Why being honest about my bad habits is good for me

I recently received an e-mail from a dear friend who’s serving as a missionary in the Middle East. She’s been great about staying in touch and I, well I haven’t been.

So she wrote to find out what was wrong. Had something changed in our relationship? Had she offended me somehow or was I not supportive of the work she’s doing overseas? She probably asked me a few other questions, but I couldn’t read much farther through my increasingly weepy eyes.

She hadn’t done a thing wrong. The problem was me. On the surface, it seemed I’d let the busyness of life get in the way of this precious friendship. But what really happened is I lost sight of who I really am. I’d told myself I’d respond to her e-mail, return her phone call, send her support letter when I had more time to think about them.

What we need is both far simpler and far more elusive than a larger circle of friends.

There are days when I think I’ll poke my eyes out if I have to read one more article about the power of girlfriends. I read these pieces and I think I know, I know, I know! Friends are great! I want friends! I don’t need to be convinced that friendship is a good idea!!

I don’t think any of us needs to be told we should have friends—are there really women out there who doubt this? I know that the people writing these articles have the very best of intentions for their readers. They know we sometimes feel lonely and isolated, and they want to help. I get that. But the help we need isn’t a push to make more friends or strengthen the friendships we have—we know that already. What we need is both far simpler and far more elusive than that. What we need is time.

Learning to hang onto him even without a crisis

I’m tapped out. Today I have nothing to give, nothing to offer. I’m sucked dry and emptied out. Pick your metaphor of mental and physical exhaustion and that’s me.

And yet the demands haven’t stopped. When I feel this way, it actually seems as though they intensify. Each request for help or attention or input feels like the last one I can bear. My nerves are frayed. My head is full. My body reacts to each sound and sensation and voice like a truck has hit me. I respond with complete exasperation—a shout, a look, a sigh. It isn’t pleasant for anyone.

But I know I won’t stay in this empty place. And if you’re in a place like this right now, I want to assure you that you won’t either.

How I've stopped seeing myself through other people's eyes

Sometimes a good game of kickball can be life changing. A few nights ago, several family friends got together for some late summer dessert and kickball. As the adults and older kids divided into teams, I felt a familiar sense of dread. Please don't let me humiliate myself, I prayed silently.

Athletic ability is the one gift I desperately wish I'd received. Forget patience or compassion or grace. I've always wanted to be the girl who makes the outfield back up when she comes to the plate. The team member who scores the winning run and makes a game-saving catch. The heroine who inspires my friend's teenage son to say, "You rule out there!" as he told my friend Jessica. But that's not me.

How I still the mental noise of life’s demands

I’m hiding right now.

I’m in my bedroom, with my laptop propped on a pillow, trying to work. I spent the last half hour in my home office, only to be interrupted with endless requests for play dates (from my 7-year-old), repeated inquiries as to the whereabouts of blue princess shoes (from my 3-year-old), and whimpering cries for attention (mostly from my dog, but occasionally from my 11-year-old). So I retreated here in hopes of creating a few minutes of quiet.

How I found myself again

I’m in love with my new shoes. They arrived by mail last week, and I couldn’t wait to try them on. For they’re not just any shoes, but black T-strap character shoes for a play I’m doing. I’m tempted to sleep in them.

“Character shoes,†for anyone unfamiliar with theater, are sturdy leather pumps with two-inch heels and soft soles for dancing. These shoes are the standard issue footwear of actresses and dancers everywhere, and work for nearly every time period setting, every costume design, every character—hence the name. And I hadn’t owned a pair for almost 20 years.

Why we shouldn’t rush our friends through difficulties

I like to fix things. Or, rather, I like to fix people. Someone comes to me with a problem, and I want to make it better—now. But lately, I’ve watched several friends live through terrible situations: crumbling marriages, failing careers, dying children, withering spirits. And I can’t do a thing to make them better.

I grew up in a Swedish family that didn’t do well with emotion, particularly “negative†emotions such as sadness, anger, frustration, grief. The Scandinavian way is to push through and do whatever’s necessary regardless of feelings. Added to that mindset is my generation’s belief that talking about a problem long enough will make it better. As if those propensities weren’t enough, I always want to be the friend who gives the best advice, who comes through and saves the day. So because of my Swedish instinct to run from pain, my Gen X desire to discuss a problem’s every nuance, and my chronic need to help, I tend to rush people through life’s hard parts. As I listen to these friends whose spouses are leaving or whose parents are sick or whose jobs are gone, I have to work hard to keep my mouth shut and my ears open.

Life doesn’t always meet my expectations.

We’ve had a miserable winter here in Minnesota. And oddly enough, the snow and ice and wind and cold haven’t yet fazed me.

However, in these first weeks of April, my part of the country is awaiting yet another snowstorm. Sadly, April snowstorms aren’t that unusual here in the frozen wasteland.

But this year, winter has tried the patience of even the most stoic Midwesterners. Most of my friends here are irritated beyond words at this weather’s continuation. They’ve endured a long, frigid five months, and just want winter to end. So my undaunted attitude in the face of more snow, more shoveling, more scraping of windshields and bundling of children is quite certainly a mark of astonishing growth.

Failing to see the goodness in my life

Today is a resentful day.

I don’t like to give in to resentment, but right now I’m losing the battle. I’ve even made a list of my day’s resentments:

I resent my work for piling up all at once.
I resent my three-year-old for not napping.
I resent my husband for coming home later than promised.
I resent the laundry for needing to be done five days in a row.
I resent dinner for taking so long to make.
I resent the cold weather for making me hunch my shoulders outside.
I resent the cold weather for being so cold.
I resent my body for getting older and refusing to process fat efficiently.
I resent my house for being old and drafty, and chilling my fingers while typing.
I resent my friend Todd for beating me at online Scrabble five times.
I resent the dog.

I never guessed my “perfect†friend had secret struggles.

I hadn’t seen Cheryl in 20 years. But when we met for lunch last week, we felt we were right back in college. We laughed about the numerous guys we’d liked, the cruddy apartment we’d shared our junior year, and the mystifying way 20 years suddenly seemed like an instant.

I’d been a little nervous about seeing Cheryl. She’s now an important businesswoman married to an important businessman. I knew she’d drive a nicer car, wear better clothes, and live a far more interesting life than mine. None of those accomplishments surprised me. Even in college, Cheryl had always appeared confident and smart—knowing what she wanted and how to get it. She’d stayed focused and above the fray, as if she didn’t worry what anyone thought of her. Cheryl had been ready for adulthood. I, on the other hand, still had felt like a child.

Had I accumulated any of the wisdom that’s supposed to come with age?

I’ve recently been feeling a bit old. This feeling started when my friend Carrie asked me for relationship advice. “I’m hoping a wise woman like you will have ideas for handling my situation,†she said. The word wise made me wonder when I’d transitioned from the young, advice-seeking girl to the old, advice-giving woman. And the notion occurred to me that maybe I hadn’t suddenly become old; maybe, to paraphrase Sunset Boulevard’s aging actress Norma Desmond, it was the girls who got young.

Granted, I’ve always felt much younger than I am. I’ll turn 42 next month, but I feel like I’m in my 20s. I like to believe my taste in music and movies has remained reasonably hip over the years. I still wear my hair long and unkempt because I refuse to succumb to perfectly coiffed “mom hair.†And while I do indeed drive a minivan, I hit the gas in cool motorcycle boots that are the envy of my 20- and 30something friends.

Lessons I’ve learned behind the scenes

When I was 8, I believed I was destined to sing with the Carpenters.

When I was 11, I believed I was destined to star in a TV show with Shawn Cassidy.

When I was 20, I believed I was destined to headline on Broadway.

Now, at 42, I believe I’m destined to remain in the background. And I couldn’t be happier.

How God used me to unknowingly change a life

I rarely think of myself as a woman of influence. I can barely get my children to listen to me, much less someone not threatened with losing TV privileges. Don’t get me wrong—I’m opinionated, I’m passionate, I’m successful at making my voice heard. But true influence, the kind that motivates people, creates change, and inspires others—well, I just don’t have that. Or so I thought.

Last July, I attended a staff reunion at the Bible camp where I worked during my college summers. I spent six summers there, serving in various roles—cabin counselor, lead counselor, program coordinator—and I loved every second of it. At the reunion, I had a great time catching up with co-workers I hadn’t seen in 20 years, campers I hadn’t seen since they were kids, and staffers I hadn’t seen since I was a kid. We traded the kinds of stories that only come about by throwing 50 college students into the woods for a summer—crushes and pranks and endless silliness. I often felt those years were indulgent. I wish I could say I’d had some noble desire to impact kids for Christ at camp, but, honestly, I was in it mostly for the fun.

Why do I let criticism affect my self-worth?

I keep waiting for my skin to get thicker. I mean, I’m 41 and 1/2 years old. I should have enough confidence in myself by now to prevent criticism from bothering me. But I don’t. No matter what people criticize—my work, my parenting, my hair, my driving, my marriage—their harsh words hit me in the gut.

I don’t know many women who do handle criticism well. Most of my male friends seem able to let it roll off them. We women, however, tend not only to bristle under it, but to actually snatch criticism out of the most benign encounters. Some of us are so sensitive, we find critical comments even when they aren’t there.

We women are much stronger than we think.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of having my first mammogram—aka “the great smoosh.†As I stood there in yet another of the many humiliating poses women strike in front of medical personnel, I thought about the strange sense of strength I feel during these uniquely female moments.

When I was pregnant with my first child, my husband and I dutifully attended our “How to Have a Baby†classes. (That wasn’t the actual name. It was probably something clever like “Great Expectations.â€) One evening the class covered pain management. On the drive home, my husband said he thought I’d probably want an epidural. “You’re kind of a wimp about pain,†he explained. Big mistake.

Why it stretches far beyond shared bloodlines and last names

“Are you watching CNN?†My friend Doug’s urgent tone on the phone interrupted our family vacation. We were away from our Minneapolis home visiting my out-of-state in-laws.

“What happened?†I asked, afraid of his answer.

“The 35W bridge collapsed. Hundreds of cars are in the river.â€

I hung up my phone and turned on the TV. My husband and I could hardly comprehend the images of that familiar road lying crumpled in the water. We tallied up the people we knew who might’ve been on the bridge. We tried calling friends, but the phone lines in Minneapolis were jammed and we couldn’t get through. So we watched and wondered and waited.

Why are we women so reluctant to ask for help?

I don’t want to be a bitter person. But something happened a few years ago that still irks me.

After giving birth to my third child, I came home with her from the hospital on a Wednesday. Thursday night—or rather Friday morning at 2:00 A.M.—my husband returned to the hospital with our then four-year-old son, Isaac. Earlier that day, Isaac had already been to urgent care because of difficulty breathing. But the doctor had merely diagnosed him with a mild case of asthma and recommended we follow up with our regular doctor soon. Instead, Isaac ended up in the ER, then in the hospital, with a wicked bout of pneumonia.

So there we were: one new baby, one child in the hospital, and one kid wondering how she could get a little attention. Clearly, we were a bit stressed.

Want to know my secret? I have a pathological need to be liked. That might not seem like much of a secret—after all, most people want to be liked. But I’m not talking about want here; I’m talking about a never-express-an-unpopular-opinion-in-the-hopes-that-all-people-will-adore-me need to be liked. Frankly, it’s a bit of a problem.

Carla Barnhill is the author of numerous articles and two books, The Myth of the Perfect Mother and Blessings Every Day, which has sold more than half a million copies and was awarded the 2002 Gold Medallion Award. Carla has been an editor in the Christian publishing market for more than ten years, working in both magazine and book publishing. The former editor of Christian Parenting Today magazine, Carla also has edited many books, including Preaching Re-Imagined by Doug Pagitt, Postmodern Children's Ministry by Ivy Beckwith, The Sacred Way by Tony Jones, and The Importance of Being Foolish by Brennan Manning. She serves on the editorial board of emersion books, a publishing partnership between Baker Book House and Emergent Village. Carla's the mother of three and the wife of one. She and her family live in Minnesota.