The beauty of messy love...

Overwhelming.

The love that bubbles in my heart, rises to my throat and lodges there when I look at my two sons, at their gem-of-a-man father, at their hands reaching for my face, my arm, my hair.

Overwhelming.

The panic that gurgles in my veins, claws at my throat and lodges there when I look at the mountains of laundry to be done, the piles of toys to be picked up, the layer of dust lounging on the tables and the bookshelves and the books that line them…not to mention the pages I need to design for work, the queries I need to write to agents so they’ll shop my book to publishers, the chapters I still need to write for my next book.

These emotions, so completely different from each other, live under the same roof. Sometimes it’s just…overwhelming.

Maybe you should know something about me. Maybe you already know it. I’m a perfectionist. Always have been…trying hard not to be.

But it sneaks in on days like today. Days when I look at that layer of dirt and wonder how we can even breathe in this house with two weeks of dust caking the ceiling fans that spin all night and the shelves my boys touch (and sometimes gnaw on, if we’re talking about Asa) and the beds where we sleep.

On days like today, I want to drop everything and clean until my hands fall off, until my feet scream for relief, until the whole house shouts, “Thank you, God, that she finally saw fit to pick up a duster.”

But on days like today, it is nearly impossible.

Because those boys (okay, and man)—a 2-year-old who would rather walk on toys than clean them up and a five-month-old who doesn’t even comprehend the word clean and a 27-year-old who seems like he should have been trained by now—are there, staring at me with eyes that say, “Stay here with me.”

So I do. I sit and watch Jadon pull out more toys and add to the pile that’s already out of hand. And I feel it growing inside me—the frustration, the horror, the panic of seeing my carefully-put-together game room becoming a tornado-went-through-here play room. I watch Asa stare at him, learning how to make a mess, and my eye starts to twitch a little. I watch Ben leave his shoes where he took them off instead of walking them to the closet where they belong, and my throat starts to burn a little.

And then I have to make myself remember something a very wise woman—my mama—told me just a few days ago: “There is no room for perfectionism in marriage or in parenting.”

No room for perfectionism. Oh, man.

But after the initial panic—“But if I can’t be perfect, what can I be?”—stops clawing at my face and my neck, I feel my shoulders relax a little, and I start to really watch the boys. Really watch them. And listen. I listen to Asa laughing hysterically at something Jadon has done. I listen to Jadon say, “I’m not a boy. I’m a man,” and I find myself thinking that he’ll make a fine man someday. I listen to Ben do everything he can to make Asa and Jadon laugh again, and I find myself thinking what a fine man, what a beautiful example, he really is (with the exception of the cleanliness, of course).

That’s when my heart starts to swell. That’s when I find myself remembering what started it all—this beautiful, messy life we four share together.

It was mid-September, 2002. I had just gotten home from singing the national anthem at a college basketball game. One of the assistant coaches had asked me out. I said no. Didn’t offer a reason, even though I knew it was because I’d written off dating, asked God to hold my heart until the right person came along. I drove back to my apartment, wondering if I’d made the right decision, and my roommate and her fiancé were standing outside, talking to this boy-man I had met before, had even been friends with for a while. The guys invited my roommate and me to watch a move at a mutual friend’s house. Something pushed me to say yes.

Ben and I talked during the whole movie. Six days later, God told me He’d given my heart to Ben. On Sept. 30, Ben told me he’d had a vision from God, a vision of his future wife. My mouth got dry until he told me the girl in his vision was me.

The next few months were sweet, sweet times. I was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper and would stay up at my office (Old Main on the campus of Texas State University) until 2 or 3 a.m. Sometimes Ben would meet me after work and walk me to my car because it was dark and dangerous, or so he said. Sometimes we would walk all the way to my apartment, enjoying the quiet of the morning hours and the way our hands fit together. Sometimes, when I was too tired to see, he would sit in my office keeping me awake while I did the final edit on the paper and sent it to press.

Two months after we’d decided to pursue a relationship, Ben asked me to marry him on stage at the Majestic Theater in San Antonio. We’d just gotten done watching The Nutcracker. His hands shook. My eyes leaked. We celebrated at The Olive Garden.

Oct. 11 will mark six years of marriage for us. I can’t believe it’s been that long since I wrote my vows and read them aloud for the 150 people crammed in that little historical church. He wrote a poem for me. I remember thinking, “I’m so glad I married a poet.”

I’m still glad, even if his dirty clothes do end up on the floor in the same pile as his clean ones (at least I’m not the one who has to do the “smell test”).

So this is the love that started it all. It’s that love, my love for him, my love for his children, that keeps me thinking—even when I look at the mess my sons can make in a matter of seconds—that I’m so glad I have a mess of toys to pick up. I’m so thankful I have five loads of laundry to do every week. I’m so blessed to have a sink full of dishes every morning.

Because it means they are here, alive and well. And I’m needed. Favored. Loved. That is what the mess and the disasters and the cries in my house tell me.

And that is what drowns the perfectionism.

Thank you, God, that they are here.


Asa talking to whoever will listen


Jadon sporting a mohawk


Asa


The brothers