When a Season of Life Isn't What You Expected

My therapist recently told me one of my gifts is always knowing what I want next in life and being unrelenting until I get it. She meant it as a compliment, but, it wasn’t hard to see the darker side of this quality: it’s hard for me to rest when I desire something in the future. This can lead to unnecessary discontentment. It leads to an inability to sink into the present. Sure, it makes me great at executing a checklist. But sometimes we’re meant to be still - not moving forward. Some seasons can’t be rushed through with a goal and a plan. They need to be indulged. We need to be still. To wait.

Waiting is, maybe, one of my least favorite activities. I can’t begin to count the number of times my dad said, “Whitney, patience is a virtue,” growing up. God, I don’t think you got it wrong, but can I choose kindness and diligence as my virtues instead?

A friend of mine recently told me her baby’s newborn days don’t look how she expected them to. They’ve had to move and she’s lonely and, honestly, things just haven’t been as blissful as she anticipated. Her words hit home for me.

Sometimes, I wait so long to reach a season and then, when I get there, it doesn’t meet my expectations. Not because anything is wrong with it, but because I’ve yearned for it so deeply that it would be impossible for it to live up to my ideals.

The first time this happened to me was when I graduated college. By the end of my senior year, I was ready to move to adulthood. I dreamed of working, getting married, buying a house and starting a family. I wanted to mow the lawn and garden and grow a home full of babies of love. Six years after graduation, when I was single, unsure of what I wanted to do with my career and living in a rental, I felt so disappointed: this is not what I thought my life would look like.

It can happen during any season and catches you off guard: when college isn’t as fun as you expected. When being a newlywed feels lonelier than you anticipated. When being a new mom doesn’t feel as blissful as you thought it would.

This winter, Chris was traveling every week. We live near my family, but it’s a 25-minute drive. With a new baby and a traveling husband, the distance felt longer than I ever thought it could. I remember crying one night as I fed McCoy at bedtime, thinking, I just never expected to feel this lonely with so many people I love nearby. I never thought I’d feel this way with the sweetest baby in the world in my arms. This just isn’t what I expected.

And then, I felt ashamed. I used to live eight hours from my family! This distance is nothing. What is wrong with me? But, as my sister Ashley reminded me:

shaming ourselves for our feelings doesn’t make them go away, it just makes us feel worse.

It’s OK to admit a season of life isn’t what you expected. It’s OK to need time to process it.

But then, we have to keep going. We can’t sit in the discontentment or constantly rush through to the next season. Contentment must be found within. The joy is found in practicing gratitude each day. In noticing the little blessings along the way. When I felt sad this winter, I started to speak my daily joys: I love the morning routine McCoy and I have. I love taking him on walks. I love going to the library with him. I love how excited he is when Chris gets home. I love the way he laughs and smiles when I come into his room each morning.

With every day, I tried to sink into the present more and more. Before I knew it, I hadn’t thought about my frustrations in weeks. Not because they were no longer there, but because I trained my brain to see the good more than the bad. It sounds a little Polly Anna, but, the truth is, it’s a discipline I needed to relearn. It’s probably one I will continue to learn every year, too.

Every season has both bitter and sweet. I’m learning to acknowledge the bitter. To recognize it and pray through it. But then? To sink deeply into the sweet, letting it wash over me each day.

Things I'm Loving

I’ve been in such a weird place with writing lately. I get all of these ideas, sit down to post about them and then nothing comes to me. I keep trying to write through it, but it seems this season is really more about listening than speaking. I’m not quitting blogging; just quiet.

In the meantime, I thought I’d share a few things I’m loving:

1. This banana cake. Yum, yum, yum. I haven’t tried the icing, but we ate it as cupcakes with peanut butter for dessert last night. So delicious! I used a mix of almond and oat flour.

2. Our Stokke Tripp Trapp High Chair. A handful of people messaged me on Instagram about our high chair after I posted Mac eating dinner. We absolutely love it. It is definitely an investment, but worth every penny.

3. HelloBello. I’ve had a hard time finding plant-based, affordable baby wipes. Enter, HelloBello from Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard. We’ve tried the dipes, wipes, diaper rash cream and baby wash and have loved them all. You can order everything at Walmart and use Ebates for 5% cash back. Can’t beat that!

4. This Royal Baby FAQ made me laugh because it’s sort of stalkerish, yet I kept clicking to know more and more. Does anyone else feel like Meghan has been pregnant for a really long time?

5. As someone who once told her therapist I felt like she was my friend, this article cracked me up: Things I Wish My Therapist Would Say to Me, but She Never Does.

We just booked our first trip sans babe for later this year. I’m so excited to make some memories just Chris and myself. And will also probably feel like crying without McCoy with us. Parenthood. So emotional. :)

Have a great week!

Being Swimsuit Ready After Baby (+ my new fav suit!)

Have you noticed how much conversation there is about beautiful, glowing pregnancy bodies? Yet there seems to be very little about beautiful postpartum bodies. The truth is, it kind of feels like an aftermath for a while. Between how different you can look and feel, along with thinning hair and dry skin, it’s easy to talk only about the horrors of our bods-after-babe.

As I’ve observed a lot of friends have babies, it seems like there appears to be a divide: people who “bounce back” quickly and don’t feel much of a change. And people who feel like their body went through an earthquake.

I’m not so sure I’m buying into this divide though. I think, no matter who you are and how great you look after a baby, you feel different.

After nine months of feeling like my hair always looked good pregnant, I just can’t seem to figure out how to do it now. I feel stronger in a lot of ways, but can’t do pull ups like I could before. Because of breastfeeding, I feel like my body belongs to McCoy a lot of days. We are tethered and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it’s a strange feeling.

Dressing myself - especially last summer and fall - was a much harder challenge than I expected. I’d never had breastfeeding boobs and none of my shirts fit the same. I was used to wearing dresses all summer, but it was hard to breastfeed in them. Finding a swimsuit I loved proved to be another challenge. After so many years of swim team, one pieces felt too much like a Speedo. I need to be able to chase Mac and get down in the sand with him, so I need something supportive.

I recently ordered the High Cut Cheeky bottom and the Halter Wrap Top from Aerie (affiliate link for 20% off!) and love it. This post isn’t sponsored, I just felt compelled to share because I actually feel great in a swimsuit. Wahoo :) And I love the way Aerie is using real women, without editing their bodies. Whether you’re pregnant, postpartum or have not carried a baby, every single woman deserves to feel great in both her swimsuit and birthday suit. :)

Here’s to a summer of letting go of our coverups, playing in the sand and being willing to be seen.

Are You Becoming Less of Yourself in Your Relationship?

Tears streamed down my face as I stood in church, singing the worship songs I’d heard hundreds of times before. The familiar melodies felt like my mom rubbing my back, telling me it was OK to cry. It felt like the words were finding me, after months of wanting to stay hidden. I swayed to the music, finally willing to be seen in this place.

My relationship was coming to an end. I didn’t know it in my brain, yet, but my heart knew. The music gently wrung it out, beginning the process even before I was aware.

I would hang on for a few more months, tightly gripping every last shred of what we had. When things would hit rock bottom for us, still, I would hold tightly, being expunged from the relationship, rather than walking away with dignity.

Things were bad between us for so many reasons. One of the many reasons, though, was that I was becoming less of myself, not more.

I was quieter, more anxious. I was jealous. I was nervous and afraid to speak up. I felt like I was both too much and not enough. My emotions overwhelmed him. My desire to spend time together was suffocating him. The things I did that I considered to be thoughtful didn’t seem to reach him. The things I really wanted him to do with me, like running and going to church and cooking dinner, no longer interested him. We were on different planes.

He felt like he was enjoying the season of life we were in to the fullest. I was ready to move forward - grow up. He felt I was holding him back. I thought he was dragging his feet. We were broken long before the breakup.

Chris and I were doing something, recently. I was being goofy. We were laughing. Mac was laughing. We were happy. It hit me, then, that in my old relationships, I wasn’t secure enough to act this way.

If I could give any advice to single girls, it would be this: do not stop looking until you can be your real self. Your full self. Your messy self. The goofy one. The emotional one. The one with real needs, real conversation.

The one who is unafraid.

You will never be perfect and neither will your relationship. I believe, though, that when a relationship is right, we have the ability to be both our best and worst selves, because there is safety. We are no longer performing. We make mistakes. We apologize. We laugh. We cry. We thrive and grow and stop tempering, stop monitoring. We aren’t afraid to ask for things and we give generously.

I’m passionate about this topic because I have seen myself almost disappear into a relationship before. At times, I’ve wanted a person more than I wanted to be myself. It’s scary, but, unfortunately, not unique to me.

Let your anthem be one of becoming more fully yourself, more alive, braver and stronger. Speak up and remember, if it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.