Wrangler Dani

We sat on the patio as we had done so many times, sharing mimosas, talking over each other, admiring earrings, laughing at everything and nothing. Now the house was owned, not rented, now there were the sounds of childhood play coming through the open window. Our bodies showed the work of motherhood, the sacrifices made of our formerly tan arms and flat stomachs; but laugh-lines have also deepened, we share new realities with the maturity of time. Our husbands were guffawing, grunting at each other with the casual intimacy of manhood, in which everyday foibles are fodder for jokes and sports are the common language.

I’d cried that morning, I would cry again. I needed a reset. I needed a hug and laugh so desperately it was flashing a warning light in my soul.

When we grilled steaks and sat down to dinner, when we laughed over memories, when we watched our kids gleefully jump in the waves of the California shoreline, I felt my chest constrict with the premonition of grief. Everything needed to be perfect: the sun to shine, the babies to coo happily, the breeze to cool us just so, or I would break apart, dashed against the rocks of my own soul like a sailor in a storm. My heart’s muscles were spastic with trying, seized with too much effort for too many years.

Since beginning the long process of adoption seven years ago, I have not stopped. We worked and scrimped and saved and cried and then we had a daughter and started all over again and the memory of my lonely, longing-for-motherhood broken heart haunts me and I have to keep running to stay ahead of it. I am afraid that if I take even one moment for granted, if I stop moving and working and striving and aching, that I will not deserve my life, that this great gift will snatched from me. I am brittle with exhaustion, easily cracked under the weight of silent fear.

After we left our dear friends’ home, we drove up the coast for the last part of our family vacation and I enclosed myself in a taut silence. If I spoke I would scream or cry, the cork would pop and I would not be able to reseal it.

With the help of my very patient husband I finally released the gasses building in me for years, the fermentation that could either explode, rot, or make something complex and beautiful. We sat on the beach and I poured out my guilt and fear and pride, all the pieces of me that were overworked and bottled up. Just like wine, when my heart is released it aerates and builds flavor, it’s realized in the bright fresh air of freedom, not hoarded in a dark cellar.

I will not parent perfectly, I will not always love well, I will always need the wisdom and laughter of my friends to set me straight. But I don’t have to overwork in fear and hardship, I don’t have to stay ahead of tragedy lest it overtake me like a rogue wave. I can rest as a good steak does on a summer night, hot off the grill and ready for savoring around a bountiful table, with no timeline and more wine and more conversation and more joy; resting in the unrushed rhythms of grace.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matt. 11:28-30 MSG