Life is messy.
Real life doesn’t really care if I have the craft supplies sorted or that the island is clean or that the clothes are folded and put away perfect. Real life rarely wraps up like a Hallmark Christmas special with red sweaters and Main Street and snow.
Real life is thick with challenges and wonderful.
Real life is loss and love.
Years ago, before my divorce, but when the tensions were thick and unspoken, Christmas had a different feeling. Looking back it was of trying to put a bunch of wrapping paper on something that was broken and proclaiming “it looks great!” and yet denying the pressures. And, if you know my story, there was no money, but behind the scenes of family and perfection were collectors knocking at the door.
One of those years, right in the middle of the frenzy and hushed pains, our Christmas tree fell.
I worked so hard to protect my kids from the stress, from the lack of funds, from the drama. I wanted them to experience the magic of Christmas and the tree falling right in the middle was like the wrapping paper tearing. I can see it now, but back then, when I worked to keep everything feeling perfect it was a moment of broken made visible.
I wrote about it.
Real life is like that Christmas tree, where the kids (including one who wore his shirt backwards) so carefully decorated the bottom and I fussed over the top, falling over within one hour of us being done. Ornaments, water, lights and all in a tangled mess was the result. And, I was late. I had a dinner to go to, was busy getting ready, and all of a sudden I was faced with a curveball in the routine. The curveball was a seven and a half foot tree, heavy with ornaments, resting on my area rug in the living room with piles of Hungarian gold glass bulbs crushed underneath.
Laugh or cry.There really was nothing I could do, the perfectionist who tries to not be such a perfectionist, at the moment. My family was watching – waiting to see my response – and they mattered more than the bulbs scattered everywhere. Then I saw Grace’s first year Christmas 2001 ornament snapped in two. As I picked it up, my oldest daughters, who both stepped in to help me clean, looked at me and said it’s just a thing, mom. Just a thing. My perfectionist heart had to let it go. It was a thing and they mattered more. They watched me as I looked at them and told them, yes, it’s just a thing, you’re right.Do you know why I love everything so perfect?It’s about me trying to control the circumstances of life.But, sometimes, and what I’m learning through life, and perfectly illustrated with my tree falling, is that there are things that we can’t control – health, finances, relationships, trees falling, kids not fussing, snow days on days when you need to go out – and in those moments we just have to let it go and to choose to live embracing relationships and letting go of things. Even when things are messy there can still be beauty – my tree is standing this morning, with ornaments that I need to rearrange and lights that need fixing – but it’s standing.
It’s standing. (written December 2012, eight months before my life unraveled)
It’s standing.
On my refrigerator is a magnet that says “Fall seven times. Stand up eight.” I had it on there that Christmas so long ago where the words I typed where a powerful truth of the years to come. The lesson of the tree was that it fell – it was that even after falling and breaking things that I never wanted broken and it becoming a giant mess – it was standing again.
I went through the hardest years of my life. Traditions were broken, hearts hurt, it was a giant mess, and here I am still standing. All those years of falling, of feeling like I didn’t know if Christmas could come back, it did. But it didn’t look like the Christmases from before – just like my fallen tree didn’t look the same after. There were new traditions and traditions still kept. There was a mess, but we’ve been cleaning it up.
There is joy again.
Maybe you need to hear that. Maybe you are the me before trying to keep everything perfect but feeling it fall apart and it is scary. I see you, you are strong, you are brave.
Maybe you are in the midst of a life where everything has fallen over and you don’t even know how to clean it up. I see you, you are strong, you are brave.
Maybe you are in the midst of cleaning things up and are grieving what once was while working to make what will be. I see you, you are strong, you are brave.
Maybe you are standing again and life looks different, but here you are, now. I see you, you are strong, you are brave.
Thank you for standing in the midst.
Thank you for standing when things aren’t perfect.
Thank you for standing in the tired.
Thank you for standing in the unknown.
Thank you for standing.
~Rachel
click here to read the original -> Dear Mom Who Likes Everything Perfect
and if you are interested in my story and how you too, can be brave in the midst of motherhood and life that so often doesn’t look perfect, grab my book -> The Brave Art of Motherhood
11 comments
Thank you. I needed to hear that this morning.
This was me…We moved into a new house a few years ago. My tree was so 10feet tall and heavy, so our son came to stand it up and helped with lights. 20 minutes after he left it fell over. Water everywhere, lights burnt out. I laughed out loud all by myself. It was a struggle but I got it back up. Cleaned up the water and decorated it. The following year it went down again. Now we have a big tree stand and it’s never going to fall over. It’s not the end of the world but it feels like it at the time.
Thank you, what a gift to read this today. I really needed this message. 🙏🙏🙏🎄❤️
That was so beautiful
And relatable! Merry Christmas.
Rachel,
My life also unraveled 12/23/2012. This could not be more fitting for me. My children and I have found our strength and are now proudly standing (most days), 7 years later. This is beautiful. I wish I had seen it years ago. Thank you.
Thank you!!!God send!!!
I so needed to read this today. I am broken losing my loved one this year and I thank you for this message to know I will go on.
19th Feb 2016. The husband I adored, father of my two young sons, walked out and never came back. The emotional and physical pain was intense. I grieved. For years. I thought I would never get over it, but I am still standing and I am happy now and so are my boys.
My beloved dad died in March this year after a long illness. It made me realise that what I went through when my husband left, sub consciously gave me coping mechanisms to deal with trauma. My dad was a wonderful, loving father but his death didn’t bring me to my knees. I am brave and strong and I am still standing.
Beautiful, and so gut wretching too!! Been there , done that!! Thank you for reminded ❣️🎄
For dads too!!
this. the timliness of this could not be more real to me. I am preparing for my first Christmas this very day w alot of brokeness and change. I lost my mother at the beginning of this year, so this is has been a year of “first” without her, including now this 1st Christmas season as well as a year of unraveling of a marriage after many many years of striving hard to hold it together , trying to force it to work and trying for my 2 grown kids sake & then finally admitting sometimes things can not be forced and no matter how much you try or want things to be different you can not always make everything work out like you hoped & dreamed . SO yes I am there, with my fallen tree , feeling overwhelmed by loss at this moment, just trying to keep breathing and waiting to feel alive again …with the hope of standing again one day…at a time is all I can see right now but “this” article & these words give me more hope, thank you for meeting me …right here in this messy, so not perfect moment & giving a ray of light to say I am not alone in this struggle & ther is LIFE on the other side of this season. thank you…