on moving on.

May 17, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ Leave a comment

My parents moved from my childhood home this week and I can’t help but think about how it now sits empty of our physical belongings yet remains full of the memories we stored in all its various nooks and crannies. The bannister I slid down as a seven-year-old. The wall I knocked on in middle school to hear back from my sister on the other side. The tree in the backyard that I climbed as a kid, ate popsicles under during high school, and sat beneath during the rehearsal dinner for our wedding. I went home last week to celebrate my sister’s graduation from college and to say my goodbyes to the house that holds my childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood in its foundation.

A task which, if anyone knows me, could have paralyzed me with nostalgia and turned me into a sobbing mess.

I tried, though, to find the middle ground between sadness and reality. I know it’s necessary to feel the sadness of change, but I also recognize the importance of not getting hung up on the material. It’s just a house, after all. A temporary fixture in the eternal scheme.

I was reminded this week that I’m just a traveler through this life, and as I move heavenward, I know I can get distracted trying to hold on to the things as they exist around me. My childhood house. Norah’s wide cheesy smile. The way Lily physically narrates a story. I cling tightly to these moments and these things as I live them in hopes that they will last.And yet, my empty childhood house reminds me that I was meant for change. That as much as I want to hold on to the things I love, I must grasp them with loose fingertips. I must enjoy them while I have them, but also let them slip away eventually, so they can grow and bloom into something new and beautiful and more wonderful than I could imagine.

I can’t stay the same. And that’s a good thing.

I always seem to be drawn back to Ecclesiastes 3 during seasons of great change. In addition to reminding me that there is a time for everything, it re-centers me on the choice I have in those moments of change: wallow in the loss or embrace the chance to have joy and do good.

This time, I was drawn to verse 14: “I perceived that whatever God does endures forever.”

I certainly am a traveler through this life. My landscapes keep shifting. I keep having to let go of places and people and stages that I love, yet I am reminded that I don’t walk forward empty handed. As I let the physical things slip through, I’m filled with the lasting: family and friends and relationships and memories which will go with me wherever I am because whatever God does endures forever.And there is hope in that.

Of course I should also probably tell you that I made my mom save me a square of blue carpet from the living room and that I kept a sliver from the tree that used to stand in the front yard when they cut it down last summer. I know they won’t last, but they’re relics of the lasting memories I will take with me.

(They are also keeping my nostalgia at bay for the time being. Really, you should be proud of me for resisting the urge to frame all the glow-in-the-dark stars I plastered on my ceiling in high school. I certainly thought about it.)

the thing my husband never says.

May 14, 2016May 21, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ Leave a comment

When my husband, Jake, gets home from work every day, he is usually met by two toddlers flailing their bodies about with wild excitement. Once the hugs and kisses are distributed, he is almost always asked the same question by our three-year-old, Lily: “Dad, will you throw me up in the air?”

“Yes,” he always says, “I would really like to do that.”

Jake works long hours. By the time he gets home most nights, he’s drained. His brain has worked long and hard, and I know that everything in him wants to collapse on the couch and not move.

In these moments, sometimes I ask him to carry a load of laundry down the stairs for me. Or start the dishwasher. Or change a diaper.

And in each of these moments, he always agrees willingly.

And in thinking about it recently, I realized I’ve never heard him use the phrase that so often goes through my own mind at the end of a long day: “It’s your turn.”

It’s easy to keep score in both marriage and parenting especially if you stay at home like me. Tallies of clothes washed, bathrooms cleaned, and floors mopped can add up in my head pretty quickly, and I’ve found that in these moments when I start to keep score, I’m tempted to relinquish all responsibilities to Jake as soon as he gets home by saying, “It’s your turn.”

But then I remember that he never says it. That even in his most exhausted moments, he swoops in and de-escalates a screaming toddler with his magical powers of reasoning and calm.

He’s always one step ahead of me really. Always reminding me what really matters in this life.

Time and time again, he wordlessly reminds me that the best thing I can give to my family is all that I have. My best.

Sometimes that means changing every single diaper in the span of a day or cleaning the bathroom without complaint even though I can’t remember the last time he did. Sometimes it means waking up early with the girls again so he can sleep in or taking the trash out during a busy week even though, technically, it’s “his job.”

And here’s what I’ve learned: When I stop keeping scores and mental tallies in my head, it’s not so hard to do all the things I have to do. It’s what I have to give, and it’s always worth it.

And so, here’s to the endless numbers of meals to be cooked, floors to be vacuumed, and children to be bathed. To the easy days, the bang-your-head-against-a-wall days, and to the nights of celebrating that you made it through another day together.

Which reminds me: Jake, it’s your turn to pick out the Redbox.

to the bad days.

May 1, 2016May 21, 2016 ~ mollyflinkman ~ 3 Comments

Any tips on how to deescalate a tantrum that likely started because you were providing divided attention? I’m asking for a friend.

We all have bad days. As parents, these are the days which invented the phrase “I literally can’t even” and in which you use said phrase as a perfectly legitimate excuse for a few extra episodes of Daniel Tiger. These are the days in which you greet the welcome sight of bedtime with a generous glass of wine or a good, old-fashioned Netflix binge (even more likely, both).

Now, while I appreciate these vices, these especially bad days tend to leave me prostrate and sobbing on the living room floor (I tend to err on the side of dramatic.).

Jake has found me in this place on more than one occasion, and bless him for not laughing at me audibly. I just can’t deal with the feeling that I didn’t give the day my best. Mom guilt sets in full force, and in every scenario-turned-sour, I can see where I went wrong; I can recognize the things I could have executed far better. I can see into the futures of my children to the ways all my failures will certainly cause them ruin (I know, I know. But I did warn you about this tendency already.).

These nights are usually followed by mornings of angry-face emoji text messages sent to no less than three fellow moms. And in the moments of crucial solidarity which come in fast reply, I typically hear something I needed to be reminded of: “You’re doing a great job.”

And that’s all well and good on the days that I do, but lately I can’t stop thinking about the days that I don’t.

Because, if I’m being completely honest with myself, there are days when i just don’t give my best. They are the days in which the morning news or my Facebook newsfeed distract me from interactions with my kids. The days in which I have trouble resolving a fight because I wasn’t paying close enough attention to how it began in the first place. The days in which I choose to put myself first.

I’m learning more and more that self-discipline is the hard work of the middle. It’s work that requires a death to self, a sacrifice, and a pointed determination.

Well-intentioned people might try to tell me that it’s okay to have an off day every once in awhile, and maybe there’s truth to that because bad days are certainly unavoidable when you’re trying to teach tiny people appropriate responses to a vast scheme of emotions. However, I have resolved to believe that as general human beings, we have to fight against the sentiment that we deserve these days. That it’s okay to check out mentally. I mean, is there ever a justifiable reason to choose Instagram over reading that book you hate for the eighth time in 30 minutes? Again, asking for a friend here.

In twenty years, I want my kids to tell you that I loved them well, and I know that starts now in the moments they won’t even remember. I’d like Jake to say the same as well as my family and friends and any other general person I come in contact with. I want to hear the phrase, “You’re doing a good job” and accept it because it’s true. Because each day I died to myself, sacrificed, and determined myself to be better.

I want to eliminate the tantrums caused by lack of attention. You know, set a good example for my friend and all.