“I thought if I could touch this place of feeling. This brokenness inside me might start healing. Out here it’s like I’m someone else, I thought that maybe I could find myself. - Miranda Lambert
Whether you are Team Blake or Team Miranda, we can all agree that their team of songwriters are literary gold. “Wish I could be just a little less dramatic, like a Kennedy when Camelot went down in flames.” Or Blake’s line, “She put the S-O-B in sober, she put the 'hang' in hangover.” Okay, so maybe Blake’s team is a little more vanilla, but the country words still ring true. Ask Sam Swenson the story behind Ol’ Red. I promise you are in for a treat. No matter the genre you gravitate towards, music has a way of healing our wounds. Hung up on a boy cheating on you? Listen to some Beyonce or Cardi B. Uneasy about a long drive? Hit up the 80s station. In love? Test out the 50s and Hank Williams. To say I’ve been heartbroken lately is an understatement. I’ve tried all the methods to mend my gut stabbing pains: music, therapy, alcohol, phone calls to best friends, exercise, writing. These solutions have all worked to a point except when the nighttime rolls around and I’m left with my own thoughts — the scariest of them all. However, in all this reflection, I’ve noticed in life the moments that were meant to break me actually built me. Those traumatic events didn’t just screw in a loose bolt here and added a nail there; they built the best me. Note: a project that will continue to be remodeled year after year. I will continue to break, decades over decades, but the foundation will remain solid. I just needed the reminder.
6 Bedrooms, 2 Bath
In early February, my mother, brother, stepdad and I traveled to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Dustin, my brother, recently snagged a heck of a deal on a house that overlooks Rapid Creek and the beautiful red rock. The house needs some TLC so we spent the weekend jamming on a JBL speaker while pulling up carpet, staples, tile, and trim. Woof; the most manual labor I have done in 48 hours in a VERY long time. The hard work wasn’t without appreciation though. A house with 6 bedrooms offers a lot of alone time while scraping the corners for nails and a few leftover pennies. In this moment, I realized how fortunate I am to have a family so loving of one another. Not to say we are without arguments, because boy, those can be brutal, but at the end of the day we love each other tightly due to the circumstances we’ve had to grow through. Yes, grow, not go. On my mom’s side of the family, we learn at a young age what life is like without a father. My grandmother’s dad died young, my mother's dad died young, my dad died young. No wonder I don’t want to marry. There is so much heartache (in so many families) and those situations either make you, or break you. You cannot measure the highs without the lows. Black doesn’t exist without white. Happy cannot be measured without sad. Pizza shouldn’t be topped without pineapple (okay, fine, maybe not that extreme). However, the volunteered help from my uncle and brother’s friends was immediate, showing why Midwest is truly best. We all have so much in common even with minds structured differently. That demolition could not have been completed without several black coffees, unlimited '70s dance parties, and uncounted notions of “this is a good song.” Three different generations, yet so much in common. The first being love.
Labor of Love
Maximizing its use during the month of February is one of my least favorite words: love. You probably think, “Becca, ouch, you are so cold hearted. Your soul must be black.” Questionably, it is, but the reason I don’t like the word L-O-V-E is because of the weight behind it. I used to think people over used the word so much that it began to lose meaning. As I grow older, I realize that is not true. You can never overuse or over show your feelings for someone. I’ve switched from never telling my friends or family “I love you” when ending a phone call to always expressing my devotion to them. In fact, I think that expression helped grieve the recent loss of my grandmother. Every time I left her, I kissed her forehead and told her how much she meant to me. Unfortunately, I realized any minute could be her last. It should not take us 91 years to realize that. Today could be anyone’s last; a realization that hit me when I was mask deep in dust rolling around on subfloor.
This fixer upper reminded me that “the world needs more builders”, as Andy Soukup says. “There is enough chaos, sadness, and pain in the world. We don’t need to add more.” We need people in society who warm a room when they walk in stirring up conversation with every Tom, Dick, & Harry. We need more people who have just enough guts to say the wrong thing in order to light a fire under our booties to make change. We need more people to physically build; a trade that can never be taken from you. Look at ancient times, every one was a builder in some aspect to their empire. This day and age, we contribute differently, but we can all be builders if we truly want to be. My grandma was a builder. She built opportunities as a child that made her happy and confident to stand on her own. She built a family, with so many grands and great grandkids to fill generations with wisdom. She built the people around her in every situation. From a bowling tournament to an office day at the dry cleaners, you could feel energy building inside you radiating off her. That said, the world needs more Mary Anns. The world needs more Tonys and Dustins, who create an idea and run with it. The world needs more Loris and JDs to put their nose to the grindstone and offer their hard work, no questions asked. The world needs more women to strut a pink cowgirl hat all weekend, hosting little dance parties in each room, exploring the unknown.
That white, two-story house on Guest Road in Rapid City resembled my life. The outside looked a little confusing in structure, pretty nonetheless, but the inside was full of surprises. The types of people within that living space built the woman I am today with never a fleeting thought that they would sky on me. People who held the ground when I wasn’t strong enough. People who pulled up the tile and then passed it along for me to deal with. People who handed down the hammer, while I smiled my way through the chaos. They faced the challenges first, so I was prepared when it was my turn. People who love unconditionally. People who support you no matter your differences. People, who at the end of the day, built me.
Don’t run from the overtime. Be a builder.
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