Should You Give Your Ex Another Chance?

I know a lot of people who think there are no second chances in relationships. If it didn't work once, they ask, why would it work twice? I get that, but, as with most things in life, I don't think there are a lot of one-size-fits-all statements that apply to relationships. I know many a good couples who took a break in college, just to be sure they were right for each other, only to learn that they were, in fact, a perfect fit. But, I also know many who tried and tried to make it work, knowing each time they got back together that the bruises and bandages were becoming more apparent, not less. Yet, they couldn't quite let each other go.

Years ago, when Twitter first came out, my profile read "Always hold them, never fold them." My friend, Sara, and I thought this was hilarious insight into my life because I refused to quit anything or anyone. Whether he be a boyfriend, friend, or anything in between, I believed everybody deserved chance after chance to try again.

One day in 2010, I had to decide just how seriously I took that one-line bio. I'd had my heart broken in March and had prayed, every day since then, that he'd come back. I was certain he'd made a mistake and was just going through a hard time. I was convinced it wasn't about us. For as hard as I'd prayed for it, when he came back in May, I was consumed by anxiety.

He'd hurt me so badly, I found it impossible to relax into the joy of seeing him again. He'd shown so little care for my heart during our initial breakup, I could not trust him when he told me he still loved me. 

via

After we broke up in March, I'd started seeing a therapist for the first time. I told her how anxious I was and that I found it impossible to trust him. How can I be sure he won't do it again? I asked her as I sat on her couch one July day, my knee bouncing with anxiety. Honestly, you can't be completely sure, she told me with gentle eyes, sensing my fragility. But, one thing I can be sure of is this:

If you ask him what went wrong and he can tell you, with certainty, exactly why he broke up with you and why he won't do it again, I trust he's reflected enough to give this another shot. If he tells you he's not sure, but he just really misses you, he hasn't done his homework. 

I took her advice that night as I paced my parents' front yard, talking to him on the phone. He'd asked me to move to Atlanta to give it another shot - he was tired of long distance, but didn't want to move to Indiana. I posed his question to her, asking him why he was sure it was right this time, but not last time. Well, he told me without much pause. I just figure 10,000 customers can't be wrong. I waited, wanting more explanation. None came. Huh? I asked him. Everyone in my life thinks I made a mistake, he told me. If every single person I know said I messed up, I probably did.  

I remember feeling saddened by the answer, but wanting to get back together so badly, I dismissed the sadness and decided it was romantic. All of his friends and family love me! That's great! I remember telling myself as I laid in bed that night, disregarding my therapist's wisdom.

via

I moved to Atlanta a few months later and, in retrospect somewhat predictably, found myself in the familiar spot one year later: heartbroken over the same guy. My therapist had been right; he hadn't reflected enough while we'd been apart. He'd just missed me. 

I still believe there are no one-size-fits-all rules for relationships, but, as I've gotten older, I've learned a few truths. I now hold my old therapist's advice as one of them. As I've watched a few friends wrestle with the same question, I have passed along her insight, urging them to pay more attention to it than I did. I put it in the same category as he must pursue you and gentleness is manliness. How these things manifest in relationships may vary, but, the end, we all deserve love that is certain, gentle and kind. 

on gratitude

I am going to give it to you straight today: last week was rough. We were in the thick of it around here. I don't do well when I'm displaced and the demolition at our house was significantly worse than expected. We also saw a few setbacks for The Letter Project and the freelance project I'm working on grew beyond what I could handle. I struggled with feeling very overwhelmed and out of control. 

But then, as the week progressed, I kept feeling nudged to stop focusing on all of the reasons I felt stressed and instead focus on why I was grateful. 

As much as I didn't want to do this, because complaining about things is often an easier default, I knew the feeling was right. Each morning, I wrote down three things I was grateful for. Maybe it was the singing birds, a good night's or sleep or feeling connected to Chris. From the sunrise to a good cup of coffee, it didn't matter how small it was - it instantly shifted my mood from stressed to at ease. It was such a simple, quick way to change my mindset. 

I got to thinking about how it can often be easier to settle into a stressed mentality than a grateful one. On the flip side, though, it's easier to live life in a grateful state. While it might take more discipline to get to that state of gratitude, once you get there, life is so much more manageable. 

All that to be said, I wanted to tell you how much you guys mean to me. Between super encouraging comments on my blog, to emails, to people offering to help with and voting for The Letter Project and everything in between, you have been so supportive. You will never know how much your kind words and love mean. So thank you!

I hope you all have a great Monday and know you put a little pep in my step last week. Treat yo self to an extra coffee today (: 

One Minute Favor: Vote for The Letter Project

Hi, friends!

I am so excited to share that The Letter Project has been selected as a KIND Cause this month! I wanted to ask you today, on this lovely Friday, to please take one minute to vote for us.

The winner will receive $10,000, which, at this point, feels like a million bucks. We could do so much with it to support the Letter Writers and recipients!

You can vote with your Facebook profile or by making a KIND account. If you share it on social media, you'll receive extra votes, too. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to vote. I am so very grateful! 

You are the bees' knees!
Whitney 

When You're Called to do Hard Things

Near the end our time in our town in Kenya, we had plans to visit two neighboring families, both of which were struggling to get access to food. One family had three babies under four and the other was a grandma who was taking care of both her own baby and her daughter's newborn. DIG, the organization with which we went to Kenya, had identified both groups of kids as malnourished. Our goal was to meet with them and determine how we could quickly and sustainably help them get access to food. 

Chris and I knew we were going to a more remote destination as we made plans to meet them, but, to be honest, everything there felt relatively remote. We hopped on Piki Pikis and headed down the bumpy, dirt road. We went past the hospital and the other homes we'd visited throughout the last two weeks, the familiar places disappearing behind us. We wound for miles and miles, the road becoming bumpier, the lush trees becoming denser as we drove. My eyes rested on the blue sky, the bright green trees, the brown dirt road. The scene felt like a palette for teaching a toddler colors; the hues so true, so honest.

We passed women walking to a water hole, buckets balanced on their heads, their babies toddling alongside them. We passed a teenage girl walking in her towel to the same pond, covering miles of ground for her bath. We passed girls no older than eight, holding a sibling's hand on each side and carrying one on her back, making the long commute home from school.

We rode by, waving as we left them far, far behind as we traveled further away from civilization. We drove until the road turned into a small trail, barely wide enough for the Piki to squeeze through. We drove until the trail disappeared and we were cutting through thick trees, bracing as thorns and sticks scraped our arms. We drove until they had to ask us to get off and walk, the bike was no longer able to manage through the brush. 

We finally made it to our destination and the father of the three little girls stood waiting for us in a Taste of Chicago 2014 t-shirt. He greeted us with open arms, eager and grateful to have the chance to feed his babies. 

He showed us to his home, proudly offering us each a seat in the one-room house as his family of five sat together on a couch. He and his wife told us about their children as flies swarmed around us. In many of the other homes we'd seen so far, we'd sit with the families as cats and roosters walked throughout the house, giving me a new perspective on free-range eggs. They'd eat up crumbs and roam freely. My heart sunk as I looked around their property, realizing there were no animals here. Even the roosters had abandoned them, knowing there was no food to be eaten. Only the flies were left now, swarming at the little baby's face and hair, the mom swatting them away every five seconds, only for them to persist. 

As we met with both families, we realized the littlest baby, the sickest one, might not make it through the next few days. Her beautiful, black skin had begun turning yellow. She was quiet and still, no longer crying for food, but, instead, conserving the little energy she had left. Chris and I both took in her tiny body, letting the grief of her hunger wash over us. We ached as we thought of how far we'd come to get here, knowing they could never walk those miles on foot to find food each week. We worried about whether we would be able to get them food fast enough. Will that baby make it through the night? I wondered as Chris and I locked eyes, my heart hurting. 

I'm still making sense of our trip. Pieces of it ooze out of me here and there - conversations with friends, in my journal, sometimes here on my blog. Sometimes these memories overwhelm me with gratitude, thankful for my life and this world we've created here. Other times they pour into my mind, infiltrating my heart, making it feel like a sponge caught in my throat, desperately needing to be wrung out. 

Life can be this way, though. So often I yearn for things to be black and white: this or that, good or bad. What I'm learning is that some experiences - especially the ones that are complex and emotional - can be a little of both. Beauty and joy mixed with sorrow and pain. The work is in learning to get comfortable with the and. It's allowing yourself to stay right there in the middle, letting the hard stuff hurt and the good stuff bring relief. It's knowing that control begs us to categorize things - to name them. But letting go and trusting allows us to grow into the uncertainty of it all. 

A good friend listened recently as I told her about our trip - the pain, the joy, the scary parts, the highs and lows. Then she got really quiet and asked me the question nobody had asked yet: Do you regret going? I told her I didn't, but continued to think for a long time about her question, even after we'd parted ways. Do we regret it? I asked Chris that night.

The truth is: absolutely not. Was it hard? Yes. Was it different than expected? Oh ya. But I realized her question stuck with me for so long because it reminded me of a truth I've been learning lately: 

Sometimes, we are called to do really hard things. 

Our last day in the hospital. Was so happy to be leaving soon!

My natural inclination is to run toward the fun and exciting. But sometimes, things are difficult and that doesn't mean we aren't supposed to do them. It means they are hard and will require a little more grit. The beauty is learning to let the good in those moments ground us, while we dig in a little deeper into the hard ones. It is in learning to trust your instincts and your abilities to navigate these times. It's about getting comfortable with the idea that some things are good and difficult.

If you're caught in a phase today that feels a little harder than expected, I just want to cheer you on. You might not be off track, you just might be growing in a different direction. Keep growing. Keep going. I promise you won't regret it. When it's over, you'll look back on this season and be so grateful for how far you've come.