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the realm of impossibilities…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

This is currently where I sit.

I have been given this opportunity and everything about it feels just right. Well, almost everything. There is one (pretty huge) thing that is keeping it out of my reach. Breath catching in my chest, for going on eleven hours now, I keep thumping my mind to *think think*, as if a solution is right there–if only…

If only I could find it, create it, imagine it, dream it, realize it, discover it, _______________________ it.

The irony is that the problem is actually a little triggering.

In an entirely unrelated plan of the evening, I attended a Masterclass tonight which guaranteed some incredibly successful things would happen, if I followed steps A, B & C.

GUARANTEED.

I can assure that such things would not happen. And here’s the thing, it isn’t that I’m being negative here, it isn’t even that I am being a realist– though to be fair, I am a realist. For example, I do not navigate within a world where I could market extremely high dollar content to hurting women for a steep price. I just don’t. Could I create high dollar content? Of course I could. Is my time valuable? Absolutely. This fine line I straddle though, reminds me that in staying authentically true to myself, I cannot attach unrealistic price tags on a journey that everyone deserves.

Is it true that the alternative then would be burnout? Failure? Underachievement? Ruin?

I don’t know…

I clearly do not know how to take that “next step.”

I clearly also do not know how to find the path from today to the opportunity I mentioned before.

I woke up this morning, a little girl on Christmas morning, excited for the possibilities of what was coming my way… now I’m about to lay my head on my pillow feeling torn and, to be honest, quite helpless over both scenarios. Hopeless. Not the dramatic-sigh kind, just the tired cry kind. The sort of hopeless that looks a little bit like a school yard kid asking the teacher why everyone else seems to be able to master swinging high, which you just can’t seem to leave the ground.

This might be where the triggering comes in.

Some people are natural born leaders within a world of deep pockets who can afford to lay down boat loads of green for what they are selling. If that is their genuine path, that’s lovely. My path, and my integrity do not allow me to decide that a rich person’s trauma and struggle are more worthy of my time than a poor person’s, or even a middle class person’s. It isn’t that I am better than that leader, nor they are better than me… it’s that we are different. We are all different.

Different.

Capable. Worthy. Different.

I’m gazing out my window tonight, through the darkness towards that sliver of moonlight. I’m straining my eyes to see dots on the ground, illuminated, and connecting my in the direction of what’s right… to the how.

I don’t need to answer the why, I’ve known that since I was seven years old.

pressure… {fmf}

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay4 Comments

I had a conversation this week with a fellow childhood sexual abuse survivor, and we talked about raising children. While she was able to have her own children, I of course could not. What I found fascinating, in our discussion, was the same internal pressures had remained. While I was a foster turned adoptive mother, this intense pressure to CREATE AND BE BETTER for the kids in my care, was debilitating.

Not having a context for what a normal, healthy family should look like, I constructed ideas based on the opinions and insight of professionals, books and statistics. So often, as complaints would rain down about this, or that, I would respond stating that this child was so lucky they had parents who loved them, their needs met and ___________. The reality was that while I had known a childhood that was not at all like the significantly better one I helped design for them, they had also known something far worse. In so many ways, we didn’t stand a chance.

I was killing myself, inside, trying to be the difference.

There is a lot of unhealthy information attached to adoption and foster care. Promises that love is enough, or that children are resilient. Listen, children ARE resilient, but so is trauma, and trauma leaves scars.

No one picks up the megaphone to share about the pressures placed upon both the parents and the children.

It was an odd comfort to know my new friend had felt these same pressures within her natural motherhood journey. A reminder of the scars that trauma leaves…

A realization that pressure traumatizes too.

{This post is an exercise within the Five Minute Friday writing community. To read more, go here!}

Finding You… {Giveaway}

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay4 Comments

My passport remains intact, yet unstamped.

If you’re curious, I’m super sad about this…

Whenever someone mentions the topic of adventure, I shrink a little. I’ve never been anywhere, I think. I’m wrong, of course. I’ve been all over this North American landmass I call home. I’ve done a hundred different road trips, and because I LOVE the movie Elizabethtown, I’m pretty great at making sure road trips are memorable and intentional.

I’ve had exciting flights to west coast beaches and whimsical days in some of our biggest cities.

In the end, I think adventure is either in us or it isn’t. If life has made it so that we haven’t been able to get passport stamps- that’s ok. Adventure is still ours for the taking!

This past year, as we’ve been stuck at home we have re-fallen in love with the adventure we find in movies and books, and honestly, I love that. Speaking of that, I have an amazing trailer for you!

FINDING YOU is an inspirational romantic drama full of heart and humor about finding the strength to be true to oneself.  After an ill-fated audition at a prestigious New York music conservatory, violinist Finley Sinclair (Rose Reid) travels to an Irish coastal village to begin her semester studying abroad. At the B&B run by her host family, she encounters gregarious and persistent heartthrob movie star Beckett Rush (Jedidiah Goodacre), who is there to film another installment of his medieval fantasy-adventure franchise. As romance sparks between the unlikely pair, Beckett ignites a journey of discovery for Finley that transforms her heart, her music, and her outlook on life. In turn, Finley emboldens Beckett to reach beyond his teen-idol image and pursue his true passion.  But when forces surrounding Beckett’s stardom threaten to crush their dreams, Finley must decide what she is willing to risk for love.

115 Minutes | Rated PG

GIVEAWAY: One lucky reader will receive a $20 World Market Gift Card to ‘Shop around the world!’

How to enter:

  • Leave a comment telling about an adventure you’ve had OR connect on the correlating instagram post on 3/18.
  • Make sure there is a way for me to reach you, if you win!
  • Giveaway ends Midnight Saturday March 20th.

So, tell me your adventure!

the chicken or the egg…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

I was part of a writer’s workshop over the weekend which centralized around the philosophies of Virginia Woolf. One of the chosen exercises encouraged us to take a favorite short tale and retell it with more flowery, poetic, and meandering writing. A later exercise asked us to remember a time when we fell in love with a favorite book. We were to mindfully bring ourselves into the action while describing details about the book, day, moment, emotion, etc…

For the first task, I chose The Little Red Hen, my beloved Golden Book from childhood. When the time came for the second task, my mind was still on The Little Red Hen track. I wanted to record the exercises here for one day- for something. I don’t know why…

~

The crimson feathered hen’s heart ached at the decisions her dearest loved ones continued to make as they allowed her to do all of the work while expecting to reap the rewards. Each of them, the hen included, shared the same dream.

She was drained tired but knew the warm, white bread would be worth it.

Wings in mitts, the hen reached into the brick oven and brought the steaming loaves out, “These smell like heaven!” the hen exclaimed with a satisfied sigh, while the mental countdown began as to when her friends would show up expecting to fill their bellies. Her gentle heart hated to deny them, but she knew it was for their own good. These friends needed to learn the value and sacrifice found in hard work…

~

Was it the first time, or simply a time? Had my mind followed the words a thousand times before, their story not quite sinking in, or were they exploring the tale, brand new? Either way, their meaning settled upon me like a dawning.

Criss-cross legs on the floor. Bookshelf Papa built looming over head, books piled high on shelves and stacked low on carpet, surrounding me.

I wanted to reach into the pages and let the weary hen rest in my arms.

Muted rays of light attempted to flood this space beyond my tiny, tin framed bedroom window, as salt-tears traveled down my cheeks for her, the tired hen. Those friends should help her, and do their share. Of course, they cannot share in the bread! I raged angry and protective, appalled at the injustice of it all.

I would sit in this same spot, with these same pages, for years to come. Even as a middle school girl, loving boys and carrying life’s heavy luggage, this hen held space for me… and I for her. To this very day, one-million lifetimes later, this sweet hen’s story still wounds me. She was so tired and yet they would not see her. She gave and she gave, those around her only chose to take and take and take… Even me really, holding her story and tracing her pages, those deep red feathers giving me far more comfort and friendship than anyone had bothered to gift to her.

I loved her.

I am her.

is it because I foresaw it then, or did the engraving of this hen upon my small-girl-soul direct my path?

chasing normal…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

On Saturday evening we had friends over for dinner. We ate my husband’s special Chorizo Tacos (this man is incredible, I’m telling you!) and played some really fun games. There was laughter intermittent with deep discussion. It was all so normal, triggering moments of memory from the Great Before, while also feeling not normal at all.

That last part is tricky.

As our friends readied to leave, just after midnight, one of them hugged me and said “Let’s not wait a year to do this!”

A year.

The last time we’d seen these two beautiful souls, who live minutes from us, we were at the wrap of 2019. In context, that feels like insanity. Last year lasted so many eternities that the thought of having not seen these friends since BEFORE that is unfathomable. It is almost like we saw them, some weeks passed, we hit pause and then they came over for tacos.

How do we measure life within that pause?

In hugs?

I have hugged my husband a billion times. I hugged my dear friend Maggie several times, back in October. I have hugged my sweet friend Amanda everytime I’ve seen her, which feels regularly, but in all actuality may only equal 8 or 9 times within that year. And then, then Saturday I hugged Ashley and Jessica.

It would seem the span of pause is measured more in isolated conversations, mentions of the virus, bizarre weather patterns, deep self-realizations, and face masks.

We are heading out of town next week where face masks and hugs will be a plenty. I love to go and am so stir crazy, yet the thought of being somewhere else is giving me anxiety. Is it safe to go?

Let’s be honest, it is fair to also ask if it’s safe to stay…

My husband is vaccinated and I’m awaiting my turn. While I wait, I long for sun on my face, adventure and a life lived. Within this paused space of isolation, it is clear to see the toll life has taken on my body and my health. Autoimmune illness has had its way with me, leaving me crumpled in the corner, used. Something has to change, and that chase is what I’m here for. Whatever lies at the end of this new quest for anything other than this, will likely not look like anything that came before- and that’s ok. Changes happen, we evolve.

I am different now, just as life is different.

Even so, I’m ready to step outside and look for normal. My laces are tied and the sun is shining, wanna come?