Why would I ever want to write a book? Who would ever want to read a book I wrote? the market right now is definitely oversaturated with christian women writing books all with their own truths to tell and vulnerabilities to expose. I say this lightly though because with each book I read about being brave and vulnerable and honest I continue to crave all those things. I don't think they are wrong or lying when they write these books. I don't think they are intentionally giving us breadcrumbs instead of a piece of bread but that is often how I'm left feeling. Don't get me wrong, these are women I appreciate and admire and many have podcasts that I listen to weekly. These women have virtually been in my home, car, on runs with me, laid in bed while I folded laundry, pulled weeds in the garden with me, and lived life in almost every capacity with me.

 I've never written a book so I don't know how it goes. I don't know if anyone sets out to be 100% bold, out there, every secret exposed so that women know they are not alone. I don't know if publishers and editors quietly and swiftly cross things out. My friend Amanda attempted to get a book published once and like many other times in her life, was quickly told that her story was too much and too loud and too honest and too brash for the world. We were not physically together but even now thinking of her story my heart wants to break. Listen, she is loud and honestly one of the biggest personalities in the world and will probably be ridiculously famous one day and we can only hope that those publishers will remember her and feel real bad. But not for long because we are nice girls.

So, why would I want to write a book? 1) my life is pretty funny 2) every time I do write something someone somewhere says You should write a book 3) I'm only 28 years old but I've lived a lot of life. I literally just had to do the math and ask my husband and I'm 27, but maybe by the time anyone reads this I'll be 28! That sounds like a fine age to be. Also, once I fell down a manhole and got hit in the head with a dead bat (not the same day or even in the same hemisphere) so surely this is the kind of book you'd like to read.

I don't have an agenda. I have a lot of stories to tell. I have been thinking long and hard about themes in my life. I'm not sure there are many other than : I'm going to keep saying no to people who tell me I can't do things, I'm going to keep loving and pursuing Jesus all my days, I'm going to fight for honesty, I'm going to trust that the moon is always round, and I'm going to laugh a whole lot while I do it.

I don't know if this will be finished this year or in 5 years from now or when I'm 40 and have lived a lot more life. I don't know if it ever will be. I do know that I love writing and that it is taken a LOT in me to use commas and capital letters and mostly correct grammar. Surely I've done things wrong but maybe this will entice my friend Jan to read things I write. I even used paragraphs Jan!!

i just want to write down the goodness. i don't want to forget this time.

coming home the day we bought our house after painting all day, hot, sweaty, exhausted, giddy and over the moon and doing all over again the next day.

dancing to jolene in the low kitchen light on a friday night after having a date going to home depot to buy toilets for our house.

lazy sunday afternoons at the pool

summertime is so good for our souls. laughing longer, going to bed while the sun is still up. late weekend nights on the patio playing cards.

this season is very sweet. emily asked me today how life was and i said it was wonderful. i know just a month ago we were struggling. we were fighting all the time. every weekend included tears. you're so stressed out at work. buying a house was a lot more stressful than we anticipated. you were drinking and smoking often.

i asked if we could consider counseling. you asked if we could give it a month. you started trying harder and i did too. we communicated better. we said please thank you and i'm sorry more. you bought me bananas at the store because you were concerned i didn't have enough for the week. i come home and start supper when you have a late interview. i fold laundry every sunday or monday night. we get in bed happy and tired every night.

i walked up the stairs this weekend and thought wow i'm really enjoying brandon. its true when people talking about loving and liking someone. liking someone does not come naturally all the time. i love brandon always. i love him when we are having hard conversations. i love him in the tears. i love him because he's a lot quicker to apologize than i am. i love him because he is more full of grace than i am. i don't always like him though. but i am lately. i am really liking him and that feels so good.

matthew 11:28-30 in the message is so good

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.”

i'll show you how to take real rest. brandon is showing me this too. laying on the couch in the middle of a saturday afternoon reading a book. going to bed at 8 on a friday night to watch netflix. going for long walks saturday nights. we are learning unforced rhythms of grace in our marriage. in our hearts. in our home. i want this home to be a home of rest. i want us to live knowing that everything is actively being redeemed. 

became lawyers not lovers
questioning, interrogating, giving stink eye adds to our darkness

we need kindness, listening ear, hold space for us, need the reminder that we are going to be ok

if love has an agenda it is no longer love. it seems like you're trying to be helpful but you're not. its easier for people to grow when they are loved and accepted not helped, fixed, or informed

being kind odes not mean you're enabling people it just means you're being kind

not everyone has to be on your side or see your point of view

the only destination we have is jesus' feet

expand your bandwidth for joy

i've been learning a lot about control lately. mostly about how much i crave it. back in 2009 in the smokey mountains of tennessee i learned how badly i crave and use (read: abuse) control. I've always known that I am a bit of a mastermind when it comes to guilt tripping, manipulation, and controlling. probably has something to do with being very catered to as a child due to ridiculous medical situations. I  have a different direction for this blog so I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole of my childhood and why I am the way I am. another story another day.

i've known about the enneagram for several years now. every single time i take the assessment i come back as a 2. as a social worker, being the helper, makes a lot of sense. i've gone back and forth between 2 and 8 a lot due to my overtly honest nature. what gets me every time is the not great qualities of the 2: neediness, guilt tripping, and manipulation. what a JOY i must be.

the need for control has reared its very ugly head lately. brandon has brought up my tendencies to nag and control. it is not my favorite thing in the world to be called out for the bad qualities i possess. especially ones that i have identified and worked hard to change. the work may never be done. this conversation sent me into a pretty bad anxiety attack spiral where all i felt like i could do is grasp tighter, control more, and continue to choke out the goodness and joy. luckily i have a very kind husband who is quick to bestow grace and understanding and compassion. all the while probably being wary of these tendencies i possess.

as i continue to process these things the biggest justification i have is: it is really out of love. it may be the mothering instinct in me. i don't know honestly. we continue to have conversations about money and food and work and all the little things in life that I want to control and somewhat can but mostly can't and I keep trying.

i am not a terrible wife. i am not a terrible wife. i am not a terrible wife. i have told myself this a lot in the past 18 hours. this is because i do indeed feel like a terrible wife. i know, really do know, that i am not a terrible wife though. i felt needy this weekend. i felt like brandon and i needed to spend time together since this past week after our honeymoon was busy and we were both sick and it didn't feel like a lot of quality time happened. several nights i read or watched tv in bed while he played video games. that happened some this weekend too. we didn't have many plans, which i love and hate simultaneously, and we spent majority of saturday afternoon apart and spent time with friends saturday night and i took a long walk sunday afternoon. all weekend i felt needy. i felt like i need more and more time with brandon since i felt like this past week wasn't full of quality time or quantity time. in scary close donald miller talks about how when dating his now wife she said i don't need quality time, i just need quantity time. when i read that statement its like my eyes were opened. someone finally put into words how i felt. i don't need quality date nights or extravagant adventures. i need quantity time. running errands together, sitting on the couch watching tv together, talking or not talking. this weekend i think the breakdown came in the quality/quantity. i needed both i think. brandon spent a lot of time playing video games, which he plays online with his best friend. so while i may be sitting across from him or next to him i feel totally isolated. he's got a headset on and is actively talking to someone else, focused on something else, and not easily distracted. to me that doesn't feel like quality or quantity time. i think to him it does. we were in the same room, probably on the same couch, and i was probably reading or playing candy crush next to him. sunday night when we were talking about our weekends he snapped a little (understandably so, and not even in a mean way) and said he felt annoyed that i kept telling him we weren't spending time together when he felt like we were and felt like he wanted to just relax and that every moment didn't have to involve a conversation or meaningful time together. he agreed that he understood how i felt while he played video games. and i agreed that i came across as a nice version of smothering.

then i laid in bed next to him and cried a bit. because i think all this comes from real deep seated fears of insecurity. i have been feeling like i have no idea why brandon would want to be married to me. we spent our honeymoon in mexico and were surrounded by people all over the world and everyone was very kind and we had an amazing time. but, i felt bad for brandon. i felt bad that he was married to a wife who just stared at him across the dinner table at amazing restraunts every lunch and dinner because i couldn't eat. i felt bad that i felt nervous talking to other couples because i always don't want people to feel awkward if they can't understand me. i felt bad that i got sick due to a lack of sleep and food one day. and all these insecurities mean i feel like this could never be true or good or have longevity. as if brandon will wake up one day and see my face and realize that he could do better. (update: he has in fact seen my face, and this has yet to happen. very certain that it won't ever happen but these types of things have deep roots) even last night brandon said hannah you're the perfect wife for me. and i said no and he said yes. you are. brandon is so good at calming my insecurities, without me even verbalizing them. i mean, obviously my neediness came out in full swing this weekend and so maybe he just knew that i was feeling insecure and the by product was me being clingy. (or, and this is stupidly shocking to me, God gave us good good gifts in each other, because he is a God of good good gifts. and brandon is perfect for me. and i am perfect for him. thanks God.) he may be that in tune. or, maybe, he really does just love me. and we both agreed we have things to work on. and communicate better about. and we are still trying to figure out schedules and time and what the other person needs. part of it i think is due to still being very estatic that after 1.5 years of being apart i'm still really jazzed that we ge to be together. and we have fun together. and i love spending time with him. but, i think another part is insecurity coming out in unhealthy ways.

so, i am not a terrible wife. i am trying. i am praying. i pray a lot, every day at 8:48 to be precise, for brandon and our marriage. i don't think i have prayed for myself in our marriage since we were engaged. i don't have it all together. i don't know that i would say i do, but i think that i spend a lot of time focusing on praying for brandon and praying for our marriage and neglecting myself in that (i'm just now accepting that i'm an enneagram 2 so bare with me). every morning i brush my teeth and read this devotional called heart of the matter and i opened it this morning and the first sentence said "you are hard to love too. understanding this is the start of learning to love difficult people...God doesn't love you because you make a wonderful addition to his family, he loves you in spite of what you are like. through his love for you he changes you, to be like himself. he makes you lovely, even though you didn't start out lovely. you need exactly the same things from God, grace mercy, kindness, and welcome, that others need from you." and carried on. and i laughed at God (with God I think) because yup. i am. i am hard to love. but not unloveable. and also, not a terrible wife. just a wife who is in need of, and very thankful for grace upon grace upon grace.