TH E R ED EMP TIO N I SSUE , 2019 Collection, Volume I, Issue 19
HOLL & LAN E
Team SARAH HARTLEY Creator / Editor in Chief sarahhartley.net editor@hollandlanemag.com
Special Thanks To: NATALIE FRANKE Cover Model nataliefranke.com EMMA JEAN PHOTOGRAPHY Cover Photographer emmajeanphoto.com
MIA SUTTON Editorial Manager mia-sutton.com stories@hollandlanemag.com
JESS DOWNEY Social Media Manager chaoticcollectedinc.com
CONTACT For press and advertising inquiries, editor@hollandlanemag.com For contributions, stories@hollandlanemag.com For stockists, editor@hollandlanemag.com
ABOUT We’re starting a movement towards more honest media, giving your voice and stories a platform to share your authentic lives.
In Every Issue
SOCIAL
04 Regular Contributors
instagram.com/hollandlanemag facebook.com/hollandlanemag pinterest.com/hollandlanemag The opinions expressed within each article do not necessarily represent those of the Holl & Lane team.
05 Issue Contributors 06 Editor’s Note 08 The List 78 Write With Us
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In This Issue
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10 Finding Strength This Side of Hell Finally gaining freedom from a toxic relationship
34 Rebuilding My Body An act of self-harm that ultimately led to healing
60 Redemption Means Having My Own Back The evolution of redemption from wild dreams to tiny choices
14 Letting Go of Mom Guilt Bottle feeding your baby doesn’t equal motherhood failure
38 Building Healthy Boundaries A mom giving tough love to her son for both their sakes
64 Trash No one is irredeemable
18 The Ripple Effect The choices we make affect us and those we love for years to come
42 Making Waves An interview with Natalie Franke on business, brain tumors & babies
22 The Stories of Our Lives Life is like a movie - highlight reels, bloopers, and all
50 Searching for the Good Life A family legacy of redemption, sacrifice, and strength
68 Forgiveness Has the Power to Redeem Infidelity, forgiveness, and a new lease on love
24 I’m a Reformed Mean Girl Letting go of sarcasm in favor of true connection + kindness
52 Walking Toward Restoration Healing from sexual abuse through faith
70 The Lost Hope of Redemption Waiting for an apology that will never come
28 Second Chances People really can change
56 The Replacements Life imitates art in this path to redemption
74 The Next Chapter Letting go of what is “supposed” to be
58 Redemption Through Yoga Escaping a toxic work industry with mindfulness
76 Finding the Courage to Redeem Your Dreams Weighing a life of realistic achievements versus passionate dreams
32 Asking for Forgiveness Giving yourself and others grace when mistakes are made
66 The Finish Line Redeeming a lost sense of self in two half marathon races
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Regular Contributors AMY COOK, Books Wife and soccer mom by day, nerdy bookworm by night. Lover of wine, literature, pie and all things Gone With The Wind. instagram.com/amy1939
ERICA MUSYT, Movies Erica is a 30-something Virginia native who is passionate about family, friends, and the movies! She buys books faster than she reads them, loves ladybugs and all things purple. A movie star at heart, Erica is delighted to be a contributor to the Holl and Lane movie section! lookingtothestars.com
MIA SUTTON, Music Mia is a self-proclaimed word nerd. As a writer, blogger, and poet, she believes that words are our greatest treasure. She lives in Virginia with her husband and two sons. mia-sutton.com
CHRISTINE AMOROSO Writer Christine recently traded her role as elementary school principal, and her home in southern California, for a chance to live and write in Italy. She actively seeks opportunities to learn and grow, both personally and professionally. Her stories reflect her personal journey, opening her heart and mind to adventure and endless possibilities. Barenakedinpublic.com SAMI ROSS, Writer Sami is a Chicago-based copywriter by day and Creative by night. Outside of her writing career, she likes to express her creativity through her yoga practice, and is working towards her teacher certification. Currently, her favorite word is erleichda- a Tom Robbin’s creation that means “lighten up.” shross.com
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Issue Contributors Amy Cook Writer The List : Read instagram.com/amy1939
Ethan Hoover Photographer The Finish Line ethanchoover.com
Melissa Wert Writer The Next Chapter print-therapy.com
Ashton Smith Writer The Ripple Effect theauthenticwomanseries.com
Eunice Brownlee Writer The Lost Hope of Redemption euniceann.com
Mia Sutton Writer The List : Listen mia-sutton.com
Ben Hershey Photographer Second Chances benjaminhershey.com
Fachy Marin Photographer Building Healthy Boundaries unsplash.com/@fachymarin
Molly Belle Photographer Finding Strength This Side of Hell https://unsplash.com/@mollybelle
Beverly Paul-Cooper Writer I’m a Reformed Mean Girl instagram.com/bevpaulcoop
Hadis Safari Photographer The Stories of Our Lives unsplash.com/@ihadissafari
Natalie Franke Cover Model Making Waves nataliefranke.com
Brittany Forbes Writer Redemption Means Having My Own Back letterstorayelle.com
Jen Moslander Writer Second Chances Rebuilding My Body facebook.com/EmConnective
Nick Morrison Photographer Finding the Courage to Redeem Your Dreams designbynickmorrison.com
Candi Barbagallo Writer Finding Strength This Side of Hell Christian Holzinger Photographer Redemption Means Having My Own Back unsplash.com/@pixelatelier Christina Bjenning Writer The Replacements instagram.com/esmeraldadesigns Christine Amoroso Writer, Photographer Asking for Forgiveness barenakedinpublic.com Crystal Brutlag Writer Trash dreams-etc.com Emma Jean Photography Cover Photographer Making Waves emmajeanphoto.com
Joni Leimgruber Writer Walking Toward Restoration wordsbyjoni.wordpress.com Josh Smith Photographer The Ripple Effect Laura Pruitt Writer Letting Go of Mom Guilt instagram.com/lauraleeme Lindsay Atkinson Writer The Finish Line lindsayatkinsonyoga.com Malte Fleuter Photographer The Next Chapter instagram.com/mfleuter Marni Zarr Writer Building Healthy Boundaries
Erica Musyt Writer The List : Watch instagram.com/1hotredhd
Matthew Bennett Photographer Forgiveness has the Power to Redeem mbennettphoto.com
Erin East Writer Searching for the Good Life
Melinda Bowens Writer The Stories of Our Lives thewhenlife.com
Nynne Schrøder Photographer Letting Go of Mom Guilt https://unsplash.com/@nynnes Patricia Fitzgerald Photographer Searching for the Good Life Rebecca Rice Writer Forgiveness has the Power to Redeem thehydrangeaproject.com Ryoji Iwata Photographer Trash unsplash.com/@ryoji__iwata Salma Elbarmawi Writer Finding the Courage to Redeem Your Dreams dearestsalsa.wordpress.com Sami Ross Writer Redemption Through Yoga shross.com Shannon Blackwell Photographer Rebuilding My Body Sheree Boyles Photographer The Replacements
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Editor’s Note When I think of the word redemption, I think of those powerful tales that we’ve all heard - the single mom living in her car for years on end who creates her own business and becomes a millionaire, ending her poverty and providing a better life for her children. The bullied kid at school becoming a mega movie star. The victim becoming the survivor. Stories of a person being redeemed. A shift in life after great emotional turmoil. We love these stories. They show that life is always changing and moving. That where you are now isn’t necessarily where you will end up. That is what we wanted to focus on in this issue. The way that we, as women, can overcome and become better, even after hardships. This issue covers stories of abuse, sacrifice, self-harm, strength, and a general willingness to survive. The words on the following pages show just how strong we are as women, even when the odds are stacked against us. And on the last page, we have something new for you. We want you to not only absorb the words on these pages, but we want you to create your own. Our last page journal prompts will help you start to think about your own redemption, about the life you have created and the life you desire. Feel free to tear out this last page and write your thoughts down, get them on paper. You never know where your words might lead. Until next time, Sarah Hartley Editor in Chief
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HEADSHOT BY CRISTIN GOSS
redemption the act of making up for
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THE LIST What we’re reading, watching, and listening to this quarter. READ BY AMY COOK WATCH BY ERICA MUSYT LISTEN BY MIA SUTTON
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READ THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY by Rachel Joyce Life as a recently retired married man in the English country has become mundane for Harold. He works every last nerve of his wife Maureen, sometimes simply from breathing and is often left wondering if this is all that is left, until he receives a letter from Queenie, a blast from the past who is dying and tying up all of her loose ends. Harold decides to leave everything behind to walk across the country to hand deliver this note to Queenie himself. His travels have him meeting brilliant people along the way and, in his absence, even Maureen finds herself missing her quirky husband. Will Harold’s pilgrimage save his dying friend?
I’LL GIVE YOU THE SUN by Jandy Nelson Noah and Jude are twins that each have a special gift for art. Noah’s gift resides in his drawings and Jude’s exists in more of a sculpture form. When their mother dies, Jude gets picked for the art school that was destined for Noah and a rift grows between them. Jude is convinced her mother is breaking her sculptures from the beyond and seeks the help of a world-renowned sculptor to help her create an unbreakable tribute to her mother, but will it help her repair the damage that has been done to her and her brother’s relationship?
THE SEVENTH MOST IMPORTANT THING by Shelley Pearsall “Do you know what redemption means?” This is the question Judge Warner asks of Arthur, the young man who threw a rock at the local junk collector and was almost sent to juvenile detention. Except that, in a curious twist of fate, James Hampton, AKA The Junk Man, comes forward and asks if Arthur can do community service hours helping him instead. He tasks Arthur with finding the seven most important things. When Arthur realizes what he is a part of, he understands the true meaning of redemption and how what seems like junk can transform your life in ways never imagined. *Spoiler Alert: James Hampton’s piece, The Throne of The Third Heaven or Hampton’s Throne, can be found at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C.
WATCH THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION Andy Dufresne is found guilty for two murders he did not commit; those of his wife and her lover. He is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at Shawshank Prison where he meets and forms a dear friendship with Red. Together they are able to find solace and eventually redemption.
UNBROKEN: PATH TO REDEMPTION After surviving a near fatal plane crash in WWII and imprisonment in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini goes home to marry his love, Cynthia Applewhite. It isn’t long after his return that his personal demons begin to threaten his happiness. Upon hearing Rev. Billy Graham, Louis embraces a newfound faith in Christianity and begins to turn his life around through forgiveness.
THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (2002) Edmond Dantes is a charming young sailor in love with the beautiful Mercedes. His jealous best friend, Fernand, wants Mercedes all to himself and has Dantes wrongly and deliberately imprisoned. Many years later, Dantes escapes from prison and, using a hidden treasure, makes a plan to seek his revenge and win the love of his life back.
LOVE ME AGAIN by John Newman
IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME by Cher
BE AS YOU ARE by Mike Posner
REDEMPTION SONG by Bob Marley
TITANIUM by David Guetta feat. Sia
ON TOP OF THE WORLD by Imagine Dragons
FEELING GOOD by Nina Simone
SHAKE IT OUT by Florence + The Machine
WARRIOR by Demi Lovato
LISTEN
THE REASON by Hoobastank 9
Words by Candi Barbagallo Image by Molly Belle
Finding
STRENGTH This Side of Hell
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H
e was chubby in high school and wore thick glasses behind his stringy blonde hair, but oh man was he cool. He always had the good pot and a place to hang out. He was my older brother’s best friend and they had a garage band. It was the 90s, so did everyone, but they had *the* garage band. His dad was rich white trash and my 12-year-old self was smitten. I was smitten with everyone. In love with love, as my mother said. But I was just a little kid and he was 16 with the coolest of girlfriends. He liked me, though. He gave me a shitty guitar and taught me bar chords after school and let me smoke his cigarettes and his pot. I’d frequently turn the ringer off on my Swatch phone and wait in the dark for it to light up well past my bedtime. We craved each other’s attention. I didn’t stay a little kid very long though and fell down a rabbit hole of booze, parties, and boys. I dropped out of high school in favor of a GED and work was something I occasionally did to bankroll Boone’s Farm and cigarettes. Meanwhile, he dropped the weight, cut his hair, and got contacts. It was nearly a new millennium after all. I’d be old enough to vote for Nader in the next election and he was old enough to buy liquor. With a little matchmaking from my brother we found ourselves in a whirlwind romance. It burned hot and fast before it flickered and died, as young romance often does. I saw him around a few times over the next year or so. He was usually drunk or on pills - or both. He moved in with the coolest of girlfriends, wrecked a car, and was selling pot and pills despite daddy’s money... or perhaps to spite it. He landed in the hospital with a belly full of Xanax and a head full of seizures. He got scared and he got clean. And I missed him. We chatted a few times on the phone, I dumped my perfectly agreeable boyfriend, and once again enlisted my brother who arranged a casual night out for the three of us. He came home with us and we talked all night in my bedroom. He moved out of the coolest of girlfriend’s house the next day. I moved out of my parents’ house the next month. And so we burned on. We holed ourselves up in his tiny two bedroom bungalow on his daddy’s property and bonded over misanthropy and anxiety disorder. We sat in a haze of pot and sex and music and poetry and the rest of the world ceased to exist. He worked out of town for his daddy’s company four days a week and I was a cashier at a pharmacy full time. Four months into our dysfunctional fairy tale, he woke me in the wee hours and knelt on the floor beside the couch where we slept. The ring was beautiful. Princess cut and platinum and daydreams. I quit my job and he stayed in town to function as groundskeeper on daddy’s estate. We rented a townhouse with a real kitchen and laundry closet. I enrolled in school since daddy was paying, smoked pot and played video games all day when I wasn’t in class. Dinner was at 6:00, followed by showers and more pot. Music. Reruns of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Actual friends. Laughing. Talking - lots and lots of talking. Or maybe I was just listening and he was talking. I didn’t notice. I didn’t notice many things. ›››
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I didn’t notice the abnormality of his all night rant about his perceived lack of sex that resulted in me having a panic attack that lasted for days. I dare say, a mild nervous breakdown. My doctor prescribed an anti-anxiety medication that would remain with me for the next five years, alongside the muscle relaxer I would eventually take from time to time to quell the chronic headaches plaguing me. Whether or not the drugs helped, I didn’t notice. I didn’t notice many things. I didn’t notice when he garnered his own prescriptions and started taking mine too. At least not at first. I didn’t notice that I no longer had friends of my own and hadn’t spoken to my brother or sister in months. I didn’t notice when I began to doubt what I knew to be true of my previously close-knit and loving family; he had known them well after all, perhaps better than I. I didn’t notice when he told me I wasn’t a very good writer - I just stopped writing. I didn’t notice he talked me out of applying for jobs every time I brought home an application. And I didn’t notice the pornography that began seeping into my world before cluttering every corner. On September 15, 2001, just after my 20th birthday, and four short days after the World Trade Center attack, I married him. Then I sobbed in my mother-in-law’s arms, right there after the wedding. I wailed like a child in front of everyone. I attributed it to exhaustion and the sinus infection I had been fighting, but the honeymoon was over long before it began and I knew in my heart I had made a horrible mistake. We began fighting every day after that, most often because I’d said the wrong thing or made the wrong joke. Sometimes because I fell asleep after smoking too much pot or because I refused sex one too many times. He screamed and slobbered and pulled out his hair in full out tantrums, sometimes bloodying himself or breaking things, all the while telling me I was crazy and just couldn’t be pleased. I believed him. I believed every lie he told. And there were many. Big, elaborate lies. Years later I would learn of the lies he told others. An older brother who didn’t exist. A college degree from a university on the west coast. Being a journalistic and musical celebrity.
Ready to read the whole issue? Click here to purchase it from our shop. hollandlanemag.com/shop In the first months of marriage I simply saw him as a performer and was endeared before I became annoyed. He sometimes took on the persona of Hunter S. Thompson as he emerged from his evening shower, or perhaps he would be Lenny Bruce that particular night. It wasn’t until many years later I understood Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but I had spent my whole life believing I was the defective one. And now, if I could just say and do and be the right thing then perhaps I would get the best of him, like those sweet early days of romance and that teenage boy I once thought I knew. In our final year of marriage, I began cutting myself. My hair fell out in handfuls and he complained of its litter on the bathroom floor. I ate little more than one fast food meal a day, and seldom finished it as an argument would break out halfway through. I steadily dropped three pounds each month, and as my 24th birthday approached I weighed a slight 89 pounds. My back was bruised from protruding bones and I needed a cushion for sitting. I was terrified and I was awake, but I didn’t believe I could care for myself and I didn’t believe I belonged in the loving home of my parents. I was not like them and I never had been. Emotional abuse is the cruelest of liars. It will tell you you cannot trust anyone and you cannot trust yourself. You are damaged and inhuman and unworthy of anything that is good and it is all your fault. I thought hospitalization was my only option and so I sat sobbing with the Yellow Pages open in my lap, searching for my way out. ›››
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On July 1st, 2005, two days before my birthday and our annual pool party at daddy’s estate, we had a fight over the phone. I told him I was feeling anxious about being in a swimsuit (as I had become so thin and my body was scarred), so perhaps we should move the party to our house. His interpretation: I was upset because there weren’t enough people coming to my party. Nothing was ever good enough for me. I drove to his daddy’s place, where he was working, to try to sort out the misunderstanding. My wrist was bruised from beating the floor and my heart was so weary. I got out of the car and he glared at me before he started screaming. Every time I begged him to listen he just got louder repeating, “It’s always excuses with you,” as if it were a mantra. Then he told me to get out of his house. As I witnessed this final tantrum something snapped in me. Or perhaps it came together. He had told me to leave before. In fact, I still had things packed from a week prior, but this day was different. I got in my little red Honda, the only thing I would ask to keep, and called my mother. “Do you have room for me?” I asked. This was the call she had wished, hoped, and prayed for during many a sleepless worried night. “Absolutely”, she replied. I drove to the house we had shared and filled that two-door car with everything it could possibly hold. And that was that. I didn’t speak to him over the next three weeks before going with my family to retrieve the last of my things. My dear, loving family. Forever my heroes. I wish I could say it was a straight line to healing because it would make for a much prettier story, but there is nothing pretty about waking from a nightmare. My mother often heard me crying in my sleep. I was skittish around loud people and broke down easily. I took up a hobby of drinking whiskey every night and frequenting dive bars and parties. I was angry and I was guarded, but I was eventually determined to do things that scared me and challenged me. I’d spent my whole life afraid, complacent, and in a cycle of self-destruction, but I knew if I could live through that marriage and find my way out then I was capable of absolutely anything.
Ready to read the whole issue? Click here to purchase it from our shop. I weanedhollandlanemag.com/shop myself from the anti-anxiety medication, got a job, and traveled a little. I moved out of my parents’ house and away from my hometown to a beautifully hip city in the North Carolina mountains. I quit smoking, practiced yoga, read books, learned how to nourish my body, and scratched and clawed and screamed and cried my way out. Now, more than 13 years later, my life is lovely. Not perfect by any means, but it is all my own. I remarried four years after my separation, and in 2016 gave birth to the best person I’ve ever known. My husband and I returned to my hometown in 2018, bought a home, and I completed the degree I began so long ago. I am a work in progress and hope to always be. I still get triggered sometimes and have to give myself grace, but I am no longer angry and I no longer blame myself for accepting the abuse for so long. The saying goes, “the best revenge is a life well lived,” and this was my goal; to exact revenge on my ex-husband by living life so fully and beautifully that he would feel even a fraction of the pain he had caused. But here’s the thing, a life that is truly well lived is a compassionate life with no room for revenge or hatred. My hatred for him turned to pity and pity eventually turned to nothing. For a very long time I felt nothing for him. Now, however, I have found compassion for him. I hope he’s finding peace as he navigates the world and battles the demons that never had anything to do with me in the first place. &
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F O O G G N I T T L I T U LE G M O M
Words by Laura Pruitt Image by Nynne Schrøder
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A
s my due date for our second baby approached, I didn’t worry about labor and delivery. I felt confident that our barely two-year-old daughter would adjust to a baby brother just fine. I was resigned to re-entering the newborn fog of intense sleep deprivation.
The scale and yet another lactation consultant confirmed what I already suspected; my breastfeeding A was actually an F. “The good news is there’s nothing wrong with your supply, she’s just a really ineffective nurser,” the LC chippered, “you can totally make this work.” She went on to describe the routine I needed to follow in order to do so.
It was when I thought about breastfeeding again that my chest clenched. When I imagined putting my brand new baby to breast, I felt nauseous. A dark cloud of dread settled and grew as the days left in my pregnancy counted down.
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Whether or not I would breastfeed my children was never a question. I couldn’t understand women who said they weren’t interested in breastfeeding - probably because I didn’t bother trying to understand them. I internally judged the “formula by choice” moms, broadly categorizing them as lazy and selfish.
Feeding sessions stretched to at least an hour. When I returned to work at seven weeks postpartum it was almost a vacation. Nine hours straight of caring only for myself. Quick, twenty-minute pumping sessions instead of nurse/ bottle/pump.
“You don’t need my help,” the lactation consultant said as she popped into the postpartum recovery room, “you’re rocking breastfeeding. You both look great!” I smugly accepted her praise. I didn’t have a picture perfect pregnancy or delivery, but I was earning my A in breastfeeding. My fall from “breast is best” grace had already begun by Gracie’s one-week pediatrician appointment. They way I’d gotten comfortable holding her wasn’t right, her latch was off, and my nipples were in agony because I was doing it wrong. I took my fresh newborn home feeling demoralized but determined. I followed every rule prescribed by the lactation consultant and dutifully recorded every detail of our nursing sessions. “How long until it stops hurting?” I asked my friend whose daughter was born exactly five weeks before mine. “Not more than a couple weeks,” she assured me. “It was rough in the beginning, but it gets easier.” With a guilty conscience, I bought and used nipple shields to make feeding Gracie bearable. Her first month of life came and went, but breastfeeding didn’t get any easier. I had no intention of giving up, but I wasn’t the only one breastfeeding wasn’t working for. Gracie communicated that she was struggling in the only way she could. She stopped eating. She’d suck on a boob for five minutes then clamp her mouth shut.
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Nurse. Session should last at least 20 minutes. Give a bottle because she can’t get enough milk from nursing. Pump to keep up supply and have milk for the next bottle. Repeat at Every. Single. Feeding.
Back home, the marathon of feeding my baby as prescribed quickly wore me out and I switched to exclusively pumping. I felt self-conscious whenever I fed her in public, not because of an exposed chest like other moms, but rather the exposed bottle. “It’s breast milk!” I wanted to shout. “I’m still a good mom giving my baby the good stuff, I swear.” *** I drove Gracie to her four month well visit so proud of our progress. Where before it took her an hour to drink a single ounce from a bottle, she was now taking four ounces in half the time. She was sleeping longer stretches and had transformed from a permanently hangry newborn into a pretty happy baby. “You’re not feeding her enough.” The pediatrician’s words hit me like a fastball out of left field. She kept going, “She’s still gaining too slowly. See, she’s way at the bottom of the chart.” “You are failing this baby,” was all I heard. Back at work, sitting in a tiny, windowless storage closet, I watched the ounces slowly drip into the bottles attached to my chest. It wasn’t enough. The milk I pumped in a day was less than the amount Gracie drank, which in turn was less than the pediatrician insisted she should be eating. I said a prayer begging for a miracle and cried at my fundamental failure to nourish my baby. When I mixed up Gracie’s first bottle of formula, I mentally added another red mark to my motherhood report card.
*** I excused myself during Easter celebrations with our inlaws to sit with my hospital-grade rental pump in an empty bedroom. That was my punishment for not feeding my baby the right way. I ate lactation cookies and took herbal supplements in a bid to stave off the inevitable - I was pumping less than half of what Gracie ate in a day. A reminder email popped into my inbox reminding me that it was time to renew my pump rental or send it back. It finally dawned on me that I had a choice. When I confessed to my husband that I wanted to quit pumping seven months in, I was confused by his nonchalant reaction. “If you don’t want to keep pumping, just stop. It’s fine.” Didn’t he realize that meant I had officially failed? I was supposed to breastfeed for an entire year.
Pregnant with baby number two, all the insecurities of “breast is best” came rushing back. I knew I couldn’t repeat what I went through with Gracie, but in my heart, I still believed that choosing formula without giving breastfeeding a shot was selfish. I started bargaining with myself. I’ll just see how it goes. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be easy this time. I can’t pump again though, I just can’t. I guess I could just breastfeed until I go back to work … I don’t have to pump. We could just nurse for a couple weeks to give him a solid foundation of antibodies. Nine days after my due date, at 9:46 a.m., I pushed a nine pound baby into the world. I pulled Logan to my chest and he latched right on. Maybe I can do this after all.
Ready to read the whole issue? By day two my nipples were in agony and every anxiety Click here toI needed purchase it from Nevertheless, it was the permission to end the reintroduced itself like anour uninvitedshop. guest. My on-duty madness. I packed up the machine. nurse asked how breastfeeding was going and I fell apart. Shortly after, we nursed for the last time and Logan sucked hollandlanemag.com/shop I picked up the phone and switched to a new pediatrician. down his first bottle of formula in the hospital. The voice in my head telling me I was a failure was loud enough without an office full of doctors and lactation consultants piling on.
At Gracie’s next well visit, her new pediatrician told me she was doing great. She told me I was doing great too. I believed her. I finally realized the gift that formula had given me, and what my obsession with “breast is best” had robbed me of as I held my baby in my arms and just fed her - no desperation, no guilt, and no tubes, cords, and pump. ***
We brought home our chunky baby who loved to eat and I embraced the gift I’d shunned with my firstborn. Unlike Gracie, Logan’s first months of life were focused on enjoying his babyhood and my maternity leave. He guzzled bottles while I held him close, no nipple shields, pumps, or self-imposed burdens between us. I quickly shed any lingering guilt in choosing formula. I finally believed that yes, fed really is best, without any caveats. Motherhood is tough enough without torturing myself to do things I don’t want to do. Formula was the right choice for me and both of my babies. My only regret is that I didn’t believe it sooner. &
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Words by Ashton Smith Images by Josh Smith
The
Ripple Effect
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Y
ou know those stories of deep darkness transformed into beautiful, bright redemption? The ones we watch on the big screen as we anxiously rest on the edge of our seat. The ones we flip through eagerly in book form as we hold onto hope for that overcoming moment. The ones we listen to in melodious song as we wait for the triumphant chorus. Maybe it’s the story you see when you look at your reflection in the mirror - the story of persistence, hardship, and victory. Do you know why all of humanity is intrigued by those redemption stories? They instill hope. They prove that darkness is only temporary. For the power to overcome is hardwired into all of humanity. It’s pumping in our veins and flowing through our DNA. We are resilient, strong, and brave, and redemptive power is in our very nature. All redemption stories have one major thing in common: hardship was transformed into extraordinary victory. An individual made the conscious choice to rise up in the midst of the struggle. You see, victory and overcoming moments are preceded by a decision - a decision to access every ounce of power, courage, and persistence in order to hold space for the redemptive moment. An individual must know deep down that they are rightful of a thriving, fulfilling life. For the very word redemption implies that one is receiving that which they were deserving of in the first place. Even though they may not know their inherent rights and value in the moment, something in their very DNA convinces them of it. For our worthiness is inherent. It is our birthright as a human being. As we hold space for our redemptive moments and comprehend our worth at a cellular level, we will experience breakthrough not only for ourselves, but for the generations that follow us. My parents have one of the most beautiful, outrageous, and extraordinary redemption stories my ears have yet to hear. They met each other in their high school years and connected fairly quickly. Each came from a broken home, which I believe gave them common ground for connection. The pain from their childhood led them to connect with quite a crazy crowd that truly fit the stereotype of the ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll culture.’ Like many people with deep wounds, they tried to suppress their pain by going to parties, doing drugs, and drinking. Despite the pain and dysfunction they found themselves in, they got married. The first place they moved into they called the “chicken house.” It was a 400-square-foot, cinder-block building where my dad’s greatgrandfather used to cure hams. The beginning was all but easy, but their determination to stick together was much stronger than the dysfunction that tried to pull them apart. After coming from broken homes, their biggest desire was to stay together, not only for themselves, but for the generations to come. Fast forward to present day. My parents are not only still together, but they are thriving. They raised me in the same home (no, it was not the chicken house). They showed me what commitment, deep love, and determination truly looks like. They raised my sister and I and let their ceiling become our floor, as my dad likes to say. My dad is an extremely successful entrepreneur who runs a multi-million dollar company, and my mom is one of the most talented and extraordinary artists I’ve ever met. They have given my sister and I such a beautiful life and every opportunity to pursue the deepest desires of our hearts. You see, the pain from my parents childhood had the potential to suck them into darkness, but they chose to step into the light. What they didn’t know at the time was that their decision to shine light on the dark places in their own life would be a ripple effect unto the generations. ›››
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The beauty of redemption is not only found in the rush of the overcoming moment or the aftermath of explosive hope. It is found in the generational impact it creates. When one individual decides to leave the path of hopelessness, dysfunction, chaos, doubt, lack, fear, or isolation, it opens up a new door of possibility for the generations to come. The moment we make a meaningful, impactful, and transformational change in our life and step into the light is the moment we create extraordinary possibility for those that follow after us. We get to not only decide the life we want to lead but the legacy we want to leave behind, and that is such a powerful decision. My parents’ redemption story not only changed their own lives forever, but it changed mine forever. Their decision to choose abundance, hope, light, grace, and love created a new and beautiful opportunity for me to do the same. Their decision to relentlessly pursue freedom caused me to be born into that freedom: the freedom to live a life aligned with my truth, know my worth, show up unapologetically, be successful, eradicate shame, and shift culture. Without even knowing it, their redemption story would eradicate generational bondage, create space for abundance, and leave a powerful legacy behind - not only for my sister and I, but for the following generations.
that which tries to hold us back, and to make conscious decisions that create breakthrough in our own lives and for the generations to follow. When we realize the weight of our decisions and the power of our own actions, our perspective will drastically change. For we are not small, inferior, and weak beings. We are strong, resilient, bold, brave, and capable of extraordinary things. Power, strength, and redemptive power are woven into the fabric of our bodies. The decisions we make and the actions we take today have the potential to create a new legacy. Our willingness to rise above and come into the light has the capacity to create a ripple effect unto the generations. So, as we greet each new day, may we remember the power we inherently carry. May we hold tight to the redemptive power that is woven into the fabric of our being and remember that our stories leave behind a legacy. May we know that the decisions we make today and the actions we take today carry extreme weight. For they will have an effect on the generations we leave behind. May we walk with our head held high and our spine extended tall knowing that strength and resilience are in our very nature. And may we always rest in the truth that our worth is unwavering and our ability to shift culture is evident and true. For redemptive power and transformational potential is at the heart and center of all humanity. &
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That is the power of redemption. That is the opportunity we have in our own stories. Every single day greets us with the opportunity to hit the ground running, to rise above
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I The Stories of Our Lives
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believe that the stories of our lives are never experienced and told in vain. Your struggle, your loss, or your pain serve a higher purpose. Your life isn’t a dusty manuscript on a shelf. It’s a sidewalk film festival. And trust me, people are watching. As you move through life, persevering through the most difficult scenes, you are redeeming yourself and your story again and again. You are failing and reshooting the acts. As the credits roll, do you ever wonder if anyone even saw your shining moment? If you are like most people, you probably think your everyday victories go unnoticed. But it doesn’t matter if your redemption breaks the box office or goes straight to DVD, someone is going to see it, connect with it, and use its power to break their own chains. ›››
Words by Melinda Bowens Image by Hadis Safari
The decision to redeem your story, and possibly save someone else, lies solely in your hands.
You are so patient and kind with your little girl. You wonder if anyone knows how hard you’ve worked to get to this point. You doubt it. All the tears and setbacks. All the sleepless nights. It’s worth it, though. She is finally making a little progress. It’s not like you need a pat on the back or anything, but it would be awesome if someone could relate. She sees you. The first time was in the car line, smiling and helping your special needs daughter out of the car. She knew something was different about her and wondered if maybe she was the same as her son. You also went on the class field trip. She wanted to approach you, but her son was the one screaming and holding his ears. Her hands were full, and her heart was heavy. Maybe next time. All she knows is that she wants to be like you. She wants to help her son the way you helped your daughter. Because of you, she whispers to her son that their story will look different… their alternate ending starts today. Because of you she has a hope she didn’t have before. &&&
&&& Your therapist thought it would be helpful to start documenting your journey with anxiety and depression. “Write it down,” she said. “It’ll help you to get your thoughts out on paper.” You contemplate and decide that maybe writing a blog might help with accountability. Even if no one reads it, just the thought that someone might be waiting on pins and needles each week to see what you have to say is just the right amount of pressure. No one reads blogs anymore. But each week you write your story. You set the stage and move the characters through the acts. No reviews. No critics. Just you and your voice. Each week things get a little easier. Each week you share everything… even the deleted scenes. This might not be helping anyone else, but it’s helping you.
Ready to read the whole issue? Click here to purchase it from our shop. She sees you. Her friend shared your post weeks ago and she’s been following along since. She doesn’t comment or hollandlanemag.com/shop say anything, but she is there. “It’s like reading the story
You walk into work a free woman. Finally, he is gone. The curtain has closed on your personal horror movie and you swear you will never land the lead in another one again. You glance in the lobby mirror and wonder if anyone will notice the extra makeup you have covering his last goodbye. It doesn’t even matter. He is gone and today will be the first scene in the love story of yourself. She sees you. She is wearing the same makeup as you. As you sit down with your lunch, she circles the cafeteria hoping to find a seat within earshot of where you are. Why? Because behind those dark eyes there is something different. A glimmer like you have a secret you are dying to share. She discreetly leans in as you divulge everything to your closest coworkers. Suddenly your story is a moving picture show as you reveal every detail of how you finally left him. How you are safe, and he will never hurt you again. With a tear rolling down her face, she throws her lunch away and with fierce determination leaves to pack her own bags. Because of you she has a hope she didn’t have before.
of my life,” she thinks every time she reads your posts. She feels everything that you share. At first, she noticed how sad and dark your posts were, and some days they still are, but she sees that overall you seem a little happier. She’s excited you found someone who understands you. She’s proud that you talk so openly about your medications, your therapy, and the difficult times. She’s happy that there are more good days than bad days for you right now. Her parents are grateful that because of you she flushed the pills down the toilet and checked herself in. Because of you she has a hope she didn’t before. &&& Some days you are behind the camera of your life while other days you are in front of it. Regardless you are in control of every scene. You have the capability to break the chains that are binding you to a tragic finale. You can choose to free yourself from the burden of all the emotions holding you down. The decision to redeem your story, and possibly save someone else, lies solely in your hands. And when the curtain falls, they all will have been watching. &
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I’m a Reformed
MEAN GIRL Words by Beverly Paul-Cooper
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M
y cynicism has never served me well. Throughout my life, I was touted as two things: the mean girl or the sarcastic girl. Both labels I wore proudly. In my askew and naive brain, one meant biting wit and the other meant superfluously funny. It wasn't until I reached my late twenties that I realized just how much this uneven perception cost me. In hindsight, the relationships I so desperately wanted to cultivate as a teenager and young adult were thwarted by my own insecurities and disdain. My only course of action was that I needed to change. My life looked a little differently ten years ago. I was doe-eyed and careless, and I dreamt of a life with a guy who encouraged the absolute worse of my vices. Being young, it was easy for me to see things cloudy and misguided. Often times, I persuaded myself into believing that my big, wordy vocabulary and sharp tongue made me superior and was a quick test for those who I felt were either too sensitive or just didn’t get me. What arrogance I had. In hindsight I knew, deep down, in every part of me that felt singled out or unhappy or even misunderstood, was a wound that was self-inflicted. My story begins post quarter-life crisis and prior to dating my husband, a person whose kind and calm demeanor couldn't help but inspire in me the life I could have. In this season, I found myself alone. Sure, I had a roommate and a job, but if you have ever felt that same sense of standing in a crowded room and feeling completely blank and disconnected, well then, we have been kindred spirits. I was moving through a time of excitement, but what felt like a season I had hoped to share with others, I would inevitably find myself writing in a small notebook to capture these moments instead. My excitement and successes were littered across thin pieces of paper instead of enthused conversation. How did I get here? What relationships had I cultivated, if at all? The few I had built were breaking, disintegrating and fused with so many words I knew I could never take back. The truth is, at the time, I would have rather believed that I deserved every ounce of loneliness I received. I guess it was easier than believing I was a good person with a compassionate heart. I needed to trust that kind and remarkable people could come my way, and I too deserved to be amongst them.
Ready to read the whole issue? Click here to purchase it from our shop. hollandlanemag.com/shop My broken and biased view of myself in the world shifted the moment I began noticing those around me, both the hurting and the happy. I wanted so badly to share in either kind of story. I wanted to impart hope and share experiences not tainted by gloating or self-righteousness. My heart had the why, and then before I could build a big enough barrier, someone came into my life, and he, my future husband, gave me the reason. Though I am a believer that my identity has never been found in someone else, he sure did change my world in an absolute whirlwind kind of way. I imagine he had little understanding of the impact he had on me initially. I have always presented well, self-aware and self-confident. Little did he know I was nervously vying for faith in myself and to transform my interaction with others. I watched him quietly, constantly noting how he interacted with others and how others responded to him. He was funny without compromising or belittling others, and he was so good. The kind of good where you know he would give the last dollar in his pocket to someone who needed it, no questions asked. Being with him more than convicted me. Along with him and a few others, they didn’t just convince me of the reality that I could change but reaffirmed that I was a good person who was just plagued with a sharp tongue. My quest for tactfulness hasn’t been an easy one, and I feel like I falter sometimes more than I affirm. The difference is that this time, I recognize it. In those moments I am both quick to correct and forgive myself. Part of me feels like the reason why it was so easy to accept that I could not evolve was because it was easier to believe that my life and personality were intrinsically designed to be filled with cynicism. Looking back, I often smirk at the grandiose sob story I laid out for myself, and perhaps more importantly, the sad and weathered relationships I assumed I would have. My reason for actively choosing to change my mindset and my interactions with others is simple. I knew it was no way to live the life I wanted. A full life can be immersed with gratitude, sadness, sheer joy, and uncertainty. At some point I had to understand I was predestining a discontent future before plans or people ever came into my life. Sarcasm, my forever defense mechanism, could never keep my warm, kind heart from feeling pain or only ensure that nothing but encouraging folks would ever come my way. It’s proven that when used frequently and at high levels, sarcasm will bring about a barrage of isolation and unhappiness. Years of building upon this truth has propelled me to need to do and be better. For myself, for my family, and for anyone in need of a little hope at the end of a redemptive pipe dream, your happiness is worth changing for. &
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Words by Jen Moslander Image by Ben Hershey
Second Chances 28
“I used to be like that. That coach that acts like that.” The prospect of being able to bounce back from my own undesirable behaviors has always been a conundrum for me. I usually, to a fault, am able to move past things that may have offended me. I have a hard time holding a grudge against another person, even in the most egregious of circumstances. A grudge against myself, though? That’s another conundrum in itself. What allows us as humans to forgive? Even in the most uncomfortable and disparaging of situations? I suppose the answers are different for each individual and each individual event where forgiveness is warranted, or at least, requested. I met Russ late in his youth baseball coaching career. His years of coaching certainly have held moments of disappointment and regret along with triumphs and celebrations. Youth baseball is, of course, America’s iconic pastime that inevitably throws many an adult male some flashbacks of sparkling glory days and hot summer nights. Russ is not an exception to this stereotype of a baseball dad. His reputation preceded himself and not in a positive light. The somewhat mixed reviews of his coaching abilities and his competitive-against-all-odds personality were dismal, at best. I was concerned about what sort of inter-organization gripes and concerns I would be fielding as the league GM about his potential behavior on and off the field. Being a recreational community youth organization, run and operated by parent volunteers, there were few options I had to prevent him, or even replace him, when his son moved up into our age division. Among the reviews from trusted sources were stories of him calling players that deserved to play in important games to tell them that the game had been cancelled in order to weed out the weaker players to gain a competitive edge. I'd heard of instances where he would belittle the players, as young as eight or nine, in front of their peers and parents. He’s transcended across leagues with this reputation and, years after his interactions with the other organizations, every so often these days I’ll get an eye roll and a sigh of disgust at the mention of his name. He did have one saving grace, though, that nudged him into my empathy column of judgment. The younger age division of the organization has a multi-sport coach that has been coaching successfully in our community for longer than I’ve been a part of the league. So successful, in fact, that every year that I’ve known him, he's had waiting lists of kids that want to be coached by him in every sport that he coaches. He and I share many goals for the league, the players, and a solid set of values and expectations for our community. Strong and compassionate, he is truly an asset to not only the league, but to our success as a thriving community. Needless to say, I trust and value his opinion: “I trust him. He’s intense. But he knows baseball and he’s a good coach. He means well, just doesn’t always make it look like it.” That in itself created a partial sigh of relief. I felt slightly more comfortable going into the upcoming season. ›››
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I don’t remember the first time meeting Russ, which is surprising because I had so many mixed expectations of him. Our youth baseball relationship grew slowly over time. I found him to be slightly unorganized, self-aware, and soft-spoken most of the time. He has a dry sense of humor and he is a master in his use of sarcasm. His baseball intelligence outweighs my own and his son is among the most caring young men I’ve ever met. I had a hard time seeing the bad qualities in him that so many had given me. Over the following months, Russ’ presence in my life became more apparent. I frequently joked with him and my husband about them having a second marriage together because there were regular phone calls between them regarding baseball. In those moments, though, there was a sense of bonding that made us feel like Russ was more of an experienced older brother. Honestly, it was really nice. In these regular moments, though, we had both begun to see the growth that Russ has been having, as a coach, a father, and a human, in the stories that he’s shared with us. There were plenty of times that someone that had a bad interaction with him in the past had been brought to our attention and we felt comfortable enough in our relationship with him that we would follow up with him to confirm it. Usually, his humble response to these stories would be something along the lines of, “Oh. Yeah. That sounds about right.” Never would he deny or make excuses for his past actions or inactions, just admit to his embarrassing behaviors and say, “Yeah, I used to be like that but now I know better.”
everything from coaching decisions and umpire calls to the route that said child walks from the car to the dugout. We all know these guys, and we all know that moms are not excluded from these stereotypes either. The longer we’re a part of these organizations with other adults, the more we know that anyone changing behaviors and mindsets like these are pretty unlikely. Which brings me back around to how much of an impact Russ’ transformation has had on me, at first as just a thought experiment but now as an example of how to interact with my own psyche. Russ has never shied away from what he has wanted to do. People didn’t like him, for apparently good reasons at times, but he never quit engaging in the activities that he liked. I’ve had plenty of moments when I had the slightest inclination that I may have offended someone and my next thought was to flee the country or disappear instantly. This has brought me around to the idea that I don’t have to expect to be super-human and if someone can’t see past an honest mistake then they don’t belong in my life. I don’t have to tolerate that anymore.
Ready to read the whole issue? It wasit in his perseverance that he shop. chose to continue Click here to purchase from our experiencing the impact his actions were having on the communities that he was part of and re-evaluating them. hollandlanemag.com/shop He chose to change himself from the inside and decided
This is profound to me because any change in behavior runs the spectrum from tricky to seemingly impossible. Ever try to initiate more mindfulness into your daily routine? Ever try to change from night owl to morning person? Ever try to teach your cat any tricks? Exactly. Not so easy, right? The more interesting observation about Russ changing his behaviors, though, is that he changed his entire outlook and mindset. He literally changed the way he thinks and engages with his empathy, thus, changing his behaviors. This is far more impactful. In my experience, dads highly involved in their child’s sports usually come in two general flavors – 1. Happy to watch their kid experience life and have fun. And 2. Obnoxious loudmouth from the stands that criticizes
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that his legacy will not be of his old, destructive ways. He recognized that by sharpening his skills in empathy, compassion, and effective communication it created an environment for the kids he coached to flourish instead of be discouraged. He has also asked for forgiveness when past indiscretions have come back to haunt him. This, above all that I’ve observed from Russ, is the top lesson that I take from him. Forgiveness from others and forgiveness from myself. Ask for it when you need it. Sincerely apologize to those that need to hear it from you. Genuinely grant it to yourself when you need it. Forgiveness is love. Forgiveness heals. Sometimes it takes a long time to realize you even need it or that someone needs it from you. That’s OK. Forgive anyway. “Yeah. I used to be like that but now I know better.” &
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Asking for Forgiveness
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browse the tiny stationery store looking for something in particular, I’ll know it when I see it. I find the note cards, artfully displayed, drawings of various spring flowers on cream-colored linen paper. Perusing the selection, I choose the one with delicate pink blossoms. Blank inside, no greeting. I want to write my own short note, an apology. In a nearby cafe, I read the long overdue words again and again, seal the envelope and drop it in mail. That was months ago. I never heard from her. I never expected to, she owes me absolutely nothing. I tried to imagine the reaction my note might elicit. I hoped she would feel the sincerity of my words. The last thing I wanted to do was open an old wound. Instead, I want to believe that with the passing years she had left the pain I caused far behind. Living a happy life, she doesn’t give me a second thought. But that’s a wish meant to ease my conscience. Expressing a sincere apology is not always answered with forgiveness. She is under no obligation to ease my guilt. When she discovered my lie I tried to shift some of the blame to her. But that was unfair. I knew in my heart that the responsibility laid squarely on my shoulders. She trusted me and I had been a false friend. There was nowhere to go but our separate ways. We never spoke again. When I asked other girlfriends for words of wisdom they discouraged me from reaching out to her, inferring I had already done enough damage. I suppose that was advice I wanted to hear as it spared me further shame and deferred my culpability. Besides, I justified, she would never forgive me anyway. In the aftermath, I lost a few friends and my character took a serious hit. I felt sad and remorseful - perhaps to some, the only shred of evidence that I had a conscience. Still, I was in no hurry to repair the damage, and I wasn’t even sure how. So I adopted the lame strategy of laying low and hoping the whole situation would blow over as though it never happened. It half worked... others forgot, but I could not. I accepted responsibility for what had happened, but it didn’t seem to be enough to ease my conscience. I felt the burden of my mistakes, a load of baggage that weighed heavily on my heart and my psyche. I imagined a big black mark on my permanent record called Life. My screw ups summarized, never to be undone. I could not retract the past. I had to find a way to move forward, to be a positive force in my own life and the lives of others.
Words & Images by Christine Amoroso
Eventually, I found comfort and power in the daily practices of meditation, prayer, and writing. Together they led me on a path to redemption. I learned it wasn’t enough to simply take the blame. I had to commit to being a better human being, to act in ways that made the world a better place. The new and improved version of me would be revealed in the way I treated people day to day. Every decision I made, every relationship I had, had to be rooted in integrity, loyalty, kindness, and compassion. My life had not been completely void of these qualities. But I was guilty of picking and choosing when I would act as my best self. There were times I let shallow wants and needs rule me, and that’s when I screwed up and hurt people. As I cultivated the light and goodness in me, many old behaviors fell away. Judgment, pride, falseness, and mean-spirited gossip found it harder to penetrate my thoughts and my actions. They simply didn’t belong. Prayer reminded me that I was small and human and that I could use the help of God and the Universe. Meditation helped me find inner peace. Reflection through writing kept me honest and real. I was accountable to myself in ways that lifted me up and made me feel proud of the person I was becoming, a constant work in progress. These days there is congruency in my thoughts, my words, and actions - a peaceful balance. It’s not easy, but I do my best to carefully consider the impact my behavior has on others. There are a zillion opportunities a day to shed more light. I do regret that people I have hurt in the past may never directly benefit from the positive changes I have made. For them I may be forever linked to painful memories. I’ve had those people in my life, too. Some caused so much heartache that I cursed them every time they came to mind. When I realized my anger kept me stuck in a negative mindset, I stopped condemning them and forgave them. I can only hope I am given similar grace. When I am tempted to pass judgment on someone, I consider my fate. I don’t want my life to be defined by my very worst deeds and days. So I send some love their way. Sometimes reluctantly, but I do it again and again, until I mean it with all my heart. I want for them exactly what I want for myself. I want grace, to be seen for who I am; wholly human, flawed and forever striving toward redemption. &
"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future." -Oscar Wilde 33
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Rebuilding My Body Words by Jen Moslander Images by Shannon Blackwell
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f I had to guess, my estimate would be in years. Those small moments, so frequent and persistent yet fleeting, I had spent avoiding glances of them in the mirror. Moments when I think to myself, “You did this. Now live with it.” Moments in regret, wishing that I had just made a different decision all those years ago. Moments in shame, in self-loathing, in a self-induced torment that caused me to look the way I do well into adulthood. I doubt that anyone even noticed, honestly. Sure, my shorts felt a little looser that day and I had convinced myself that I'd found the solution to all of my seventh grade problems, but I had no idea about the repercussions of what I'd done until it was too late. That fateful morning, I had the idea that I was going to take an easy step to look thinner. At the time, I was constantly surrounded by pre-pubescent girls my age that had yet to fill in a camisole with a built-in bra and I was walking around in a 36C. My hips were widened, my collarbones prominent, my cleavage just beginning to have definition, and my waist becoming clearly defined. I remember looking around at many of my female classmates and hardly seeing anyone else that looked like me. At twelve years old, I had been mistaken for a high school junior plenty of times. With that outward expectation of looking like I should be more responsible and more sexually available than a twelve-year-old girl comes an internal pressure to meet those societal expectations. I have few moments where I can remember ever being enough just as I was. The opposite of those moments, where I can remember feeling like I never gave enough and could always perform with a better perfection that yielded very small amounts of intrinsic satisfaction and accomplishment - well, again, my estimate would be in years. Those moments, those insidious cycles of a distorted age dysfunction versus my true and natural state compound to form a loose bedrock for the foundation of adulthood. Faulty material for building lends itself to a structure that might as well be a sandcastle in a hurricane. My idea? To tape the lower half of my belly down with masking tape. It was unbelievably brilliant. I couldn’t tape the top of it down because it would be evident through my shirt and I really had no intention of anyone finding out my new Secret to the Seventh Grade Universe. I didn’t want to be that one girl among the other girls that were beautiful and wealthy and worthy that just didn’t have everything together. And by everything, I mean complete and total control of how my body looked in middle school.
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The actual process was quick and easy. I anchored from either hip and stretched the cream-colored masking tape across my soft and supple squish. After this, I finished getting dressed and walked the half a block to school. I felt like a new girl without the burden of being bigger than my counterparts. I felt confident. I felt worthy. Once the day was over and I was home alone in my room, I tried to peel away my newfound confidence and exist in my natural physique. This is when my life changed forever. As I removed the tape, I found my skin around the anchor points to be raw and painful. While my fingertips grazed the skin, it occurred to me that my contraption had slowly ripped my skin in a direction that it was not prepared for, leaving me with aching and weeping open wounds. The removal of such a misguided remedy had caused me actual disfigurement. At the time, I knew that the wounds would heal, but I had no idea that they would become a permanent reminder of a failed attempt at inclusion and foster a series of reparations steeped in body shame. Stretch marks on an adult make sense to a middle schooler. I didn’t know exactly what stretch marks meant at the time, but I knew that they should be prevented and avoided at all costs. Stretch marks on me, a painfully self-aware perfectionist with early evidence of disordered behavior cycles with food and activity, were completely unacceptable. Something to be shunned for. Something that I had done to myself and now must live with the consequences. I was foolish. I was naïve. I was a failure. I made my bed and now I am required to lie it. Forever. This was my fate. Until, one day, it wasn’t. There wasn’t just one catalyst that created an epiphany. Just a slow and steady sense of healing and compassion that happened over a long period of time. The more I reframed the way I looked at the stretch marks, the more I realized how entrenched in modern diet culture I had been. The journey from self-loathing to self-loving has been an experience that our society’s standards have spent millions of dollars on and billions of moments ensuring that we never feel fulfillment and peace. At some point, I guess I'd just had enough of it, though it was a journey that I needed to be on. I needed to learn to recognize and feel emotions. I needed to experience physical and mental pain. I needed to wallow in my anxiety and depression. I needed to navigate my darkness to fully and honestly appreciate my light. ›››
you. k n a h T . m sorry ’ I . u o y forgive I . u o y I love In my mid-twenties, I became a distance runner, just not on purpose. I initially ran just enough to shrink my body into a smaller size. The thing that many avid runners will say about distance running is that it is serene and mindclearing and autonomous. You don’t need a team or a coach or even any experience. You can just go and be yourself and be free. At that time in my life, there was uncontrollable chaos swirling around me. I longed for anything that would produce these results. I needed them for survival. I got them. I had achieved every benefit I'd heard about. I reaped the mindfulness benefits of distance running. I had reached the physical benefits of shrinking my body to conform to the standards and expectations of my world. Like any abused substance, though, I used it more and more while my body got smaller and smaller. I was praised for it. I was the epitome of health and wellness of the mind, body, and soul.
Then, I found what I didn’t know I still needed. Denise Duffield-Thomas encourages her readers to practice a forgiveness ritual. It has roots in the Hawaiian practice of reconciliation and forgiveness called Ho’oponopono. It's something that can be applied to anything creeping into your consciousness that feels like it will impact your joy and peace. There aren’t any special actions or spaces that need to be made for this. I recite it to myself when I feel the need to replace distrust in myself or experiences with love and forgiveness. This has changed my life. I love you. I forgive you. I’m sorry. Thank you.
I started applying this to my relationship with my body. It Ready to read the whole issue? had been revolutionary in my life. Then, I tried it on just the stretch marks. It took a few tries, and I still struggle to Click here to purchase it from our shop. look at them or feel them every so often, but this practice has left me more at ease. hollandlanemag.com/shop Eventually, with the combination of increased mileage every week and a diet with such a small amount of calories every day that was not enough to sustain muscle recovery or an appropriate nutrient profile for an active woman in childbearing years, I shrank my body down to a size I hadn’t seen in years. I still wasn’t happy at that size, because, well, I can always do better.
It reminds me that the misguided and poorly informed choices I made in the past do not have to weigh me down now. It reminds me that the pathways that I choose now are not required by what diet culture dictates, but rather by what I dictate. I choose my happiness and serenity despite any chaos that is around me.
All the while, those stretch marks continued to haunt me. The guilt and shame that came along with seeing and feeling them never left my conscious thought no matter how small I had reduced my body. I never wore a two-piece swimsuit. I was careful to wear long, tunic-length shirts, and many of my pants were high-waisted when necessary. Vigilance and discipline were among my most virtuous qualities.
I consciously and actively choose that all of my parts are beautiful and worthy. My stretch marks remind me that I overcame something that almost destroyed me.
Soon, I realized that vigilance and discipline were robbing me of pleasure and joy. The counting and watching and weighing and miles were physically destroying my strong body and negating the intended side effects of the distance running. Vigilance and discipline had morphed into punishment and self-loathing.
When everything around me felt like it was out of my control, and many things were, controlling what went in and out and on my body became a solace for a frantic mind, body, heart, and soul. When I began to see these stretch marks as pathways that I’ve been on rather than a punishment, this reconstituted bedrock began to feel more like a solid and worthy place to build a temple deserving of worship that can withstand any hurricane. &
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Words by Marni Zarr Image by Fachy Marin
Building Healthy Boundaries 38
B
en moved out of the house and into the nearby university dorm when he was 18. Backed up by a modest but adequate college savings account, some financial assistance from us, along with a partial academic scholarship from the university, he was set to complete his degree in four years without debt. My husband and I paid for his housing, meal ticket, books, cell phone bill, and car insurance. The year he went away we downsized in the same neighborhood to a smaller home. On paper, a neat and tidy checklist of two children off to successful lives with one to go - a near empty nester mentality. Freshman year, he lived in the engineering dorm. He was away from home but not far. On occasion he brought friends to our house for dinner and regularly participated in freshman social activities. I didn’t notice or suspect anything awry until his sophomore year when the phone calls from him became more frequent. I remember the frustration in his tone when he called to vent about being the only one of his four roommates in their quad style campus apartment who cleaned the kitchen correctly. The sadness in his voice of feeling excluded when the others didn’t invite him into the shared living space to play video games, the panic after he put his fist through the door of his bedroom in a moment of anger. “It’s not bad, Mom, but it’s noticeable, I may have to pay extra when I check out of my apartment.” “It’s fine, honey, we’ll help you pay for it.” He’s not feeling well. He needs a break from his roommates. Can he come home for the weekend? He begins to need time away from them more often. By April, he’s moved home. He’ll get his stuff later. He says he can’t concentrate and then tells me he hasn’t gone to class all semester. He has been seeing a counselor at the University Health Center who advised him to obtain a medical excuse from a psychiatrist in order to temporarily withdraw without penalty. He doesn’t follow through and ends up with an unpaid tuition bill in collections. I encouraged him to see a psychiatrist but he was convinced he was managing his moods just fine with marijuana and blamed me for making him more anxious. I stopped saying anything. At the end of summer he got a job through a temporary agency working in accounts payable for an international shipping company and moved into his own apartment. Five months later, after being praised for his efficiency, he was fired for timecard fraud. He told his supervisor he was tired of noticing employees waste time during work so in exchange for his focused effort he had stopped clocking out on his lunch break. He called me that day from the parking lot, I could tell he was scared, and he told me what had happened. “Mom, can I have the number for the psychiatrist you told me about? I think I need help.” Of course he couldn’t get in right away. That is the problem with doctors. When you need them they aren’t available. Ben wasn’t suicidal so immediate professional help would have to wait for two weeks. I hoped he wouldn’t change his mind. ›››
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&&& It’s been a few years since that first psychiatric appointment. He was diagnosed and is on medication. He currently has a different job through the same temporary agency, but is still living at home. He’s resisting leaving and I don’t want to make things worse but I can’t live this way any longer. I found a family counselor who was recommended by someone familiar with Ben’s situation. We talked on the phone for about 10 minutes and she offered Sunday appointments since I wanted to make this as convenient for everyone as possible. My husband and I went to the first session. We needed an introduction and to feel comfortable with her before we would invite Ben to the second session. I told Ben gently about the second appointment. He said, “No.” My husband decided we were doing fine without counseling. The second, third, and fourth sessions I have attended by myself.
homeless people sleeping on sidewalks or holding a torn piece of cardboard box at the streetlight corner begging for money. “That is me. Without your help and letting me live at home, that will be me.” “He’s not abusing me,” I replied. Terri looked at me and waited. My husband sat in the thick silence. “I can’t believe my son, who suffers just to get through each day is abusive to me.” “Is he seeing a counselor weekly?” she asked. “No.” “What about his psychiatrist?” “About every two to three months. She has him on a cocktail of medications. He seems to be improving, so he doesn’t feel like he needs to see his counselor unless it’s urgent. But,” I hesitate to say, “he self medicates with marijuana. I don’t know if his psychiatrist knows, but he’s an adult, and I can’t communicate with her about his treatment.”
Ready to read the whole issue? Click here to purchase it from our shop. hollandlanemag.com/shop “Does he have a medical marijuana card?”
In that first appointment, I jotted down key phrases but it was the unwritten, dismissed notions which stuck. As much as Terri, our counselor, wanted to help us, we were rooted in the belief we weren’t like other families. Over our 28 years of marriage, my husband and I had established a pattern of him demanding and me appeasing to avoid conflict. I built a silent barrier around my heart instead of establishing outer boundaries which calls for communication with the inevitability of conflict. I have been trying to balance fear and disappointment because I have grown up believing love is what you do for someone else. Ten minutes into that first hour appointment Terri said my husband and I needed to lay out a plan and work as a team. That our son, Ben, though not there in her office, was sitting between us on that sofa, keeping us apart and without the two of us being on the same page it would be easy for either of us to be manipulated. After 26 years of knowing our son and as smart as I felt about who he was, he was smarter about who we were as parents.
Terri drew our attention to emotional abuse when I described how I couldn’t turn Ben out on the street. “Look at those people, Mom,” he would tell me as we drove by
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“No, he buys it from a friend... I think.” “Well, you can write his psychiatrist an email. She will read it. She won’t respond because of patient confidentiality but she will read it. You need to find out from Ben if she is aware of his marijuana use and if he won’t tell you or tells you he isn’t telling her, you need to write her and tell her. He can’t be treated if he isn’t taking responsibility for his health.” Responsibility for his health. And then I realized that I have a responsibility, too, but I’m afraid to say it: “In order to be accountable and be an adult with your own rules you must move out.” I am capable. He is capable… but first I must claim my boundaries by standing up for myself. &
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Making Waves
Natalie Franke is the girl-next-door that you instantly want to be best friends with. From the friendly, bubbly videos that we see on Instagram, to the open vulnerability she shares of her journey with a brain tumor and fertility issues, Natalie is who we all want on our side. As co-founder of The Rising Tide Society, she has literally built her business on community over competition and lives that value every single day. As longtime fan girls, we were thrilled to be able to talk with her about all that she has been through and where she is going from here as she is about to embark on her newest journey: motherhood. Interview with Natalie Franke | Interview by Sarah Hartley & Mia Sutton | Photos by Emma Jean Photography
You married your high school sweetheart, Huey. How has he supported you in your life and in the many hats that you wear? My husband is truly a remarkable human being.
Let’s start with the basics: Your titles include Photographer, Co-Founder of The Rising Tide Society and Head of Community at Honeybook. But, who is Natalie aside from all of these titles? I’m a huge nerd at heart with an unrelenting love of people. I’m a wife, a believer, and soon I will be a mother. I cry during Folgers coffee commercials, use more dry shampoo than is socially acceptable, and I’m notorious for turning fifteen minute phone calls into hour long conversations. I’m a jumbled mess of passion, empathy, gratitude and faith—with a tenacious drive to create, build, and achieve. I’m an INFP that hovers on the border of extroversion. We want Holl & Lane to be a safe space for women to share their honest life journeys - the good times and the hard times. What do you consider to be your safe space? Where do you feel most comfortable being yourself? I’m most comfortable being myself at home in stretchy pants with my pup snuggled up by my feet. I also feel very safe with my community—especially the creatives that I’ve grown to know through the Rising Tide Society. It’s amazing how truly vulnerable you can be when you cultivate a community of like minded people who know your heart and want to support you on your journey. I’m grateful to have found that over the last three years.
If I’m being honest, I never thought that I would marry my high school sweetheart—I have always been an ambitious and highly tenacious person by nature. Growing up, I equated marriage with settling down. I worried that becoming someone’s wife meant an end to chasing my own dreams—my interpretation of marriage was naive and one based in fear. As a result, I always envisioned that I would get married when I was in my mid thirties after climbing a career ladder or two. Little did I know that I would meet my husband at fifteen and that it would be because of that relationship, not in spite of it, that I would go on to accomplish my dreams. Huey is a perfect partner for me in every way. In him, I found a partner who not only empowered me to be the best version of myself, but also challenged me to reach for more. When I doubted myself, he encouraged me. When anxiety threatened to swallow me alive, he simplified the chaos and grounded me in the truth. When my health failed me, he carried me through the darkness—figuratively and literally. Huey is my rock. He supported us financially right after college so that I could take my photography business full time and pay off my massive student loans. He challenged me to accept an opportunity to move to San Francisco when I was too afraid to move our family away from the east coast. Without his gentle nudges, I’m not sure I would have taken many of the big leaps that got me to where I am today. ›››
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Your positive outlook on life is something that we admire most about you. Have you always been this positive, and if not, how did you get to this place? I was raised by a single mother who constantly reminded me of one simple fact—we cannot always control what happens to us in our lives, but we can control how we react to it. We can choose to be a victim or we can choose to see ourselves as a survivor. We can choose to cling to our desire for perfection or we can confront life’s hardships with grace, gratitude, and resilience. We can accept that things won’t always turn out the way we had hoped and that perhaps—that might be better in the end. I believe that my outlook on life arises from what my mother taught me as a little girl. Instead of failure, I look for the learnings that will make me a better leader, entrepreneur, and person. Instead of uncertainty, I look for the opportunities that any situation gives me to connect with others, open my heart, and transform as a human being.
The internet plays a large role in modern competition, as we are constantly confronted with the curated successes of everyone else in our lives. This isn’t inherently bad either, however when we view people on the internet as our competition—an unhealthy pattern can emerge. Everyday when you are living in that reality, it can feel as though you are being force-fed reminders of their successes while drowning privately in your own failures. The wins of others begin to feel like proof of your inadequacies—and it can snowball from there. Changing the scarcity mindset and unhealthy competitive trajectory takes work. It isn’t easy. However, I believe that cultivating community is a path out of that darkness. Having a genuine community to lean on is crucial. You shouldn’t do life alone and it’s important to find people who can give you valuable feedback and support you when you need it. It starts by finding other people in a similar season of growth and stepping beyond your comfort zone to meet with them, build relationships, and set out to support one another on the path to success. They can also hold you accountable for making time to care for yourself, taking time off, and overcoming the stress of daily life.
Ready to read the whole issue? Once you’ve joined or created a community, now the real work begins. You have to beour willing to show up—vulnerably Click here to purchase it from shop. and with empathy. You must be willing to listen to others and share your own struggles to open the floodgates for BUSINESS hollandlanemag.com/shop honesty. Through connecting with others and truly getting The Rising Tide Society dubs itself “resources I wouldn’t say that positivity is always my natural instinct, but I do know that it’s the only outlook that has ever enabled me to move forward.
for the empowered creative economy”. Started in 2015, RTS has built a global community filled with creative entrepreneurs gathering together to support one another. Natalie is a co-founder of RTS.
to know them, barriers begin to crumble away.
It’s hard to have an unhealthy competitive mindset with someone that you are rooting for. When you’re cheering for their success and when their wins are something you choose to celebrate—a shift takes root in your heart.
The Rising Tide Society is well known for their “community over competition” motto. Have you ever fallen prey to a competition mentality? And how can we best overcome those feelings and truly be a community? Have I ever struggled with competition? Absolutely. The themes that I talk about frequently are often the ones that I struggle with the most.
That is what community over competition is all about.
I want to first start by explaining that competition alone is not a bad thing. It can spark innovation, push us to improve, and light a fire within us to do better. Healthy competition is often a crucial ingredient in our forward progression as human beings.
In order to change your community, your city, and your world—you must be willing to speak up. You must acknowledge that you are powerful and that your voice matters. ›››
With that being said, competition becomes unhealthy when it is driven by fear, insecurity, anxiety, or a scarcity mindset. It can quickly erode our passion and empathy for others, leading us down a path of isolation. 44
What are some ways that women can make waves in their own communities? The easiest way to make waves in your community is to show up and speak your truth. Far too often we underestimate the power of our own voices.
You have worked with women all across the world. What is a common thread that we all share? The more women that I meet around the world, the more that I realize just how fundamentally similar we all are. Women are strong and resilient. We are built to overcome, built to create, built to lead. We are worthy of belonging, respect, and opportunity. We are dynamic human beings with incredible potential and the ability to do remarkable things. The Rising Tide Society has gathered people from all over the world together. Do you have any advice for those that are looking to grow a business and make a true, lasting difference? For many small business owners, their business is a part of their identity. It is derived from their passion and connected to their purpose in life. It is this deep and profound connection to their work that drives them forward—and that is a powerful thing. In order to make a lasting impact as an entrepreneur, you need to deeply understand why you are building a business. Your mission and vision should serve as the foundation from which everything else arises. Without that, you’re like a ship at sea without a destination. You can sail all over the ocean without really going anywhere. Your mission statement is your compass—it guides you with each new decision and points you in the direction of building a legacy you can be proud of. What do you hope for your future - both personally and in your career? My hope for myself and others is for a life built on passion and purpose. It’s as simple as that. ›››
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In order to change your community, your city, and your world—you must be willing to speak up. You must acknowledge that you are powerful and that your voice matters.
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BRAIN
A little over a year ago, you shared that you were diagnosed with a benign brain tumor. Can you tell us what that season of life felt like for you? Getting that diagnosis was terrifying. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I made all the mistakes you can make in those early days—Googling every potential outcome, researching worst case scenarios, and the anxiety I experienced as a result was debilitating. I really struggled.
You are one year brain tumor free! Looking back on it now, how has walking through this journey affected your outlook on life? The past year has changed my perspective on many things—work life balance being at the forefront. I used to give away my time to anyone who asked for it. I worked late nearly every night. I missed dinners with my husband and weekends with friends.
You kept your brain tumor diagnosis private for 5 years. Can you talk about why you decided to do that, and also how it felt to finally talk about it publicly? A question that I get frequently is—why did you decide to keep your diagnosis private for so long? In all honesty, I think it was a combination of things.
If my brain surgery and subsequent recovery have taught me anything… it is to cherish the time that I have on this earth with everything that I can muster. I have become ruthless when it comes to guarding my personal time. I now know the value of those hours and understand that time is something you can never get back.
A big part of me was afraid that if I opened up about my diagnosis—I would become the girl with a brain tumor’ and people would judge me before taking time to truly know me. After all, I am not my diagnosis (and neither are you). I wanted to be known for my art, my values, and my impact.
You’ve talked about your physical recovery and the tough road it’s been - dealing with diabetes insipidus and inflammation and diet changes. Tell us about that, and also what recovery is like from an emotional standpoint as well. Recovery is, in many ways, a lifelong process. There are many aspects of physical healing that will get you closer to feeling like yourself, however you are also confronted with the realization that some things will never be the same. It’s tough.
Deep down, I was also afraid of losing clients. I was a full time wedding photographer when I was diagnosed and I felt like sharing about such a scary thing would be damaging. I remember thinking: who would want to hire someone that could go blind from a brain tumor without warning? Fear truly paralyzed me from being vulnerable in that season of my life.
Ready to read the issue? I hadwhole a few resulting complications from surgery: diabetes insipidus and temporary adrenal insufficiency being two of the toughest. I went through a processshop. of being angry and Click here to purchase it from our frustrated with my own body—feeling trapped with the memory of how easy things used to be and yet confronted Keeping my diagnosis a hollandlanemag.com/shop secret wasn’t always an easy thing with the reality of how difficult things had become. to navigate and as time went on, there were moments that made me question my choice to keep it a secret. However, I don’t regret waiting to share about my diagnosis. I think we all deserve to process our struggles and work through them on our own time. No one is entitled to knowing what you’re walking through—who you share your life with and when you share it, it’s up to you.
Overtime though, things changed. The more that I began to accept my reality, the more that I truly embraced who I was with a benign brain tumor and the symptoms that came along with that. I began to feel confident in owning that piece of my identity and in reaching out to others who were going through similar situations.
Overtime, and with a lot of support from others who have gone through similar challenges, I started to accept my new normal. I shared on Instagram Stories about what it’s like to be constantly thirsty without medication and different strategies I was testing out for tracking my fluid and electrolyte intake. I opened up about diet changes to reduce inflammation and found support from nutrition experts and friends with a variety of other diseases who were combatting the same issues. I stopped trying to hide the fact that getting through the day was harder postsurgery than it was before… and in the process, I allowed myself to heal physically and emotionally.
When I finally did share about my diagnosis and my upcoming brain surgery, it felt like a tremendous weight was lifted off of my shoulders. There was still a lot of fear and uncertainty in that season of my life, however it was made easier by the support of my community.
We have a lot of women in our community who are moving through life with chronic pain - sometimes with no diagnosis at all. What would you tell these women as they fight to come out on the other side? Never stop advocating for your health. Never stop fighting to be heard, seen, and respected.
Before I shared about my tumor, I was walking through the hardest season of my life alone. Once I opened up, I was still walking through that season… however, I was surrounded by a level of support that I had never experienced before. It made all the difference.
Chronic illness warriors are truly some of the strongest people on the planet. They have to fight for the things that others take for granted every single day. ›››
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BABY
Your first baby is due April 1st! Congratulations! When you first posted your happy news on Instagram, you mentioned that your miracle baby took “a lot of faith and a little science”. Can you share with us your journey to get to this point? My body doesn’t work like it should. I don’t get my period. I don’t ovulate. My pituitary gland doesn’t communicate to my hypothalamus and without medical intervention—I’m essentially menopausal. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. So three years ago, when my husband and I walked into a fertility clinic for the first time. The fertility endocrinologist took one look at my MRI and kindly told us that it wasn’t safe for me to begin treatment. My tumor needed to be removed or reduced first before proceeding with a pregnancy. The same week, (yes, literally the same week!) the opportunity to move to San Francisco was presented to us and we accepted. That is truly when our season of waiting began. I watched as friend after friend got pregnant and I celebrated with them. I cried night after night wishing it would finally be our turn to see those two little lines on a pregnancy test.
You aren’t told about how many people are yearning deeply for a child—waiting to become parents or expand their family. The picture is always painted a certain way and it doesn’t match up with reality for many couples. This process has taught me that there is no single path to parenthood and that the road is often very difficult. There are so many aspects of infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, and the postpartum experience that are never talked about. I want to do my part to change that. Sharing our journey to conceive came from a desire to be honest about our path to parenthood. What resources/advice (books, websites, podcasts, etc.) have you been relying on as a new expectant mother? I’ve been asking my friends and family a ton of questions and leaning on them for guidance. My mom and sister are both in the medical field so they answer all of my health questions and my mother in law raised two incredible boys so I look to her frequently for advice. Truthfully, I haven’t read a single book or listened to any parenting podcasts. I’m going to lean on my close-knit community to help me navigate these new waters.
Ready to read the whole issue? You’re moving back to the east coast, to your hometown. Is being to family important you and Huey as Click here to purchase itclosefrom our toshop. you embark on your journey of parenthood? I truly stand by my belief that no one should have to go hollandlanemag.com/shop through life alone without a community to support them... neurosurgeon and neuroendocrinologist told me
Then came the MRI that pushed my neurosurgeons to schedule my surgery and life changed in a dramatic way. I knew that getting my tumor out meant that we had a shot at biological parenthood.
My that once I was healed from surgery, they would give me clearance to return to the fertility clinic. So six months after having my tumor removed, that’s exactly what we did. The reproductive center at UCSF was absolutely incredible. They were aggressive with pursuing a pregnancy—moving us straight to injections and ultrasounds every other day to see if we could ‘shock’ my body awake after years without a single natural cycle. After weeks of daily hormone injections, lab work, ultrasounds, and monitoring—we received the news that treatment had worked. I was pregnant. We went in at six weeks and saw a heartbeat. There are no words to describe that moment.
You’ve been very open about your struggles to conceive. What made you decide to talk openly about your journey? Growing up, you are taught to believe that when you’re ready to have a baby, it will simply happen. The entire process is simplified in a way that doesn’t reveal just how complex, difficult, and truly miraculous every single pregnancy is.
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so in the case of having a child, Huey and I wanted to have our family close by. As much as we loved San Francisco, we struggled with the thought of being on the other side of the country from our families while walking into this new season… so we moved home! Being back on the east coast means that we are within thirty minutes of nearly everyone in our immediate families. We can’t wait for our little guy to spend weekends with his grandparents and to be surrounded by his aunts and uncles. The theme of our issue is “Redemption”. After going through the struggles that you have - whether medically or through trying to have a baby, do you feel that moving into this new stage of life is redeeming? I do believe that there is redemption in this new season. I believe that the struggles of the past few years have brought about a new spirit of resilience and gratitude that never existed before. This process has been transformational in many ways and I will forever be grateful for that. &
I truly stand by my belief that no one should have to go through life alone without a community to support them 49
SEARCHING FOR THE GOOD LIFE Words by Erin East Images by Patricia Fitzgerald
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he laundry is piled high against the washing machine. The dishwasher beeps, demanding to be unstacked. I multi-task, tonight’s dinner simmering on the stove. The day is busy. As I string out wet clothes and pack away dishes, I listen to podcasts. They talk of happiness, balance, joy, and decluttering. I’m encouraged to find the good life. But what makes a life good? Curious, I ask the modern-day Magic Eight Ball – Instagram. Social media isn’t exactly sure but tells me the good life has something to do with minimalism. It’s a strange kind of minimalism; we empty our lives only to fill them with indoor plants, coordinated outfits, and macramé. I follow the hashtag #happylife, and the winding trail of likes and tags takes me to a post promoting the benefits of essential oils. I see little amber bottles labelled Joy, Cheer, and Passion. ‘Aha!’ I think. ‘That’s it! I can inhale the good life.’ But then my spaghetti sauce pops in the saucepan, splattering my once-clean counter. I look at the splotches of red against gray Formica, and think, ‘What if I run out of essential oil?
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What if a freak lightning strike burns through the world’s supply of cedarwood? My macramé looks like a mess of knots. Plants die when I look at them. How can I find the good life?’ If I’d had a bottle of lavender, I could have sniffed my way back to Zen. But I didn’t, so I turn to the news. I read op-eds urging a return to family values and to a quieter, simpler time. As I read, spaghetti sauce drips onto my now-dirty floor. I add ‘clean the floor’ to my to-do list, and realize what social media and the news are saying: the key to the good life lies not in our future but in our past. I step into puddles of tomato sauce and wonder, ‘Is this true? Did previous generations have something we’ve lost?’ I ask my grandmother, Patricia Fitzgerald. She tells me the story of her childhood. As I listen, I realize why my grandmother would bake everything but bread. I picture my mother watching TV while ironing, and I know why she rarely sits still. I understand why in my family love is expressed through acts of service more than with words or with hugs. The reason is this: when my grandmother was a little girl, my family had to claw back joy from sorrow.
My grandmother takes me back to the 1930's, to the Great Depression in small town, rural Australia. ‘We hadn’t any money to pay the rent, we were going to lose the house. There was no money whatsoever.’ My grandmother says this to explain what she tells me next. She’s calm, factual, as she recalls the day her mother did what needed to be done to survive. While my great-grandfather, George Donohue, joined the lines of men looking for work, Alma Donohue packed up the furniture. She loaded her children into a van. She drove away. It was nearly midnight when the van stopped outside the small maternity home in Winchelsea, Australia. For the women of the small town and surrounding farms, the little house was where you’d go to see Nurse Stephenson. In two bedrooms of the country house, marked with signs Ward One and Ward Two, the midwife helped mothers give birth to new life. That night nearly a century ago, Alma was pregnant with her sixth child. But that wasn’t why she was there. With her children she walked into that little house to start a new life. Nurse Stephenson, my great-great-grandmother, took in her daughter and grandchildren. Months later, she welcomed in six other grandchildren. One mother earned a wage through tending to nursing mothers and newborns. Another parented her children and her nieces and nephews while running the house. And the older girls, my grandmother included, cared for the little ones. They did chores, washing, cleaning, baking bread, and churning butter, before and after school. Far away, my great-greataunt, who my grandma called Aunty Beb, mothered from afar. Like the fathers who wandered Australia to find any job that paid, Aunty Beb sent love in dollar bills.
fire, can you see the soldiers? There they are, heading into enemy fire to rescue the injured. If you look closely, you’ll see my great-grandfather, Private Donohue, carrying a wounded soldier. For running into a field of bullets and rescuing his mates, my great-grandfather received the Military Medal. But war heroes returned with things unsaid and unseen – pain, injury, sorrow. Nearly two decades later, former soldiers hunted for work, while in a small house in Winchelsea women once again created a life without men. You may think, as I did, that there could be little good in a life of hardship. And yet, with mischievous eyes, my 91-year-old grandmother shows me that I’m wrong. In the old maternity home in Winchelsea, the girls slept dormitory style in the old dining room. At night, they played. ‘We had a great time jumping from bed to bed,’ my grandmother says, ‘until Mum caught us.’ I ask my great aunt what it was like to live with eleven other children. ‘If you had a fight with one of them there was always someone else,’ she says. She pauses, and adds, ‘You were never on your own. ‘You just got on with things. There was no other way,’ says Aunty Marg. ‘You just had to rely on yourself and rely on each other.’
My great-aunt smiles as she tells me about Saturday Ready to read the whole morning treats; if thereissue? was money to spare Alma would send Aunty Marg to the bakery to buy crumbling, discounted ‘We didn’t have much, but what we had Click here to purchase it cakes. from our shop. we shared. Everyone looked out for each other.’ This spirit of courage, community, and kindness continued as times hollandlanemag.com/shop improved and families reunited.
I talk to my grandmother’s youngest sister, affectionately known as Aunty Marg. As she tells stories of her childhood, she takes me further back to a time when families were separated not by poverty but by the last battles of dying empires.
Over dinner my daughter spills spaghetti sauce on her dress. We laugh, and together scrub the dress clean. I diffuse lavender essential oil in her room as I tuck her into bed. I tell her of the mothers and fathers that came before her, and share with her a secret they knew: true happiness comes not through what we have but how we love. &
Leave the winding, lightfilled alleyways of Paris, the Belgium confectioners with their silken chocolates, and fields of lavender all purple and grey in the twilight. Come with me to somewhere much darker. Look into the trenches of World War I. Feel the mud and the cold. Hear the hiss of artillery fire, the groans of men and metal tearing apart. Look up, out into no-man’s land. Through the flashes of gun
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S
exual Abuse. I can’t erase it from my past, nor can I wipe its scars from my soul, but I can redeem what was done by telling my story and by watching the shame fall like slate from a cliff ’s edge.
I was sexually abused from a young age. My life was controlled by shame until I realized that my story mattered and that the shame was not mine to bear. This is a story of coming out from under the shadows, to the freedom of vulnerable truth. Some things are harder to write about than others. I don’t have an issue writing about my journey with mental health or other difficulties in life. But it’s a whole other deal when I start talking about the fact that I was sexually abused when I was a child. Even though talking about the abuse is incredibly difficult, redemption is the right word to wrap around this story and these wounds. Because even though it’s still hard to discuss, my hurtful past and the little girl that suffered - they’ve been redeemed by a loving and kind God, who never left, never pushed, and never criticized.
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And it’s because of this redemptive healing that I’m choosing to come out today, with this nervously-written piece and say #metoo. To those who’ve bravely shared stories of harassment and objectification, I say, I’m so sorry, and - me too. To those who speak in shaky voices about the nights and the nightmares and the confusing promises, I say, I’m so sorry, and - me too. To those whose childhoods were disrupted and whose hearts, bodies, and minds were changed forever, I say, I’m so sorry, and - me too. Why is it so hard to talk about sexual abuse? For me, it’s been a terrifying thought for so many years. And I think I’ve figured out why. It’s because I’m afraid - so desperately afraid - that someone will call me a liar. For some reason, when it comes to sexual abuse, it’s imperative to have people believe your story. It’s the validation. It’s the fact that you’re not ‘wrong’ anymore, in
Walking Toward Restoration Words by Joni Leimgruber
Ready to read the whole issue? Click here to purchase it from our shop. hollandlanemag.com/shop the way you were told you were ‘wrong’ when you were little, in a million little ways by those who took advantage. It’s the fact that you’re ‘right’ now and trustworthy and valuable. It’s the fact that your ‘no’ holds weight. Because every time someone believes my story and looks me in the eye and cares with genuine love, it heals a small part of my heart. Every time someone holds my hand and says ‘I’m so sorry’, it validates that part of me which was told by people who didn’t know better to pull myself together and just behave. Because they didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes. And you know what I've learned through the redemptive journey of life? Sexual abuse is not the end. It’s not the end of your story and it’s not the end of the path. Sexual abuse sucks and it’s hard to survive and recover and it does change you. But it isn’t the end. While I know that everyone’s experience is different, here are five things my journey through healing from sexual abuse has taught me.
1) You are strong and brave and you can survive. I learned when I came to the full realization of just how bad the abuse had been (having disassociated for over a decade… but that’s a story for another day) that I was a survivor. That I had survived and that I would go on living a full and glorious life. 2) An abuser may take something valuable, but they didn’t take my value. Yes, perhaps things were taken from me by force that I’d tried to protect and keep safe and secure. But that value? It’s still here. It’s still living and breathing. I’m still valuable. 3) You never know the battles someone’s fighting - and a friendly smile can help them feel that they’re not fighting alone. 4) Forgiveness really does heal. I know that the people who hurt me when I was young are still living with the guilt and the brokenness which caused them to act that way. But when I forgave them, it freed my heart to breathe and live and think and dream again. Forgiveness really does set us free. ›››
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Because every time someone believes my story and looks me in the eye and cares with genuine love, it heals a small part of my heart.
5) God’s healing extends everywhere. There genuinely is nothing He can’t or won’t heal. He is the healer who sees all and heals all. And He’s so gentle and lovely. He never steps across our boundaries or forces his way or criticizes or confuses. God is the One who holds abuse survivors and carries them until they can stand and walk alongside. My journey with God was very much like the tale of the footprints in the sand. When it was hard, when there was violence and abuse and brokenness in my childhood home, I couldn’t see Him or feel Him at all. I knew He was real but I couldn’t find Him.
me by the hand and though it was a difficult path to walk, we walked it together, hand in hand. And He made sure I knew He was there. Sunsets, just for me. Beautiful flowers and views and breathtaking moments where He whispered that He loved me, that He valued me, that He respected me. Things which had become sparse in my life. Things that the sexual abuse had tried to take away. He restored them one by one. I needed a lot of help during those years. A lot of qualified, prayerful, loving help. It broke me. The memories and the realizations and the difficult conversations, they broke me.
And then as I grew and began to heal and try to find peace, I realized he’d been there all along, carrying me during those difficult years. And now, as an adult seeking healing, he was walking by my side, holding my hand and guiding me and being there, as a Friend; as a Father; as a Savior.
But you know what? Those big, gentle hands were there and they gently and slowly put me back together. His hands never left me. I could feel Him there. Closer than a brother, just like He’d promised so long ago. He was there and I couldn’t deny it.
systematically forced my mind to forget until I felt like I could breathe and survive again. Because some memories can make living seem impossible.
memory I’d rather forget. But it does pass and I remember that I’m strong and I’m healing.
Ready to read the whole issue? &&& Click here to purchase &&& it from our shop. I didn’t know I’d been sexually abused. And no, I didn’t just These days, it comes up every now and then. Sometimes hollandlanemag.com/shop ‘forget’. I desensitized or disassociated. I deliberately and someone or something or a situation will remind me of a And when I became a mom and postpartum depression raged within me and there was no relief, I knew I had to get help. I just thought I was lacking confidence. I just thought I was timid because I had low self-esteem. I didn’t realize there was a whole other life buried within that needed to be spoken about and shown the light and slowly brought to healing. It came out slowly, the truth of what had happened. In counseling sessions with small memories remembered and then bigger ones. And the puzzle pieces fit together awkwardly and the dots were joined and I had to come to accept a whole new reality. That while I’d married with a veil as a blushing virginal bride, there was a whole other layer beneath that even I couldn’t acknowledge. To be honest, the years that followed these realizations were pretty dark. It’s hard to come to terms with this sort of brokenness. But slowly and surely, the God who’d carried me along the beach slowly revealed Himself to me. He took
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Sexual abuse can feel like a death sentence. Like life can’t go on and you’ll never be the same again. And it’s true, life will never be the same again but you know what? I truly believe that with Him life can actually be better and more full. Yes, I wish those things had never happened to me. But they did and I can’t change that. And what God’s done with them, I’m astounded. The fact that He’s healed me and loved me to restoration is, for me, stunning. And I love Him all the more for it. I love Him all the more because he was never afraid of my mess. He never ran from the gruesome details. He was there in the muck and the mess, all along. Holding my hand, guiding me through, carrying me when I needed Him to. Steadying me on my feet when He knew I couldn’t find the strength to stand. Sexual abuse is not a death sentence. Walk with Him, allow Him to walk with you, and He’ll gently lead you to restoration. &
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s t n e m e c a l p e R e Th
Words by Christina Bjenning Image by Sheree Boyles I. QUICKSAND “You're playing and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can't move... you can't breathe... because you're in over your head. Like quicksand.” -Shane Falco, The Replacements Late again, she pushed the rickety door open so fast it created enough breeze to lure a melody from her collection of wind chimes, tied all around the small veranda. She used her only free limb to push it closed, barely managing to pull her daughter along, who had stopped in the middle of the doorway, mesmerized by the magical music. Creaky stairs leading to the garden below joined in the concert. Once on the ground, the last whiffs of night-blooming jasmine greeted them along with a rumor of the first orange being sweet enough to pick. Even later now, the orange tucked into her daughter’s lunchbox, they tumbled into the white jeep adorned with snow leopard floor mats, and followed the road along the ocean through the small village to school and work. Seven lanes of freeway brake lights greeted her with the promise of being even later. Her pulse raced faster than the speedometer as she finally arrived, coaxing her shirt back inside her slacks. She ran as fast as she could in shoes barely meant for walking, her heavy briefcase bouncing off her hip and thigh as she plowed through rows and rows of cars. Grabbing onto the end of the lanyard, she hovered her key card over the pad by the heavy entrance doors, which whirred but remained locked. She turned the card and tried again, resulting in another whir, but no click. Hoping her subconscious had leapt to the wrong conclusion, heart racing, she pressed the buzzer with a trembling hand, waving to the receptionist through CCTV as she entered. Half an hour later, she walked back across the parking lot, a box between her still-shaking hands, away from her career as she knew it, heading towards an ocean of job applications.
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II. THE TEMPEST Jimmy McGinty: “Falco, it's nasty out there.” Shane Falco: “That's why girls don't play the game, coach.” -The Replacements Soothing swirls of oleander, jasmine, and fresh orange blossom seeped through the fog outside her window, the air fresh and cool, yet she could not fall asleep. Disquieted, she laced her joggers and headed slowly towards the ocean. It was still dark outside, even darker than necessary because the moon opted to dwell behind clouds. Ambling through the mist along the water’s edge, she found comfort in the velvety darkness, in its nebulas glimmering and glistening in faraway galaxies. The clouds parted, briefly bathing the beach in moonlight, and she glimpsed sparkles in the sand. Algae bloom, making her footprints shimmer, its thousands of teeny phytoplankton nudged by her steps to emit light. But her imprints were not alone. Two sets of tracks sauntered along hers. Perplexed, she watched two shadows break free from the mist, twisting and tumbling towards her in big playful leaps. She blinked once, twice, not trusting her eyes before coffee, but they remained.
her stomach, she assured herself her fragile situation put a damper on the joyous flutter. One sunny day, he took her to the top of a hill and proposed eternal love in exchange for a cross-country move. She hesitated, then let his perseverance and her dire condition sway her instinct, and said yes. She kissed her hounds goodbye with a heavy heart, not at all sure of new beginnings. She found herself by a less green, less fierce ocean with cragged beaches and no sparkles in the sand. A leisurely lab and a spooked shepherd dog joined her; her affiliate shadow hounds. Winter arrived with its howling winds furiously ravaging through everything in their path, her husband’s heart, too, replacing love with rage. He placed seeds of disdain in her daughter’s heart and she watched them helplessly unfurl, like ink in a clean well, until indifference reigned. Necessity brought padlocks, and she placed her most precious belongings with dear friends. Yet she could not prevent the theft of her dogs, and her mind spun out of control, landing in quicksand.
She sunk down with her back against a tree, her arms folded Ready to read the issue? acrosswhole her stomach, as to hold onto her soul, afraid to look into the endless night looming outside, and fell asleep. WhenClick a cool nose brushed the top ofto her hand, she gingerly here purchase it from our shop. III. CLARITY extended two fingers and found a silky muzzle that morphed Shane Falco: “I think I'm just going to lie here for a moment into the longest nose she ever felt. Lacing her fingers up the hollandlanemag.com/shop and collect my thoughts.” flat forehead, over the setback silky ears. Through the soft The shadows inched closer, materializing into tall hounds, their heads leveling her elbows.
coat on the neck she could feel warm skin.
Daylight slowly sifted through the clouds as she turned back home, shadow hounds at her side, sharing her breakfast on the veranda before they sauntered down the steps, vanishing into the last receding whispers of mist. She felt their presence during faceless job interviews, and when she was alone, like she was now, perched on the rickety little bench on her veranda. Her wind chimes sang tunes from far Eastern countries while her daughter slept inside, lulled by gentle breezes fragranced by opening orange blossoms. She wished for a job, enough money, a man to whisk her away. The hounds looked at her intensely. Eyes dark and velvety, underneath thick brows raised in an expression that asked, “Really? A man is the solution to your situation?” They stretched to their feet without a goodbye and meandered down the rickety stairs, their pity palpable. Soon appeared a man. He mended things around her house, winning her daughter’s heart, and when her money ran out, offered his. And though she felt no butterflies in
Daniel Bateman: “Work shit out, right?” -The Replacements
Clarity arrived with the first rays of a new day—the cold, windy rain mercilessly strips her of comfort, replacing it with a heavy cloak. A fierce wind greeted her clumsily, like a giant St. Bernard puppy, soaking her in sloppy water mist kisses whilst untying her hair. She exhaled despair and fear, and when she had let go of everything there was to let go of, she gingerly tried a diminutive whiff of the wind, and recognized the scent of possibility. Faint swirls of neroli, white jasmine, and bougainvillea carried her to La Valencia’s La Sala, seated her in a curved back chair furthest from the entrance, closest to the enormous West-facing bay window, from where she could see the entire La Jolla Cove. Her hounds lounging leisurely on the window’s velvet daybed, her sandals placed neatly on the floor, one foot in chair, arms around her knee to keep it there, toes of other foot resting on near centuryold terracotta tiles, a gentle breeze playing with her hair. She knew she wanted more of this. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. & 57
I
once wrote an ad for dog treats that, upon further research, were revealed to contain antifreeze. I once worked until 1:00 a.m. in the office and overheard, from the shadowy corner of a department whose automatic fluorescent lights had long retired for the evening, two women questioning a mother’s dedication to the job since she hadn’t stayed as late. I once kept my eyes glued to my computer monitor while a coworker had a violent seizure on the ground in front of my desk. There was a time when I was deep in the trenches of an industry that clung to the wisps of glory days slipping further and further away. The stink of sexy apathy, abuse, and potentially Dionysus, lingered and curled around our sense of judgment. One day, after a brainstorm, one of my bosses casually asked, “Did you ever notice how the account team only picks our cheapest ideas? It’s because we can get these products made in countries where the people making them will get paid next to nothing and it keeps costs low for the client.” Instantly, images of young people cobbling plastic branded sunglasses together popped into my mind. I started thinking about all the newsletters, coupons, and marketing materials I had created that probably ended up on the street. I thought about the tacky giveaways that started at festivals and probably ended down an animal’s throat. I was a cog in a machine leaving a very big footprint and I needed to find a way to change my course. I could no longer work in a traditional advertising department. Every contribution I made in a brainstorm had my mind spiraling to determine the impact. Who would this harm? I transitioned to a digital team where at least I could curb any physical damage. However, it was for a very controversial client and every day my work was barraged with angry comments from disillusioned consumers. I still felt like I was part of something toxic. My social and work life were twisted and intertwined with one another. From the office to late night parties, the industry seeped into every crevice of my life. Award shows, advertising royalty, hot spots, gossip… it was glamorous and exhausting for a woman whose career goal was to write a fantasy novel in a remote cabin, not make it to Cannes. My dreams were my only escape. I started having a repeat dream where I was a nurse. That’s it. There was no drama, no greater plot. Usually, it was just me happily commuting to my shift at the hospital. I didn’t understand it.
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With so much unhappiness in my life, I rolled myself up in the comforting slow burn of hot yoga. The more I practiced, the more familiar the teachers became and soon I was getting deeply adjusted during every class. The tender care that goes into an adjustment can’t be explained, only felt. To be treated in such a graceful way is grounding. My nurse dreams started to click. I didn’t need to quit my job. I didn’t need to run away to my remote cabin (yet). I needed to find something in my life that helped people. Despite my lack of flexibility and, well, abs, I signed up for yoga teacher training in a daze. It was 6:30 in the morning, I had just taken a hot class, and walking back to my apartment, feeling the contrast of my red, slick face and the gray chill of a Chicago winter, I realized just how impulsive I had been. Was I physically ready? Was I mentally ready for that kind of time commitment? Through chaos I found balance. Every morning I would practice, I’d go to work, and then I’d go to train in the evenings. Nurturing myself outside of the industry felt almost like a beautiful hallucination. I was surrounded by kind, gentle people who didn’t know or understand what I did. They asked me questions about my personal life, my goals, my relationships. The fiery delirium I felt towards my career was soothed. My hands slowly found the steering wheel once more. What became most important wasn’t my physical strength, but my intention. Why was I teaching? Why did I adjust the way I did? I was so moved by the ideology that a yoga class may be the only place that a student is safely and kindly touched. On the flip side, a yoga class may be the only environment where a person can truly be left alone. I found redemption in cultivating a space that brought no harm, only peace. Through yoga, I reclaimed my creativity and designed sequences that celebrated and cradled people. I had only one motive: give someone a great hour. I’m still part of the same industry. I still love my practice. My worlds can coexist. I create more mindfully and am also kinder to myself. Seeking redemption on my mat and building a life outside of my industry gave me the power to make better creative choices and the confidence to own my path. There is a bittersweet complexity to everything I do and I’m finally starting to feel comfortable with that. &
Words by Sami Ross
n a o i og t p Y m h e g d u e o r R h T 59
Words by Brittany Forbes Image by Christian Holzinger
R E D E M P T I O N 60
means having my own back
PAST: I was scared once, a long time ago. In my mind, I can easily place myself back in the bedroom I had when I was between the ages of five and ten. The room was painted a pale blue and I had a bookshelf that took up the length of an entire wall. What I remember most was the small space of wall between my bed and my bookshelf where I would slide down to the floor, my books within reach. I would sit on that floor, some days from morning until night, depending on how long the yelling would last and I would lose myself in my books. I would devour those words and escape into worlds that weren't mine and I would promise myself in between chapters that I would leave some day and never look back. I made promise after promise to myself as a child that I would change my own life. I swore I would travel the world. I vowed to only surround myself with kind people and to make sure I was never called hurtful names ever again. I promised myself that I would run as far away as I could and I was certain that I would find a place in the world with people I could belong to. I would write books and paint pictures and I would tell the truth about the abuse that was happening at home. I swore I would set myself free and I would never look back to see if my ugly past was close by. Back then, I was worried and anxious all the time. I have nervousness in my chest now that is like a relic, an artifact still with me from 25 years ago, that I wake up to each day and on the best days, gets duller by the time night comes. I had accepted it. I'd grown used to it. I had never known a body could feel any other way. Until now. Until all the mishaps and mistakes and missteps have brought me here, to this spot, this season, this corner of my world. My therapist recently tasked me with writing a letter to my 10-year-old self. Ten seems to be the age where things went wrong and I was old enough to realize it. It's the age that I constantly go back to when I am sitting with my overwhelming feelings in her office and she asks me to notice the sensations in my body and I tell her I am feeling scared or panicked and then I instantly remember so many times before that I felt scared or panicked and every thought and memory takes me back to being scared and panicked at 10. So, I sat and wrote my letter. I spoke to the 10-year-old within me. I had to be gentle, I knew. I had to be kind and loving. It's the only way she would listen.
I had to be specific in asking her to come forward and join me here, now, in this season, in this present. I had to ask her to be part of the future I am creating for us. I had to explain to my 10-year-old self what things were like here today. We are obsessively loved and adored by the most loyal friends. We have ex-boyfriends who, through time and distance, have become friends who still hold space for us and act as a shoulder when we need. We have family members who have stepped back in order to respect our boundaries and we have those who have stepped forward and tried harder at our insistence. We have lived all those dreams we had when we were young. We've traveled continents and countries. We've climbed mountains in Morocco and swam in the Mediterranean at sunset. We've created homes in other lands and we've found our tribe in friends and other people's parents and acquaintances who have drifted in and out of our life for a short time. We've stayed up to watch sunrises. We've rested early when we needed to stop. We've created with words and images and paint. We've shared our work and our art and we've helped other people to do the same. What I've learned is that when the overwhelming feelings come up, the 10-year-old in me retreats. It's like there is a rope tied between her and I, and I can feel myself being pulled back at the first sign of fear or panic. She is sure that the way we hid, the way we sat still then, our backs against the wall, piles of books like a fortress around us, she's sure that's the right way. I gently try to tell her that we don't live like that anymore. Hard things still happen, I write to her, but it's all different now. We aren't in danger. It feels like we are sometimes, but as the adult, I am able to look around and see how things are different. So, I ask her to trust me. Slowly, over the coming months, I feel a shift. I notice a change in the air that is more than summer melting into fall. It's different than the smell of leaves and the chill in the mornings. It's a change within me. It's my life, shifting and tilting and moving forward. It's laughter that bubbles up from some place deep. It's a breaking. It's me -- my child self and my adult self -- figuring out how to live as one. It's me learning to trust myself. It's me learning to hold myself accountable to no one else but my own shadows. It's a carrying out, my redemption of sorts. We are learning and now we must go back to the past and come forward, baby steps at first, bigger leaps when we can. It's a catch up. A fulfilling of promises and wishes as a child and a reckoning as an adult. ›››
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PRESENT: The twist, what I never saw coming, was what happened after I made all those dreams come true that I had as a kid. It never occurred to me that I would get to a point where I had checked all those things off the list. Who was I accountable to, if not that panicky little girl anymore? There is more that I want in my life now, things that I didn't ever dream about as a kid, things she didn't even imagine. No wonder she gets scared. No wonder she snaps that rope back so tightly. No, we don't do that, we don't go there, we don't trust them. This next chapter in my life feels like I am living in this new excess. My goals and dreams now don't come from a long ago need that began as a way to prove myself. The things I want now are all things the younger version of me never knew were a possibility. I've spent 33 years getting redemption for that kid. I made it my mission to do everything she ever dreamed of, as if she was a separate person than me, and not just a reflection of who I used to be.
that I didn't deserve. I was always waiting for someone else to tell me that it was okay to feel better, lighter, happier. I waited so long that once I did feel lighter, I didn't even recognize it. So I suppose in a way, my redemption is also a re-learning. It means taking a stand against what is outside of me so that I can give kindness and respect to what is inside of me. These days, I vow to be the owner of my body. To not give it away simply because someone demands it. I will write the words, "I am my body" on every inch of my skin if I have to. I promise to breathe deeper at every turn instead of holding my breath tight in my chest, captive, waiting until someone gives me permission to exhale. I vow to be accountable to myself from now on. I will take ownership for my choices instead of the constant second guessing that no longer serves me. I'll decide what I want by listening to my gut, my heart, and my mind. I promise to make decisions that bring me to life, that add joy, that allow me to open and grow. I will forgive over and over, always myself first.
Ready to read the whole issue? I have enough awareness now that I can admit to myself here from I will it get my redemption our by flowingshop. with the universe. that I Click never should have gone aboutto thingspurchase like I did. I was Endings after beginnings, winter after autumn, peace after a woman on a mission and I put myself in tricky, painful, pain, and pausing in between it all. I promise to pay attention dangerous situations inhollandlanemag.com/shop order to claim that redemption to the lifetime that each relationship and adventure has and for myself. But it's done and I've achieved everything that kid ever dreamed of. Now I am filled with questions. Does redemption have an end point? Is getting redemption a series of making promises to myself and then being hellbent on achieving them at all costs?
to follow the natural rhythm of things. There is a flow to things that I've ignored and worked against for a long time, instead choosing to manipulate the outcome by trying to be good enough.
I've decided I don't want it to mean that. And since redemption for myself has everything to do with what I want, I get to write the rules.
I will make it up to myself by connecting with others. By letting people in while maintaining my boundaries because that's what redemption is to me these days, keeping myself safe and having my own back and reveling in the fact that I get to do that.
FUTURE: Redemption going forward looks a lot different than it did in the past. It has to. The hustling and grinding has ended and redemption these days looks a lot more like love and kindness. It looks like slow growth and getting really quiet with myself so I can hear my small inner voice whispering, and it means giving it room to grow louder. It's getting up and going to yoga even though every part of my mind and body want to stay home, because I know I will feel better after. For so long I saw feeling good as something
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A long time ago, getting redemption meant fulfilling the promises I made to a scared little kid. And when those promises were fulfilled, I realized I still had breath in me, that there was more to do. So now, years on, redemption means a new thing. It means having my own back. Redemption today looks a lot less like making my wildest dreams come true and a lot more like the tiny choices everyday to feel okay. This will be my new redemption story. &
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TRASH 64
Words by Crystal Brutlag Image by Ryoji Iwata
P
“He’s trash.” “She’s a trash human being.” hrases like this make me cringe whenever I hear them. No, they’ve never been directed at me, but often at people in the public eye; people who society has deemed trash.
Trash. Something worth little or nothing. A worthless person. And while I often understand why there’s so much negativity directed at these people—they’ve usually hurt others in some way— to deem them as worthless always hurts my heart. How can we beat someone down to being trash— worthless—and hope to see a change in them? Does dismissing them as worthless or trash even inspire change within them? Maybe it’s because we don’t anticipate a change. Maybe it’s because we don’t want to see a change in them after all they’ve done. We don’t want to admit that at their core they’re people… just like us. After all, everyone has said or done something that has hurt another person on some level at least once. (But likely more.)
It didn’t take long before he transferred to a new school, but it was long enough to see a different side of him. Redemption. When I think of him I often wonder what his story was before he became a bully. Sometimes there are consequences to our actions—and there should be. But they say hurt people hurt people and I’ve wondered what may have happened in his life that contributed to how he treated his classmates. In some of the work I’ve done this year I’ve heard stories from people that would confirm that adage. They’re people that some might deem worthless trash, but they’ve met people who don’t see them that way and shower them with love and support. Redemption. And I know the same is true for the people who have hurt me and those I love. For some, I know bits and pieces of their story. I know some of their hurts; I know some of the things that have led to who they are today.
Ready to read the whole issue? Click here to purchase it from our shop. I don’t want to see them as people who are worthy. I want to see them the way they treated me: as trash. hollandlanemag.com/shop Maybe it’s because we’ve deemed them irredeemable. I’ve never believed people are irredeemable. Maybe it goes back to my Christian faith, that God so loved everyone that He sent His one and only Son to die and rise again for the things we’ve done so that if we believe in Him we’ll have eternal life. Redemption. And yet. What about the people in my life? Those who have hurt me or my family. I can think of certain people who have hurt those closest to me over the years; the ones who still make my heart race when I think of them. I think of a toxic boss; of the three men whose harassment still takes up residence in my mind sometimes. Irredeemable? Yep! Oh, wait… I think of the bully in middle school, who one day had me up against a wall as he choked me until the one student he listened to came out and told him to stop. He left school for a while and I was so relieved I wouldn’t see him again. When he returned I walked on eggshells and hoped I’d be able to avoid him. But when he came back he wasn’t the bully he had been.
But when I see them as trash, as irredeemable, it changes me. My heart grows cold and it seeps away my compassion. My hurt festers and I become bitter. There have been moments when I’ve thought, “I’m becoming more like them.” And I don’t want to be. I don’t want to carry on endless cycles of hurt. There’s enough of that in our world. I want to be part of starting new cycles of love. One place to start is to forgive those who have hurt me; to forgive those who have hurt those I love. To realize that in doing so I’m not saying their words and actions were okay; I’m saying they no longer have power over me. They don’t have to define me. I can release the hurt and bitterness. I can find compassion. Redemption. It’s easier said than done. There are days I don’t immediately roll my eyes when they come to mind. And there are other days where I have to repeat, “God loves them, too. God loves them, too. God loves them, too.” After all, they’re a work in progress. And so am I. &
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Words by Lindsay Atkinson Image by Ethan Hoover
THE FINISH LINE
“A
race is just a catered long run,” our running coach noted. He addressed a room full of cancer survivors and supporters the night before our half marathon race. I was running for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in support of, and with, my friend, a blood cancer survivor. We all laughed nervously through mouthfuls of pasta and I glanced at my two friends to see if they non-verbally agreed. Coach was trying to bring us down to earth, calm our nerves, and tell us what we knew to be true: after months of training, all we needed to do was show up at the starting line and give those 13.1 miles our very best. Coach’s words of encouragement had little effect on lulling us to sleep. Between the three of us, we rested for about seven hours, woke up before sunrise, pinned race numbers to our bright purple shirts, and made our way to the starting line with the other 7,000 runners. We had trained for months. We ran. We ran in the rain and in the cold and we were ready! Ready to make our way along the shores of Lake Superior into Duluth, Minnesota. We started off the race feeling strong. Signs reading “You’re amazing, keep running!” and “All of this for a free beer” evoked smiles and smirks. I picked up the pace when I saw a sign featuring the
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mushroom from Super Mario Brothers that read “Hit me to power up!” I’m telling you, hitting that tagboard will give you a boost of energy! From the outside, the race was going well. We were slow runners but our goal was simple - cross the finish line. We made our way up to mile nine and up Lemon Drop Hill and then our team’s collective mental and physical toughness started to give. One of the side effects of our friend’s treatment was peripheral neuropathy (numbness of the toes and fingers). Around mile 10, her toes were numb and she said, “It feels like I’m running on glass.” Thankfully, our coach ran up and said the right thing at the right time as our words of encouragement were not welcomed. Coach let us know, “The hard part of the race is right here. You can do this.” We all crossed the finish line together, hands held high in a team victory. A victory that wasn’t measured by our personal best but a victory in overcoming obstacles, celebrating health, and supporting a great cause. We also patted ourselves on the back for being working mothers who carved out time for ourselves and our goals.
Shortly after our half marathon, I knew I wanted to run this race again. It was a success, but for me, I felt like I had left something out on the course. We signed up again - my friend noting she would be cancer free for over a year and we’d celebrate by giving it our best. Just like setting New Year's resolutions, I wanted to simply will 2018 into being different. I wanted to magically be faster and mentally strong. In 2017 I showed up for my friend and in 2018 I needed to show up for myself. But I didn’t need to create a fancy training schedule or buy new gear (although plenty of new running clothes were purchased). I couldn’t just write down goals in my journal or check off boxes on a training schedule. In fact, the biggest change I needed to make was to stop selling myself short. I needed to get honest with myself and realize my actions didn’t align with my goals. Whether it was self-sabotaging fitness by missing workouts or indulging in extra sweets or staying up too late, it was time to check myself and give myself the time, nutrition and sleep I needed. I started small by calling myself a runner, even when I wanted to include a qualifier. I still cringe at the thought of downplaying my efforts by frantically stating, “I’m a runner but I’m really slow! I’m a runner but sure, sometimes I walk!”
Off of the road, I started to build confidence and viewed running as a meditation practice - a way to set the tone for the day. I started to stand taller, take up more space, and stopped apologizing for my priorities. I got out of my head and did the work. With that came a noticeable lightness and ease. I am worth it - worth time and efforts to cultivate happiness. On race morning in mid-June, I was considerably less nervous than the year before. My friend and I could visualize the race. We could feel ourselves hitting that tagboard and “powering up.” We had done the work, cultivated the best playlist Spotify could recommend, and if races are simply catered long runs, shouldn’t we also lighten up and have fun? We ran the familiar course and commented on perceived differences. Wasn’t the course flatter last year? Shouldn’t we slow down? Isn’t this so fun? Aren’t you so glad it’s not raining? Did his shirt say he’s 80 years old!? Around mile 10, I hit a mental wall and needed encouragement. I had not trained over ten miles and my brain was on a loop asking myself, “Can I do this?” My friend powered me through with welcomed words of encouragement, letting me know this was the toughest part of the race and yes, I could do it. She offered to stop at water stations simply because it was all so overwhelming. I mustered up energy in order to cross the finish line. I accepted my medal with a huge smile knowing that there will always be room for improvement, but for now, it was time to feel joy and pride.
Ready to read the whole issue? Click here to purchase it from our shop. hollandlanemag.com/shop
That winter, I learned what had once been “elusive running terminology.” I stopped reading articles about tempo runs and recovery runs and actually went on tempo and recovery runs. I learned that we all have different speeds. I have different speeds. I learned that running is essentially flying through the air. I can (essentially) fly.
Strength training became important. Physical therapy became important. Investing in myself became important. Some weeks this investment of time and money felt like a no-brainer and other times, feelings of selfishness surfaced and I felt like a cliche and a fraud (just another Midwest mom running around the block trying to get her Garmin to reach the next quarter mile marker!). Because honestly, who was I? A podium-finisher? No. Was I chasing a time that would qualify me for a chance to run the Boston marathon? Not at all. Like most runners, I was an amateur at best. The lingering question remained, “Am I worth it?” As the ground started to thaw and the spring training schedule trucked on, I realized I couldn’t think my way out of that big question. I had to show up and run when I was tired, energized, or slightly sick. Half marathon training is a beautiful example of grace over guilt and progress over perfection. You can literally see improvements over the course of a four-month training schedule. Just like in parenting, cliches are also true in running. The days are long but the years are short and running doesn’t get easier, you just get stronger.
&&& Throughout my friend’s recovery and training, it was overwhelming to think about how many things have to go right in order for everything to be alright. Her health had to improve, her support system and health care providers had to perform and show up. On race day, the weather needs to be just so, our mental toughness has to be on-point, and yes, it would be great if we were all injury free. In 2017, I was so grateful for the running community, our collective health, and the ability to overcome obstacles and achieve goals. Underneath that gratitude, I gave far more than received. In 2018, I got comfortable with being uncomfortable on and off of the road. Yes, I shaved a significant amount of time off of my race and know I can do the same down the road. But better yet, I stood up and redeemed my lost sense of self. I stopped looking around for acceptance and honestly, stopped asking for permission. Whether it’s a run, a new job, or just wanting to be happier, we can all stand in our power and declare, “I am worth it.” &
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Forgiveness
has the Power to Redeem Words by Rebecca Rice Image by Matthew Bennett 68
S
he was sitting across from me dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. She said, “I’m just so grateful to still have him.” I nodded my head thinking I understood. They had been together for over 50 years by the time we had this breakfast. To still be together after all that time is a feat. But I didn’t know what she was talking about. I didn’t understand that sitting across from me was a woman who had endured so much and still forgave. On my way home from that breakfast, I found out what she had been talking about. Her husband had cheated on her. Not once, not twice, but for about 15 years. For 15 years he had had a mistress. The years were broken up by a gap of fidelity but then he had gone back to the mistress. His wife was broken. But she didn’t want to leave him. She still believed in the vows she gave him at the altar years before. For better or worse. At the most combustible time, he moved out and she took walks. She said, “If he wants a divorce he’s gotta come to get it because I’m not giving up.” On those walks, she would pour her heart out in prayer. She didn’t know what to do but she felt deep inside that she had to forgive him. I cried. This was an older couple I had known my whole life, one I had looked up to. And here was their humanness laid before me. I was broken for her. I couldn’t understand him. I couldn’t fathom how she had found the strength to forgive him. It wasn’t a one-time thing. It was 15 years of their marriage! And yet there she was telling me she was so blessed to still have him in her life. My heart ached. When I saw him later that day I couldn’t make eye contact. She had forgiven him before I was born, but this was a new wound for me. I felt silly being so upset, but at the same time, these two were a foundational part of my life. I had to figure out how information like this fit into the life I had witnessed they had. I had to watch how he treated her now. The sweet way he took care of her, brought her pills and a drink, gave her a taste of what he was cooking. How was this the same man that broke her heart? What had changed in the years since?
Ready to read the whole issue? Click here to purchase it from our shop. hollandlanemag.com/shop Her act of forgiveness challenged the way I looked at relationships. It terrified me to think that she had made herself so vulnerable to marry him and he had destroyed that trust. And he had done it again when he went back to the mistress. I shrunk from the idea of that kind of vulnerability. Yet somehow, they had rebuilt the trust. They had redeemed a relationship that was in pieces on the ground. I had always heard women say things like, “If he cheated on me it would be over,” and yet here was a woman that was willing to forgive. She was willing to be vulnerable again. She forgave him knowing he could break her trust again. After weeks of meditating on this, I started to realize her strength. Since that day I have seen the fruit of her decision to stay and forgive. She has cared for countless women who have gone through similar situations. She has encouraged them and been a support. I can’t say whether all the relationships have made it out the other side intact, but I can say I’ve met a few women who’ve said she saved their marriage. That’s powerful. Forgiveness is a powerful action. It opens you up in a vulnerable way to someone who has already hurt you. Forgiveness has the power to redeem. It is an act of trust and, more than anything else, strength. She opened herself up to forgiveness and he was able to respond to her vulnerability in a beautiful way. That day I learned one of the snags that made up their beautifully imperfect marriage. Now years later, I’m still inspired by that act of forgiveness and the beautiful marriage it has enabled to thrive. &
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The Lost Hope 70
“I
believe you” and “I’m sorry” are the two phrases that victims yearn to hear. They are the phrases that validate our experience and allow us to begin to heal. It’s not uncommon that we never hear either of them. Living with that void is torturous. Two years ago, I received a phone call I never expected. It was my daughter’s school calling to tell me that there was evidence of child abuse–she had come to school with bruises on her neck–and that they needed to contact the authorities and I needed to come to the school as soon as possible. My heart dropped into my stomach. I wasn’t sure what was harder to believe, that someone had so violently hurt my child or that the person who hurt her was her father. The events of that afternoon are both crystal clear and somewhat surreal. We spent time at the school being interviewed, having photos taken, and mostly sitting there in shock. While he was always more of the authoritarian, this seemed so out of character for the man I thought I knew. The man that fathered my child was kind and gentlemanly, even if he was a bit selfish and aggressive. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with his child for five years, but never complained about paying me a scant amount of child support each month. When he finally decided to get involved, he seemingly went all in and made an earnest effort to forge a relationship with his child. He and I got along, even though we had the occasional angry disagreement over how best to parent our child. I just couldn’t believe that this was the man now being accused of child abuse. I thought for sure there must be some mistake, that the police would speak to him and he would admit that he had been wrong, he would apologize, and we would take whatever steps necessary to fix this situation. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the charming man who had fathered my child didn’t really exist and that he was going to fight this allegation with every fiber of his being. ›››
of Redemption
Words by Eunice Brownlee
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The court process took a few months to get underway, and another five before it was finished. It felt like an eternity. Hearing after hearing, I had my character attacked while he plead his innocence in the matter. I believed that I had truth on my side and that it would prevail, but when truth is constantly attacked and twisted into something that is then weaponized against you, it starts to feel like the truth wasn’t all that real to begin with. I just wanted it to be over and to hear the words, “I’m sorry to put you both through this. How can we move forward?” I will never hear those words. Through the entire process, I have been vilified at every turn. I have worked hard to protect my child from the lies, the anger, and the manipulation. It is only thanks to his insistence on making this about me that I have been able to keep her safely away from him. In the midst of the criminal proceedings, he decided to take up a battle on the civil side of things as well. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to break me financially or spiritually, or if it was just fun for him to watch me struggle to manage everything he threw at me. I submitted to an investigation. It came out in my favor. I gave a deposition. They didn’t get anything they could use. They tried to get me to give up, by dragging out the process, but I kept fighting for my daughter.
sent me a text begging me to do everything in my power to make sure that he would still be able to see his child. She argued that my child’s life would be so empty without him and his family in it. She had clearly taken his side. I disagreed and did not respond. I never knew what had been said to her or any other member of the family, but they completely stopped calling. I didn’t understand why. My heart broke for my child. I was angry and disappointed, but I chose to believe that when they wanted to hear the truth, they would ask. I hoped that everyone would someday tell my daughter they were sorry for abandoning her and for not being willing to at least hear her side of the story. This has been my reality for the past two years. I keep hoping for redemption and it never comes. Every time I think that we are on the cusp of that breakthrough, I am reminded that the story is already written. No one thinks to ask for my perspective before passing judgment. When I do have the opportunity to speak the truth, the bias that has formed against me is all too real. I am the villain, every time. My motives are questioned and I find myself constantly defensive of my words and my actions. Any effort I have made to repair the relationships has been seen as controlling.
Ready to read the whole issue? I see communication the attorneys where Click here to purchase it frombetween our shop. I’ve been painted to be manipulative and dishonest. I’ve been subject to accusations filled with lies so hollandlanemag.com/shop blatant that it wouldn’t take much effort for me to At no point did he stop, accept responsibility, and apologize for what he had done. In therapy, I talked for hours about how I couldn’t believe that I was being treated like the bad guy in all of this when my only fault was protecting my daughter. The facts were being obscured by semantics rather than looking at the overall effect this aggressive act had on my child. She became ancillary to the process, rather than its central subject. It was clear that this had become all about retribution for him. I came to accept that he would never admit his wrongdoing and would certainly never apologize for what he put us through. I held out hope that maybe his family would. I had only managed to forge a somewhat decent relationship with one member of his family in the five years he had been actively a dad. I had spoken to his oldest sister shortly after the incident and told her what had happened. A few days later, she
fully debunk them. The way his attorney is openly hostile toward me in every interaction makes me wonder what else has been said about me. I know I shouldn’t care. It angers me that anyone could believe the falsehoods that have been shared about me. I know that none of what I have been fighting against is my fault. I know that the stories I hear are untrue. I know that the efforts to twist my intentions into something negative are only to give cover to the real villain. I know that the things that are said about me and the feelings that are directed toward me are all a result of the lies that have been said.
Every time things go quiet for a bit, I keep hoping that it’s over. That I will finally be able to let my guard down and not have to think so hard about the words I use. That I won’t have to defend the latest thing I said. That someone will finally say, “I believe you” and “I’m sorry to have put you through this.” I want to believe it, but I know that day will never come. &
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Words by Melissa Wert Image by Malte Fleuter
The Next
chapter
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“W
hat is meant for me can’t be taken from me. What is meant for me can’t be taken from me.” I’ve uttered these words to myself so often that most days, I believe them. I began repeating these words over and over and over again at a time when I felt like literally everything in my life that was meant for me was taken from me. My marriage? Taken. My family unit? Taken. My home? Taken. My self worth? Taken. My self confidence? Taken. Everything that was meant for me, everything that I had worked so hard for, was taken from me. I felt left in the dark, stripped bare of all of the things that I had identified myself by, all of the things that made up a life. My life. All that I was left with was the struggling-to-stay-lit light that was my innate need to keep moving forward, bleakly lighting my way as I took inventory of my life and started figuring out what the hell I had left. At 34, the life that I had imagined for myself had erupted, and I found myself living with my parents, in the childhood bedroom I grew up in, with my toddler and dog in tow. To put it lightly, this wasn’t what I had imagined for myself. This wasn’t the life I had worked so hard for. I was driven, strong, smart. I made good, well-planned decisions. And yet somehow it wasn’t enough. I felt like somehow, I wasn’t enough to deserve the rock solid life I had in my grasp, before it turned to sand and slipped right through my fingers. I spent what felt like an eternity trying to sweep up that sand. I tried to hide it in corners and under rugs and in doorways, hiding it from everyone, including myself, until eventually I looked around and saw it everywhere. Sand is sticky like that. And so I dusted myself off as best I could, packed up my adult life along with all of my household possessions, and tucked it all away onto a dark basement shelf while I figured out what happened next. As I figured out who I would be next.
someone would no longer want. I wasn’t supposed to be an unmarried mother. My son was not supposed to be raised in two households. I wasn’t supposed to sell the house I imagined growing old in. I’m not supposed to be terrified of growing old alone. I’m not supposed to define myself by my relationship. I’m not supposed to still need my parents’ help. My life isn’t supposed to be like this. And yet, it was. I slowly began to accept that this repeated narrative of “not supposed to” did not, in fact, help me. It made me feel like a helpless bystander to my own life, watching it happen to me, not pleased with the outcome but powerless to change it. I so desperately needed to feel in control of my life again, and to truly believe that a different life track was not a wrong life track. I needed to believe deep in my bones that someone else’s decisions do not get to define how I feel about my life. I needed the grounding belief that what is meant for me can’t be taken from me. So I dug deep, digging up every “should have” and “supposed to” I could find. The hardest part? Leaving those freshly dug holes empty. It would have been so easy to fill them, but I knew well enough that most of what I threw in there in pain would only have to be dug up again later. And so instead, I built fences around them. I established boundaries, for both myself and others. I protected those raw and vulnerable parts of myself, paying attention to what fortified them, and what hurt them, and adjusted my life accordingly.
Ready to read the whole issue? I put up when needed. I had to accept that I was in a Click here to purchase itblinders from our shop. space where I couldn’t understand relationships, and the trust that went with them. So I learned to funnel that love and trust hollandlanemag.com/shop into my relationship with myself. I had to acknowledge that I
I had no idea how deeply transformative and costly that discovery would be. I had imagined that yes, I’d now have to check off the “divorced” box on forms instead of “married”. I’d have a change in address, and perhaps a change in my last name, too. I’d have to figure out how much to tell people when they asked the inevitable questions. But all of those things only spoke to the change in what people saw. The change in my outward status. The real challenge was that I had no idea anymore who I was on the inside. I could figure out my talking points and come up with my “what happened to your life” elevator pitch, but the truth was that this change in status, this change in relationship, this change in life rocked me to my core and left me in tiny, sharp pieces. Those pieces were far too jagged to simply put them back together the way they were. I knew I had to reimagine how I fit together. That process engulfed me. I was consumed with what I was and wasn’t supposed to be. I had to learn to untether myself from every single “not supposed to” that kept me tied to a life that was no longer mine. I wasn’t supposed to be single in my thirties. I wasn’t supposed to be the wife that
was angry, which was a foreign emotion. It wasn’t that I had never felt anger before, but I had attached such a personal stigma to it that I taught myself that it was more appropriate to direct that anger inward towards myself instead of to an outward source. I also had to accept that I didn’t have to hold on to it. Regardless of what society expected from me, I could acknowledge that anger, and the pain that it represented, and then let it go. I didn’t need to dwell on it. I didn’t need to be ashamed of it. I didn’t need to keep it in my back pocket. I simply needed to feel it in a real and honest way. What I do keep in my back pocket? A deep and fearless love for, and from, my son. Unequivocal gratitude for my family. Respect for myself – body, heart, and mind. A community of women committed to lifting each other up. An open mind about what comes next. A refined relationship with both my inner self and the universe. And an emergency bottle of wine and pint of ice cream, because I’m still human, and am forever a work in progress. This is my life. It may not look like what I had expected, but the things that I felt were taken from me? They weren’t. They’re just freeing themselves of my old narrative, ready for their next chapter. I can’t wait to read it. &
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Finding the Courage to Redeem Your Dreams Words by Salma Elbarmawi Image by Nick Morrison
I
t often feels like a game when you're younger. A playful one with no wrong answers. No matter how many times they'd ask you-- no matter how often you'd change your mind, you'd come across as endearing.
The anxiety of your answer didn't block your throat the way it does now. Your stomach didn't turn into suffocating knots the way it did the last time they stopped you to inquire. Your mind didn't start to wander in search of the right words, the perfect response, the way it always seems to now when they ask what you want to be. The expectation that anyone can be certain of their destiny seems absurd. The notion that your dreams must be fierce and somehow tangible and realistic is confusing. The idea that one day we woke up and the answer "famous painter" was no longer acceptable seems unfair. Do you even remember? Do you remember what it was like to want for something that felt so out of reach to everyone but yourself ? Do you remember what it was like to have dreams that were limitless and profound? That made you excited to wake up. Do you remember the moment you were forced to make a choice? A choice between a life with a distinct and carefully paved path- and a life that would be filled with excitement but riddled with doubters and uncertainty.
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For me, I think it began to waver in my second year of high school. My answer was vague but crafted in such a way that it sounded achievable.
of your heart's investment, it becomes hard to decipher if you hate it because of the hours you've lost, or if you love it because of how proficient you've become in your practice.
When people asked, I told them I wanted to be a lawyer, though I had an undying love for acting. I told them I wanted to battle in court. Warming my parents' hearts as they reminded everyone of how I loved to argue - though they had seen my dedication to practicing monologues in the mirror.
I lost the fire I had for life because I couldn't find fulfillment in the work that was burning it out.
I listed a set of credentials for them, as if they were the ones who would determine my fate. Bragging about my involvement with Model UN and dropping a subtle reminder of my mock trials. Though truthfully, my most monumental achievement was my acceptance into the film association. Later my dreams would evolve. Neither involving the courtroom nor motion pictures.
I became preoccupied with the highlight reels of others, if only to relinquish the responsibility I had to myself. And as I became engrossed in the lives of people living their dreams, I thought, 'Why not me?' And as I spent my days building someone else's passion, I sobbed, 'Why not mine?' And it took every painful tear to realize my successes and failures were unmistakably my own. It took the loss of life to remember how many unfinished books are buried in graveyards. How many unmade arts are indefinitely suspended in cemeteries.
It took every building block of my fear of losing to time to Ready to read the whole issue? create the courage to redeem dreams that had once been mine. Click here to purchase it from our shop. And so I gambled on my destiny the way children gamble Until one day, the dreamhollandlanemag.com/shop faded away, landing softly instead with their answers. I gave myself the permission to start on "marketing executive." Simplified and realistic, as over, though everyone around me verbalized their doubts. They would flutter between brazen politician and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. The “how's” and the ”why's” would become exhausting. The index folders I would be handed of people who had failed would begin to feel all too real.
to ensure my success. Classified by job title rather than achievements - easily answering the question of what I'd become, rather than who.
I made a choice to change my direction because I couldn't remember if I had even made a conscious choice about my future.
Its practicality was praised. Never challenged by the odds or probability. I was nudged to work hard; assured I’d fulfill the goal that was now masking my dreams.
And I made a decision to leave the comfort of the choices I was told were realistic, just to explore the possibilities of a future that could lend to my dreams.
And so I went on living a life I partially wanted and partially had no desire to continue. I dedicated myself to something that was feasible, rather than testing the waters in something I hoped would prove to be my purpose.
For me, it was a steady paycheck that I'd replaced with a one-way ticket. It was pages of experience I rearranged, in hopes of creating truth for my passions. It was humbly starting over though I had been closer to prosperity in my old life.
I continued on with validation from friends and strangers. Convincing myself that I was on the right path. Falsely pretending I was making the right decision, only to find I was losing myself in what everyone else wanted for me. But when you've dedicated your life to a craft, regardless
Because great dreams aren't fulfilled by realism, and purpose isn't discovered under the umbrella of someone else's destiny. Turns out, redeeming your dreams is surmounting to uncertainty, and accomplishing them depends on your willingness to get up when you fail. &
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Write With Us These journal prompts are for you and your words. Your stories, your voice, are so important and we want you to take the theme from this issue and make it your own. In our digital version, you can type directly into these prompts on your computer. 1. What does “redemption� mean to you?
2. If you had a second chance to do something, what would it be and why?
3. Write a letter to yourself providing forgiveness for a past mistake.
Ready to read the whole issue? Click here to purchase it from our shop. hollandlanemag.com/shop
4. What is a choice you’ve made that has had a profound impact on someone else?
5. Fill in the blank: Life is full of struggles and mistakes, but _______
These journal prompts are brought to you by illuminate, our monthly writing program shining a light on the creative within. Learn more at illuminatewriting.com
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ISSUE 19 : REDEMPTION I sincerely hope this issue inspired you, moved you, made you feel something new. Holl & Lane was strictly created to help us connect with one another in our shared experiences, and I hope you were able to connect with another person through these stories. So, what now? SHARE OUR MISSION - tell your friends and family about us. Let them know where to buy the issue. It helps us reach more women who might need us and our stories. Be sure to tag us - @hollandlanemag JOIN US DAILY - Our private Facebook community is filled with inspiring women from all across the world connecting with us and each other. It’s an incredibly beautiful place. Join us at facebook.com/groups/HLFamily PASS US ON - Know a friend, non-profit, library or other community who could REALLY use our stories? Pass this issue on to them so they can be inspired, too. REACH OUT TO US - We LOVE to hear from you. Don’t be shy in emailing Sarah, the Editor in Chief, directly at editor@hollandlanemag.com. We want to hear your feedback. REVIEW THE MAGAZINE - Leave us a review on our Facebook page, or write up your own blog post about it. We value very single comment. Thank you for being a part of our journey. Our souls are fueled by you.
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T H E HOLL & LA N E M AGA Z I N E M A N I F E STO At Holl & Lane, we know that your story is powerful. We invite you to step into the light and know that you are not alone. The tapestry of life can be heartbreaking, and it can be breathtaking. Your strength is woven through it all. We are a sanctuary for your soul, a refuge from judgment and misunderstanding. It’s OK to laugh, to cry, to rage, to struggle. It’s the bittersweet beauty of being alive. We believe in the power of stories and how they connect us all with shared experiences We believe in truth because it will truly set you free. When we own our truths, the iceberg of fear begins to melt away. We believe in community because you do not have to go through life alone. We care about you and what you have to say. Shout it out loud! We believe in empathy because “me, too!” is the shortest way to making a connection with another human being. We believe in inclusion and diversity because you are ALL welcome here. There’s no secret society or special password. Your sweet soul is the only RSVP you need. We believe in strength because it manifests itself in truth. When you share your story - the trials, the triumphs, the tears, the smiles - your strength shines through as you embrace vulnerability and shut the door on shame.
V I S I T U S AT H O L L A N D L A N E M AG .CO M
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