Rooting for Butterflies: A Response to Domestic Violence in the Media

Two reasons for this post:
1. I've been working at a Domestic Violence Services Agency for one year.
2. There has been a lot of attention on domestic violence in the media recently.

The combination of those 2 things has set up a bit of an expectation that I and my colleagues have something to say to everyone about this. 

hmmm. How about I tell you a little story?

One of our office receptionists, a lovable and eccentric individual who constantly shines laughter and love into our lives, found a caterpillar in a precarious place outside our door. She insisted would become a monarch butterfly.  For 2 weeks she has taken steps to help this caterpillar in its transition, and surprised us all with the knowledge she has applied to caring for it and answering our questions. 

Today, she made an announcement that it for sure was coming out of its chrysalis today.  To anyone who was interested she pointed out how the distinctively monarch wing was showing through and this indicated it was almost time. Somewhere around 10am I heard a loud "I think it's coming out!!!" and impulsively hurried to her office, where a few of my other coworkers were gathered around, one with her camera rolling. We stood transfixed and silent (except for the receptionist's occasional squeals of excitement) for the 3.5 minutes it took for the now-butterfly to shed the chrysalis.  As we continued to watch, its wings began to almost imperceptibly grow to normal size. It was a gorgeous creature, but so, so delicate. In fact, we were told it would be another few hours while it clung on in its new state before it was ready to attempt flight. And then it would fly all the way to Mexico. We couldn't step in and help it - it had to do it all by itself or it wouldn't make it. We just cheered it on. It sounds cheesy, but I can't tell you how beautiful it was.


This is a true story involving a real caterpillar/butterfly. But you are smart and know there's a metaphor embedded here as well.

 How can I speak for anyone? How can I bear witness to what goes on inside a cocoon? What right do I have to convey the strength and energy transition takes? How can I make skeptics understand that connection to a whole chain of support is separate from doing all the work and taking all the risk? Can you hear us voice the dangers present and the odds of making it, and still believe we deal in hope? Will those now paying attention be convinced that witnessing transformation and the growth of wings is a worthwhile endeavor? Because it is inaccurate to say we save lives; we are not saviors. But the lives might have been lost if we weren't there with shelter and support. 

What I can say is that what you see publicly this week goes on unseen in many forms all the time. I can tell you facts about domestic violence that maybe you know by now: it's not about being out of control, but control, first and foremost. I hope that truly helpful discussions can happen, and that people's minds and hearts can change. I hope that more understanding develops, and that as a result money is raised to help victims and paths will form for advocates to bring about more change. But no matter what happens, I assure you that there will still be strong and delicate human beings who keep undertaking a process of change. And I assure you that there will be fellow human beings who stand beside and root them on. 

Tashmica is Jumping Out of a Plane Today

That's a reason to come back, to say that, right?

Since my "final" post, life has carried me to new places. I now have a job working in advocacy for a domestic violence services agency.  And I have slowly realized that this conversation we began should not be closed.

Also in the silence of this blog, Tashmica successfully started a new foundation.  Tashmica is jumping out of a plane today to honor the bravery of children who have survived sexual abuse, to shed light on the possibility of their beautiful young lives, and to invite others to invest in that. 

No, this conversation is not over.  The world still needs changing, and we are still becoming stronger and more creative in meeting the challenge. 

Tashmica is jumping out of a plane today. 

A Better Way

Dear, Surprised (or maybe not surprised) Reader,

So I lied. That was not a good way to end a blog. Depressing. No real resolution.

Let's try this again.

Part of big moves for my family is church shopping.

Let's have a moment of silence for the parts of so many souls that have died in the church shopping process.

Even the term leaves a bit of a puke taste in the mouth.  Church shopping? I am certain this is a term invented by Americans. But it is a very accurate term. It's a bit like puppy shopping. Which is hard to explain too. It should be happy! Easy! But there is something ... wrong ... about the whole thing. You so badly want a puppy. But the behind-the-scenes reality of how puppies come to be for sale is something you don't want to know about. The American church scene/divisions are embarrassing to Christianity. Yet here we are, contributing to the sectarianism with our rejection of church after church. But being involved in a great church - we want that! My best friends in the world have been made by church connections! And my Sunday mornings are way too precious! And my children..... it's so complicated.

We have had the usual unsuccess here in Jersey, church shopping, as well as the accompanying guilt and "what's the matter with us?!"

This past Sunday, we stumbled upon one with promise for us. Ok, "stumbled" is a completely inaccurate word to use. Jeff spent hours and hours on websites and combed through every last page and link on this one. We made a calculated visit to a well-researched place this past Sunday and actually might visit a second time.

How did this place make it through round one of the Rozelle Standardized Test for Churches?

-There is a big, huge garden right by the parking lot and there were people weeding it as we pulled up and as we left. Points given by me. I don't know if the church people keep stuff from it, but I know they give stuff out of it to their food pantry.
-They have a food pantry and other great ministries. This is a very outward-focused church.
-Super duper nice people. We got the warmest welcome ever that was not in the least bit creepy. And you could tell they were tight - they have real relationships with one another. They were nice to each other in all of the little ways people are not, often, in our society anymore.
-They did not chase us down, ask any contact information from us, but gave us ways to contact them and check out what they are about.
-There was coffee that could be brought into the meeting space. (Points from Jeff)
-There were lots of goodies (Points from Anna)
-Kids are important, part of the church family.
-There is diversity - economic, social, age, race (though not as much in the last one as I would hope).
-The worship, though not done by talented musicians, was not distracting and they did not try to overreach their talent and kept it simple and low-key. (Points from Tiff)
- The pastor had a relaxed, conversational style that made it seem unlike a sermon.
-The content of this conversation blew me away.

I won't get into everything that made this appealing to me, but I will share what I think is relevant for this space. The core message was something like wouldn't it be nice to have an advocate? Someone to go to bat for you, plead on your behalf, when you need it? We don't have a lot of real-life examples of that outside the professional realm and especially the legal system. But when we have experienced it, it's powerful. Jesus is our advocate. He has our backs, so we don't have to exhaust ourselves trying to constantly defend ourselves against anyone and everything, including God. Because of his advocacy, we don't have to worry about how we look in others' eyes, even God's. The result of this, once we understand, is that we can find true peace, rest, and security. We can find boldness to do things we wouldn't have had the courage and freedom to do. Like advocating for other people. Wouldn't that turn our world on its head, if people who called themselves Christians spent their time not covering their own asses, but advocating (not judging!) for the hurting people around us?!

All this to say that I realize that many of the things I wish I could take back over the past year, many of the hurts I have caused, many of the ways I have not done what I wished I would have, can be directly traced to me wholeheartedly being my own advocate. Especially since I advocate for myself in an exceptionally bitchy way. Any wedge I have caused in my marriage, friendships, relationships with my children can be linked to me worrying about defending myself. The kind of person I want to be is not that kind of person. The kind of person I want to be makes the world a better place for other people. The kind of person I want to be is generous and forgiving and open-hearted and minded.

Feminism at its best is about advocacy. Advocating for people who are given less-than status in some way. Christianity is too often not about that, and to hear this kind of message, at the heart of who Jesus is - an advocate, brings everything full circle for me. In recognizing how free I am to advocate for others because I have been, am being, advocated for, is the key to Christianity and Feminism working together for good in my life. Or losing those labels all together and saying this is who I am meant to be.

I wish you courage, freedom, rest, hope, and the joy of becoming the best version of who you are meant to be.

With love,
Tiffany

jmatrozelle@yahoo.com
http://www.tiffanysattempt.blogspot.com/

Time to Let Go

This morning I read a most beautiful post on a friend's facebook page. I very rarely read anything truly profound on facebook, but this morning her post was lovely in every way. One facet of her writing described how she surrendered to a recent life-changing experience and is discovering what it means to let go of her normal expectations and orientation of her life.  Besides being grateful for the beauty imparted by her story, some things finally broke through the surface of my personal life.

Why have I been living life as if there is some big test I will have to pass? As if everything will be evaluated. I can be a gross underachiever, but mostly I am an overachiever. If there are grades, I want an A plus. If there is a race shirt that names the event and underneath has "Marathon, Half Marathon, 5K" I sure as hell will not be running the 5K and probably will only run the marathon. And I will want a PR.  And to be in the top 25% of my age category. I want to be referred to as a good wife and mother. On employee evaluations I want the highest possible scores and of course the highest possible raise. I want to bring a dish that I bring none of home.

This is ruining me - my character. Chipping away at my marriage. Probably alienating friends. Sending my daughters messages that the standards they must aspire to are impossible to reach but they should, at much personal cost, try to reach them anyway.

In Ecclesiastes there is a well-worn passage about a season for everything. A time to be born and die, keep and throw away, speak and keep silent, etc. I have realized what season this is for me. 

It is time to let go.

Let go of trying so hard, competing, worrying, keeping score, trying to figure it all out and do it all.

In the dark and putrid recesses of my heart, I have felt that it is so noble of me to be doing this move for my husband. This is all for his benefit, the nasty hidden me thinks, and he really owes me so much.

As if Providence does not move in ways that all lives are touched and I stand alone untouched as a pillar of sacrifice.  This move, I think, shifted the bedrock of my life in order to jar me into seeing that I need to save me from myself. And/Or save those I love from myself. 

This will be the last entry on this blog. At this point in my timeline, it is part of what I need to let go of. I will continue to chronicle my family's life on An Attempt  .  Thank you for riding along and I hope that your time here has enhanced your life in some way.  I wish you good things as you journey forward.

Men in Aprons: My 8 Year Old's Opinions on Marriage

 My 8 year old announced today that when she grows up and gets married she does not want to get stuck with all the "lady" chores like cleaning the house and doing the laundry.

My high schooler responded, "Well, those things are cultural. It's not like a rule that girls have to do them."
"You mean I don't have to do them?" 8 year old sister was very happy but skeptical...
I entered the conversation: "You can tell your future husband that you would like him to do half the chores and you to do half the chores and you can negotiate."
(Not that I am a very good example of how this could work, which is why my kid had the notion of "lady chores" in the first place...)
My 8 year old laughed, "Ha! Maybe he could wear an apron and do ALL those chores!"
Her sister joined in her laughter. As I was about to interject something about fairness, my  8 year old said, "But I would not want him to wear one of those aprons that says 'Kiss the Cook' on it!"

Myself, Reinvented?

Yesterday as I was grabbing dinner out with the kids on a busy evening, I was acutely aware of all the women in their business attire and I felt like I needed to say, "Yeah, this isn't really me anymore, this shorts-on-a-weekday thing."

It's interesting how we form our personal identity based on transient things that are not intricately attached to our souls. When I transitioned to being a career mom, I found myself floundering in identity uncertainty. "Wait - the person I am makes everything from scratch! I don't buy lots of "stuff'! I don't eat out a lot! This is not who I am, this eating-out, convenience food, materialistic woman!"  When we moved into our current house I felt a shift in identity, "Wait - I'm the person who walks or bikes! I am not this suburban dweller who owns a snow-blower and lawn mower and garage-door opener!" Now that I have ended my term at my job, I find myself adjusting identities again: "Wait - who is this person watching Soul Pancake clips with my teenager at 9 am? Why am I in shorts on a Tuesday afternoon? Why am I re-constructing my own resume - I am the person whose job it is to help other people with their resumes!" 

Is that really all that defines me - job title and attire, dwelling and location, food consumption, exercise, etc.? Or is who I am more: loyal friend, adventurous wife, loving mama, etc.? Sometimes I wonder if what we primarily use to define us serves to draw lines between us that ruin our ability to be in real, honest community and therefore indulge in satisfying soul-friendships. "Oh, I'm a stay-at-home granola mom who grows her own food; so sorry that you are a career mom who drives a hummer and feeds your kids Happy Meals. We are very different." Really? Or are we both nervous about whether or not our kids will adjust to high school and find friends to sit with in the cafeteria, lonely because it seems we don't have time to invest in our own female friendships, worried about our aging parents, and nervous that our husbands will no longer think we're so attractive as the crows feet and back fat accumulates? Do we cancel the common denominator of womanhood and humanity by the way we form our identities?


Moving will inevitably change parts of my identity again: living arrangements, job, etc. What is the identity gold that will emerge from the refining process?

The Accidental Parent

My children were not planned. I always wanted to be a mother, but I had pictured it as a more controlled endeavor, all the way around.

In no way is motherhood, in my experience, a controlled endeavor.

This began with the knowledge of the existence of my first child.  Kelly was the first of my sisters and I to have a baby, and I distinctly remember announcing to my mother at the preparations for Kelly's baby shower that I would not be attempting motherhood for a very long time. I had so much to work on before I dove in.

I pretty much found out I was expecting Molly the day that Kelly's son was born.

So much for that. I stumbled my way through the first months of pregnancy in a very sick daze and assumed that I would just, at the end of 9 months, deliver a healthy baby.  Instead, lots of hospital time but months before her due date, my daughter came the color purple and weighing 1 pound, 10 oz. She lived her first month in a little plastic house at the hospital and connected to beeping machines. I spent every minute I could parked outside that isolette, trying to be a good mom, whatever that was, because I loved that baby so much and I thought I would die if she did.  I tried not to make her heart rate spike and her O2 rate drop and willed her to get fatter and I tried to simultaneously obey the nurses and assert my independence as a mother.

3 months later, a day that still ranks at my top 10 best ever, my husband and I proudly carried home a 4 lb 3 oz peanut packed into an infant carseat that was still much too big for her. We spent the first weeks taking turns watching her constantly, and at some point began our descent into our style of laissez-faire parenting.  We assumed every baby slept as much and cried as little and was content to sleep anywhere including the movie theater. She was healthy and perfect and we did not give that much thought.

3 years later, I decided I very much wanted another baby. 2 years later than that, I gave up on the idea that I would ever produce another child. It wasn't that simple, but not unlike many other disappointments that come with the territory of motherhood. And like those, I survived. I pursued a career in nursing, partly so that I could be one of the understanding nurses in the NICU who help bewildered mothers feel better and not worse.

Then I discovered I was expecting another baby and would not be completing nursing school on time. My doctor ordered me to bedrest and no clinicals. And my healthy, roly-poly, very loud and very hungry second child was born with a very much black hair and a personality very unlike her sisters'. This daughter showed me that babies can ingest endless amounts of breast milk, crawl and walk too early, ignore the word "no," bite other human beings, throw fits in every store in town, not want to do anything that you want to do, and  still be impossibly adorable in spite of all that.  I spent every minute worrying that she would be a holy terror, trying to be a good mom, whatever that was, because I loved that girl enough to forfeit my own life. Which is what I felt I did for the first years of her life until at some point I began my descent into my style of laissez-faire parenting.

Both girls are growing into lovely young women now.  Yesterday, my husband and I attended our youngest's children's theater performance. It was an impressive show and she had been working hard. We had been told that "the big kids got the main roles." So we were surprised when our 8 year old seemed to still be one of the major characters with solos, while several older children did not have the same privilege. She delivered a great performance, and when she sang her solo we looked at each other in amazement. Wow!

Later that day, my husband and I tried to figure out how we managed to get two fabulous kids.  They are fun. They are smart. They are talented. They have good hearts. We know there are many better parents out there, but we are pretty certain there aren't too many better kids. It's really a miracle.

If you are a mother, I am guessing you feel much the same way. You look at these little people running around your house sometimes and wonder how in the world you ended up so lucky. (Or maybe you only wonder that when they are all snuggled in bed asleep - I've been there too). If you are one of those mothers that is convinced that your children are products of your superb parenting skills and perfect planning, then we probably don't have much in common. I know myself, and I know the greatness of my children is something that in my most honest moments I view as something I should say a prayer of  "phew...thanks...I didn't deserve this...." about.  There are moments I try so hard I think I will faint and others that I don't and I'm not sure which benefit my children more.

I love them. I get mad at them. I love them. I have fun with them. I love them. I am amazed they are mine. I love them. I love being a mom, whatever that means.