So I Won't Forget...September 2024
3 things I want to remember from the past month.
“That sounds delightful…”
I really hadn’t expected this response to my invitation for coffee. The person I had invited can sometimes be aloof, sleeps really late, and even ghosted me once via text messages.
I can say that with the utmost affection because the person is my fifteen year old nephew with whom we are all continually clinging to the adage that this too shall pass. God bless fifteen year-olds and I really mean it. Also, God bless the mothers who raised us. Is there anyone out there who believes they were the best versions of themselves at fifteen? Nope. There’s no need to cite any research backing me up on this one. Tis a universally accepted truth.
A friend who is raising teenagers once told me from a place of hard-won wisdom that our teenagers just want to be with us. She said it’s really no different than when our toddlers save their big feelings for us when they get home. They just want to know that we’ll stick with them when things get hard.
I’ve thought about this a lot because, to be honest, I wasn’t sure I believed her. Over the years of loving my nephew our relationship has shifted and stretched. I’ve gone from being the fun aunt—young and unattached, to being his stand-in mother while juggling grief and the birth and toddlerhood of my own three tiny humans, to being the middle-aged aunt to a teenager who for many reasons doesn’t need me in the ways he did before. It hasn’t been whiplash, it’s been a slow transition, one that I almost missed.
I realized this past week that he needs me to be his regular aunt and I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how to do that. I’ve forgotten that his needs are basically met and I get to be the cheerleader, the encourager, the one who nudges him along the path of wisdom (hopefully). Like most families, there is nuance to our situation and I needed to reorient myself to where we are right now in this stage and trust that God sees him. So at the behest of my dear friend, I offered to take him to get coffee every couple of weeks to just hang out and he responded with “that sounds delightful.”
Picture me nonchalantly replying with the details of when/where while I choked back a few tears. It was just about the sweetest response I didn’t know I needed to hear. Delightful. Yep, it was. And I’m here for it…for all the coffee dates, all the slow-growing, nuanced ways I get to be the aunt to this awesome kid my sister brought into the world those fifteen years ago. I’m not writing his story, but I’ll be one of the main characters as long as he’ll let me and that sounds delightful.
So I Won’t Forget #1…coffee dates & being a regular aunt
We’re going to the Olympics…
Just kidding, but Avett did score his first goal in U8 soccer and I think that’s basically what going to the Olympics feels like, right? If I shared the video of it all happening, you’d mostly just hear me mumbling nervously under my breath (while clenching Dustin’s arm) as he dribbled down the field, followed by my Dad and I cheering at an embarrassingly loud volume, followed by me sniffling behind my sunglasses because MY KID JUST SCORED A GOAL!
Except that my tears really had nothing to do with whether he scored or not. Competition is really not my forte and frankly when games start to get too intense, I tend to cheat just to offer some levity.1 What really moved me to tears-behind-sunglasses was that my son had overcome fear and was now experiencing that sweet sense of satisfaction we all get when something that was hard becomes something that is not anymore. He’s every bit his Dad and humility will always come naturally to him. I’m thankful for that, but I also didn’t mind him jogging back to the center line grinning and pointing his finger backwards toward the goal with a little bit of swagger.
So I Won’t Forget #2…when our kids overcome fear
A while back I did a series on the podcast called The Spaces We Occupy2 because at the time our family was wandering in the desert. A tree had fallen on our house and while we rebuilt our home, I kept wondering if our physical spaces mattered to God. I would get into our bed at the rental house and half-jokingly whisper to Dustin “I hate this house.” This is 100% true, just ask him, but not because I wasn’t grateful that we had a safe place to stay. The house was fine, but it held no meaning to me. I didn’t have any history with it. I didn’t know the neighbors. I wasn’t sure of the routines. It didn’t even come with a weighted blanket and Ugg slippers.
God would ultimately use that space to teach me, but it never became home.
This weekend I had the opportunity to teach a group of people who are absolutely dear to me and to do so required a going home of sorts. My husband and I both have an uncommonly sweet history at the church where we both grew up and this happened to be the space in which I was teaching. To our kids this is mostly where they come on Christmas Eve, but to us this is where we were raised and it’s still crawling with the people who did that good, hard work. I could walk the halls blindfolded and show you all its nooks and crannies—where I’ve cried, worshipped, laughed, slept, worked, got married, and buried people I love. In many ways, there’s simply no other building that represents more of my life than this one. It’s home, and as the saying goes, there’s no place like it.
I get that it’s a building and the Church is not a building, but I also believe God uses the experience of home to anchor us, to remind us of who we are and whose we are. I told Dustin that evening that it felt like going home. He nodded and said “I know” because he felt it too.
In a funny twist of timing, the place we worship now, where our kids tear up the halls like they own the place, started a major construction project. We watched the wrecking ball knock a hole through the wall and I jokingly commented that one large tree could have done that more efficiently. Suffice it to say, we won’t be in that physical location for a while. It’s all good though—temporarily being housed elsewhere is something Curzons know how to do now and we’ll do it with a spirit of adventure. We’ll also be ready to skip into the new building, unpack some boxes, and start making it home again.3
So I Won’t Forget #3…going home is sometimes a place
I hope you’ll take some time to do your own So I Won’t Forget. This exercise has been such a gift to me. I look forward to it and I cherish the ones I go back and review. You don’t have to be a writer, but it does require a bit of reflection. Here are some questions to help get your started:
What experiences stirred you up or gave you pause this month?
What do the photos on your phone reveal about the things you noticed this month?
What made you laugh or cry this month?
This weekend I’m headed to the Painters, Prophets, & Poets conference in Oklahoma City and couldn’t be more excited. Follow along with their IG for more info about what they’re doing!
It’s one of my more annoying qualities.
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Cue the Carole King