See and Be the Good in the World

As Told to Carlina Scalf

When I think of bravery, I think of forging ahead in spite of fear. When I think of authenticity, I think of not trying to edit yourself into a version of what you think others want you to be; it’s just being yourself.

GRAPPLING WITH INSTABILITY

I come from a divorced family. When I was younger, I knew I was different than a lot of the other kids I hung out with, because their parents were married. My dad drank too much; while he later recovered, and we ended up with a great relationship, when there’s someone in your life that brings a lot of instability in your formative years, I think you naturally search for that stability as soon as possible.  

I have to give my mom credit for leaving that situation because it provided more stability, but my brother and I still had to face the uncertainty and unpredictability of our Dad at times.

As a kid, that kind of puts you on edge. I think that situation could have made me bitter, or I could have spent my life focusing on being a victim in that situation, but I feel like I always had a natural tendency to want to see the positive and the good. Sometimes I would be sad about it, but I never felt like I got the short end of the stick.

When I turned 18 and went off to college and was able to create my own life, a big piece of that for me was wanting to be with someone who also valued stability. There had to be a lot of predictability in our lives and in that relationship. And I think finding that partner, Brian, early in life really helped me to heal a lot from those things.

FINDING STEADINESS IN COMMUNITY

My mom was a single working parent, so she relied on other people to help. My maternal grandparents, Grandma Betty and Grandpa Charlie, were one of the constants in our life. We would go there after school when I was young; we would eat dinner there, and sleep over there, so that was a very good source of stability.  

Even on my dad’s side, his family unit was close and that provided stability My dad was a lovable, nice guy; he was just sometimes unpredictable. He grew up and we were raised for a time in a neighborhood called Lindenwald, and Lindenwald is just a very tight-knit community where I felt love from people and felt a lot of connection. That helped with rebuilding some of that trust. I knew there was a lot of love and good in the world, and I knew I could have that in my life.  

My older brother, Andy, also provided a lot of stability. Even through the ups and downs, whether it was ups and downs with my dad or ups and downs with my mom and her job, Andy was a constant. We fought like normal brother and sister, but I think we relied on each other much more than if our family unit had stayed intact.

And then there was my best friend, Susie. We became friends in the sixth grade at St. Ann’s. She came from a very traditional Catholic family, where her parents were married, her mom stayed home and made dinner every night, and her dad went to work. I found a kind of second home there. They were a pretty big influence in showing me that something else could exist.  

BUILDING PERSONAL STABILITY

Brian and I were definitely young when we got married, 22 and 23, but at the time it wasn’t unbelievably young either. Most of my friends were married within two or three years of us, so I think there was already a natural thought process that if you had been dating someone in college or, as we did, through high school, marriage was the next natural step.

But I had also found this person that I was really in love with, someone I knew I could just hang out and have a good time with. And because I wanted that stability, it made it easy to say, Yes, this is the right choice for me. When I thought about it, I just thought: What could be better than two people who want to be together?

I try to go back and remember what I felt during the later years of college, but I never remember feeling restless; Brian and I didn’t have any money, we were just college kids, and we didn’t really want to go get a job in another city or state. I think some of that just comes from the fact that it wasn’t as easy to find information about other possibilities. We found one of Brian’s first jobs in a classified ad in the newspaper; it wasn’t like he could go on Indeed and search the 500 jobs out there. 

In some ways that made it easier. I think it’s much more challenging now to cut through all that, because you constantly feel like, Well, maybe there’s something else that would be better for me or that would make me happier.

INDEPENDENT IDENTITY WITHIN PARTNERSHIP

When you have challenges in your life, there are bad things, but there are also a lot of good things that can come from them — so for me, some of the unpredictability of childhood led to more independence.

I was raised by a mom who was making her way through the ranks of the corporate world during the ‘80s and ‘90s, at a time when women were breaking the glass ceiling and feeling empowered. I definitely saw my mom as a role model for someone who could get stuff done. She didn’t always do it in the same way everybody else would, but it worked. She was always really inspiring to me. As a young woman in college and then as a young wife, I always kept that sense of independence.

Brian and I both came to our relationship very independent. On one of our very first dates, we went to Gold Star Chili, and I insisted on paying his bill. I always joke that it was the best investment I’ve ever made. But it was important to me. I had a little job at Kroger, and I had some money, and I could pay the $4 or whatever it was for his Coneys. And I think in some way that was attractive to him — it said, “Oh, this is someone who is kind of independent.”

Sometimes, I think I might have even taken it a little too far when we were first married, wanting to do things on my own. It would be like, “Well, you’re going to get half of the meatloaf, and I’m going to get the other half,” you know? That’s a simplistic example, but we knew this was going to be an even kind of place. 

When it comes to identity and figuring out who I am, Brian has definitely helped me do that, just by the nature of being with someone who sees the world in a different way. I see the world in one way, and he sees the world in one way, and in some ways we see the world together — our values have always aligned, which is so important.

But I know he has helped me grow as a person, because things I wouldn’t necessarily have considered or thought of, I do more now because I see the way he approaches the world when we’re making decisions. I’ve learned to be better about opening up and hearing his viewpoint, and knowing it is valid even when it’s different from mine.  I think we do that for each other, which is one of the reasons it has worked so well. We tend to balance each other out. I’ve learned how to become a little bit more assertive, and Brian’s maybe learned to be a little more — he is compassionate already, but maybe thinking about how others are thinking or feeling a little bit more. Our combination really helps.  

BRAVERY IN MOTHERHOOD

 The biggest part about bravery and being a mom that nobody tells you beforehand is that you’re constantly figuring it out as you go. I can remember when I had my first daughter, Carlina, as a newborn, and thinking, Oh my gosh, she won’t sleep more than an hour and a half. What’s wrong?! But then, if you were sleeping for five hours, I’d think, Oh my gosh, she’s sleeping for five hours. What’s wrong?!

So you’re constantly just questioning if you know what you’re doing, and you’re kind of making it up as you go along. With bravery in motherhood, it’s just knowing that you’re never going to have that certainty. As your kids get older, it becomes less about making sure their physical needs are met and you’re trying to address their emotional and spiritual needs. You’re just doing the best you can.

There are instances where you have to put on that brave face for your kid and say, “It’s all going to be ok,” even when you’re not 100 percent sure it’s all going to be ok. It’s hard because you don’t want to give them a false sense of security, but you also don’t want to help them wallow in uncertainty or conflict. It’s a lot of knowing when to push and knowing when to pull back. I think the biggest thing is giving yourself that permission, to know that if you make a mistake, you can reconcile it in some way.

Being able to say sorry to your kids is an act of bravery that people sometimes underestimate. To say, “I really wish I would have done it this way, but I didn’t, and I’m sorry.” I think that takes courage and bravery too.

CULTIVATING LIFELONG COMMUNITY

I grew up in a tight-knit community, where I went to a Catholic grade school and high school, and these places gave Brian and I people who are still very dear friends. There’s something very comforting and easy about the smaller communities we’ve been a part of our whole lives. But because of this, as I’ve gotten older I’ve had to kind of force myself to look for other communities. I tend to get really comfortable. I love our foursome [Brian, and our kids Carli and Dominic], and I love being able to stay at home a lot.

 But I also see the value in interacting with other people and being social and doing things together. I think a lot of early community identity came from the schools I went to, and then it became the schools my kids went to and being a mom. So in the last couple years, for the first time I’ve really been able to take a step back and say, “What communities might be the right fit for me now?”

But I’ve recognized in forming some of these new relationships and being a part of new communities, that at this age I’m much more comfortable with just being myself. I’m not exhausted after coming home from events because I’m just much more comfortable now with myself.

BUILDING PERSONAL CONFIDENCE

When thinking about the transition from college to the work world, I think there’s always a struggle with confidence during this time period in life because you just don’t have enough experience under your belt to feel that natural amount of confidence.

One thing that helped me was getting to a place where you and your brother were raised, and you’re really good people, you know? You’re nice and fun to be around and you’re on your pathway to being contributing citizens; I think that helps. Starting a business and really forcing myself out of my comfort zone in work, finding out that I could do that, that helps me to see other things as not that challenging anymore.

COURAGE IN CREATING MEANINGFUL WORK

In work, I always felt a desire to want to do more. While I loved, loved being a mom and a stay-at-home mom, I think this desire came from the same place of wanting to be independent and have my own thing. I felt like even as a wife and a mom, I always did that.

When you guys were babies I went back to graduate school at Xavier University, and then I taught English Composition at Xavier for a while, and then I wanted to do something else. And through a series of events, creating this company where I mainly teach in the workplace became the thing. 

It required courage because people might have looked at me and said, “Well, why is she even doing this?” Because Brian had a nice job and I didn’t need a full-time job economically, but I wanted to do something. So I thought, whatever it is I’m doing, I want it to be meaningful. It kind of goes back to that whole idea of, you know, wanting to put more good in the world and wanting to help people have a better day. That had never gone away, but there was no formal outlet for it.

My work gives me a purpose and a creative outlet. It fulfills a lot of needs, and if it wasn’t there, I think I would struggle to find an authentic way to express myself. Sometimes it feels like a distraction from other bigger work and creative projects I want to do, BUT I think that’s a continual growing and learning process, and I know enough about myself to know I am always going to need to be creating something, whether it’s a family that loves each other and gets along or this business that helps people to have a better day at work. What I know about myself is that part of who I am is being able to create, and I think that self-knowledge requires courage. 

 I feel like people come to the earth with certain things, and I feel like one of the things I came to the Earth with was this search for the good in the world, and this desire to influence the creation of happiness and joy in the world. So all the things I’ve worked to do, or invested my time in — that’s my purpose, and it just expresses itself in so many different ways.

WORDS OF WISDOM FOR TRANSITIONS

As you think about moving through college and into the “real world,” sometimes there’s a pressure of, “What is my purpose?” and “Am I living my passion and can I find my mission?” When really, if you can strip away all that stuff, you can think about the idea that your purpose is just to keep learning and growing.

Through all of my experiences to this point, I’ve just wanted to keep learning and growing. If that’s your purpose then you can’t really take a wrong path, because any path you take you’re learning and growing from. You learn to rely on yourself, you learn how to be in relationship with other people … Sometimes, if you search for this exactly right external purpose, it is easy to get discouraged, down, and depressed.

 Another one of the most important things to realize is that relationships are one of the most important pieces to just life in general. Investing in relationships, friendships, and in getting to know other people will always provide a source of satisfaction that other sources can’t. I think there’s a myth that all these other things — getting that promotion, being paid X amount, taking XYZ trip — are going to provide this amount of satisfaction. So we constantly go for the next achievement when really, it’s so much simpler than that. The simplicity is in creating a life that fills you up with the things you love, the people you love.  

And you can’t judge whether other people are going to agree or not. You just have to go with what internally lights you up and the people that light you up, and that can be a kind of pathway instead of the traditional goal of, I have to get all these achievements.

 To me, that’s what authenticity really is, is acknowledging and honoring the things that bring YOU alive and the people that bring you alive. When we try to fit in that box where we think, Well, this would make my mom happy, or This would make my friend happy, that’s when we start to lose our direction.

 I would much rather spend a Saturday night at a bookstore than somewhere more exciting, and instead of feeling like, “Why am I this way?”, we just know it is who we are and we don’t feel bad for the things that make us who we are.

That’s one of the things I feel my mom gave to me. She was always willing to make a choice that maybe nobody understood, but that was the right thing for her, and so I learned that from her, that it’s ok to be different.