by Jen Hatmaker
Dear one, if you are stuck in the doldrums—and may I say that I love you and you are not alone—let me offer up some of the labors that pulled me through, one teeny moment at a time.
First, I made a list of everything I was behind on. Unfinished tasks are a cloud of doom over my head. The emotional energy they steal from me is unbearable. So I wrote them down to get a handle on them rather than leave them floating around unnamed, unmanaged, unidentified. It was ironic, because each line item could be accomplished in minutes at best, a day at worst: mail these things, return this, make those appointments, answer these e-mails (deliver me, Lord), scan over that contract, send in money for that school thing (this times a zillion, free public school my eye), pick up that stuff, return that phone call, finish writing that article. Overdue responsibilities contribute heavily to my shame spiral, and writing them down and slowly crossing them off was an instant boon, literally. Unbelievable the weight that rolls off when the Behind Pile starts to shrink.
Second, the house. For the love of Oprah, the house. I am one of those annoying people who requires tidiness and declutterfication. Oh, to peacefully live in chaos among the piles instead of, hypothetically, barking at the humans who live with me and begrudging everyone for being such slobs. But nope. That is not my lot in life. A cluttered, disorganized house has a direct correlation to my cluttered, disorganized mind.
So, brace yourselves, we launched another chore chart. (I know. Matter of time. I am drawn to systems but struggle to maintain them.) But this one was simple and repetitive: Everyone had one chore a day, and it was the same every week. This was not for pay, because the reward was getting to live in my house for free. The kids had done these tasks before but with no regularity and primarily after I turned into a lunatic. Now we had formalized it somewhat, and the house-maintaining was more consistent. Not allowing our abode to slip into entropy was mentally healing. The chart may be imperfect, but even loose structure restores order to my inner turmoil. Simply creating a plan provides some dignity, which is a powerful combatant to the doldrums.
Third, parenting. Obviously my five kids are perfect and make straight As and speak loving words to each other constantly, but clearly their classmates had poorly influenced them, because they turned into maniacs. This surely had nothing to do with their mother’s two-month doldrum disorder, because children are never the thermometer simply displaying the temperature of their parents. I’m sure their digression was just a coincidence.
So anyway, this thing happened where the kids were horrible and fighting and I went to my room to cry about these terrible children God stuck me with, and He immediately brought to mind six—six—lovely moments my kids had engineered that very day and I heard, “You are only noticing the bad moments and ignoring the good ones.”
God never coddles me when I want Him to. It’s infuriating.
So we started the Brag Board. (It’s just a chalkboard, but can we give a quick shout-out to the Chalkboard Paint People for completely rebranding and becoming the darling of Pinterest? I mean, there were chalkboards on Little House on the Prairie. They aren’t new is all I’m saying.) Anytime we catch someone being kind, helpful, gracious, or awesome, we write it down, big or small. It has to be about someone else, because my offspring would write: It was so incredible how I unloaded the dishwasher.
Funny thing: I’m not positive they’ve had more shining moments lately than before, but I’m sure noticing them now. Evidently we will see exactly what we’re looking for. Does this mean I’ve had to follow a kid or two around, searching for one tiny good thing to say? Yep. But catching children in their goodness totally beats reprimanding them only in their struggles, and the Brag Board pulled the whole family up a few degrees.
Finally, I made a list of all the practices that make me feel healthy. Not surprisingly, I noticed most were absent in my doldrums: cooking, reading good books, limiting screen time, eating well, date nights, taking walks, scheduling time with a counselor, being outside, praying, changing out of my pajamas (this is a thing for work-at-homes), spending time with my friends. All ordinary, nothing new or dramatic. These are mainly bits and pieces that fit in the gaps of life. I simply committed some time back to my staples, maybe just one a day.
None of these were executed immediately. Over a few weeks, I slowly implemented healthier practices, one at a time. It was not revolutionary to sit down with Alan Bradley’s latest novel (“Whenever I’m a little blue I think about cyanide, which so perfectly reflects my mood.”—Flavia), nor was the world righted after the first entry on the Brag Board. The chore chart didn’t solve the crisis, and neither did catching up on e-mails.
But all together, over weeks, just doing the work, bit by bit, digging deep for diligence and grace and best practices, the doldrums receded. These measures make us healthy and whole, because we stop succumbing to disorder and shame. It’s not fancy or quick work, unfortunately, but it is effective.
If you feel stuck today, can I suggest approaching the doldrums in a reasonable way, one tiny element at a time? Alone, none are monumental, but together they lay small paver stones out of the mire, forging a path back to health, back to vibrancy. It will be imperfect with incremental steps forward and back, but God can use your brave movement to soothe the shame of stagnation and restore peace to the chaos.
How about an easy little recipe to get you started? I am not even kidding when I say that making a delicious dish with your hands and enjoying it with your mouth is really something. It is a small rung to higher ground. Do not say to yourself, This is one more thing I can’t pull off, but rather, This is one easy thing I can accomplish in fifteen minutes. This is guaranteed to improve your spirits, if only in the consumption.
A few months ago, we were invited to Willie and Korie Robertson’s house for a long weekend (Korie and I traveled to Ethiopia together to raise money for vulnerable families through Help One Now, and we bonded during our daily traumatic van marathons—see chapter 3). Korie’s aunt hosts enormous Sunday lunches after church, and we finagled an invite. There I was, putting a bunch of southern food on my plate, and oh fine, I guess I’ll throw this salad on here to be nice.
*Jen eats bite of salad*
*Jen’s life is changed*
JEN: Um, who made this salad? What is this salad?
KORIE: Oh, that’s Aunt Carol’s Crunchy Salad. We make her bring it to every meal.
JEN: Which one is Aunt Carol?
(Conversation gets sidetracked)
JEN: Uh-huh. Yeah. Anyway, who is Aunt Carol?
(Some random pointing in the other room)
JEN: Which one?
(Some vague describing)
(Conversation moves on)
(Jen gets up and goes into the other room)
JEN: Excuse me for interrupting. I need to speak to whichever one of you is Aunt Carol.
I badgered her for the recipe, and here it is. And just in case you are thinking, Great, Jen. I have the doldrums, and you are feeding me salad? just trust me. I am not playing. This is magical salad.
AUNT CAROL’S CRUNCHY SALAD
Salad
2 tablespoons butter
1 package ramen noodles (like the $.13 package)
½ cup or so of chopped almonds
Handful of sunflower seeds
4 to 6 cups sturdy lettuce (I like romaine)
2 cups or so of chopped broccoli
Some chopped green onions
You can add any crunchy thing: carrots, radishes, snap peas, cabbage
Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the uncooked ramen noodles (break them all up), almonds, and sunflower seeds, and saute until toasted light brown. Maybe 3 to 4 minutes. Let cool.
Pour the dressing (recipe below) into the bottom of your salad bowl.
Add the lettuce, broccoli, green onions, and toasted crunch mix. Toss when ready to serve.
Vinaigrette
4 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 to 3 drops Tabasco
½ cup oil (olive, sunflower, walnut, whatever oil you like. Aunt Carol uses canola oil, so no need to get trendy)
Mix all the vinaigrette ingredients with a whisk (or just shake this all together in a mason jar if you want to control the quantity or make extra).
This is so good. Cannot deal. Add chicken or shrimp, and it is a whole meal. This is a doldrum fixer. I’m so serious. Aunt Carol and I are here for you.
Related: I think Aunt Carol solved my issue with kale. The last time I made this, I chopped kale in bite-sized pieces and tossed it with the romaine and all the other goodies plus the dressing (which I could drink with a straw). It is the only time I have ever had kind feelings toward kale.
Don’t talk to me about it, Kale Propaganda People. Stop trying to convert us. I know all the things. I still don’t like it. Except slathered in Aunt Carol’s dressing.
Football is, after all, a wonderful way to get rid of your aggressions without going to jail for it.1
— HEYWOOD HALE BROUN
CHAPTER 16
IDENTIFIABLE SIGNS OF ATHLETIC GREATNESS
If it is possible to feel both judgmental about something ridiculous while at the same time fully participating in its jackassery, that is my complicity in Southern Football.
For southerners, sure, there are baseball and soccer. We have basketball and swimming like everyone else. But those are small planets orbiting the blazing sun of football. It is king and everyone else its subjects. The president of the University of Texas makes in seven years what the football coach makes in one season; add postseason bonuses, and the differential stretches out till, basically, infinity. Educate our state’s young adults? Sure, I guess, whatever. Serve up two losing football seasons in a row? BYE, FELICIA.
For us, the path to the NFL begins in prekindergarten when dads and moms alike begin to assess their sons for identifiable signs of athletic greatness. Never mind that he still wets the bed; the question is, Does he possess the hand girth to throw a tight spiral? With complete sincerity, parents defend the decision to enroll their glorified toddler in a competitive flag football league, because if they wait until second grade, “it is too late.” Obviously, at that point, he will be hopelessly behind the other boys who are just learning to subtract but can already run eleven defensive plays. (In case you are wondering where I fall on the “judge or participate” spectrum, perhaps I can show you this adorable picture of my five-year-old in football pads.)
It’s serious business, you guys. For every junior team, you will find a corresponding sea of parents in matching jerseys, hats, buttons, and hoodies. They will be rattling homemade shakers and waving matching pom-poms. There will be team moms, team snacks, team e-mails, team tents, team chants, team cheerleading squads, team signs, team fund-raisers, team merch, and team hysteria. So completely over-the-top is the system, an outsider would suspect it was fake, like a made-for-TV Disney movie in which an overzealous youth league is caught rigging birth certificates so middle schoolers can play in the Under 8 Division.
Our son Ben plays competitive youth football, and his team has given up six points in two years. He practices three nights a week, including one night devoted to Blu-ray game film from the week before (Jesus, be my strength). Six adult men coach his team, and they are as serious as Vladimir Putin. Ben has not one but two Kid-Sized Super Bowl rings, because this is a thing southern parents spend their cash money on to demonstrate athletic triumph.
These children still have Valentine’s Day parties at school.
Our fields have bleachers, but they are utilized only by attending grandmas and grandpas (of which they are legion). Moms and dads don’t require bleachers, because they stand at the fence and “help coach.” I’m sure this is a delight to the coaches. Dads are sure to yell alternative advice in case the play calls don’t showcase their sons’ particular skill sets. Before games, I’ve overheard many boys beg dads not to bellow instructions from the fence, at which point the dads promise they will not, which is an outright lie. In addition to sideline play calling, they are also useful for screaming out Obvious Commands: Hustle! Run fast! Block your man! Score!
Thanks, dads.
But they have nothing on the moms. This is where the train goes entirely off the tracks. I’m sure Football Moms act perfectly ordinary in their workplaces or at the mall or church. But you put their baby boys out on a football field as middle linebackers, and every bit of crazy they have been repressing all week comes out in full explosion. I’ve heard the following words screeched by FMs at top volume:
Zachary, hit him with all your might, son!
Ty, you better not let him past you, or you’ll answer for it!
Juan, put your shoulder down and block like a man!
I don’t know what the parenting books would say about this, but I think it’s safe to say this approach is off the grid. Football Moms—we simultaneously wield a wide-angle camera, spirit shaker, air horn, and terrifying aggression. And by “we” I mean “me,” because one time the referee got me so turnt, I waited for him at his car like a serial killer and demanded an explanation for his particular level of incompetence. (I need mentorship to check my life.)
None of this improves as the kids get older. High school football in the South is so intense a whole TV series was crafted after it starring dreamy Taylor Kitsch as Tim Riggins, which promptly put me into Thought Prison, because I wasn’t sure if I should be his girlfriend or his mother. Anyhow, Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose is basically the southern mantra, and Friday Night Lights just made it public. Now you know our old men sit in coffee shops and discuss ways to torment new coaches and underperforming athletic directors.
In the past decade, more than 50 percent of the top draft picks in the NFL were southern high school boys who had attended sleep-away quarterback camps since they were in fifth grade. There never has been and never will be any of that “we’re all winners” crap down here. Pretty sure “participation trophies” are melted down and refashioned into a statue of Denzel Washington’s character from Remember the Titans. In top divisions, highly ranked high school players are recruited and moved into elite school districts to secure state championships, and this is why the South is the most ridiculous region in these United States of America.
All this really just sets the stage for the Big Enchilada: college football. If you haven’t seen a grown man wear a Mississippi State T-shirt to a business meeting with zero self-consciousness, then you must live in Alaska or New Hampshire, or somewhere people don’t wear university gear as business casual attire though they graduated from college twenty-seven years ago. After all, receiving your college diploma is really just the start of your Adult Allegiance Program; there are rules, clubs, specialty bars, lingo, gear, handshakes, donor funds, loyalty programs, alumni meet-ups, and a deep well of hostility toward rivals the rest of your living life.
All our children learned “The Eyes of Texas” as part of their public school kindergarten curriculum. My friend Becky’s daughter—from a dyed-in-the-wool Texas A&M family—came home from kindergarten hysterically crying after the UT song indoctrination: “Daddy is going to be so mad at me!” My friend Jenny’s dad had a bona fide low-grade heart attack during a University of Alabama playoff game. Not one but eight of my friends named their children and pets after college stadiums. We scheduled an anniversary trip to Europe around a Longhorn away game.
I’m just saying we probably all need some psychoanalysis.
The obvious irony is that after all this hysteria, almost none of our sons will actually play college football, much less secure a spot in the NFL. (I knew we should have started him in first grade instead of third!) Sure, only 6.5 percent of high school athletes will play college football, and only 1.5 percent of college players will move on to the pros, but we pray before our public school games, so we’re playing with the Lord’s favor, and I’m pretty sure the Savior wants my son to rec
eive a full ride for his outstanding performance as tight end.
Anyhow, it mostly boils down to a bunch of middle-aged people wearing school colors and cheering for the team they’ve loved since 1989. The end game for most of us is perfecting our tailgate parties. (Brandon and I built a huge porch on our old house last year, and upon seeing it, 100 percent of our friends said, “This is perfect for watching football.” Obviously. Why even have a porch if there is no TV on it for playoffs? We’re not amateurs.)
So for all my fellow football lunatics, here are a couple of no-fail recipes for your watch parties or tailgate crews. And listen, no one said football food was supposed to be healthy, okay? It is simply understood that game day recipes can involve a disproportionate amount of mayonnaise, cheese, red meat, or TTAF (things that are fried). Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.
BUFFALO CHICKEN DIP
My girlfriend Tonya first introduced me to this winner, and I have never had an ounce of leftovers. Not even enough for one bloomin’ chip. It is so easy, I don’t even know if we can call it a recipe, but you know what we can call it? A PARTY IN OUR MOUTHS.
1 (8-ounce) block cream cheese, softened
3 cups cooked, shredded chicken (I always buy the grocery store rotisserie bird)
1 cup buffalo wing sauce (any kind you like)
1 cup blue cheese dressing*
1 (8-ounce) tub blue cheese crumbles (if you’re scared, use Cheddar, but COME ON, BRO)
Options for dippers: chips, crackers, celery sticks, crostini, slider rolls, whatever man.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the softened cream cheese in the bottom of a square baking dish. In a bowl, mix the shredded chicken with the wing sauce and blue cheese dressing until completely coated. Spread the chicken mixture evenly on top of the cream cheese. Top with the blue cheese crumbles. Warm through for around ten minutes (you don’t want to cook this too long because the cream cheese gets melted and runny, and that is no way to live).