God Bless This Mess(21)
“What does that mean?” I prayed, and He never gave me an answer.
It seems ridiculous, right? Me saying this after having been on TV? But I don’t feel that being on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and Dancing with the Stars is my big. Not at all.
My big is something bigger than that. Different from that.
The more time I’ve spent thinking and reading about it, the more I’ve come to discover that lots of people dream of a purpose in life that doesn’t fit into a certain box. And I think we need to start talking about that. A passion or a purpose can be so much more abstract and different than we think. Feeling a call to some purpose doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be a preacher. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be a teacher or a doctor or a lawyer or a banker. None of those things added up for me.
There were times when I thought I wanted to be a doctor, and times when I thought I wanted to be a teacher, too. But what I really wanted was this feeling of something big.
And then I would feel bad when I said it, or even thought about it. Who was I? It wasn’t that I thought that the other professions I’ve mentioned weren’t big. They are! Is there anything bigger than a teacher’s influence on generations of children? Or a doctor’s power to save lives? Of course not. But my big wasn’t that. It wasn’t anything I could put my finger on, or anything I could see in my immediate surroundings.
I had never seen the sort of big I was dreaming about in the moms of any of my friends. And I felt the conflict of wanting to be one of those moms and wives, too. Where were the women who made big dreams come true, but who were also moms and nurturers? The fact that I didn’t see them in my own world made me wonder if thinking big wasn’t something I should do.
Plus, as Glennon Doyle and others have pointed out, girls are pretty and sweet. Boys are the hustlers, the go-getters. Boys do things. With girls, it’s always about how they are. Girls are described with adjectives, not with anything about what they do. It’s always “She’s so pretty!” versus “He’s so hardworking and strong.” How could I not pick up on that and believe it to be true? It happened all the time!
Don’t get me wrong: I wanted to hear I was pretty. But I also wanted to know that it was okay to do. “She’s feisty!” “She’s aggressive.” “She’s ambitious!”
As I turned the corner into middle school and high school, one big way I saw girls expressing ambition was through beauty. I also saw how some girls got out of Alabama and went on to bigger things through the Miss America Pageant. So beauty would become about ambition for me.
In high school, I would become “Miss Everything.” I would get good grades, win awards, become homecoming queen—all on my way to something “big!”
The thing is, there was something else tied up in all that ambition. I was seeking approval: big, concrete, tangible approval from others so that I could feel worthy, happy, loved. And I can’t help but wonder now if my need for approval is actually some kind of good-girl syndrome, in a more clinical sense.
Is my need for approval and achievement and recognition a type of addiction?
Given everything I’ve been through, and everything I’ve struggled with, there’s this repeating pattern of me trying and trying and trying to be the best—to be perfect. As if whatever I was doing wasn’t enough. And as I grew older, my need for approval followed me straight into my relationships with boys: “You like me, right? You like me?”
I came to rely on their approval, my parents’ approval, my peers’ approval, my teachers’ approval, and more, however short-lived, to tell me that I was good enough.
But the real problem, the one I’m working on, is that I don’t actually believe I am.
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That’s a lot to swallow, isn’t it? A lot to understand? It’s definitely a lot to me.
I guess that explains why staying on track has been like driving a Mario Kart course or something for me. There are just so many obstacles and distractions and traps along the way that keep trying to knock me off the road, and the trick to getting to the finish line is just trying to figure out how to stay on the track.
The thing is, I’ve been knocked off track a lot. And I realize now that one of the reasons for that is because so often I’ve either lost touch with or just plain forgotten about one of the most important safety features we’re given as we drive through life. Too often I’ve let go of the faith that grounds me. I’ve forgotten that there are always angels right there at the ready to lift me and put me back on track, even when I’ve fallen off the edge.
Chapter 7
Guard Your Heart
In fifth grade, my stomachaches grew worse. My mom seemed to think it was just my nervous stomach, and she prayed about it on the way to school every day, but the pain didn’t stop. And it hurt.
I was also having trouble going to the bathroom, to the point where my mom took me to the doctor. They diagnosed me with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). They suggested I eat more vegetables (I did) and get plenty of exercise (I danced every day and played outside all the time). But the pain didn’t stop.
On school picture day, I’ll never forget how I couldn’t go to the bathroom, no matter how hard I tried. I was doubled over in pain. It hurt so bad it left me screaming and crying.