Buckle Up!

It’s the early morning on the first day of our beautiful drive through Pittsburgh together. The windows are cracked, a breeze is coming through, and we have our sunnies on. There’s a freshness and a newness to the air. Our lattes are filled to the brim (thank goodness), and I am ready to begin my Taylor Swift & Zach Bryan playlist (please exit the vehicle if you shuddered at the music taste). I feel ready to start the car, but first, we must do a “safety check” of sorts. Before I dive into the vulnerable processing of these areas, I need to be transparent about a fear and set my intention clearly.

I am a very passionate person. I have a lot of feelings, a lot of opinions, and a lot of thoughts, a lot of the time. I think this is a gift. It makes life interesting, that is for sure. But it also disposes me to become angry easily. Oftentimes, when I don't agree with someone or when I see an injustice, my gut reaction is anger. My spiritual director once said, “Delaney, in the spiritual life, we need justice and mercy. You are excellent at the justice part; there is an invitation here to grow in mercy.” Thank you, Father, this is true. I hope that this blog does not become a weekly injustice rant session. That would not be good for my holiness or yours. We do not need another angry voice on the internet spouting out why the people they disagree with are wrong. As a culture right now, we are pro-efficient in ”othering” people, divorcing ourselves from those with whom we disagree, and then shouting why they are wrong. I want to be clear that I intend to process the intersection of my clinical knowledge and my personal experience, not to stoke the flames of othering. If anything, I hope to be honest about the discrepancies I feel in my life to make space to consider ideas or concepts I might previously have othered.

Now that that has been stated, I feel as though our seatbelts are on and we can begin. As I look to the horizon and gaze back at the bright yellow and steel Bridges converging, I feel present to the intersectionality of my life now. I am struck by three main avenues coming together in a way that feels new and altogether unfamiliar: motherhood, marriage, and my career. These are the three main passions of my life right now, with my faith at the core of each of them. I am filled with questions, excitement, and uncertainty as I ponder the interplay of these areas of my life that mean so much to me. If you can’t tell, I am both excited and hesitant to dive into them fully.

 Truthfully, I am shocked by how different each of these areas of my life feels to me now. The beautiful experience of entering motherhood has honestly cracked me open, more than just physically. It feels like a lot of the concepts and conclusions I held onto previously have not been torn away but have become a shell of what I now hold. The old is still present, but there is a depth at which I hold these concepts now that feels different. I used to feel certainty in these areas, and I didn't even realize it. I had no idea how much I thought I knew about being a wife and mom, how many ideals I held in my head, and how many preconceived conclusions I had allowed myself to arrive at. I am also baffled by how deeply influenced I have been by different macro and micro levels of my surroundings throughout my entire life, without even realizing it. I see the ideals I have held in my head about how I am supposed to enter these areas of my life. I want to shake myself from these ideals, but they are taking longer than I expected to push away. I am realizing that uncovering the depth of this newness, making sense of it, and emerging into how I want to live each of these three areas authentically is going to take time. I am honored, excited, and a tiny bit apprehensive to dive into my reflections with you on the specifics as they continue to unfold.