phrase, and it works) to attempt to associate with them. They weren't mean, or hateful, or bullies. I was simply insecure.

The EXACT same moment that I am telling Lindsay this, said girls come up to me and say

 "Hi Meredith"

Those girls might very well be reading this blog right now, because I'm facebook friends with them.   And you can say you aren't facebook "friends" with people you don't interact with on a daily basis, but you're lying. Because deep down you know that eventually your facebook "friends" are going to get married, or have some other lovely event, and you are going to want to be a creeper and see those pictures, because you love, love, love weddings (or that's just me and in a moment we will get to why I am okay with that, (but we both know it isn't just me)).

So ladies, you know who you are, and please take this confession as a compliment.

As far as I'm concerned, this life is too short to shy away from vulnerability and honesty, so all readers should cover themselves while I spew vast amounts all over this blog.

I don't know if these girls (women? When do I make that transition to calling myself and peers women in conversation rather than girls? Is this like getting your period or losing your virginity or going through menopause? Do you just wake up one day and experience "the change"?) knew I spent a lot of High School wishing I was "them".

But let's take a moment to illustrate my ridiculous dramatic insecure pubescent nature:

The neighborhood boys I ran around with had a tendency to talk about one of these girls "calves".

No joke. 

I would just stand there silently wishing and thinking that if God was going to perform modern day miracles of healing the sick, he could surely implant some calves in the definition-less area between my round indiscernible knee caps and ankles above my size 13 feet. I often questioned why he gave me this prime real estate of long legs and NO CALVES! So much so, that before a band competition 
(I was in the colorguard. I never actually tossed my flag in a competition, I always froze. I admitted that to the captain one day, got yelled at, and questioned my honesty policy for awhile. It's still the best policy, despite the trauma of having an 18 year old girl with JNCO's, a hemp shroom necklace and an Insane Clown Posse shirt on, yell at me for not tossing my flag. No one else had noticed, this was like the 6th band competition, what was the big deal? I even started to say that, then remembered she had on an Insane Clown Posse shirt, and hushed.)
where I had heard we would be staying in a hotel that had a pool, I spent the majority of the night before doing calf raises. Over 5,000 calf raises to be exact. I was "stepping out (up) in faith" in my own way, thinking I might wake up with miraculous muscular gams.

 I didn't.

 I woke up with the most intense Charlie Horses you can even begin to imagine.

And. . .there wasn't a pool. 

OK, back on track. . .

As we spoke I attempted to keep my cool and was surprised at my ability to engage in pertinent meaningful conversation as we talked about where we were in our various lives, how some of us had moved back to Bloomington, how we all swore we never would, and I think right around then is when God hit me over the head and said:

"You are a GROWN ASS WOMAN! I didn't create you to be a slave to your past, a slave to a geographic location, a slave to an uncomely opinion of yourself.  I created you to be a FREE GROWN ASS WOMAN"

Because I am.

Because that is what God has made me to be.

As much faith as I had put in my fake eyelashes (Yes, I wore fake eyelashes to the wedding. I had a gift card to Macy's, went to the MAC counter, and after wiping about 3/4 of the makeup they had put on off, I felt like I looked pretty good. Judge away. It's a dramatic outlet, it's me using my "degree", and I highly recommend it if you want to feel glamorous for a night), I needed to redirect it and reappropriate it to where it always needs to be.

Can you feel the glamour oozing from my eyelashes?

In God.

And I can talk to these girls/women/females as a "Grown Ass Woman". And enjoy it, and find the privilege that comes from a shared history, not feel bogged down, or classified, or insecure because of it.

I danced with abandon that night as a "Grown Ass Woman".
I laughed with great vitality that night as a "Grown Ass Woman".

I'm there in the center "dancing with abandon"

And I thought back on my high school experience with a joy and freedom I don't think I had before.

I look forward to going to my ten year reunion as a " Grown Ass Woman".
I encourage everyone to go to their respective reunions as "Grown Ass Men and Women".

Because we are creatures created in Christ, not in the image of one another.

And with great thankfulness, this "Grown Ass Woman" raises her hand, and says:

"AMEN".
__________________________________________________________________________

Here we are now, a year later. 

What happened from reconnecting with those peers/women/girls (the change hasn't happened for me yet in case you were wondering) is that three out of four of them were not married at the time. 

As of September 1st, 2013, I will have been the wedding coordinator for all three of their weddings. 

Seriously. 

I not only connected with them at that wedding, I took the next step to reach out to them personally, share the blog I had written with them, and tell them about the business I was attempting to cultivate (m. hopping events). It has been more beautiful and exhilarating than I ever could have imagined, being able to serve these peers/women/girls on one of the most important days of their lives. 

That's the power vulnerability has. 

I believe God greatly honors vulnerability. 

Granted, I still don't have the calves of "calf girl" (God, if you want to do something in the middle of the night so I wake up tomorrow with some extra curves on the bottom half of my legs, I won't question it. I will stay humble. I PROMISE) but I never could have dreamed that I would be "calf girls" wedding coordinator.

We serve a great and loving God who desires us to lean fully and completely in to the people we have been created to be. Vulnerability and all. 

When we do that, amazing things begin to happen.  

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” 
― Brené Brown

Amen  Brené.  

AMEN. 

When dancing for your life. . .

These past few weeks have been a whirlwind. Really the past 5 months. It's been that long since I posted last, and life seems a million miles away from where it was last December. At least 163.45 miles away, across a river and past a State line.

On Monday May 6th I will deliver our second daughter via CBAC (caesarean birth after caesarean). Due to the circumstances surrounding Eleonore's birth, I was not able to find a provider who would support me in doing a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean) and we didn't feel comfortable "going rogue" and attempting a home birth, because for all intents and purposes everything should have gone fine with Eleonore's birth. So this is how Hopping #2 will come into the world.

This past Saturday (April 27th) we moved from Bloomington-Normal, IL to St. Louis, MO. After much prayer and discernment my husband Nate accepted a position as a Worship Coordinator at The Gathering (check it out here) in St. Louis, MO. Two weeks before that, we had our final service as Church of the Savior Bloomington-Normal. Everyone in the group was supportive and felt God leading them in different directions as well. Some to different states, some to different churches. God's timing is always perfect, but change is still hard, and the disbanding of that group, the leaving PEAR USA and saying goodbye to something we had put our ENTIRE lives into for 2 years, is enough for a year of posts. I am sure at some point I will get to those posts. If I'm honest I don't have the emotional energy right now. 

Since last Saturday I have felt overwhelmed at the state of life, and yet it has felt consistent. You move, you unpack, you settle, you get to know a place. You get to know your new Target (the closest I will ever come again to a new dating relationship in my life is the getting to know of a new Target). You walk to the park and play and you have frozen yogurt pops or "froze" as your almost 2.5 year old calls them on the front steps of your condo so that you can watch all the dogs and the people walk by.

Enjoying "froze" on the front steps!

And sometimes, like right now, you do those things while 9 months pregnant.

When we were waiting for Eleonore as soon as she was overdue, we started doing dances everyday, to encourage her to "COME OUT". It became a joyous and silly thing. It was what my long uncomfortable days looked forward to, and I was able to creatively as well as physically exert myself.

People started asking about if we would be dancing out Peapod (as we have been lovingly referring to her). It seemed easiest to say "We'll see". Easier than explaining the c-section. Easier than justifying the c-section (which I always feel a ridiculous intense need to do). 

You see, some people consider us "hippies" or "crunchy". I personally think we could be a lot more of those things, but we do subscribe to a more "attachment" or "gentle" style of parenting. In some of those circles a c-section is right up there with, well I don't know, cannibalism? And I feel judged, even if that isn't the reality, even if no one is. I keep hearing in my head "Who is judging, WHO IS JUDGING?" a line from a play I was in during undergrad called Marat/Sade about Jean Paul Marat & the Marquis De Sade in an insane asylum. Seriously. I played an inmate who drooled for the 2.5 hour duration of the play. Real drool.

See that drool? 

(The "Dancing Out" amongst other things about me, don't seem so out of place do they?)

It became a favorite line among my circle of friends. To exclaim "Who is judging, WHO IS JUDGING?", when we were in fact aware that WE were judging someone or something.

"Who is judging, WHO IS JUDGING?"

Me.

Myself.

I.

The reality of this life is that I want to give everyone else abundant grace. And I want to give everyone else abundant understanding. But when it comes to Meredith (and I know so many of us do this to ourselves) I feel empty of those things. I feel devoid of any capability to give myself grace. So I don't. And it hurts, and it keeps hurting, and I inflict wounds I don't know I'm inflicting and infecting.

Until it becomes too much to bear.

It seemed dumb to do dances to "Dance Out" a baby when I know the exact moment she will come out. It seemed "un-organic" it seemed unnecessary, it felt stupid. Name some negative feeling, and it felt that way.

Then yesterday something happened and I realized I wanted to dance.

I realized I needed to dance.

I realized I had to dance.

There have been studies and articles that have come out (this is just one example), that describe the epic importance of dance. They couldn't be more true, at least in my experience.

I'd like to say that the dance fixed everything. And in some ways it was incredibly cathartic. It was 99% improvised and done in one take (mostly because you are really tired when there is a two year old in the mix and you've recently moved), and I was able to give myself more grace than I did during my last "Dancing Out" process (Don't ask Nate how many times he had to film some of those dances, because he'll tell you the truth, and I'll be embarrassed). And I laughed when I saw that I unfortunately had on a nude cami, so halfway through it looks like my pregnant bare belly is hanging out of my turtleneck. If you know me at all, not needing to re-record after seeing that means I am learning to give myself at least SOME grace. So we put up the video and went to bed.

And the tears came. The violent body shaking tears that come from your gut and feel like they won't stop because they are convulsing throughout your body and taking over. Your face becomes awash with puff and salt water and breathing becomes hard, if not completely impossible. I felt the need to scream at God. To scream at Nate. To scream at the world.

In three days that thing which happened almost 2.5 years ago is going to happen again.
This time it won't be an emergency c-section. This time I will be knowingly having myself cut in half. I will arrive at the hospital at my given time, I will prep for surgery, I won't be having a contraction when they put the catheter in, I won't have been in labor for 23 hours when they give me the spinal. It will all be "routine". It will all be part of everyone's day. None of it will be "organic". None of it will be "hippie", none of it will be "crunchy".

And it's ok to mourn that.

More and more studies are coming out showing that women can suffer from PTSD after an emergency c-section. I now believe I have experienced that to some extent. I also know looking back that I experienced undiagnosed Post-Partum Depression. I didn't want to get diagnosed. I felt ashamed, so I pretended it wasn't there. I kept my story to myself.

And you can tell me how thankful I should be, that I have really great "by the book" pregnancies. That I can "move" the way I can at 9 months. That there is a beautiful healthy 2.5 year old toddler who makes my days equal parts crazy and beautiful,  and that there is another healthy baby that will arrive on Monday.

And please know I am.

But my experience has changed me. My story has changed me. It has hurt me, it has strengthened me, it has hardened me. My story has wounded me.

Let us talk about our stories more.

Without fear of judgement, from ourselves and one another.

Let us share what has made us who we are, good and bad, with abandon, so that we might know the beauty of the reality, that we are NOT alone.

Today I will dance. It won't be perfect. It might be a little angry, or it might be downright silly.
And I might scream at God tonight, (I won't literally scream at God or Nate, because we live in a condo now, and even after all this talk of not being afraid of judging, let's be honest, "first impressions" and all . . .)

But God wants me to dance, and God wants me to scream. God wants to hear my story and be in relationship with me.

Please scream at me. Please dance with me. 

Please scream at God. Please dance with God.

Your story is beautiful, your scars are beautiful, you are beautiful.

Let's dance for our lives.

“Dance, when you're broken open.

Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.

Dance in the middle of the fighting. 

Dance in your blood.

Dance when you're perfectly free.”

― Rumi

peace to you,

meredith