I do my best thinking in the shower. Is anyone with me? I’ve been writing this blog post in my head (in the shower) for years now. I’m not a blogger. I don’t know what the blogging “rules” are. I don’t even know if I am doing this right. Truthfully, I don’t even read blogs aside from researching a DIY project, so to my blogger friends, I am sorry. I’m not a blogger – I’m not even a great writer. I’m just me. Which is 80% emotional, 15% insecure, and 5% girl boss … does that equal 100%? I’m not a mathematician either. I’m just trying to do all the things that go hand in hand with a successful online business and that allegedly includes newsletters, blogging, blowing up social media, tagging photos, playing hashtags … I can’t even tell you how tiresome it is. But I love CCB. And I believe in what Lance and I are doing. Well most days – remember that 15% insecure? Some days the devil tells me we are failing miserably. Some days I think we need to call it quits and get back to the “real world”, to actually MAKE money and be able to pay off debt. To have benefits. A retirement plan. Right now we don’t “make money”. Sure we have sales, usually not as many as I’d like, but we have sales and we are able to pay our endless stream of bills. That’s about all. I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable but I’m just being honest. Those are the days when the devil gets at me and tells me to stop. But I try my best to tell him to pipe down. Because I love Jesus, and I know Jesus is taking care of us. I know we will always “be alright” no matter.
I’m just me, as I said. I’m just a girl who loves Jesus, loves my family, loves my puppy dogs (that includes the cat Juan Pablo. We consider him a dog too), loves to decorate, loves to make things, loves to get to know my customers, loves to try to improve myself everyday. I don’t love when people are selfish, greedy, unkind, “braggy”, dishonest … and if I ever come across as any of these things, please just go ahead and smack me. Okay, not really – remember the 80% emotional. I’m not overexaggerating there.
I’m a girl who married a wonderful man who has loved me at my very worst. He loves me fat and he loved me skinny. He loves me with greasy hair and a cranky attitude. He told me the other day a shirt made me look fat and I love him for that. But he’s also been the man who knew when I was too tender to hear those words and instead said “no, you look great”. I married a man that moved to my hometown with me despite any hesitations he had. And now, I couldn’t pry him away from here with a crowbar. Is that a saying? I just made it one if not. He’s never made me feel bad for not being able to do the one thing a woman is supposed to be able to do – give him a child. Because that’s really what this is about. I’ve been writing this blog post in my head for almost 9 years, but it’s been 9 years in the making. In 9 years, I’ve experienced every emotion possible with our inability to become pregnant. I’ve been angry and I still get angry. I get angry when I see tiny little baby women (that’s a phrase we commonly use in our house for a young, skinny girl) bragging about their sonograms or their nurseries, but they deserve to do that. I hope people would blow up my posts of sonograms or my nursery and make me feel that amount of shared happiness. So why do I get mad? I get mad when I see God has given a child to people who neglect their children. I get mad when people just pop out children like skittles. Is that a phrase? Just stick with me – I’m also super weird. We can maybe change those percentages to include some weirdness. I’ve been sad, obviously, and still am once a month when I invariably take ANOTHER pregnancy test that I want to smash into the ground because it always tells me no. I’ve been hopeful. I brazen myself (did I use that word correctly? If so, I’m super proud) once a month to become hopeful again. Because I know God wants me to be hopeful. What I end up settling on is just contentment. I’m content right now, currently as I type this, with the knowledge that Lance and I may never have a child. And right now (trust me this will change), I am content knowing that. I am content because I am married to my best friend and we are happy. We have a wonderful relationship rooted in honesty and love and trust. I had a wonderful example of a happy marriage growing up. My parents loved and love each other. They taught me to get through things as a family. They taught me in having priorities and that Jesus is #1 on that list. They taught me about integrity. They taught me love. At one point in my life I would have said my mom is my best friend, and she still is one of my best friends, but something has shifted in the last few years and Lance has become my best friend. We began Currently Chic Boutique several years ago, although our storefront isn’t quite 2 yet. We began with a passion of DIY. We began with those Pinterest projects. We began painting pallet signs and refinishing furniture, but I believe God placed all of those talents and passions within us because today it’s all we are doing. We are self-sufficient. Together. Lance had a job in agriculture and made good money, was provided a work truck, benefits, etc. A wonderful job it was, but he was also gone. He left at 4:45 AM to drive 2 hours to work and did not return until 7 PM, sometimes later depending on the time of year. Just before we were opening our storefront, which was for all intents and purposes “my baby”, Lance lost his job. His small co-op was bought out by a huge corporation and they just began letting people go. Oh, that phone call he made telling me he lost his job. I’ll never forget it. I knew he had a meeting with his boss but it was completely unexpected. He said “well the worst thing you could imagine just happened”. I was, for lack of better words, a freaking mess. A hysterical mess, in fact. My parents had to come over to settle me down while Lance drove 2 hours home. What were we going to do? How were we going to start a brand new business with no steady income? Jesus. That was Jesus. All Jesus. Lance would have never quit his job no matter how unhappy he was. Jesus intervened. And although I didn’t trust Jesus and his plan (typical right?!), we have been solely doing CCB for almost 2 years now. Lance has become so invested in what we are doing. WE. We are doing this together. He has dove into learning and researching. He’s building furniture and helping me find wholesale vendors and helping me inventory and helping me stock booth spaces. We’ve been together, working at this together. And it’s brought us so much closer. We used to fight when he got home from Arkansas working his regular day job, because I needed his help in the garage. As much as I like to think I’m capable, I’m a girl and can’t do it all in the garage. I’d need his help when he got home and we would fight. Oh my gosh, we would fight. Guys, we don’t fight in the garage anymore. We actually have fun in the garage. We enjoy each other’s company so much. We love this and we love each other and we love y’all for supporting our dream. We can’ t wait to see where it takes us. I have no idea what our future holds. I have no idea if in a year we will be doing something completely different. Or maybe we will still be doing the exact same thing. Or maybe it’ll be bigger and better than. (I’m beginning sentences with “or” and “but”. I’m not following any rules. This is my blog – get over it.) But that’s the contentment I’ve settled on. I’ve settled on knowing that God’s got this. He’s got us in his hands and He’s guiding us and He’s going to take care of, no matter what we are doing. He put all of this in front of us, so we are doing it and doing it the best we can – with every ounce of our being. I’m bouncing around because I’m a mess. That’s another percentage. We need to adjust that to include my messiness.
For a long time I was quiet about our inability to become pregnant. I was silently writing this blog post (in my head, in the shower) for years. And PLEASE, please do not think that I want your sympathy. Because I do not. That takes me back to angry. I don’t want sympathy and I don’t deserve sympathy because I am fine. There are people out there deserving of your sympathy. I am just more open about it now because I hate answering the question “so when are you all going to have kids … start a family”. I don’t ever want anyone to think that we haven’t wanted that – or that we are just two selfish people that don’t want to start a family and raise up good and decent human beings. I hate when people try to solve our problem by saying “just stop trying … that’s when it’ll happen”. Yeah, alright. “What about adoption?”. Well, that’s all good and fine but doesn’t God need to place that on your heart? It hasn’t been placed on our hearts to run out and adopt a child. We did however, 8 years ago feel inclined to “adopt” Lance’s little sister Paige. The year after we were married, we took legal guardianship of Paige and she moved in with us. We were 24 and Paige was 14. Paige wasn’t in a great situation and the details of that are not necessary but we wanted Paige with us. I worked as a legal assistant at a law firm at the time and am eternally grateful for the attorney who drafted up all the legal work to make that possible. I’d like to think Lance and I raised up a wonderful human being already – through the completely un-fun teenage years. It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. We went through some seriously awful things but we came out together. She’s currently still with us, in college, works three jobs, loves Jesus (that should have been first), and is a kind and caring person that I am incredibly proud of. Adoption hasn’t been placed on our hearts again. I’m not saying it won’t be in the future. Lance has been tested and he’s all good. I ovulate. It’s just a really strange thing. Fertility specialists? No. I’m certainly not saying there is anything at all wrong with people who choose to go that route but it isn’t for us. Number one, we don’t have that kind of money but more so, number two, I know without a shadow of a doubt that if it is in the plan for our lives to have a child, then God will make that happen. We have began seeing a doctor that suggested we try an IUI (insemination), which we did. We did our first one on February 19 at 8 PM. I was so incredibly hopeful. Spoiler alert – it didn’t work, but we will try that again. I’m not opposed to that. I just have to regroup and get the nerve up to do it again. Outside of anything our regular OBYN can do, I’m not interested in putting myself through. We will keep trying. And hoping.
If it never happens for us, we are okay. We are okay because we love each other and are already incredible happy and blessed.
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Kara Whitehead
April 23, 2018
BT…you are such a beautiful person…inside, outside and just all around! And don’t ever criticize yourself as a writer because what you just wrote was raw, honest, hilarious and absolutely heartfelt. You have a gift, my friend. I love what you and Lance have built together and y’all should be very proud. Just remember that God’s timing is not always our timing…I know that can be hard at times. Keep on keeping on and know that you’ve got people all around you praying for you and Lance. Love you, friend :)