Stretching my legs in the gas station parking lot somewhere along I-70 East, I had never felt so lost in my entire life.
Not lost in terms of directions.
Lost on a deeper level.
Age 24 and along for the ride as my parents headed to a week on the Atlantic Ocean with both of my youngest sisters (ages 6 and 8), I’d decided my life was officially in regression.
Maybe it was the lack of a set direction or any stable job prospects. Maybe it was my current inability to support myself financially. Or my complete void of current friendships.
I just felt so…stuck. Like my life had jumped off a track.
Beneath the canopy of that Exxon Mobil, I peeled my tank top from my sweaty midriff and took in my surroundings. I’d just killed an hour of this drive researching how to become a substitute teacher in Virginia Beach.
Why?
Because that’s where we were headed–Virginia Beach. And maybe I’d just stay there. Maybe I’d leave the numbing niceties and subdued culture of West Michigan behind and become a Virginia Beach bum. I could manage unruly junior highers by day and cast myself into the ocean’s waves each night to body surf.
“Substitute teaching sounds so terrible,” I thought. With a gnawing pit of anxiety in my stomach, I exited the application portal, locked the screen of my phone, and piled back into the car.
Three days later, on Libby Kurz’s back porch with glasses of Prosecco, I was helping Mom and Lib create the website for a wild idea we’d just had—Red Tent Living.
With the tingle of bubbles on my tongue and the glow of our conversation, I felt, for the first time in such a long time, excited.
This would be a place where women could come and share their beautiful ordinary, and those women would include me.
All I could bring to this endeavor was a messy sea of longings—longings so vast I feared they would swallow me whole.
But they didn’t. Because instead, I started to write about them.
At Red Tent Living, I wrote about my perfectionism and how I longed to be kinder to myself.
I wrote about my restlessness and longing to see the world.
I wrote about my longing to live life deeply and my longing to have a beautiful love story.
Each month, I wrote whatever it was I wasn’t saying out loud in polite conversation.
And over time, I started to realize I wasn’t the only one getting honest.
Because you were writing too.
You wrote about mothering when it is impossibly hard.
You wrote about grieving the death of a parent.
You wrote about divorce, and how bad we sometimes are at loving someone through it.
You wrote about church, the highs and the lows of it.
You wrote about gardening, dietary restrictions, and stories of abuse. You wrote about sex and chicken, you wrote about racism, you wrote about miscarriages, you wrote about graduations and weddings.
Together, we all wrote about womanhood, as we were finding it. And together, we commented with encouragement for each other along the way.
Against all probability, over a million of us have turned to Red Tent Living at some point for a bit of solidarity. We show up here to confide in one another and to bear witness. It has been the loveliest way to live womanhood out loud.
Taking it all in, I find myself overcome. And I can’t help but think back to that 24-year-old woman so afraid she was moving the wrong direction with her life.
She had no idea that she was only in the middle. And that most of life includes a nagging question: am I doing it well? Am I making the most of these days?
Red Tent Living has taught me that the point is not to do life according to the plan. The point is to share the questions and the hopes you carry as you let the plan go. The point is to love your way through as you wrap your arms around anyone who has chosen to come along for this leg of the journey. The point is to risk wanting what you want and moving toward it in your small, ordinary ways.
Eleven years later, I’d tell that 24-year-old there are no backwards steps. Instead, there are merciful disruptions that jolt us to be present to the divine thread of our interconnected stories.
You all taught me that. And whatever comes next for the Red Tent community, I don’t intend to forget that lesson, or your stories, any time soon.
Katy (Johnson) Stafford dreams, writes, and occasionally podcasts in the messy middle of life. Newly married, Katy is spending her 30s embracing hope, longing, and the wild spaces in her own heart. Her favorite creative project right now is called In Love, a memoir about loving your life beyond white picket fences. Katy shares more of her thoughts here, where she cultivates a community for writers and creatives.
Katie,
At 64, I’m in tears. You’ve blessed me again and again. The women who wrote here have blessed me again and again. I never dared to share my stories here but always, always lived mine more fully for the writing that unfolded here. I am so grateful. Thank you
Katie,
“With the tingle of bubbles on my tongue” says it. I love how you share, taking us back. Taking us forward. I think you’re engaging in body-surfing:) To body-surf:
“to fling oneself prone onto a crowd of people, for example on a dance floor or at a rock concert, and move or be carried over their heads”
You are a Rock Star Katie. We carry each other through that dance of living. Well done.
Without you there would be no Red Tent, no Red Tent Living. Your willingness to risk, to lean in and wonder with me, has given birth to beautiful things again and again. Here, as always, your words paint with honor your own experience and give expression to what over a million women have found here.
“Eleven years later, I’d tell that 24-year-old there are no backwards steps. Instead, there are merciful disruptions that jolt us to be present to the divine thread of our interconnected stories.”
As we step forward again, from a place of merciful disruption, I am grateful for your continued presence, and willingness to dream and risk in new ways.
I am humbled and profoundly grateful for the privilege of being your mother.
Love you