Oh hey friends.
We spent last week in Florida with our friends but we’re home now and I’m finally feeling rested from travel, lack of sleep, socializing, and managing Chloe and Lydia’s struggles which are always intensified when we aren’t at home.
I’m so grateful for our friends because not only do they understand what it’s like to have twins who are not neurotypical (how weird is it that we became friends years before we had that thing in common??), they are also some of our only friends who can really relate and understand to the way our faith has changed and morphed and grown over the years. The older I get, and the more relational tension I’ve experienced, the more I appreciate what a gift it is to have people in your life you can fully relax with. No social pressure to present a polished version of yourself, your children, or your theology. Just - this is me today, this is where I’m at, and I know I’m safe to just be that today and nothing else.
It’s nice.
It’s what family should be.
It’s what the bride of Christ should be.
All I want to do with my life is continue to be those people for other people and to surround myself with people who are like that. I really, with all of my heart, believe that if we change the way we engage with each other and the way we interact with the pain in each other’s lives, we will change absolutely everything. I believe that because it changed my life. When someone held my grief without making me feel like I needed to prove that I deserved to be sad. When a group of people with varying doctrinal beliefs took my husband in, gave him a job, and celebrated him after years of being disregarded by “spiritual authorities.” When my friend, Kasey, looked me in the face and said, “your needs aren’t a problem, you know.” Anytime I have to change plans or decline an invitation because of our daughters’ needs and the other person says, “Why don’t I just come to you?” Every time I can be honest with someone about how I’m feeling and they say, “Valid.”
When we stop trying to fix each other, when we let go of criticism, when we make it easy to be together, we change everything.
And maybe that’s why I finally feel like I’m in a good emotional and mental place to start having events again.
For the last few years, I’ve been dreaming of a way for us to get together face to face. I’ve thought about hosting retreats, doing meet ups, finally agreeing to speaking events again, all kinds of things. I feel like the things that I write about and the work I do here in the tension really needs a good hug around the neck every now and then, but I haven’t been in the best place to do that. Five kids, two high needs toddlers, financial pressure that makes it hard to travel and leave Zach with the kids for long periods of time … it would have to be a series of all the right things and none of the wrong ones, because if I’ve learned anything over the years it’s that a “Yes” always costs something and that cost has got to be worth it. And I have a few worth it yes’s coming your way.
FIRST — is my very first book signing event! It’s happening this Saturday, March 23rd, at the Barnes + Noble in Enfield, CT, from 2-4pm. It will be just me! No other authors, so you know … PLEASE COME. If you can. That would be cool. The store has books in stock for you to purchase and I will be there with various members of my family and friends, so come hang out!
I walked up to Barnes and Noble this morning to write this email and saw this in the window! It’s me! In a window display!
Ok now this next one is a big one that I am really excited about, but I need your help planning it! This would be a just for funsies trip … girls only … to another country!! I have this dream of doing trips and retreats with women who have gone through hard things, whose faith has been challenged and changed, who want to feel free and unmasked, and to be around other women who are accepting, inclusive, relaxed, and FUN. We don’t need an agenda, we don’t need to be somber and serious … we just need to let our hair down, be ourselves, and have fun. So that’s what this trip would be! Kind of like a first run at what I hope will be many more trips and events in the years to come.
It would happen at the end of this year (think Oct/Nov) and the only other requirements are that you be at least 18 years old with a minimum budget of $2,000.
In order for this idea of a trip to move forward, I need 100 responses to this survey :
Just For Funsies Girls Trip Survey
If that sounds like something you’d been interested in, in even the smallest way, please fill out the survey! Let’s run away to another country together, eh??
Ok that is all I’ll tell you about today, but there will be more chances to see each other soon!
Hope you have a great start to the week,
- Kristen
It’s you! In a window display! KRISTEN THAT IS SO EXCITING! :)
Congrats on the window display!
Also, I did the survey, hit submit, and then my internet cut out. Hopefully it submitted but I don't know if I should risk doing a duplicate survey. I don't want to skew the results.