confession

Turns out, I think I don't believe I deserve the life I want.

This was a mentality drilled into me from the first phone calls when I told my family I was pregnant.  Actually, long before that, when I married off my younger sister to our sweet brother.  It's no one's fault.  But the mentality is there.  That I don't deserve what others have.

I remember watching one of my sisters get married and thinking, a second family wedding for an older sister won't be this important.  There was some embarrassment in not being the first and the lie crept in: because no one picked you, you are less worthy of celebration.  I danced and laughed and cried and applauded at my sister's wedding because I love her and I love my brother.  And didn't feel a tinge of jealousy until the white tents came down and I stood there in my black, sheath dress and thought, will I get a turn?

When I told my family I was having a baby... well, to rehash this experience would cause me more post traumatic stress than the story's worth.  But let's just say I spent my entire pregnancy walking on eggshells.  Hoping I didn't seem too excited for this sweet baby no one thought I should have.  Dodging the nosy questions, hiding my belly, throwing up on my way to undergrad classes, learning how to graciously respond to less than gracious remarks.  I was thrown wonderful baby showers, where I felt awkward.  Like I was not something, someone, who should be celebrated.  As if unconventionalism trumps the celebration.  

I felt this way when I was asked to take maternity pictures.

And I felt this way when I drove myself to the hospital.

Yes, of course there were many many people who responded negatively to my life's events.  People with crude, ungracious, judgmental commentary.  I was shunned and people turned their back's on us, and I sent people packing who were nothing short of toxic to my small family.  But they were not the majority.  So I am not entirely sure where these deep-seated feelings come from.

But it just always feels like embarrassment.

Please don't take too close of a look at my life, lest you find it lacking.

Once Judah got here, I felt even more confused.  I didn't have the luxury to decorate a nursery.  I barely felt entitled to decorating my own home.  I still don't.  We still have bare walls and our bedrooms have nothing hanging on the walls.  For whatever reason.  We celebrated his first birthday in the park with cake and pizza and a lot less glitz and glamor than most moms plan for their children's first year celebration.  Not because I don't think Judah deserves it.

But because I felt like I didn't have permission to be ... normal.  And I have limitations, then and now, which means we don't celebrate in gigantic ways.

To celebrate in the way every one else around me did.  To declare to the world: we are a family, despite what you see.

We need family pictures taken.  Terribly.  And I'm afraid to ask for them.

Most of the time, usually, I override these insecurities for Judah's sake.  We will put up Christmas trees and we will open presents and I am looking for special Christmas stockings for him.  I want to start Advent this year with him, so he can learn about what Christmas really means while he is still young.  We bake cookies and clean up our messes and have a family pet.

But in so many's eyes, we are incomplete.  And I would be lying if I don't feel the same sometimes.

I do slip up sometimes and think about my wedding, though.

The thought dovetailed with one that sounds like, if I ever get married.  In the unlikely event I ever get married.  If anyone would ever choose us.

And I realize it's not that I don't believe I'll get married.  I think I will.  But I wonder... do I deserve a wedding?

What about engagement pictures?  Or an engagement ring for that matter.  Or a wedding registry?  Or a white, long dress?

People don't want to see those things, celebrate these events, with someone like me.  Do they?

I would want to.  For you.

But I don't think I deserve it.  In the weirdest, deepest sense.  And not at all because I feel ashamed, or because I think I've done anything wrong.  There are those who want me to feel that way, even after all these years they still say things.  But that's just not it.  Perhaps I have these feelings because I assume people would find it odd.  Or because there are better things to spend money on.  Or because it feels like playing dress up, when you've done everything else so backwards.

Maybe because I can't imagine myself marrying a man willing to do this stuff.  I still don't know how you all talk these boys into some of the stuff you talk them into.

I know, if I ever get the chance to have another child, it will come with the great big guilt.  Because I will surely feel more freedom to celebrate.  To be excited. To look others in the face who've scorned us before, and point out there's no "but" to this congratulations.  There will be no "I guess".  Or "where's daddy?" Or the hateful, "God uses mistakes all the time..."

I love Judah.  He is my family and the love of my life.  And I celebrate him in my own way, in ways I never tell any of you.  And now he is smart and loved and handsome and the center of my world.  Interesting enough, even those of you who cautiously celebrated his birth before, condemn my desire for a bigger family now.  Saying I have Judah and he's all I need.

I wish y'all would make up your minds.

But here's what I know:

This needed fleshing out.

The roots of this are deep and look an awful lot like so much false hope.  Being hesitant to want will curb the pain of not getting.  I don't think any of you, any of the good of you, would do anything but dance and celebrate if I said... I found him.  The one I'll call husband and Judah will call daddy and we are a family now and he picks us and we picked him.

I chuckled a little just now, knowing one of you at least would.  You'd have something to say.  Probably about settling.  Or protecting Judah.  Or whether or not this man loves Jesus.

For crying out loud, don't make me go there.

But the majority of you would dance right along with me at a wedding, with white dresses and lights hung from trees and left hand rings.

I wonder then, why I still feel like I would never ask for it.

Want it, deeply.  But never ask for it.